Windows Vista is bad. What do you think?

There are so many replies.

First of all, the article is written by Free Software Foundation (FSF). It is hard to believe everything said in the articles are all craps or lies at first glance, although I guess they have a strong fuss on Windows Vista so its every word is negative in the article. But there should be something wrong with Windows Vista so that makes these guys at FSF very unhappy, resulting in that article which is so negative.

I guess some points made should be right on its own although they may put it on their own favor (to make Windows Vista look more negative than it is deserved). For example what they said about license agreement is right but it was put in the wrong way because the terms in the license agreement are not new. It applies to other Windows operating system too. Putting them in the article mislead people to say this is the new terms imposed on Windows Vista.

I think they shouldn't make up some false facts just for some strawman attacks. Otherwise shame on them.

Let's discuss some points presented in the article now.

What do you think about the built-in DRM in Windows Vista? Is it a good or bad thing on user perspectives?

From the sound of it, DRM makes our computer bloated. We are wasting our computing resources on something we may not need. Perhaps it is one of the reasons why we need better hardware to run Windows vista. It keep running and monitoring us, making our computer less reliable and less secure. DRM

(Tell me if I am wrong. I simply comment based on the points presented on the article. Feel free to point out whether it is wrong!)

I think they are really meant to be talking about DRM-enabled multimedia only. For old multimedia data which is not DRM-enabled, we should be free to do anything on it. Isn't it?

But does Microsoft allow you to configure that Windows Defender should ask for your decision when it detects something malicious? If not, that was a bad design because it pretends that it is always right (and so we must follow). However there is something called "false positive" in real world. Of course this is a bad design.

If it is true, that will get on people nerves. If Microsoft are trying to collect personal info or keep monitoring us when we are online, it can be regarded as spyware even if you are doing in order to protect your product. You are breaking people's privacy if you force us to send personal data to Microsoft.

Is it possible to switch off Windows Genuine Advantage after the first check? I don't think they should keep checking all the year. It wastes both my and its bandwidth, not to say it is a breach of privacy.

Even scary is the study it quote that the system has already screwed up in over 500,000 cases. That would be a bad day for those victims, especially when they need to do something urgent on that computer.


By the way, Windows Genuine Advantage is really a dumb thing (so does DRM). I think the person who developed such things should understand that it is a matter of fact that any protection is destined to be cracked. For people who like to take free-ride, they will not affected by any of those security measures because, well, they are already cracked, disabled or removed in the pirate copies of Windows Vista. Do you think people who own pirate will let WGA to make the check? In summary, WGA is only good to check genuine users.

Windows Vista is destined to be cracked shortly after it is released because all professional crackers are after it. It is already losing battle when it starts. Why fight?

So who are left to pay for the costs of these security measures? It is us, who spend money to buy their products and undertake the annoyances, inconveniences, and the technical problems.

Instead of spending tons of money to develop something which will only bug the genuine customers, why don't you spend money to improve your software? Your software will be pirated anyway. Save the cost. Use only simple protection like some big companies do. Make the registration process as painless as possible. Give them more freedom instead of hassling them. Use more resources to improve the software. The outcome would be more happier customers. Some people who didn't buy will buy it simply because they want to support a great product. It is a win-win if you are long-sighted.

Now it turns out to be us who pays for the annoyances, inconveniences and the technical problems. In some extents, genuine users are treated inferiorly by buying a product. It may make some genuine users angry and simply take the pirate product which are better version than the original product. What a shame!

My two cents. Feel free to comment or even criticise me.

 

This is the second part of the question. Is it worth spending money on Window Vista?

Windows Vista comes with a cost. This may include:
Price of Windows Vista
Cost of upgrading your hardware to run it (for example expect to run it smoothly if you have at least 1 GB RAM)
Annoyances to do the upgrade
Incompatibilities and technical problems you may face in the new operating system
It takes time to adapt to the new computer. For example, you may need to find replacement if your old software doesn't run in Windows Vista)

So what real benefits can Windows Vista give us? In other words, what things (can't be done in Windows XP) can be done in Windows Vista?
And in your opinion, do the benefits justify the costs of switching?

So far what I read is people are glad to switch over because they can run smoothly without any problem on the new operating system. But that isn't a benefit. You can still run all the software in old Windows XP smoothly.

Eye-candy is definitely not the reason to upgrade. I'm performance-wise. So all eye-candy will be off.

Security improvement is one. Nevertheless, as far as I see, it is only a benefit for newbie who doesn't have time or knowledge to secure Windows XP. Unlike Windows 98, Windows XP is actually a safe and reliable operating system. The problem is its default setup. Tweak Windows XP (turn off risky services and functions). Grab a good AV + Firewall + AS. Dump Internet Explorer. Get Firefox + NoScript. Sandbox yourself when you are online. You are very safe.

What else could Windows Vista offer me, apart from the "goodies" of DRM and WGA (but should I pay for them?) ?

 

I might add that prefetch is the first thing I turned off along with indexing. Prefetch did absolutely nothing performance wise, all it did was grinding the hard drives for ten minutes every reboot. Vista is as fast with or without it.
It doesnt matter what benchmarks says really, the important thing is what you as a user experience.

Unless, we who find Vista faster, are not totally fooling our selves because our "love" for ms clouds our judgement (isnt that what this debate are implying? maybe not, but makes me wonder if some have even tried Vista before they comment, not directed at anyone specific, just a general observation i have made)

Having said that, I can say that there is no real need to pay the silly sum of money MS asks for Vista. Just use your consumer power to show MS what you think of it.
If you are happy with XP or other OS - stick to it, unless you have money to spend for fun. Only thing I can think of is Directx10 if you play games, as I understand it will give some value (havent tried it though)

 

Agree with everything everybody says so far Lets all hold hands and have a big group hug and sing "we all live in an MS world" (apologies to that UK pop group.)

FYI:
Toms HW gave what seems to be an exhaustive test run through:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html
11 pages: read it if you dare heh

Jeff Atwood: pundit:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000803.html
Comments on Vista ( and gives and links to some eye popping info on formal boot/load/I/O investigations into AV apps on the same theme - but on XP )
Regards

 

Hello,

My beef with Vista:

1. Too bloated. I don't understand why every new thing MS releases has to be 5 times the size of the previous one.
2. The built-in attitude that the user is a criminal; no thank you, I feel offended.
3. Price, of course.

Only after that, security and performance concerns, but that's another issue.

Mrk

 

cant resist: as the title asks so shall ye recieve
http://www.openaddict.com/ten_reasons_linux_and_bsd_are_vastly_superior_to_windows_part_i.html
http://www.openaddict.com/ten_reasons_linux_and_bsd_are_vastly_superior_to_windows_part_ii.html
http://www.openaddict.com/five_reasons_why_linux_will_eventually_rule_the_world.html
http://apcmag.com/5049/10_reasons_not_to_get_vista

Every user on this forum at least should be capable of appreciating the really serious aspects of those lists.

With Xandros and Mandriva and Linspire ( as possibly the most 'comforting' least 'confronting' options now retailing for <$80 and a free trial !! - not counting the many other spectacularly successful distros available for FREE), there is little reason not to try Linux on just a measley say 10G of your 320G HD

Use the commercial releases and support to learn how: you may never pay for software again !!

You Wont go back. ( well maybe XP in a VM , but in Linux )

Regards.

 

Hello,
In the year 2020 ...
Yup, Windows will eventually die out ...
Mrk

 

Agree totally. I have to open notepad to handle all those important quotes.

Probably not but people love to consume even if they don´t have the background to waste their money.

Me too performance junky but also like design from time to time. Probably you are right.

Yes but related to rootkits Vista 64 may be worth a closer look.

Maybe we should not pay for them but likely many users will do so.

Good point but directx10 is no real reason to change have you watched the crisis screens, I prefered directx9 screen looked more game like, sky more blue, directx10 looked more dry, sure more details but lacked of saturated colors.

Yes always too much nonsense, they should slim down or at least should give an option to install a slim windows. Agree with all your points.

 

Eh
10-reasons-not-to-get-10-reasons-not-to

http://benhay.blogspot.com/2007/01/10-reasons-not-to-get-10-reasons-not-to.html

LOL

Ok enough from me. Thanks for listening. There is a danger of trivialising serious issues. Heh

 

Years ago Bill Gates stood up and said about his OS software "no this is not open or free software but business and also nothing but the binary must ever be released in the wild." And so it began. But when Bill said this a zillion people, programmers and I am one, plus some from Microsoft said that is not on, ( God bless decompilers ) A lot of people then and now still believe that the cost of the computer is enough not the software to run on it, For instance if it were not for Microsofts sloppy coding there would not be a billion dollar industry for protection.

Whenever Microsoft releases anything it is immediatly analysed and reverse engineered by this same body to see if and what has been added. Microsoft could never sneak anything into their code without it ever being found out, and so they dont, they may well like too.... For a long time it has always been mankind v Microsoft.

I have vista home premium, came with the new computer I bought. I would not have bought it back in Jan, cos I am not a beta tester for Microsoft, and also my machines would have had hardware issues. I spent a week trying to figure out why so many problems came with it. Once I found out it was a dodgy RAM stick I had added as an upgrade and removed, I have not had one problem with it whatsoever in all that I ever did with XP, so much so I upgraded to ultimate version for $150.00.

Sure there is hardware issues with Vista, but not if one purchases a computer vista capabale/certified. Like XP on a Win98 machine, hardware/driver upgrades were mandatory, unless one wanted to struggle on with the hassles.

I also agree with a poster to this thread that Microsoft thinks they own it I also disagree if I pay for something then it is mine, including DVD and CD of film and music. If I want to make a copy of something I own then I should be able to do so, and I do, not to sell down the market but to backup my investments. So DRM is usless and Vista has that in its code but it does not stop me ripping a DVD. The coporate boys disagree and their stance along with Microsofts is.. To sell me something and still own it! Yeah sure.

Saw recently on a bought DVD that if I wanted my DVD replaced I should contact some company and pay a reduced fee, again Yeah right.

So all of the posts here are valid. I am just chiming in with my two cents. Vista is good, and it is here to stay, probably take a while for everyone to migrate, in spite of the open source crowd.

Cheers

Ritchie

Edited by me to take out all the typos

 

One think I truly dislike about the different Vista tiers is Shadow Copy. I ready on CNET (I believe) that Shadow Copy is only "functional" in Ultimate, Business and Enterprise. Here's the rub. Even though Shadow Copy is "disabled" in Home, etc, it is actually still running and collecting information. What the article said is when he upgraded to Ultimate, suddenly all the save information that should have not been there up until the point of the upgrade, was available. That means people who never upgrade are wasting resources and disk space for an inaccessible program. NICE!!!

 

I'm reading more the advantages and disadvantages, and I find this article interesting:
http://apcmag.com/5082/10_reasons_you_should_get_vista

Standby mode doesn't work for me. Standby means death and data loss in my computer (the computer never wakes up). Resuming within a couple of seconds and data backup is a great plus. This is a feature which we can't get it from third-party software (I would like to find some replacements for Windows XP if any, to fix standby mode and speed up Hibernate mode).

This is a feature I want to have too. The way of the current software to recover files are not reliable. They search for deleted files hoping that it is not overwritten. Not just that. Sometimes even if I tries to recover deleted files immediately after I mis-deleted a file, it still couldn't find and recover it. It should have not been overwritten yet. Weird!
Also it helps nothing if you has accidentally overwritten your PhD thesis.

The rolling backup (keep changed/deleted files for a specific period of time) is a good idea. Is there any third-party software which offer such kinds of functionalities for Windows XP?

So true. We all will be forced to upgrade in future. It is just a matter of time.

 

Yes but I don´t think anyone could have done it better. It is human nature that tends to make mistakes so nobody will be able to create the monster perfect OS. Time will bring renewals and everything becomes better that is the nature of evolution. It must become better otherwise it will die.

Lol, thats funny but only partially true. It always depends on the user, but surely it is a wise decision to flow with the pulse of time because of above mentioned reasons. DirectX10 is not necessarily better as I explained above, sometimes the old DirectX9 may look more saturated. To get closer to reality or to have more details doesn´t necessarily mean to have a better gameplay.

 

Actually, Neptune, if anything, was closer to a hybrid Win98/2000.

 

Yes no one is perfect but sometimes Microsoft is deserved for criticism. For example, Microsoft insisted in incorporating the Internet Explorer into the operating system, leading to tons of potential vulnerabilities. The reason why Microsoft wants to do so is most likely more to do with their own benefits than our own benefits.

Microsoft can write a better (although not perfect) operating system but they choose not to for their own benefits.

One thing for sure. Windows XP will die out eventually. Windows Vista (or any future Windows version) will replace it sonner or later even if you don't want to see it.

You have no choice, really.

Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP in future. Afterward other vendors will follow. Do you still want to use Windows XP then?

Also more and more games will support DirectX10. If you want to play some games which only support DirectX10 or above, you have to give in even though you don't think DirectX10 is great.

For advanced users, they have one more choice, that is Linux. But again you need to forgo something. There are still games and software which don't support Linux, so people probably have some misses. Some services/software which can't be replaced are only available in Windows.

We may skip Windows Vista but you can't skip upgrading our operating system. That's the fact of the life.

 

Anything can be replaced, even the software of MS, and you don't have to be an advanced user to use Ubuntu for instance, or an other accesible distro.
What you don't know you can ask.
And dual-booting is also a possibility, so there is choice enough. For a home user there is always a way out.

Lamehand

 

Lol, , funny and true.

Why not? Internet remains the same, if I answer your post in Windows NT, XP or Vista doesn´t matter, isn´t it?

We will see.. what happens.. in case of latest-game-junkies this might be true.

 

That depends on your usage. But in reality not every piece of software can be replaced in every case.

If you need to use that software for work but that software works in Windows only, you can't switch to Linux completely.

Instant Messenger is one of them. For example you have to use that software if you need to communicate to that protocol. Some instant messengers support multi-protocols but it is not an optimal solution because:
- it is not reliable (it is broken down when the company changed something in the protocol. No one fixes it for quite some time)
- not all functions work. Sometimes only basic functions work.
QQ is an instant messenger used by a majority of Chinese. This software doesn't support Linux. There are many problems if you try to use other instant messenger to connect to QQ.

If you decide to go for dual-booting (Linux + Windows) approach, you can't avoiding using MS Windows already.

For some people they can dump Windows completely. For most they can't or won't do for various reasons. As a matter of fact, the public doesn't want to switch to other operating systems. More than 95% of users are still using MS Windows even though some don't like it.

 

I wish so. It only works in theory. If you don't think so, try to convince the public to switch to Linux for example and see the reactions.

One of the major problems is all the vulnerabilities would not be fixed. You should dump the unsupported windows version security-wise.

Another problem is new software may not be able to run in old Windows. There is a few software which can be run in Windows XP but not Windows 98. Existing software may drop support of very old Windows too. Of course it takes quite some time for it to happen.

 

I know MS is on 95% of the desktops in the world, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.
A big company like MS can , if they make mistakes like vista, fall on their ass like any other company, size has nothing to do with that.

If users are afraid to try something else, or are not willing to learn new stuff then that's still a choice of those users.Alltough i don't understand that attitude.
The company i work for uses MS software aswell as any other company does, but that's their problem, not mine.

Vista is expensive and that is not all, if your hardware is not up to it, you have to upgrade that as well , an other nice bill to pay.It seems like this OS is only made to make you bleed in more than one way.

Lamehand

 

Miscrosoft is still holding nearly all market shares in operating system markets.
Linux closing in on Microsoft market share, study says

Based on a research of statastics made in Market share for browsers, operating systems and search engines, the best non-Windows operating system is Mac OS 3.38%. Linux only enjoys 0.81%.

The shares of Windows operating system:
Windows XP 79.32%
Windows Vista 7.38%
Windows 2000 3.32%
Windows 98 0.89%
Windows NT 0.61%
Windows ME 0.49%

Most users still stick with Windows XP. Perhaps Windows Vista is such a mess like it predecessor Windows ME. Microsoft needs a better future operating system like Windows XP to lure people into upgrading.

You can see that old versions of Windows will eventually die out. Windows 98 only shares 0.89% now so it appears the following statement is right:

We may skip Windows Vista but you can't skip upgrading our operating system. That's the fact of the life.​

I don't think "users are afraid to try something else, or are not willing to learn new stuff" is the only dominanting reason why other operatng systems are not popular. There are some other major factors which clicks in too.

For one thing, people like to switch to another operating system smoothly even if they are willing to try. The "non-money" costs of switching can be quite high for them. They will encounter the following difficulties:
- higher learning curves
- some software which couldn't be run in other operating system. They need to try to find some good alternatives
- some games which don't run in other operatng systems
- compatability issue: your driver may not support the other operating system

In other words, you need to replace every want you met in MS Windows before you can switch to another operating system completely.

Overcoming problems are not enough. The benefits needs to outweigh costs. They need to know why it is worth the trouble making the switch. Price is on of them which is free. But some computer shipped with Windows already (although the cost is included in the computer purchase price). That reason does not apply to them. Besides what features offered in other operating system can't be done in Windows?


On the other hand, other non-MS browsers make a harder hit on the MS browser sharing market. This may suggest it is not true that a great majority of users do not want to change.

The statistics is based on Market share for browsers, operating systems and search engines:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 77.86%
Firefox 14.88%
Safari 5.07%
Opera 0.87%
Netscape 0.72%

Firefox does a good job and enjoys 14.88% market share on the net. It is much better than the situation in operating system. I believe the lower cost of switching is the major reason.

The actual reason why Firefox can't be even popular is because Internet Explorer is pre-installed in the operating system. Many users don't know the existent of Firefox (another browser) at all. If we present a choice for every user when they use browsers for the first time, the trend may get 180% U-turn. Perhaps 14.88% Microsoft only.

 

We don´t have to talk about linux, I also prefer windows, it´s better to handle.
If I had to give colors for OS I´d give Linux icecold blue and Windows red warmth, so Linux has not this home-feeling and warmth of a simple Windows installation. That may also be the reason why nobody wants Linux, it has this superior, ultra cold-ness in my opinion. We grew up with dos prompt and not with linux commands.. that may be another reason.

Do you really think this is a problem? The majority of hackers will focus on the latest windows so the old stuff will not be in interest of modern hackers imho.
Naturally it is security-wise to switch to 64 bit, but 32 bit vista is not much more secure then XP.

This is definitely an argument for the future.

 

There is an old saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Vixta

 

Windows itself doesn't appeal to me. What appeal is there are tons of software and stuff which support Windows. We are grewing in the environment where we rely on Windows not we like Windows.

Yes you are right in some extents.
But one problem is most malware writers can write a virus/worm/trojan etc. to infect multiple versions of Windows. There are many virus/worm/torjan etc. can infect multiple computers.

If the malware writer is using a vulnerability which affects multiple versions of Windows. The new Windows will fix it while the old (unsupported) one is not.

After all it is still quite some time for it to happen so we don't need to jump onto that MS ship so quickly. We may even skip Windows Vista completely. I feel like Windows Vista is the clone of Windows ME. I didn't upgrade my Windows when MS released Windows ME. Windows ME was a mess. I skipped and jumped over to Windows XP.

 

Yes that´s true. Luckily I bought A new system in 2000 that started with Windows ME and I had not much knowledge about Windows 98 so in that case that was no problem for me. But switched directly to Windows XP as it came out.