New Vista laptop. So far, I'm surprised.

Recently I have finally had chance to have a good play with Vista.

I have a new HP Designed for Vista laptop at the end of last year that has performance issues (which I assume are drivers) when running Vista.
It is not a good consumer experience when your new machine is advertised and certified to run Vista, yet cannot properly, the average consumer does not know enough to know its sub standard drivers (which is another issue as all the drivers are MS certified, which implies either poor standards or quality control by MS).

XP did not suffer this issue, due to having a compatible driver model with the previous OS.

But I cant search my emails in Thunderbird, which is very important to myself, it does not index my work emails imap in outlook correctly (copernic manages it fine).

I can't comment on Vista performance as it would be unfair due to still unresolved rubbish drivers from HP, but I agree, the security aspects are a great step forward.

I've had random display problems, like a prompt that asked a question like "are you sure" and only gave an OK option !!! Also suffered graphical artifacts when changing display settings (which I guess is more driver related).
File copying is slow for me (though faster with sp1), but even slower is anything to do with volume shadow copy like running Shadow protect.

It is identical to XP for fragmentation.
FYI Vista by default has a weekly defrag run.


Other issues I have.

Annoying compatibility issues with Visual Studio 2005 Pro (I can run as a limited user in XP, but in Vista need Admin rights and this is NOT a Visual Studio bug).

The 90 day trial of Mcafee made my entire machine stupidly slow, swapping to AGV gave instant performance boost, reduced boots times from over 2 minutes (to desktop) to under a minute.
If a machine is supplied as designed for vista, then the manufacturer should ensure that every they prepackage will actually run on vista correctly !

I do like the new default GUI theme, I think its better than the default XP theme (I use the classic style), BUT the consistency is VERY BAD, compare the menus and buttons in the built in apps like mediaplayer, IE, notepad etc and every single one they are different (and did you know that notepad is the only built in app to meet MS's own GUI guidelines !
Its like 1 step forward, 2 steps back. This is as annoying as Office 2007 which does not use the ribbon on all apps.

All in all, Vista for myself is a worse user experience than XP, if all the issues were fixed, there would still be the fact that it does not allow me anything more than XP does (of the features I use - eg UAC is useless to me as we have custom security policies enforced by our domain).

If the issues with Vista I have are fixed I would be happy to use it instead of XP on my Laptop, but on my other machines I do not feel its worth upgrading from XP to Vista. If I get a new machine and it runs Vista without problems, I will leave it on.

I like the design decisions of the OS architecture and of the GUI (shame we never got all the features intially told we would), but I think final product is flawed.

It lacks consistency and quality control in various areas (reminds me of a desktop Linux distro years ago for feeling thrown together), this is why I have a feeling that Windows 7 will be a massive success, because I know MS will have to get it right (as XP support WILL end) and the core OS will be proven enough for big Corps (Which make up a large proportion of their OS revenue).

 

I leave my old desktop to be a server/workstation doing longer term tasks like downloading, backup storage, CD/DVD burning, print server, development web server etc.

That means I can have a lean mean compact laptop without cd/dvd drive than only runs office, email, web and development tools.

Long gone are the days of trying to do it all on one machine (especially as I only play games on consoles now).

 

We haven't experienced any incompatability with any drivers yet, and my wife is running a couple of very old pieces of software for her graphics program that supposedly isn't compatible with anything above Win98.

As for McAfee, I've had Word and Internet Explorer open while running a McAfee full scan and noticed very little slowdown, as I think I mentioned in a post somewhere in this thread. How much memory have you on your HP laptop, and what version of Vista are you using? Do you have Service Pack 1 installed?

Your complaints sound very much like those that kept me away from Vista for so long. Most of them aren't valid any more with the release of SP1, or so I've been told.

Even my buddy, who runs a computer shop nearby has seen the money tree begin to die. Nobody is coming in to have him replace Vista with XP any more, since the release of SP1. And, of more importance, he's even beginning to admit - grudgingly - that with all the fixes Vista isn't too bad.

 

i havent had any issues with speed of creating images using volume shadow copy service.

 

No issues of any kind here, either. I'm basically talking about the wife's computer, since the only things other than MS Office Ultimate I've put installed is IE Pro, and Celtx - a free screenplay writing program.

Every computer is different, though. When we hooked up wireless to our laptops, using Linksys WRT54GL router, I had a couple of more steps on my laptop than she did. Exact same brand, model, everything the same but I had two more steps to get wireless.

 

1) I agree with you on this one. So, I took the liberty to wipe out the HP image and reinstall a fresh copy of Vista. The only driver I downloaded directly from HP's site is the graphics driver. Everything else... straight from Microsoft.

2) Doesn't Thunderbird come with its own indexer? All my emails (IMAP) were indexed by Windows Search properly.

3) I wouldn't really trust HP when it comes to drivers and softwares, unless you absolutely need them for the computer to function properly. I would rather go to individual manufacturer to get the drivers.

4) Consistency is indeed a big issue with Windows. Every application has their own GUI, which is a nightmare to those who are not technically inclined. I do hope that Microsoft implements a standard for GUI that every applications will follow (like in Mac OS X) so that it is consistent throughout.

In addition, the following are the things Microsoft should change (IMHO):
a) IMHO, they need to get rid of the Windows Registry and replace it with a database that is much better (like SQL). It uses weird names for application settings and gets cluttered easily.

b) Easy install/uninstallation of applications. A package manager like the one in Linux would be nice.

c) 100% uninstallation of any software. I don't know why it is so hard to reverse what the installer did. I kind of envy Mac because uninstallation is as simple as dragging the program to the trash bin.

 

Have you had any issues with IE7Pro yet? I assume that's what you mean above... I'd like mouse gestures in IE7, but I did see some reports of people having crashes with IE7Pro, so I'm not sure if I want to try it or not. Also, I heard some say it isn't working with IE7 x64, although neither does flash, which pretty much keeps me using IE7 x32.

 

I have IE7Pro 32 and 64 bit with no problems noticed. But like you said, without Flash I don't use the IE764 that often (come on, Adobe, get your butt in gear!).

 

No issues with IE7 Pro and 32 bit here, either.

 

Ok, thanks guys..... I think I will give it a shot then....