RE: Why I wont be using Vista again (Long)
Mistake 1 was buying a Acer laptop and thinking it was worth a damn. Mistake
2, read mistake number 1. I've been running Vista since it's first beta
years ago. It's grown since then, but the problem is the hardware and
software developers catching up with today. They all have had the chance to
get their hind parts caught up but like most people they drag their feet, and
this is what happens. Having been through the tech support job, I know first
hand Acer laptops stink, and their stuff is never fully tested or compatible
with stuff that is newly released like Vista. They rushed it to the market
without properly testing it all, and what you got is what you paid for. To
this day, I got 2 Dell laptops running Windows Vista Ultimate with 0 downtime
and 0 crashes for over a year now, and one of them is still running the
release canidate.
"Lorne" wrote:
> I sent this off to Microsoft today, and just thought I'd share it here.
>
>
> In August 2007 I purchased an Aspire 9410-4541 Laptop from Futureshop. On
> Nov 29 I installed XP Pro, and I have been very happy with the laptop since
> that date (3 months with Vista, 1.5 Months with XP). The 9410-4541 was not
> offered with XP and this is my primary complaint. I decided to try Vista
> because I knew Microsoft had spent longer than usual testing it, and I
> thought that with 15 years of OS transition experience Microsoft should be
> able to bring this OS to market with minimal user impact.
>
> I was mistaken. The transition to Vista has been my worst OS transition
> to date, and this is the first time in my life that I have switched to an
> older OS. Vista is clearly the least stable and least usable OS to date, and
> it reflects very poorly on the reputation of Microsoft that you;
> a) Offered an OS that was clearly not adequately tested.
> b) Offered an OS with very poor backwards compatibility.
> c) Arbitrarily removed common features from the OS
> d) Arbitrarily changed functionality in ways that make the OS less
> functional, and less ergonomic.
> e) Arbitrarily moved and re-named features. This does not in any way
> enhance the user experience.
>
> I tend to acquire a new machine every 18 to 24 months. If Vista becomes
> the only choice then I will be forced to move to a competing architecture. I
> like the Microsoft OS because it has the widest range of available
> applications, but if the application base needs to be re-written to run under
> the current OS then there is no reason to stick with Microsoft. The only
> applications that will be re-written to fix Vista are the applications that
> are currently being marketed/developed; these make up a tiny minority of the
> available applications.
>
> My Vista experience has cost me at least 40 hours plus an XP license,
> these are costs I can not bill through to my customers. I have included a
> list of issues I encountered with Vista. Many of these issues are
> intentional design issues that will not be fixed with any number of service
> packs.
>
> I do hope you can provide me with a usable OS the next time around.
>
> Lorne Kelly
>
>
> PS On a positive note, my Vista experience has encouraged me to move my
> gaming activities back to consoles (Wii). This has turned out to be very
> well for me.
>
>
>
> -Issues encountered before I started listing dates.
> Deleted Internet Explorer etc from desktop, but they still appear in file
> manager. I find it hard to work with all this clutter on the desktop.
> Text file on desktop will not delete, found an unlocker but it did not work
> with vista. Took two hours to get the file off the desktop.
> Adobe required me to shutdown explorer from the task manager just to install
> Audio mixer no longer allows recording source selection. Vista requires
> many clicks to change from line in to mike in.
> "go online to find a solution to this problem" software is very inconsistent
> - usually just disappears without finishing.
> Selected "run" for a download, came back later and the download was gone -
> restarted download and nothing was cached. This is reproducible.
> If you set two "open with" options for a file, vista creates its own names
> for each, and they can't be edited.
> The start menu no longer supports drag and drop.
> Every file move in the start menu requires a security check.
> Start menu is not as ergonomic as the old one. Trying to navigate more than
> one level is tricky.
> If you select the old start menu the search box disappears.
>
> Sept 18
> Pinning a shortcut to the start menu is inconsistent. I've pinned a network
> folder before (it's still there), but now vista wont let me.
> Explorer crashed again today
> FILE MANAGER NO LONGER HAS AN UP BUTTON
>
> Sept 19
> Plugged in mouse - no response - requested re-boot and waited at least 5
> minuets for vista to shut down. Not even a wait symbol for the first 40
> seconds (aprox).
> After reboot mouse works, but hard drive is on solid and system is sluggish
> Clicked an item from the start menu search and got two launches
>
> Sept 22
> Tried to install Dune 2000, installer just disappears with no error. Tried
> compatibility modes for win98, win 2000, win 95 etc. Tried run as admin etc.
> no good
> Spent over an hour trying to get Oni to install - no luck - tried
> compatibility modes, administrator, and fresh DX9 install.
> THE SEARCH RETURNS INCORRECT RESULTS Running a search for the executable
> incorrectly returns c:\Program files\Oni.exe (should be c:\Program
> Files\Oni\oni.exe)
>
> Sept 23
> In 'my computer', 'Folder options' is shown in the 'Organize' and 'tools'
> menu?
> Vista launched OpenOffice any time I press W today - reboot fixed problem.
>
>
> Sept 24
> The trash no longer has a 'date deleted'? What if I want to restore the
> last three items deleted?
> When following a network link, I now have to click the link and then click
> 'folder target'.
> File manager wastes a lot of space in the address bar
> File manager obscures the true path when connecting via network.
> RECYCLE BIN NO LONGER HAS A 'Sort by date deleted' OPTION! I use this all
> the time!
>
> Sept 26
> Network discovery and file sharing turned itself off today.
> Vista sometimes claims it can't find files that it has already launched
> Screen resolution suddenly changed to 1024x768 (no gaming recently – this
> started happening
> regularly after this)
>
> Sept 28
> Vista went to sleep while playing Flightsim 2002, had to restart Flightsim
>
> Oct 3
> Windows media player locked up while watching SNL, Vista then lost Internet
> connectivity (other PCs on the network were ok), had to reboot.
>
> Oct 16
> Found out "help" for VB5 is not supported – why would you remove support for
> help? Who doesn't still have some VB code around?
> CTRL-TAB kept switching applications had to re-boot
>
>
> Oct 17
> Would not delete a folder - locked - no programs were running
> Hard drive on solid & applications opening slowly
>
>
>
> Oct 19
> Went back to the WinHelp32 issue, took 20min of reading MS webpages, jumping
> through "genuine windows" hoops, and downloading poorly documented installs
> to get it working.
> When you try to drag a file into the empty space in a folder, it highlights
> the whole row, and launches whatever it thinks you dragged the file onto.
> THIS ONE IS VERY FRUSTRATING.
>
> Oct 20
> Dragged a folder to a networked drive and the folder moved rather than
> copied there. This arbitrary change in behavior is repeatable, and on
> another date I LOST DATA because of it.
>
> Oct 22
> Printer icon shows 1 document pending, but nothing in printer queue
>
> Oct 27
> Saved lk.doc to desktop, it is not visible on the desktop, but I can open it
> from Word's file-recent
> Right clicked on desktop to create a folder, and waited a full minute for
> the popup before giving up.
>
> Oct 29
> Accidentally clicked "Restore all" button in recycle bin (It's more
> prominent in Vista). Dozens of files restored to directories with no
> confirmation, no undo, and no way to know which files went where.
> Oct 30
> Save to desktop failure as on Oct 27
> In hindsight this was probably just another case of explorer crashing.
>
> Oct 31
> Ran updates - now Joost no longer operates
> Realized it's been 4 days since I mailed Microsoft, no response from them.
>
> Nov 16
> Installed SQL server, install requested THREE patches to run with Vista!
> Only one of the three patches worked, the other two failed with an error.
>
>
> Nov 18
> Tried to download nodata.bak from yahoo mail, file was corrupted, had the
> file skyped to me, transfer showed success, but file mysteriously disappeared
> from desktop. Ran a search, when I clicked on the results found by the
> search, Vista gave a "file does not exist" error message. Successfully
> downloaded nodata.bak on a win2k machine and transfered it over the network.
>
> Nov 19
> Tried to install Visual Studio, IIS was installed, tested, and running on
> the OS, but studio can't see it. Looked on the web and found other users
> with this problem in Vista, but no solutions.
> Multiple patches required for studio on Vista.
> Tried to uninstall and re-install SQL server. Reinstall listed 'failed to
> install' for more than half of the components.
>
> Nov 20
> Tried to uninstall SQL server, got an error message and SQL server
> disappeared from add/remove programs list. SQL Server is still taking up
> 6.5Gigs in program files, but Vista wont let me delete it.
> Spent too much time finding the required dos commands to delete system files.
> (takeown /F dirname /R) and
> (del dirname /F /S /Q)
> Nov 29
> It ends now. XP Pro installed and working wonderfully.
> With the older OS I installed VS, SQL server, AJAX, and AJAX Controls,
> imported and populated the database, cubed it, created the application model
> database, and wrote a software ADOMD connection in about 2 hours. In Vista I
> spent at least two full days trying to get everything working, and it never
> did.
> Jan 11
> No issues to date, everything working well, no stability issues, no quirky
> behavior, and all installed apps worked as expected.
>
>
