Microsoft Windows 7, the new OS.

  • Thread starter GT4 genius
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I don't know why Vista is such a failure. If it isn't run on something it shouldn't be (a bunch of very basic new laptops and desktops) it works just fine. But seeing as most people probably experienced it first on something that couldn't even run Aero smoothly, those people run away saying its the worst thing ever. Yeah, it requires more power than XP, which required more power than ME, etc, etc. It actually runs perfectly on the $350 2.1Ghz Athlon X2, 2GB RAM, onboard Geforce 6100 computer that I built my mom for Christmas.

This is just going to "convince" more people that Vista was a flop. Maybe if they are lucky they'll even get the Windows Classic interface by default with the same feature set as Windows ME...
 
Your right Vista is ok on most systems but I have experienced it on a 512mb ram laptop and well that wasnt a pleasant experience, in fact MS should have not allowed it to be run on such a weak computer. Also it was no leap from XP, people just didnt see the advantages of it, I still use XP and I think its fine and have no wish to move to Vista.

Heres another piece about 7 and a video of the touchscreen:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/05/will_7_prove_deadly_to_vista.html
 
I actually installed it on a 1.2Ghz Athlon (talking ooooold Athlon here) with 768MB of RAM in order to extend the system partition of Server 2003. :lol:

I chose Vista Starter for that one....still not a usable system, I'm not sure why they market that to developing countries.

(I had no other way to extend the partition, it did not end on a cylinder boundary for some reason so nothing else would touch it...)
 
It's the technical problems of Vista that make it a failure, and that it isn't what it was said to be. Full XP compatibility was promised and not delivered. I was marketed as some kind of a super OS while under the surface it was nothing more than XP with a new shiny cover with the style borrowed from the OS X. Drivers are still hard (read: impossible) to find for some hardware and it will stay that way.

All in all the XP beats Vista in usability and that's what counts for the everyday user, thus Vista is seen as a failure. It isn't enough of an improvement over its precedessor and even worse on certain areas.
 
I dove into Vista by the time SP1 came out, and in the end, it still came up short. Sure, they've done a good job pushing it onto some customers, but a lot of the smart folks are downgrading back to XP. Thankfully I've still got my old XP rig around, and I'll be networking that into the house again shortly.

In the end, I get the feeling that Vista is like an old Jaguar with a fresh coat of paint and a good wax job. Sure, it looks great on the outside, and it works well enough most of the time... But if you're looking to stay away from ghosts in the machine, its the wrong kind of thing to run.

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Windows 7:

All I've seen so far is that they've tried to clean up and minimize the UI again, and the big feature is the touch screen.

And?

I really don't care. I'm not sold on it. If they sell it to me for cheap as an upgrade on Vista (similar to Leopard on Tiger), I may do it. But I'm not getting my hopes up as of late... Then again, its not like I'm jumping into Ubuntu or OSX any time soon...
 
To echo what YSSMAN and Greycap said, I avoided Vista because it's basically a shiny bloated XP with less compatibility for older programs and extra security features that I would only find irritating and would never use. Hell, for the longest time I avoided XP because it was only a shiny bloated 98 with less compatibility for older programs and extra security features that I would only find irritating and would never use. I finally upgraded when my computer's specs went beyond what 98 could fully recognize and use (specifically my 1GB of DDR RAM).

I must grudgingly admit that XP has been a lot less troublesome than 98 (possibly related to the fact that SP2 came out before I ever installed it), but I still miss the high speed and small footprint 98 had.
 
My 64 bit Vista has been fine... It's fast and all my programs load faster than my XP rig, it's reliable and I can find drivers for all of my stuff (note that I'm running x64 too). My experience with Vista is very positive and I'll even go as far as saying that for everyday use I prefer it over XP.
 
Google up Microsoft Surface to see where some of this comes from, and where it might be headed.
 
Wolfe
I must grudgingly admit that XP has been a lot less troublesome than 98 (possibly related to the fact that SP2 came out before I ever installed it), but I still miss the high speed and small footprint 98 had.
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I don't grudgingly admit that XP has been a lot less troublesome than 98. It is a whole lot better than 98. BSOD are rare compared to the almost daily occurrences with 98. I have 2 computers here at home with Vista and find the security alerts and run as administrator functions ridiculous. I think MS tries to do too much for too many users. They need to keep it simple and secure but do it without pop ups all over the place.
 
?

apparently, none of you guys had a computer geek for a better half! mine taught me all the dissection tricks and so on for 98. I only ran into trouble after putting ME in, and, just when I was donna downgrade back to 98, the monitor blew up. we'd assumed the whole thing fried, instead, and bought a used with XP on it.

my cousin has a Vista machine. things should be fine as long as you have a machine BUILT for the OS that comes in it.
 
Touch? Errr count me out on that one, as cool as that would be I don't know if I like the idea of my OS being like that.

I'm not really a fan of Vista, my mom has it on her notebook and I've really tried to like it but I just can't. It just doesn't seem to work correctly and it's a son of a gun to get some things to interface with it. I really like XP, it does everything I need it to do and I've never had any issues with it since I put it on my machine. I'll be curious to see what else MS can do with their OS for the future, hopefully they've learned not to be like EA and just half-ass the whole thing without the proper testing.
 
GT3mich
I don't grudgingly admit that XP has been a lot less troublesome than 98. It is a whole lot better than 98. BSOD are rare compared to the almost daily occurrences with 98.
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I did run into BSODs on 98 maybe once every other month. However, I was almost always using non-professional programs (eg. emulators) when I encountered them.

I would rather have the occasional BSOD than XP's lack of compatibility. Having to run the DOS version of a Win95 game (eg. Mechwarrior 2, The Need for Speed) through DOSBox just to get it to run on Windows XP is a pain.
 
I too think Vista isn't as bad as some people say it is, and I've had it for 8 months now.

All programs that I've needed to use on here, Photoshop, PC tools like Firewalls, Anti-Virus, etc, and a couple of other applications have all worked properly. I've only had one application not work, and that was pretty old. The biggest issue I've had is with games - a few older ones don't work or don't run properly (crash while you're playing).

It's significantly faster than I remember my XP machine ever was when I bought it. I presume it's down to Vista remembering the programs you use the most and put them into memory when you boot up. The GUI is nice, not more functional than XP really but good enough. The graphical features are a nice touch, but they do lag on systems without a GFX card or one that is old.

I do have a couple of issues with Vista randomly shutting down when I put the lid of my laptop down. I'd put the lid down, know it's gone into standby, but when I open it up it says Vista has had an error and do you want to boot into safe mode. And occasionally some of the power and networking menus lag, especially when the computer is busy (dual core FTW?).

Oh, and I've not found any use for the compatibility modes yet...

Other than that, I quite like Vista. But I wouldn't miss it if I went back to XP.
 
Windows Vista loves my Mac Mini. So much so, that it feels like removing the OSX partition. :P My problem with Vista is that it hangs onto the old stuff and adds features it doesn't need. Other than that, it gets the job done. If you need compatibility mode... you may need to upgrade your software.

On a side note: Funny how Microsoft is criticized for adding a touch interface, yet Apple is praised. I will give Microsoft credit when it is due.
 
F1GTR
My 64 bit Vista has been fine... It's fast and all my programs load faster than my XP rig, it's reliable and I can find drivers for all of my stuff (note that I'm running x64 too). My experience with Vista is very positive and I'll even go as far as saying that for everyday use I prefer it over XP.
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Seconded. I've never had any problems at all with Vista getting things to work. It's never crashed, ever. And I much prefer it over XP now.
 
Sniffs
Wolfe: have you tried running older stuff with a "compatability mode" yet?
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I have yet to find a situation where compatibility mode actually works. It doesn't with the two games I mentioned.
 
Compatibility mode has only ever done anything for me with two games: Interstate '82 and Need For Speed II.

Solid Fro
If you need compatibility mode... you may need to upgrade your software.
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I here that so much from ones who think they are elite that it baffles me how they got into a position to think they can look down on people in the first place; as the suggestion itself shows plainly that they are quite clearly clueless to how laughable of a snide remark that actually is.

Solid Fro
Funny how Microsoft is criticized for adding a touch interface, yet Apple is praised. I will give Microsoft credit when it is due.
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Because comparing the modified OS the iPhone/iPod Touch to a desktop OS built around touch design is apples to oranges. Actually, no, its less similar than that.
 
Toronado
I here that so much from ones who think they are elite that it baffles me how they got into a position to think they can look down on people in the first place; as the suggestion itself shows plainly that they are quite clearly clueless to how laughable of a snide remark that actually is.
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I agree with him. You can't complain that a new OS won't run some piece of software that was written 15 years ago.

You don't buy a brand new car and complain that it won't run on the leaded petrol you've stored for 15 years.
 
Casio
I agree with him. You can't complain that a new OS won't run some piece of software that was written 15 years ago.
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...with the exception that the said piece of software ran on XP and Vista was promised to have full XP compatibility.

As said before the problem with Vista isn't actually what it is, but not being what it was hyped to be. If the Microsoft guys had honestly said "we're bringing out a new Windows that requires you to ditch your old programs, sorry for that but it has to be done" then OK, so be it. Bad for us with old programs. But no, they said "we're bringing out a new Windows that does everything XP does and more and is the end-of-all operating system" and this is where the big FAIL kicks in.
 
Casio
I agree with him. You can't complain that a new OS won't run some piece of software that was written 15 years ago.
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It runs on XP. Microsoft said all XP programs would run on Vista. It doesn't run on Vista. I fail to see how your analogy relates.

Furthermore, when a new OS comes out that doesn't do anything spectacularly better than the previous one (regardless of if you have the specs to run it in its best form), its pretty funny to look down on someone because they refuse to upgrade to it when programs they use may not run on it. If the difference in quality was like OS9 to OSX or Windows ME to Windows 2000, then I would understand, but this isn't the case with Vista. And its especially funny when sales of the OS itself reflect that this is the majority opinion.
You can stand there and sing Vista praises all day. I've used it on a desktop with 4GB RAM, a Core 2 Duo and an 8800GTS, and it does nothing so much better than XP to warrant the headaches it would cause with older programs; and it certainly isn't worth springing for just because it is out. In fact, the only thing I noticed about it was that it was faster than XP, which may simply be because the computer I was using had 4 times as much RAM as mine.
 
New OS's should run older programmes since many people use older versions of x software since they know it inside and out. We use a really outdated bit of gallery software here at work (at least 10 years old) since it works and we all know it and it interfaces well with everything else we have. We could upgrade but that would be a.) expensive and b.) require a whole new learning process.
 
Also, from what I'm told, it's a complete b**** to network it with other systems. I have limited experience with Vista so I can't say for sure.
 
If all you like about vista is the look of it install vista inspirat 2. Works like a charm for me.
 
Greycap
If the Microsoft guys had honestly said "we're bringing out a new Windows that requires you to ditch your old programs, sorry for that but it has to be done" then OK, so be it. Bad for us with old programs. But no, they said "we're bringing out a new Windows that does everything XP does and more and is the end-of-all operating system" and this is where the big FAIL kicks in.
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Yup.

Also, while I can understand ditching an old word editor or old image editing software (apart from the tidbit that Joey mentioned), I fail to see how we're supposed to get our hands on "upgraded" versions of older games. As if it should be the developers' responsibility to compensate for Microsoft's lack of foresight.

The games don't even have to be that old -- for example, Windows XP's lack of compatibility was particularly insulting to consumers in the case of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, which was released a little over a year before XP and won't run without some patching and tweaking. Even then, not everyone can get it to work, and many that do are forced to run it at low-quality graphics settings due to some strange glitch.

I haven't looked into Vista's compatibility with games, but it wouldn't surprise me to see similar cases with games released in '05 or '06.
 
I think one of MS's biggest mistakes is completely changing the layout of its latest Microsoft Office applications.

Even a very computer-literate person like me cannot figure out where something simple is without having to use the help function or spending 10 frustrating minutes trying to find it. God knows what it's like for average joe to use. I expect people to use previous versions for many, many years yet.
 
Wolfe
Yup.

Also, while I can understand ditching an old word editor or old image editing software (apart from the tidbit that Joey mentioned), I fail to see how we're supposed to get our hands on "upgraded" versions of older games. As if it should be the developers' responsibility to compensate for Microsoft's lack of foresight.

The games don't even have to be that old -- for example, Windows XP's lack of compatibility was particularly insulting to consumers in the case of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, which was released a little over a year before XP and won't run without some patching and tweaking. Even then, not everyone can get it to work, and many that do are forced to run it at low-quality graphics settings due to some strange glitch.

I haven't looked into Vista's compatibility with games, but it wouldn't surprise me to see similar cases with games released in '05 or '06.
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But Microsoft is not going to not ever evolve their operating system because people may have older software that may not work. Do I have the right to go mad at AMD because when they started making the 940 pin chips which wouldn't work on my 939 motherboard? In that case you describe, I think you could lay just as much blame on EA for not making XP/Vista fixes.
 

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