What has Vista done for you?

[NathanE]

I remember there was far more resistance to upgrade when XP came out. But then XP was Microsoft's first consumer OS based on NT - so to fair to XP it did have a big disadvantage. Vista has been pretty good on the whole. Even a service pack for XP (SP2) got more resistance than Vista has as a whole I think.

Vista is a great OS the only downer for me is the god awful mess that they call the "Control Panel". What on earth did they do to it?! Also there are still a few compatibility problems - like my HP 1005 Laserjet *still* doesn't have a driver But luckily I'm intelligent enough to not blindly blame those type of things on Microsoft. Indeed Microsoft provide me with a viable workaround that is Virtual PC 2007

Aero Glass is just excellent and pretty much is everything I expected it to be (and no I'm not talking about the nicety effects - couldn't care less about those, but the actual performance and artifact-free desktop). And the best thing is... it is going to get better.

 

[Ross1308]

Hmmmm what has Vista done for me, **** All in one word

 

[yantorsen]

Vista has given me a great deal of unresolved hassle :/

I can't say why, because I don't know why it has, I'm still trying to find out.

 

[Macro]

Hmmmm what has Vista done for me, **** All in one word

I think you'll find that's two words and is a good example of some of the generalisations thrown at Vista. They sound good on a forum but accuracy isn't always a key feature

 

[Uhtred]

I'm always one for progress, I was the among the first to move from 98 to xp and i never looked back. With Vista it's been a strange ride. I tried it out from RC1 and could see potential and i was excited because i was expecting a very good OS.

When vista was released I had new hardware and to begin with it worked very well. It needed 2gb of RAM to get it working well with games but that wasn't a big deal for me. Since then I've used it at home a lot and i do like the gui, the gadgets are great, they are really handy but to be honest there's almost nothing else i like so much that i couldn't live without it.

It seems more unstable, and that's not due to dodgy hardware or dodgy drivers, it's all been tested and all drivers are kept up to date, as is windows. Every now and then i will get a BSOD or, probably even more annoying, i will get a programme hang and instead of simply being able to end the task or even shut the computer down, i actually have to hold the power button down for 5 seconds because there is no way to close it and the computer just won’t shut down. Unbelievable.

Vista is irritatingly slow doing simple things, like creating an mmc snapin copy files or using the switch users logon screen. I can't get the hang of the explorer interface, sometimes when i click to drag it will select a file fine but other times it will start to drag a box. The folders randomly change views and the right click menus often get stuck or don't function first time when you click them.

The gui is inconsistent, sometimes you have the nice new areo interface and the nice new layout but when you want to actually change something you are presented with the old menu system so it all seems a waste of time and harder to find what you're looking for.

Outside of home use we've started to roll out new machines at work with vista on them. To be honest we've not had a lot of problems with them. Yes, some software won't work and printers in particular behave very strangely when first installing them. However they are a lot slower than new xp machines would be, and for what? A user can now have a virtual postit on their desktop or a fancy animation when they minimize something. Even UAC is of no help because we don’t give our users admin rights to start with.

It just makes our job that little bit harder trying to find alternative software to use and support two software platforms, trying to find work a rounds for the extra security they’ve put in. Annoyingly my work XP machine blew up this morning so, from tomorrow i'm gong to be using vista at home and at work.

Security wise vista is pretty good. On my home machine i've been without AV or any kind of spyware protection since the day vista was released and i've not had a single problem. I don't download from dodgy sites and i don't open suspect emails so i wouldn't expect any major problems but so far not even an annoying popup application has infected my machine.

The protected mode for applications works well but the way it is implemented by microsoft is flawed. Most people get so annoyed by UAC prompts they will turn it off completely, this makes it no more secure than XP really. What i have done, and what i believe most people should be doing, is using uac silent mode which is a tweak you have to download. This gets rid of the stupid, annoying and pointless uac prompts but still sets applications to run in protected mode. One of the most ridiculous things about uac is that it just isn't smart at all. If you want to install a programme manually into the program files folder you have to go through 6 prompts to create, rename and then copy data into a new folder. It's utterly ridiculous.

If i could actually be bothered i would take vista off my machine, but in truth it's not quite bad enough to go back to xp, and even if i were forced to reformat my machine i would resent not using a bit of software for any length of time that i've paid good money for. I will carry on using it in the hope MS slowly release updates for it. But the fact is they've had 8 months already and overall i've not been impressed, they should have had something so much better after the massive gap from xp to vista.

 

[Uhtred]

I remember there was far more resistance to upgrade when XP came out. But then XP was Microsoft's first consumer OS based on NT - so to fair to XP it did have a big disadvantage. Vista has been pretty good on the whole. Even a service pack for XP (SP2) got more resistance than Vista has as a whole I think.

Vista is a great OS the only downer for me is the god awful mess that they call the "Control Panel". What on earth did they do to it?! Also there are still a few compatibility problems - like my HP 1005 Laserjet *still* doesn't have a driver But luckily I'm intelligent enough to not blindly blame those type of things on Microsoft. Indeed Microsoft provide me with a viable workaround that is Virtual PC 2007

Aero Glass is just excellent and pretty much is everything I expected it to be (and no I'm not talking about the nicety effects - couldn't care less about those, but the actual performance and artifact-free desktop). And the best thing is... it is going to get better.

I can promise you i was not one of those that resisted xp coming from 98. It was such a breath of fresh air (i had never used 2000). I never said a bad word about it and i never had any problems with any of the service packs. I just could never understand why anyone would not like xp, on every install of 98 on every computer you would always have random application crashes which would compromise the OS and require a reboot. You could never go more than a day or so without a restart...compare that with my current home server (xp) uptime of 123 days and it's just laughable

Just to add another interesting vista crash i had the other day. My taskbar froze for no apparent reason, even ending explorer didn't fix it so i tried to do a log off and on. Bam, BSOD

I stuck up for vista when it first came out, and i still will for certain things but overall i'm getting more and more fed up with it. My experience should get better over time as the updates are rolled out but that just isn't the case...yet

 

[Uhtred]

UAC will also stop some system files being altered even if you gave the go ahead to UAC to let the virus program run when it tried to change system files you would get another permissions popup more alarm bells ...that game demo is not ment to do that.

Actually i don't believe this is the case. Once you've clicked continue the programme has admin rights and can do anything it wants.

 

[Final8y]

It seems more unstable, and that's not due to dodgy hardware or dodgy drivers, it's all been tested and all drivers are kept up to date, as is windows. Every now and then i will get a BSOD or, probably even more annoying, i will get a programme hang and instead of simply being able to end the task or even shut the computer down, i actually have to hold the power button down for 5 seconds because there is no way to close it and the computer just won’t shut down. Unbelievable.

Well unless you coded the drivers & made the hardware your self you should not make a claim that its vista's fault or we would all have the same problem which we don't.
I have only ever had BSOD when there is a bad drivers Creative & one set of ATI drivers.
Other times was with unstable overclocks with cpu/gfx cards which crash & can lead to program hangs on the next reboot even when the clocks are put back to stock.

I have yet to not be able to shut down a task that has hanged because of my errors, changing xfi mode while sound is still playing, Ctrl Alt Del has always worked unless my gfx overclock has messed up the screen.

 

[Uhtred]

Well unless you coded the drivers & made the hardware your self you should not make a claim that its vista's fault or we would all have the same problem which we don't.
I have only ever had BSOD when there is a bad drivers Creative & one set of ATI drivers.
Other times was with unstable overclocks with cpu/gfx cards which crash & can lead to program hangs on the next reboot even when the clocks are put back to stock.

I have yet to not be able to shut down a task that has hanged because of my errors, changing xfi mode while sound is still playing, Ctrl Alt Del has always worked unless my gfx overclock has messed up the screen.

Non of my hardware is out of the ordinary, everything is up to date, i'm careful about that kind of thing. I'm using vista 64 so i can't have unsigned drivers so that should mean i won't get a BSOD due to driver problems.

None of our work vista machines have those issues but just because they don't doens't mean there isn't a problem

 

[Final8y]

Actually i don't believe this is the case. Once you've clicked continue the programme has admin rights and can do anything it wants.

Not true i get multiple popups when installing & uninstall some software & deleting stuff in system.
The only way to pull it off with one permissions grant is to do it all exactly at the same time which i doubt you can do.

You try to delete /alter 2 system files from with in 2 draws at the same time with just one popup.

 

[Uhtred]

Not true i get multiple popups when installing & uninstall some software & deleting stuff in system.
The only way to pull it off with one permissions grant is to do it all exactly at the same time which i doubt you can do.

You try to delete /alter 2 system files from with in 2 draws at the same time with just one popup.

That's not how UAC works. UAC is to run applications in protected mode (that is to say they won't have admin (the ability to make changes that could compromise your system) rights unless it requests them) and the UAC prompts are there to stop you from accidentally making a change that can harm your system

Think about what happens when you install a game for example. It will prompt you once when you first click on the file then it will install.
Does it prompt you every time it puts a file in the program files folder (which is normally a UAC protected function)? no that would be insane, you'd get 1000s of prompts. Once you've given a program rights to run with administrator rights it can do anything it wants. Once you click continue it's up to your AV to protect you.

 

[Final8y]

Non of my hardware is out of the ordinary, everything is up to date, i'm careful about that kind of thing. I'm using vista 64 so i can't have unsigned drivers so that should mean i won't get a BSOD due to driver problems.

None of our work vista machines have those issues but just because they don't doens't mean there isn't a problem

Wrong you can get BSOD from signed drivers, just go & look at the creative forums.

I also got BSOD when trying to install 7.8 ATI drivers at exaclty the same place of install time & time again which was the only time i have had a problem installing ati drivers.

 

[Kyle009]

vista has been great for me. it looks the part, is speedy and all round is more stable for me than XP. i think its crashed twice, once Itunes locked up and the other was when i tried to run IE whilst Prime95ing.

Only thing i dont like is the explorer layout, XP was definately better in that regard.

 

[Uhtred]

Wrong you can get BSOD from signed drivers, just go & look at the creative forums.

That's my point. Vista is making a push for signed drivers to make it more stable and secure (and rightly so) If it can still cause a BSOD then there's not much point in having signed drivers other than that you know that it's from a trusted source

 

[Final8y]

That's not how UAC works. The prompts are to stop you from doing anything stupid and to run applications in protected mode (that is to say they won't have admin (the ability to make changes that could compromise your system) rights unless it requests them). Think about what happens when you install a game for example. It will prompt you once when you first click on the file then it will install.

Does it prompt you every time it puts a file in the program files folder (which is normally a UAC protected function)? no that would be insane. Once you've given a program rights to run with administrator rights it can do anything it wants. Once you click continue it's up to your AV to protect you.

Not all programs are the same & in the case of games that is true to a point but not in all cases & you also have to look at what a game install does.
It does not try to change or delete important system files also the places it does install files are places where it is expected to in the first place or things would be a mess like you said with getting a prompt with every file install they clearly have thought of that.

But i have many apps that i get multi pop ups
you must also take into account the difference of install & a change of file.
Install is no threat at all as anything is useless unless run & vista does like to stop some un-knows running at startup.

 

[Final8y]

That's my point. Vista is making a push for signed drivers to make it more stable and secure (and rightly so) If it can still cause a BSOD then there's not much point in having signed drivers other than that you know that it's from a trusted source

NO that was not your point.
Your claim that vista was unstable & it could not of been down to drivers.
whether there is any point in a push for signed drivers is another matter.

 

[Uhtred]

NO that was not your point.
Your claim that vista was unstable & it could not of been down to drivers.
whether there is any point in a push for signed drivers is another matter.

No i said dodgy drivers. I can only use signed drivers on my system and i wouldn't expect them to cause an issue. They might well be causing problems but the fact is they're signed and so they shouldn't be.

I have never seen an application or driver that required more than one UAC prompt at work or at home before I turned UAC into silent mode.

Please read this http://www.tweak-uac.com/

 

[Final8y]

No i said dodgy drivers. I can only use signed drivers on my system and i wouldn't expect them to cause an issue. They might well be causing problems but the fact is they're signed and so they shouldn't be.

I have never seen an application or driver that required more than one UAC prompt at work or at home before I turned UAC into silent mode.

Please read this http://www.tweak-uac.com/

That is the problem.
Depending on what you use your setup for & the programs you use you may not see more than one popup for ease of use for the user & because of that the assumption is made that a program can install / change & delete what ever it likes whenever it likes from there on in once you gave the go ahead to install.

How many program have you used that have installed its self & uninstalled other progams that are not linked to its self with out a prompt.
I would love to see me give the go ahead to install firefox & see it uninstall & detete my ATI CCC & drivers & a format a partition with out seconed a prompt.

 

[Uhtred]

You're missing the point. That's not the purpose of the UAC prompts, they are to protect you from yourself. UAC protected mode is something else and works very well.

 

[Final8y]

You're missing the point. That's not the purpose of the UAC prompts, they are to protect you from yourself. UAC protected mode is something else and works very well.

In fact its both & thats my point & they turn it off & then cry when they got infected in the first place even tho they installed 3rd party protection.
The firefox example is much easier todo with UAC turned off & a virus would not need to do changes at memory level to do it, ok the format part was a little far fetched
as there would be no point as in most cases it all about making money from you in someway.