Vista - the Fiasco is Complete

Almost any computer user that had an encounter with Vista has some horror stories to tell - from slow computers, to annoying user interface; from driver incompatibility to software problems. Everything goes. The conclusion was clear, even at the very beginning - Vista is a piece of shit.

Now, studies carried out by Gartner and IDC have found that because older software is often incompatible with Vista, many consumers are trying to get used computers with XP installed, rather than buying a new PC with Vista and downgrading. Yes, that's how bad it is - businesses now prefer to buy USED computers, just to avoid Vista.

Even firms like Intel announced XP would remain the dominant OS within the company for the foreseeable future.

This proves (as if we needed more proof) that Vista is a total failure, but it also emphasizes a very important notion - Don't rush into upgrading. There are many cases in which the old version of a software or OS is better and faster. Upgrading doesn't necessarily means you are getting a better product. In fact, in many cases - upgrading is completely not needed, and might even cause problems.

Staying with your current version of a certain software might not only save you some money, but also save you a whole bunch of trouble.

Vista: Mostly Annoying

A friend of mine dropped by for dinner the other day. We had a lot of fun, and he also brought his Lenovo laptop for the rider. He's been having some problems with the Vista operating system and I offered to help.

I don't use Vista myself. I have no intentions of doing so in the near future, either. I have seen Vista on other people's computers, and I knew instantly it would be a mistake to install it. The different horror-reviews I have seen all over the net only made me more confident in my decision. I have XP on my laptop and Windows 2000 on my desktop - ironclad OS that runs smoothly.

My friend's laptop is brand new - about a month old. He didn't install anything horrible on it (except some sort of a Symantec Anti-Virus, which we will remove ASAP). He has 1 GB of RAM. It's not an expensive computer, but it should do its job. Basic stuff like surfing the net, creating presentations and storing pictures. Nothing fancy, right?

Well, wrong. The computer is slow, annoying and full of stupid little bugs - all because of the not-so-wonderful Vista.

First thing we tried to do, was connect to my home wireless network. Denied. The computer connected to the net but I couldn't use the internet. Since we didn't have much time to play with TCP/IP settings, I decided to try and make the laptop a bit faster and more convenient, by removing some unneeded features and tweaking the interface.

The annoying Vista kept bugging me with "are you sure" kind of questions, for every little move. The pseudo-friendly names for the different elements in the control-panel aren't making things easier - I had to scan the list a few times in order to understand where are the settings I need to handle. Installing drivers for something simple as a Disk-On-Key seemed to take ages. The graphics and effects are redundant, resource-consuming and silly (the "Gadgets" thing on the desktop is especially moronic), and the main feeling is that Vista thinks it's smarter than the average human, and can solve all its problems by itself.

Well, it couldn't. It didn't solve the wireless problem (other computers connected perfectly), it didn't help to improve the system's performance and most of all - it makes the probing and tweaking very difficult.

Since that little meeting with Vista, I had gone online and did some research on how to tweak it and force it into something a normal human can enjoy. I'm going to recommend to my friend to format and install XP. If he doesn't feel like it, I'll do my best to help fix all of the problems, but I'm pretty sure it will be far from perfect.

I have been warning people from Vista from the moment it came out. Not because I tried and tested it, but because of a simple rule - Never install a new Microsoft product. Wait AT LEAST two years for most of the bugs to die. And even then - reconsider. My little meetings with Vista only proved me right. The fact the Microsoft is silently "allowing" vendors to sell PCs with XP again, just fortifies the claim - Vista is far from being the OS of the future. It's just another bad Microsoft product.