XP availability

[enjay]

and have they actually done away with thumbnail views? you can make the icons huge, but cant see the picture in a thumbnail anymore :S

"Medium" size is a reasonable thumb-nail, or try "Tiles".

 

well, i can get the size right but what i mean is the way it shows the actual picture rather than a file logo - sorry im really tired cant get the words out but im sure you know what i mean

I know exactly what you mean, and for me both Tiles and Medium show the actual image. I note that under Organise > Folder Options there's a tick box saying "always display icon, not thumbnails" - might be worth checking that is clear on your PC.

 

As an aside, I find the huge thumbnails really useful when trying to find the better of two similar photos, e.g. group photos on field trips or something. Much quicker than opening them both up.

[enjay]

i know we expect to install things and have them work, but being experts (to some degree) at least we know what we're doing to get it to run properly

Really? The first thing I do whenever I install something is dive into the options and re-configure it, anti-virus and firewall programs especially!

[mrbios]

ah ok cheers for that, didnt know about being able to turn it on and off

 

I agree that everything thats ever installed is instantly modified in some way, but with vista its a bit more OTT than just changing a few settings

[Pete10141748]

I hated XP when I got it

 

I kinda did too, although it was the look rather than the usability. Blue and green on the taskbar with "rolling hills" in the background? nasty! For as long as I can remember I've always set my PC and laptop to use the Windows Classic appearance. To me its always looked more professional. The default XP *looks* like it was made to be used at home, by children IMO.

 

Maybe thats why the kids here are so much better at using it than the staff?

 

I have to say, I do really like the look of Vista, but OK, I'll also admit that I'm one of those people who enjoy flashy-cool-looking things.

 

 

vistas major downfall with networks is that anything under a top end single core or AMD4000/IntelE2140 is also pretty pointless and that anything under 2GB is limiting its abilities

 

Uhuh, thats why I basically plan to make a gradual introduction of Vista to our network, only getting it when we actually *have* to replace a PC or laptop - looking like 4 or 5 planned this year, maybe more if things work well (or if existing stuff breaks!).

 

 

The first thing I do whenever I install something is dive into the options and re-configure it

 

Me too! Guess thats just my natural inclination to fiddle with things

 

 

I read a comment by someone on a Vista review article, which said something like

 

All these things people are complaining about Vista are the same things people complained about when XP first came around. Seems people like to read the same stories over and over

 

Interesting point, I think.

 

Whatever new invention comes around, wether its software, hardware, OS, or whatever else, its undoubtably not going to work as well as something similar which has been mass used and worked on progressively for the past 6.5 years.

But I'll bet that Vista will surpass XP soon enough, once enough people have given it time to expand and be used and improved, and 6 years from now, we'll all be happily using Vista, worrying about the next version of Windows that is coming in 6 months time, and be wondering why we thought XP was so god-like anyway.

[CyberNerd]

All these things people are complaining about Vista are the same things people complained about when XP first came around. Seems people like to read the same stories over and over

 

Some people ditched windows altogether after enduring XP. OSX usage is hitting 8% whilst vista adoption is stagnating.

 

compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002. In that period, that operating system went from nothing to 36 percent usage on PCWorld.com--more than 250 percent of the usage that Vista has mustered so far.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137635/article.html

 

At some point somebody at my school will ask for it, and I will deploy it as soon as I am qualified to do so, naturally at my employers expense. Windows stopped being fun for me a long time ago, now it's just a job. I still learn new, exciting technologies at my own expense (time). For Vista I'll need to get paid to learn it (MCP) because otherwise I will point blank refuse to have anything to do with it.

[gwendes]

I would agree with you that for someone like you or I, the feature is annoying - which is why I took the 30 seconds necessary to turn it off - but for the average home user, it seems like a good thing (how many PCs have you worked on where the owner did something daft without realising it, or without fully understanding the consequences?). The 'blind trust admin mode' which you yearn for is there, but rather than enable it, you simply disable the 'doubt everything user mode'.

 

 

Nope, tried that and it kicked up problems with nearly every piece of software I attempted to install. Maybe I blamed the fact the UAC was disabled too quickly but it seemed to crop up in too many forums that the UAC needed to be enabled to install... As for turning it on and off depending on what I was installing... ummm.. no thanks!

 

 

I must say, it does seem like you're overly keen to criticise without having given it a chance to get used to it, complaining about absent Start buttons (which are still there, in the same place even), removed File menus (which can be quickly returned if you wish to waste the screen space, but try right-clicking instead) and constant nags from security settings (which are easily disabled). All that said, some of the changes are purely for the sake of it (translucent title bars - why?!), but the vast majority of them are for the better, I think.

 

 

I wasn't really complaining about an absent Start button! I tried to get used to Vista in general but after a couple of weeks with a noisy computer ( CPU fan going mental ) a slower computer (even stripped out the 512MB RAM and replaced with 2GB 800Mhz DDR2) and nothing gained except what seems like cosmetic changes and moving things around without any reason.

 

 

I wonder if you had decided before using it that Vista was change for change's sake and were going to hate it, so did. Or, since you say you jumped straight into "early Beta releases" and had instability and CPU-hammering problems, perhaps its worth giving the more ironed release version a try.

 

I was looking forward to Vista and got the early releases. I was exciting given the 98 to XP had been such a great leap forward but even the ironed out final release is sadly disappointing and Vista, for me, is a step backwards.

[zag]

The network sharing centre in windows vista really sucks, for that reason alone I wont be installing it until at least SP2

 

I have run it on my home laptop for over a year now and its just about acceptable. But I see no improvements in day to day usage other than the nice renaming functions. Navigating folders is a nightmare, even the resetting view bugs for folders are still present from XP!!

 

It is slower and more complicated to do simple things than XP. In a couple of years when the hardware has caught up it might be worth doing an upgrade, but until then I'm very happy with supporting XP exclusively in a school environment.

[originofsymmetry]

I agree with it not being ready for any deployment in either the education or corporate environment. You do need high speed hardware to get anything out of it. My desktop is a Sempron 3300+, 1GB RAM - that alone kills it, so how can it be expected to be adopted this early when my machine surpasses many in schools, simply because the finance isn't there for them to install it. Right now, it's only of real use in a home environment - I love Aero and the whole fading of default buttons and what not, they make the computer more visually stimulating and easier to use imo. Ease of Access Centre for one is a major improvment on XP's accessibility options with all options collated together. I'm not bowled over my The Network and Sharing Center, but the Network Map visual is a fantastic edition, however its mostly suited to home users along with the majority of the OS.

 

Although off topic can I please ask that users stop constantly banging on about Vista's faults. This question started about a user wanting to know when XP will no longer be available and there's now about 3 pages worth of senseless Vista bashing about some of the most minor changes. Surely there are free skinnig asolutions available to make it look like XP if that's what you really want. Also the main problems in this post are UAC and Aero, well turn them off, your not being forced to use these settings, their just a safe default.

[gshaw]

No Vista plans here anytime soon although our recent hardware would be able to cope with it but the older stuff (Athlon64 3000+ \ 1GB RAM) would be slow and I see no compelling reasons to upgrade.

 

Stone are still supplying us with XP licenses at the mo, long may it continue!

 

The interesting times ahead will be when the larger percentage of students \ staff use Vista at home on their new boxes and keep wondering why the School \ College is "behind the times" not understanding the reasons behind sticking with XP.

 

Not looking forward to that day meself, personally I can't stand Vista as it takes every quick trick used in the last 7-8 years and throws em out the window for some "user friendly" route that takes double the time

 

As for Aero and the whole black interface \ pretty buttons it gets on my nerves, the black everywhere almost makes a widescreen look double widescreen and gives me a headache plus the stupid fade effects slow things down. As one guy put it "user interface friction" making things feel slower even if they're not. However it has won over many people as it's got a round clock on the side (wow I had that on Windows 95!)

 

Office 2007, on the other hand is what Vista should be, a good improvement on the UI that actually does make things quicker. We deployed it on WinXP and although users were moaning for about 2-3 weeks now they love it, pat on the back for Microsoft there shame their OS didn't follow suit

Edited January 8, 2008 by gshaw

[farmerste]

the trouble i find, is:-

 

visturd really makes you look bad, because it is slow, and everyone expects speed, and has seemingly less and less patience. The amount of workload you need to put into it to make it useable is horrendous, I thought xp was bad enough, but visturd, oh my god!!, i'm not sure if i'll ever make it workable for young children/special needs.

As for getting used to it, when i first saw xp i thought 'this looks good, ok things are a bit different, but it feels fast , now where did that trojan come from??'

whereas visturd, i have not found anything i like, even the deployment process has not worked for me despite following the instructions verbatim.

 

time they went back to the drawing board with this pile of sh*t, and made a 'shell' that makes it look and feel like windows xp.

 

the major problem is i think that this pile of sh*t was programmed by loads of different software houses, all adding the things they liked, and not once did micrcrap ever ask a 'real' end user/administrator what they needed.

 

not impressed , just avoiding it as much as possible, and praying a service pack might make it 'work'

 

[gshaw]

the trouble i find, is:-

 

the major problem is i think that this pile of sh*t was programmed by loads of different software houses, all adding the things they liked, and not once did micrcrap ever ask a 'real' end user/administrator what they needed.

 

 

From what I read there were so many people working on it if you changed a line of code you wouldn't see the difference in the main build for about 6 months, maybe a case of too many cooks...