The most annoyin things about vista

[Geoff]

Just put it on the heads PC. This'll shut him up and educate him as to how bad it really is.

[limbo]

I am running just Vista on my tablet PC now - I know I will never get around to using it until it is my only option.

 

I know in twelve months time we will struggle to buy anything that is not Vista so the sooner I find my way around it the better.

 

The only problems I have found so far are that Adobe Premiere and Photoshop elements behave a little strangely and getting it to synch with my PDA was fun but got there in the end.

 

The sychronising of offline files seems a lot smoother than under XP too.

 

But...

 

Where is active desktop - all our staff currently have a staff handbook which is a series of weblinks embedded into their desktop. It has taken a long time to get staff to use it and now it looks as though it may have to be scrapped unless they reintroduce it or I can find another way (the sidebar is a possiblity but not really ideal)

[Shouou]

I wouldn't even recommend installing Vista on a system unless it's it has at least 2Gb ram, and a multicore processor. I use vista Home Premium at home and we have a Vista Enterprise License for our school as part of our volume license agreement and i doubt witin the next 3 years we will switch from XP. Considering we only switched from 2000 less than 14 months ago.

[webman]

I wouldn't recommend installing vista on any system full-stop 8)

[Guest metalmonkey]

@Quackers

 

Absolutely... The problem is they can't get it right. They don't seem to understand there are two levels of computer users in the world.

 

Those "home users" who install every toolbar, spyware, adware, freebie software from magazines, download off file sharing sites and generally havn't a clue what they are doing.

 

Then there are those, like us (i hope) who are not stupid enough to open an email that says 'n*ked pictures of Anna Kornakova' or install real player.

 

Generally speaking, Microsoft seem to only aim their OS at one group of users. Vista is the 'I'm clueless' version. It's dumbed down to suit this group of people. The problem is that those of us who have a clue, don't need to be told 'You've just logged in. This could be dangerous. Are you sure you want to?'

 

All they have to do is give options. Yes you can disable UAC - but in doing that you have to disable security centre to stop the warning messages. I also don't want the dumbed down control panel or pretty left side panel that gives me further help.

 

Vista business & ultimate is aimed at 'people in the know'. Then why should we be treated like a 6 year old if we've bought those versions.

 

I bought Ultimate two weeks after release and trialled it for 2 months. I've bought new versions of Perfect Disk and Nero ect so that I can use software i'm used to. But in the end, I've reverted back to XP. I became fed up with the 'Insufficient User Intelligence' style messages.

[PiqueABoo]

]there are two levels of computer users in the world.

 

Only two?

 

Microsoft have been subjected to a sustained "Make NT safe for the technically clueless" campaign for a long, long, long, long time. Will never be perfect because really good security hurts usability too much, but it is considerably better now.

 

Here's a third level: People who are: a) clueful enough to turn most irritants off, b) perfectly happy to pay the inevitable price of that better i.e. a few irritants you just have to live with.

 

Yes you can disable UAC - but in doing that you have to disable security centre to stop the warning messages.

 

Security Centre is for granny isn't it?

[Pottsey]

I moved over to Vista fully about 2 week ago at home. Very impressed with it now much faster then Windows 64-bit and more stable. Mutitasking works much better and Vista seems to be learning what programs I use and it has them ready loaded in memory.

[limbo]

Struggling to get my Vodafone 3G card working!!!

[Guest metalmonkey]

Here's a third level: People who are: a) clueful enough to turn most irritants off, b) perfectly happy to pay the inevitable price of that better i.e. a few irritants you just have to live with.

 

But should we have 'live with it'? Isn't that one of the many problems with Microsoft? They dictate and we have to 'live with it'.

 

Surely the better option is to give us choices.

 

I'll give you a few other examples of 'Just live with it'

 

1. New IE7 Installations. By Default, it wants to change our locale to US when it's already set to UK.

 

2. Office 2003 - Document Imaging Writer thingy. By Default? Take away my other default printer?

 

3. If GPO's set the Home folder redirection, you can't disable Offline Files.

 

4. Office 2003 - On loading a document, you get the preview, not the actual document.

 

5. Take a tour, Take a tour, take a tour - oh, why not take a tour.

 

6. WMP - Lets setup an icon on the desktop and quick launch when it's first run. It doesn't matter this was previously deleted or not in the default profile.

 

7. Outlook - As above + steal my default email client when i've not even setup outlook to check email.

 

The list does on...

 

Don't get me wrong, i use MS stuff and am quite happy with most aspects and they are improving.

 

For example i;ve just setup exchange 2007. It's pretty good compared to the hell of 2000.

 

I just wish they would think about the end users and network managers before deciding on how to do things.

[webman]

That's what I like about Linux - freedom and choice

[_Bat_]

4. Office 2003 - On loading a document, you get the preview, not the actual document.

 

You do?

[john]

4. Office 2003 - On loading a document, you get the preview, not the actual document.

 

You do?

When you open it from an outlook email attachement I think they are meaning, but you can turn it off with GP or per user.

[PiqueABoo]

But should we have 'live with it'? Isn't that one of the many problems with Microsoft? They dictate and we have to 'live with it'

 

It's a very general purpose operating system and you simply can't do that and keep everyone happy.

 

I'll give you a few other examples

 

Yes but which ones can't be fixed by someone armed with google and persistance?

 

It's pretty good compared to the hell of 2000.

 

Newbie ;b Exchange 5.5 was definitely the hellish one.

 

I just wish they would think about the end users and network managers before deciding on how to do things.

 

What do you think all those betas and usability labs are for? Ok the first is is marketing too and you'll never get s/w vendors to skip the in-application marketing (arguably the cause of a couple of your issues). And talking of markets I suspect most Microsoft:

 

1) Technically clueless users benefit from the tours.

 

2) Corporate users are relatively big, with in-house gurus who can turn off everything they want turned off. Failing that they just tell MS to do it for them (once found a security oops which was a side-effect of a last minute change demanded by a big corp).

 

Smaller market sectors won't get as much attention - that's business.

 

Whatever, the real irritant is the huge amount of resources Vista needs to do uhh.. what exactly? Windows has definitely gotten out of hand.. an OS is supposed to be there so I can run applications, not steal the show.

[limbo]

OK - after three weeks of persistance my tablet PC is now Vista free once more.

 

And what finally pushed me over the edge? After ten years of hitting the windows key followed by "R" to get a run command where I launch most things (old dos habits die hard) I just cannot get used to hitting just the windows key and typing.

 

Sad but true.

[webman]

limbo: What about changing to pure windows classic mode - including the start menu?

[limbo]

@Webman - takes away the one thing that is outstanding about Vista.

 

Anyway it was just the final straw - there are a couple of manufacturers hotfixes and drivers I need that are not released / stable yet and my Adobe software is cranky on the platform.

 

I will revisit it again in a few weeks - but for now I need to get on with some work!

[webman]

@Webman - takes away the one thing that is outstanding about Vista.

 

Which is?

[limbo]

@webman - the aero interface

[webman]

Oh, that. I don't find windows flashing, wobbling or flying around to be very productive so I turned it off.

[limbo]

@webman - I must not have been getting the best out of the interface, none of my windows flashed, wobbled or flew.

 

But seriously, you have hit the nail on the head - if you do not use the aero interface, which none of us probably will, then there is no real advantage to taking up Vista this early on other than to be as prepared as you can be when you no longer have the option of XP on a new machine (which is probably only 18 months away at the most).

 

Until then we are going to be in that horrible middle ground that comes with having software from so many third parties - some will not run on XP, some will not be maximised unless they are run on Vista and everything else probably could not care less.

 

Yep - its going to be a fun filled year software wise.

[mrforgetful]

Oh, that. I don't find windows flashing, wobbling or flying around to be very productive so I turned it off.

 

Not a fan of AppleOS then?

 

And you're at work why are you been productive!

[webman]

Not a fan of AppleOS then?

 

No, not really

 

And you're at work why are you been productive!

 

No comment 8)

[Guest richard]

I've been using Vista Ultimate at home know for about weeks and on the whole its been ok. My machine isn't the fastest P4 3.0Ghz, 2 Gig RAM and 256MB graphics but it does me. I have found a few annoying niggles though the main one being the fact that I loose audio sometimes after I have watched a DivX file something that never happened when it ran XP. A reboot does solve the problem I have also found that Adobe Photoshop can sometimes be a bit flaky as well.

 

The worst thing though is the amount of hand holding that it does. It is definitely aimed at those people who have no real clue on what they are doing and if you disable UAC it moans like hell.

[mrforgetful]

When I eventually upgrade to Vista at home I'm going to make school pay for the difference in price between Home Premium and Ulitmate, seen as I need the Business features to do my work

[Teth]

I'm a little disapointed in this thread when you consider the incredibly detailed, well informed and professional answers people recieve to very technical questions on these forums. I ran a couple of vista beta's on an off during its development and it wasn't ready. However RC2 was a real operating system. Its new and a little different I personally don't like the "momma knows best" approach to security I think education is better but I realise thats totally unrealistic.

 

However 20 seconds on google later and I disabled the handholding features that I don't feel I need.

 

Everyone here is extoling the superior virtues of XP over the bog standard out of the box install of Vista they just did. Is you XP install "vanilla" I know mine never are. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but my XP install process includes at least 30 registry edits or settings tweaks and 3 utility installs before I consider it a usuable OS and I'm sure you guys are the same because I learned some of those registry edits from you. Yet your barating Vista for not being tailored to you out of the box.

 

I Picked up an OEM Vista x64 Ultimate disc Around the beginning of march and Dual booted it on my home system. Driver support especially for printers was ropey at best. However the important stuff was there. In the following month updates from HP and Highpoint sorted out almost all my complaints. As of the easter holidays my dual boot is gone I'm on Vista 100% now. Working on XP in work frustrates me no search bar thing that I can run everything from even if I don't know where it is in the start menu and the lack of that newfangled dropdown on click browsing thing in the address bar of explorer windows which for me has now totally replaced back button and largely replaced the folders pane.

 

Application compatitbility I hear alot of complaints about. I've not found anything yet that I can't run. Some have been big surprises. I thought for sure Daemon's tools drive emulation given that it needs to install a fake driver would fair but it worked way back at RC2. Sony erricson phone suite complained but put it in XP compatibility mode and its happy. Now I don't run educational software or MIS stuff at home obviosuly and I have every expectation that they would crash and burn but then we didn't move our admin system to XP the year it came out did we? For that matter I think ours here ran NT4 workstation for 3 years after windows 2k came out.

 

Now genuine complaints cos I have some

 

Performance. I have lost some. Its not noticable in desktop use certainly on my core 2, 2GB ram, Nvidia 7900GTX system but I know I've lost some FPS in games which can be noticable in company of heros multiplayer especially. I feel its fair enough tho. There is a "hump" for vista performance just like there was for XP. Up to it the OS runs like a dog compared to 98SE likewise up to the hump for Vista it runs like a dog compared to XP but as the bottom of the line new PC surpasses that hump Vista will become ubiquitous just like XP has. I'm also hopeful that refinement of the Creative xfi and Nvidia drivers will help performance. I don't understand why MS stopped EAX from working but they did and creative are doubtless gonan take a while to catch up... possibly xfi2 knowing there past record for product support.

 

Security.

 

Alot of people are saying "wait for SP1 to fix securiity" this is I feel a second hand opinion being upheld by legions of fairly technically knowledgable people with very little basis. Its possible a huge security flaw could be found in vista tomorrow but its equally possible one could be found in XP tomorrow. Its very likely the same flaw would affect both. The only major security patch I've recieved on Vista so far was for an exploite which existed in cursor handling of IE and affects every windows OS that can run explorer. MS put alot of effort into security in Vista and I think its paid off. I've brought a virus or 2 home of memory sticks from work by accident since going vista and even without my AVG antivirus (I don't use resident sheild) they couldn't do anything on vista. With vista your much safer from new threats than XP due to user control. On a safety scale I'd put Vista alot closer to Linux than XP at the present time.

 

Network Control panel.

 

At first I put this down to newness, unfamiliarity, stupidity on my part but I'm now convinced its bad design. On XP I can get from desktop to a network config in 5 clicks (inlcuding a right click to open a menu and the left click to select as 2). It is impossible to get to the Vista network adapters and open they're properties in less and 8 because you have to go through network managent first. A page that has little or no information that you wouldn't know before getting there. You can bet I'm going to network options because I don't have an internet connection or a lan connection telling me when I get there that the internet isn't available is not the most useful. I fragged my WRT54GL router flashing a firmware recently and had to visit network properties alot in the process of fixing it so this one really wound me up.

 

Windows firewall... when I turned it off I meant it. Re-enabling it every time I change a network setting doesn't make me happy.

 

BTW in response to somone above. When I allocate network adapters to safety zones they stay there. Sounds like you've found a bug.

 

In short I'm happy on vista atm. My games work, my videos and music work. My re-encoding and DVB TV card software work, my 2.2k TB raid array works and the usability features are making me faster in routine tasks. Media centre for all is a huge boon too.

 

It wont be going near the school network for at least 3 years maybe more. Until there is a real need for it either because MS stop supporting XP or we get software of strong educational or management value that needs Vista. For home use tho I'm sold and I think you guys should at least be giving it a fair chance instead of falling into the "I read badvista I hate it" or "I eat up MS propaganda I love it" camps.