Vista Kicks Ass
Nice article about Vista on eweek via Hacker News. As I said in the comments there, I find all of the anti-Vista sentiment perplexing. My theory is that it’s just due to shoddy OEMs like Dell trying to use it to polish the proverbial turd.
I bought it the day it was released and installed on both my desktop and Lenovo X60. The desktop died long ago (due to a faulty hard drive and my own laziness) but the Lenovo is still going strong. I haven’t had to reinstall once, and with XP I typically would have 3 times by now.
I don’t have any idea what’s involved in an upgrade for a large corporation running lots of Windows XP machines, so it’s quite possible that Vista is rather uncompelling for that market. But for someone buying a new PC, I’d recommend Vista wholeheartedly.
First there’s the aesthetics. It’s a much better looking OS, and that alone will increase your enjoyment factor significantly. It’s visually stunning, especially if you’ve got the graphics horsepower for the aero glass effects, and we’re visual creatures. That sort of thing is never to be underestimated. Not that I’m in favor of the style over substance approach that Apple uses, but a little more prettiness definitely goes a long way.
Then there are a dozen little ways in which it’s more enjoyable to use. Networking has been greatly simplified. No more running a wizard on every PC, it just automatically detects the network. And when connecting to a new wireless network it just asks you whether it’s a public one, a work one, or a home one and configures security settings accordingly. That probably doesn’t mean much to your average Hacker News reader (in fact it might be a tad annoying to them) but it means a lot to their parents.
The sidebar is a nice touch. The most common comment about that is “they stole that from OSX”. So? If it’s a good feature, why not? OSX took plenty of cues from Windows, yet it’s actually possible to read an article about Apple without some moron pointing that out.
The search is great too. No more wading through long lists of programs, just type the first couple characters and hit enter. I realize that this and the sidebar are possible in XP given some third party apps, but most people don’t know that, and even if they do it’s undeniably better to have that functionality built in at the OS level.
Navigation in explorer is much improved. Let’s say you’re viewing something in your program files. Suppose I’m editing some images in my Full Tilt poker folder. When I’m there in explorer I see at the top C:>Program Files>Full Tilt Poker>Images . Each word is a link, so with one click I can go back to Program Files or C:>, rather than having to hit up or back a couple times or dealing with the address bar.
I like the built in, easy to use rating system for media. Media Center has been given a beautiful overhaul too, though I can’t really comment as to its functionality since I don’t record with it anymore. Bluetooth in XP can often be like pulling teeth, in Vista it’s a snap. I find the control panel layout to be more intuitive. I could go on and one with one little feature after another that I like better.
There are a few warts undoubtedly. I’ve found the most commonly cited one, driver support, to be a non-factor, but then maybe most people have older hardware than me. Either way, I could definitely name a few things about Vista that I dislike. But as a whole the OS is much more enjoyable, and anyone buying a sufficiently powerful PC (and you really shouldn’t be buying any less nowadays) would be a moron not to get Vista on it.
Of course, I also steer people away from Dell, which almost every Vista hater I’ve encountered is running. The difference in build quality between them and Lenovo is roughly equivalent to the difference between Kia and Lexus. (In this equation I guess HP would be Toyota). It should come as no surprise that almost every Windows user at Y Combinator this summer (which there were very few of) had a Lenovo.
So buy a good PC, and get Vista on it. Or hell, buy a Mac if that’s your bent. But don’t believe the anti-Vista hype. It’s just the bleating of mindless Apple fanboys.
September 30, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Matt,
I couldn't agree more. Vista runs most of the laptops in my company, the only exception being our music studio machines only because we haven't taken the time to do the upgrade (in testing the latency was actually lower than what it was under XP so I'm anxious to do it soon).
Some points that you didn't touch on that I want to share:
Internationalization. For those that need international keyboard and language setups (we're based in Taiwan), it has been quite a pain in previous versions of windows. The typical setup for a windows XP machine for us would involve a localized language version of the OS which is a support nightmare for me and my limited chinese. Vista makes the ability to switch between languages painless.
Mobility. All of our machines in the office are laptops. To put it simply, the features just worked out of the box with Vista (fingerprint scanners, audio, video, etc). Windows update made the experience even better updating all of the drivers on first connect.
Upgrades. I plug something in and it just works. Windows driver update over the internet is far and above what we experienced with XP. Perhaps we're lucky in our choice of mainstream hardware and software, but so far our experience has been simple.
Like you I have a number of things that are pain points, but all in all our experience has a pleasurable one.
October 1, 2007 at 8:16 am
Let me take these points on ONE at a time:
Aesthetics – Yes, VISTA DOES look pretty. However, this can be obtained for XP to display in the same manner – 0 Points
Networking – Easy? Sure, if you don't know how to use a network, and you don't have to have specific information in the setup, I would say ALL are easy. Wizards? Nope, cannot run them because they setup the Network incorrectly, and don't allow for things to change. Yes, it could be the programs fault, but if there is NO specific Vista version, the only thing you can do is run the program and hope it works. (I reinstalled XP because of Vista not allowing access to the Network Properties)
Sidebar- Yahoo widgets works great in Vista.
Searching – I used this once in Vista (had Vista running/installed since release, and still never needed this 'feature') and have to say if you cannot locate something on your system (with what sounds like a single HDD) then you need to work on your management skills.
Bluetooth / USB – What peripherals can be run in Vista through these interfaces is a mystery to me. In Vista, my Camera (Olympus), multi card reader, USB Drive, Bluetooth adapter and Peripherals ALL REFUSED to be functional. No Drivers. In XP, I plug it in, and wow, it WORKS.
The camera is less than a year old, as are the other items.
Media Compatibility – DIVX won't install. CODECS are random (if they work at all), and like I said, my camera isn't seen by Vista.
I reinstalled XP and now am able to run programs. my memory footprint in Vista was 40% at boot. XP? -> 19% with 5 programs running (and the Widgets). Also, no “SECURITY WARNING” everytime I try to move/copy/delete files.
And this is on a Dual Core 3GHz w/4gb memory, 5 HDD's and 1GB nic's
Vista is pretty though…..
October 1, 2007 at 11:50 am
Vista might be alright in 2 years when the hardware has caught up. But it does not offer any substantial gain over waht can be achieved with XP. Gaming suffers, as do many other apps.
October 2, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I've got DivX working fine. FFDshow.
You can't compare one OS to another OS + third party apps.
October 2, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Yeah, playing older games sucks every time there's a Direct X upgrade.
I tried playing StarCraft on my Vista machine the other day. It was just sad.
October 9, 2007 at 5:40 am
I've had great success with Dells the last few years, but recently had one go bad on me. Dell support (it was under warranty) grossly misdiagnosed a pretty obvious memory failure and demanded that we reset the machine to factory specs. That's like a week's work to put it back together again (I had enough functionality to get a back-up before I reset it).
I looked at the Lenovo website, but they don't have the mini-desktop I've gotten used to (Inspiron E1705 w/ 1920×1200 17″ screen, VGA and DVI for dual external monitors). Does Toyo^H^H^H^HHP have a machine that has those kinds of specs?
Thanks, Lee