What caused the extreme negative image of Vista?

brian.shapiro said:

sysrpl said:

*snip*

I'm sorry, I used Vista every day on a 2GB machine I bought a year before Vista was out and performance didn't bother me at all. I just got really tired of people telling me I should hate it and think it was crap.

I hear Vista ran terribly on netbooks and UMPCs, so EvilSEO is right that Vista sucks, if you're running a UMPC.

Most people like the breadcrumb bar, most people aren't interested in deleting the search index. The largest problem with search in Vista is that aside from the Start menu, Microsoft failed to make it very accessible to users. Most people would have never found features like stacks and automatic filtering because they wouldn't be looking for them. The search form in Explorer was also very limited.

Again, I'm not a fanboy, I was just enjoying the features in Vista and got tired of people telling me I should hate it.

 

You are free to enjoy Vista, jsut as I am free to dislike the chaos I see in the new control panel design. But then there are also the factual problems, such as those described by Evil SEO, or the factual problems I encountered: slow newtork file copy, USB peripherals not working, important software incompatibility problems like with QuickBooks QBXML, and one nForce powered system I had refused to run Vista.

Obviously many people had other probems with Vista as well. You may have not had their problems, maybe you didn't need you didn't need QBXML, but that doesn't mean it was unimportant to large numbers of users. As I said before, Vista offered me nothing beyond XP aside from aches. It took six years for Microsoft to develop a new consumer OS (XP to Vista) that I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) didn't care for. Six years is a log time to wait for a disappointment, and being a developer, I was quite upset with Microsoft for stymying progress (again, as I saw it).

I understand that you've enjoyed Vista, but I also hope you can understand why many people have a negative view of Vista.

I don't think Vista's release was problem-free just that the problems are overstated. A user buying a new computer with an OEM copy of Vista would have experienced no real problems, but people were advised by zealots on the issue to downgrade to XP.

The control panel was one of the things I liked least about Vista, although I think they've made it more palatable in Windows 7. I don't care that its in a web-style view instead of property sheets, it looks pretty nice, but its a bit too much like a maze of links when they could consolidate a lot of the pages.

brian.shapiro said:

I don't think Vista's release was problem-free just that the problems are overstated. A user buying a new computer with an OEM copy of Vista would have experienced no real problems, but people were advised by zealots on the issue to downgrade to XP.

The control panel was one of the things I liked least about Vista, although I think they've made it more palatable in Windows 7. I don't care that its in a web-style view instead of property sheets, it looks pretty nice, but its a bit too much like a maze of links when they could consolidate a lot of the pages.

 

brian.shapiro said: The control panel was one of the things I liked least about Vista, although I think they've made it more palatable in Windows 7. I don't care that its in a web-style view instead of property sheets, it looks pretty nice, but its a bit too much like a maze of links when they could consolidate a lot of the property pages.

Well stated and agreed.

Evil SEO said:

What caused the negative Vista image? Maybe you can start from the longhorn videos that portrait something entirely different instead of that slow P(OS) with so many broken features (Resolution independence? Broken (the sidebar misbehaves, IE7 requires an obscure registry key to do proper scaling or all the pages look completely messed up...). Firewall? Broken (if you have ONLY 1 public connection all sharings are turned off on ALL connections? WTF design is that?). Higher performance with DX10? Can't still see a faster game. The new audio architecture? Broken (audio skipping, network throughput dropping while playing audio, unbelievably high CPU usage of WMP while playing content because of the protected pipeline DRM cr*p...). The new TCP/IP stack? Broken (how many routers is Vista incompatible with? And don't blame the routers for these stupid useless tcp/ip settings Microsoft forced that you can't even disable without obscure command-line commands). The new Explorer? Ultra-broken. Desktop Search? Can't count the times I had to delete the index. The new Windows Update? Can't count the time updates and even service packs failed to install and rollbacked. and the list could go on and on...) and plenty of bugs (how many cumulative reliability packs in just 2 years? a dozen?). Not to mention the many consumer-screwing marketing choices you could even write a top 10 about.

Vista IS the worst OS microsoft released, not ME. ME had its problems most of which were caused by bad drivers but Vista... Vista is really, really bad by itself even when you don't count the amazing number of bad drivers that were and still are released for it (the hard drive of one of my laptops that has a stupid nforce 410 controller just got corrupted for the nth-time (BSOD + chkdsk finding tons of errors at reboot), thank you nVidia drivers) just 1 day ago.

I have to admit, that longhorn video was great.

sysrpl said:

brian.shapiro said:

*snip*

You are free to enjoy Vista, jsut as I am free to dislike the chaos I see in the new control panel design. But then there are also the factual problems, such as those described by Evil SEO, or the factual problems I encountered: slow newtork file copy, USB peripherals not working, important software incompatibility problems like with QuickBooks QBXML, and one nForce powered system I had refused to run Vista.

Obviously many people had other probems with Vista as well. You may have not had their problems, maybe you didn't need you didn't need QBXML, but that doesn't mean it was unimportant to large numbers of users. As I said before, Vista offered me nothing beyond XP aside from aches. It took six years for Microsoft to develop a new consumer OS (XP to Vista) that I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) didn't care for. Six years is a log time to wait for a disappointment, and being a developer, I was quite upset with Microsoft for stymying progress (again, as I saw it).

I understand that you've enjoyed Vista, but I also hope you can understand why many people have a negative view of Vista.

 

sysrpl said:

important software incompatibility problems like with QuickBooks QBXML, and one nForce powered system I had refused to run Vista

Which is of course one of the other problems, poor third party products. Is the fact that Quickbooks has problems really a Vista issue, or does it also fail in Standard User accounts on XP? Is NVidia's inability to write a decent driver really the fault of Vista? When choosing who to blame, who do you pick, the OS vendor or the Application vendor? Rightly or wrongly, most people blame the OS.

sysrpl said:

To answer the OP's question, when Vista first came out...

Network file copy ws completely broken. It would take forever to copy large files with every system I tried.

My USB peripherals and my Sound Blaster Live PCI card plain did not work. One computer I have with a nForce chipset, a 2Ghz CPU, and 1GB of RAM refused to run Vista.

UAC was overly annoying. Some important (to me) software programs didn't work when it was on. Some important (to me) software features didn't work at all. (QuickBooks QBXML interop for example).

Little things annoyed the hell out of me. I don't like the breadcrumb metaphor extended into explorer the way that it was. I did not lke the breadcrub path bar. I liked to see and edit the full pah always. I liked being able to press backspace to go "up" a folder and was annoyed that backspace now went up. I was annoyed that you can no longer easily change file type icons. The control panel was a mess in my opinion, you know ... moving away from applets with dialogs that had property sheets towards a "web like" explorer view. Not good IMO.

The Windows theme API introduced in XP was depricated for no good reason.

In general, Vista ran slower and hardware drivers were unstable. I believe Microsoft is partly at fault for this for changing the driver model quickly a few times leading up to the release of Vista, pulling the rug out from under hardware vendors causing them to lose confidence and dollars chasing Microsoft's changing dates.

There was also the whole Vista Capable Intel IGP fiasco.

Most importantly, Vista offered people little to no benefits over XP. In most cases it was beneficial to stick with XP, as you could be reasonably sure all hardware and software would work with it, whereas with Vista it was questionable.

I could go on, but  think you get the idea. I had complaints and XP was good enough. It took six years for Microsof to develop a new consumer OS (XP to Vista) that I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) didn't care for. Six years is a log time to wait for a disappointment, and being a developer, I was quite upset with Microsoft for stymying progress (again, as I saw it).

Cheers

I agree that stability was an issue and it felt mostly driver issues.  I bought a brand new Dell in March 08 with Nvidia 8800GT graphics and although drivers were available, it took 6 months of driver updates before there was one available that did not randomly drop the system into low res mode requiring manually resizing the desktop.  This was very annoyning and painted a very poor picture while I used my XP laptop with no issues. 

Mind you that I bought my machine over a year after Vista general availibility and still had massive issues. Imagine the experience of people who bought in Jan 2007.  Although today Vista is actually very good, after years of pain there was just no way to rescue the Vista image. The only way was to rename the system and cut the cord to the past...  Windows 7 is very much Windows VIsta, but it is Vista 2009, not Vista 2007-2008. 

I have IT pros at my company that wouldnt touch Vista with a 10 foot pole but are excited about Windows 7.  I think that is good news for MS.  Let the upgrade cycles begin...

Joiseystud said:

sysrpl said:

*snip*

I agree that stability was an issue and it felt mostly driver issues.  I bought a brand new Dell in March 08 with Nvidia 8800GT graphics and although drivers were available, it took 6 months of driver updates before there was one available that did not randomly drop the system into low res mode requiring manually resizing the desktop.  This was very annoyning and painted a very poor picture while I used my XP laptop with no issues. 

Mind you that I bought my machine over a year after Vista general availibility and still had massive issues. Imagine the experience of people who bought in Jan 2007.  Although today Vista is actually very good, after years of pain there was just no way to rescue the Vista image. The only way was to rename the system and cut the cord to the past...  Windows 7 is very much Windows VIsta, but it is Vista 2009, not Vista 2007-2008. 

I have IT pros at my company that wouldnt touch Vista with a 10 foot pole but are excited about Windows 7.  I think that is good news for MS.  Let the upgrade cycles begin...

Another thing... the price was too high. 

I hope this time around MS is agressive with pricing and lenient with Licenses.  I would like to see a family upgrade plan that covers 3 machines. Apple does this and it is great.  I would upgrade every machine in my house if this was done, otherwise it will be likely that I will be living with Vista until I replace my machines.  This could take a long time because my machines are all pretty modern.  I dont see the need to replace my Dell Laptop with 4GB of ram and 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo any time soon.  Really, if MS has any chance of upgrade sales, they will need to be aggressive on upgrade pricing to get users away from Vista. 

Evil SEO:

------------
"Many users had to upgrade the firmware of their routers or replace them (if unsupported) because of Vista autotuning (there was even an article on slashdot about a full provider having that issue), because Vista requires a special non-standard OPTIONAL DHCP flag that many routers don't support to get an IP address. Sources: (1) (2) (3)..."
--------------

I swear to god, that I haver never heard about this issue until now. I am not saying you make it up or something, since you provided the links and all, but seriously, I have never heard it before. And I had never trouble with routers.

I never had problems with providers. Actually, my PC is directly connected to the DSL modem now, never had a problem with the provider.

I think this issue was not that widespread, otherwise the noise on the internet would be much louder. Imagine the Apple ads: "Vista kills your router!"

SEO:
--------------------
"Because you have a core2duo, try on a slower machine (like an Atom-based UMPC) to play a video on WMP both on XP and on Vista and you'll see an huge speed difference, it's so huge that even putting the mouse over a tooltip could make the video skip (there's even a funny KB about the issue on Microsoft's website. Solution? Don't move the mouse while playing...)."
--------------------

Sorry, but this is purely anecdotic, because I have a story too:

In 2006 my best PC was an Athlon XP 2000+ with 512 MB RAM(!), 80GB HD and a Geforce FX 5600 graphics card. Not really hightech for that time. I have installed the Vista Beta back then on that machine. And it worked. It wasn't really fast, (the main problem was the disk trashing), but workable. Tried some games, like Warcraft III, they worked, without much slowdown. And, I was able to play videos in WMP without any audio skipping issues or other problems. I tried mpg, avi and wmv videos. Streaming worked too.

And this was ON THE VISTA BETA! With BETA DRIVERS FROM NVIDIA!!

This experience was the reason I bought Vista in 2007 when I got a new PC.

That's why I am not convinced by your horror stories. I am not doubting that they happened, but it seems that Vista was not the sole factor for all that problems people had. by the way, you are just one guy on a forum that had negative experiences, I had positive. Does it prove something? No.

Judging by forums, Mac OS would be the biggest pile of crap on Earth:

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235&start=0#threads

Cannot restore Mac OS X to previous version with time machine
gmail wont show any emails in mail?
10.5.7 Macbook sleeps once, freezes second time
10.5.7 update deleted all mail accounts except MobileMe
Mac os 10.5.7 update messed up my mail. cant see message viewer!!!
Stand-by problem with 10.5.7
10.5.7 update problems
Internet is ~8x slower on Mac than in Windows
Irritating pop up from old deleted app...please help me get rid of it!!!!
Looping blue screen with 10.5.7 install
Distorted graphics in Leopard when scrolling
Time Machine Error - again again..

And so on and on for wooping 7207 pages!

Some anecdotic problems that some people had doesn't explain the massive hate against Vista.

SEO:
------------------
"Longhorn was set to be released 3 years before Vista and was planned to have major changes not just in the UI but Microsoft decided to do a "reset" of Longhorn development because they couldn't finish it in time and all people got was an OS with a superficially pretty UI where many features were delayed, cut or just left half broken because even after the reset they had to rush to avoid releasing something outdated."
------------------

Agreed, features were cut. But this fact doesn't explain the negativity. Most people don't give a crap about cutted features or delays of an OS. I still think my explaination that I gave in my first posting in this thread is more valid for the negative image.

SEO:
----------------------
"That video is not so amazing according to today's standard but it was really astonishing in 2002-2003. Vista was really too little and too late and the high hardware requirements, bugs, missing drivers and that resident unfinished feel certainly didn't help its image."
----------------------

It was not THAT astonishing. And of course, all eye candy was badmouthed from the get go, here is an article from 2004:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/a1fb7bfa41151de8/f3ccccc2eb4349f1?hl=en&ie=UTF-8

-----------------------------------

Longhorn Tastes the Apple
Wed May 5
Richard Fisco - PC Magazine

The first day of WinHEC 2004 (the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference)
in Seattle had, as expected, a major track on Longhorn. It focused on the
new user interface and what Microsoft is planning for its next-generation
operating system. A big part of it could be summed up in a word: 3D.

3D graphics on a PC have long been stuck with a "for games only" reputation.
Of course, you could rightfully argue that 3D performance has been the
driving force behind most recent PC performance increases; usually, the
"application" that needed all the horsepower your PC could muster wasn't an
application at all, but a high-powered 3D game. But now the shroud of
illegitimacy is about to be lifted, as Microsoft prepares to rely on 3D
performance to power its Longhorn operating system.

[....]

Microsoft's demonstrations were interesting and somehow familiar. After
looking at some images and icons that grew bigger or flipped when chosen, I
couldn't help but think of the dock on Apple's OS X. There's more to
Longhorn, of course, than just that dock. Microsoft is looking to have
applications add useful, related information in bars alongside open
documents, like upcoming appointments and related cases if you're in a law
program, or favorite-show information if you're in a TV search tool.

Overall, though, Longhorn still had an Apple look to it. I suppose imitation
is a form of flattery, after all. It'll be years before Longhorn launches,
but it should be fun to watch it develop. Microsoft is giving out early
copies of it at the end of WinHEC, so there'll be lots more written about it
in the coming weeks.

----------------------------

So, Vista was badmouthed pretty early already, and the eye candy was one of the reasons. If Vista would have been released with EXACTLY the same GUI as in that Video, it would be damned anyway, because of the reasons I wrote in my first post.

Vista has a negative image because people badmouthed it, and people badmouthed it because people hate Microsoft.

Why do people hate Microsoft? People hate Microsoft because Microsoft is fundamentally in everyone's business. Intel hates AMD, AMD hates Intel. They are bitter competitors. But Microsoft competition is basically the whole software industry and then some. They compete with so many different entites, eg: Oracle, IBM, Apple, Adobe, Google, free software, Sony, Nintendo. These entities might not even share much of anything in common otherwise.

If Microsoft was a good little boy and stayed in their little nitch they wouldn't get as much hate. But they seem to want to own everyone's business. Pretty much they would love to bankrupt everyone, and control the whole industry. That's why so much Microsoft hate. Hate is just a natural response to a threat. No matter how big they think they are I believe Microsoft opened too many fronts against too many "countries", and it's going to (or already is) biting them in the * in the end.

my 2 cents about Vista.

PEBKAC umm... Only if the chair is in Redmond.

Main issues IMHO

1. Backward compatibility with existing apps. (This was the biggest issue.)

I had 3 apps that needed serious work a-rounds to get working. Two were in use in companies. After that they just started down grading to XP and waited for a Vista version of the Apps.

I know.. I know.. most were caused by the app not being very secure. User data in program folders etc.

2.System requirements.

I can say that the requirements going from 3.11 to win 95 were as big a step. But MS failed to say from the get go you need serious kit. They did it better with win 95 but not as well with Vista.

3. Drivers

Drivers were more of an issue for me going from 3.11 to 95 than with Vista but they still are. I still have an XP partition to use a scanner [ and play some games   ]

Other issues

System lockups still..

I have a quad core with a total of 8GB ram Vista Ultimate x64 and it still locks up!!!??

Win Vista is nice don't get me wrong and I do like it _now_ , but looking back it was a #####  .

I think with W 7 there is not as big a jump in sys requirements and most app's and drivers will work.

That is completely correct.

It is capitalism that is at the heart of this, growth, diversification and so on. Once upon a time you had Glaxo. Then Glaxo + Smith Kline, then Glaxo + Smith Kline + Beechams, or here in England you had Lloyds of London the Bank. Then Lloyds + TSB and now Lloyds + TSB + Halifax + Bank of Scotland.

For all the companies that loathe Microsoft, most would exchange places in a second. I also think the Bill Gates foundation has done more for humankind than most Governments put together, certainly more than Oracle, IBM and even the FSF

Of course they would. Microsoft is the biggest beast in the list I said. But for the most part these companies have a niche and they stay in it, they might move to another business but they aren't like Microsoft who spreads their tentacles EVERYWHERE. Actually this is hurting Microsoft, they are so spread out competiting against Google, against Adobe, agaanst Nintendo, against Oracle they aren't doing a good job competiting with anybody. If you look at they balance sheet it's mostly just Windows and Office holding this company up, none of their business reaches are really doing very well. And they hurt Microsoft's PR in such ways that it effects Windows in the end anyway.

Bass:

"Why do people hate Microsoft? People hate Microsoft because Microsoft is fundamentally in everyone's business. Intel hates AMD, AMD hates Intel. They are bitter competitors. But Microsoft competition is basically the whole software industry and then some."

[....]

--------

Yeah... but what has it do with Vista? Customers don't give a rats * about corporate politics. Why is Windows 7 praised as if it is made by angels and was fed by ambrosia? Win7 should get the slack also by that logic. And why is XP so heralded now? (it wasn't when it was first released)

I still think my explaination makes more sense. Never before were so many computer novices like in 2007, and they got for the first time a different operating system! And, compared to previous consumer operating systems, like win98, ME... XP was very stable in 2007.

Many people encountered for the first time initial problems with an OS, which they never have experienced before (since they only knew the by then mature XP), and they panicked.

Win7 gets the praise, because it is basicaly Vista 1.1 and all the drivers and third party applications are mature now.

Another issue is that Vista doesn't profit as much from the CPU than you would think. I have a friend who basicaly bought the same PC as me, with one difference: the chipset. Mine is a 965P from intel, his was cheap crap from SIS. The RAM amount was identical, as was the CPU.

Vista ran on his PC slower, the chipset made a noticable difference. I think that even if I had a slower CPU (say 200 mhz slower) my PC would be still faster than his.

Unfortunately, too many people only care about the RAM and the CPU forgetting everything else. Microsoft makes the same mistake, I wish they would highlight the need of a good hard disk and a sufficent chipset more than just the CPU.

The consumers DON'T need to know about the corporate politics. If someone from Google tell Joe Sixpack Microsoft is the devil and Vista is a piece of crap, Joe Sixpack WILL believe him. And then he will tell his other friend Joe the Plumber that his Google friend told him Vista sucks. And the on and on. Customers do what they are told, especially if what they told is an expert opinion (ie from a tech or computer scientist). If there is a few thousand very loud but influencal people out there, they can potentially influence millions. Even someone with a lowly job like Geek Squad tech can influence thousands of people over the course of a year. IMO bad word of mouth hurt Vista, mostly started by computer experts/professionals with beef with Microsoft. I was just saying why people have beef with Microsoft in the first place.

vesuvius said:

That is completely correct.

It is capitalism that is at the heart of this, growth, diversification and so on. Once upon a time you had Glaxo. Then Glaxo + Smith Kline, then Glaxo + Smith Kline + Beechams, or here in England you had Lloyds of London the Bank. Then Lloyds + TSB and now Lloyds + TSB + Halifax + Bank of Scotland.

For all the companies that loathe Microsoft, most would exchange places in a second. I also think the Bill Gates foundation has done more for humankind than most Governments put together, certainly more than Oracle, IBM and even the FSF

 

Being pedantic, but Lloyds of London != Lloyds TSB

Bingo! "...VISTA capable tag on equipment that was obviously not really capable of properly running the thing"

I dealt with many a unhappy soccer mom and.... pick some pithy idiom for the males... who purchased a dirt cheap Vista Home Edition PC with 1GB ram at... pick your favorite box store.

These people had a legitimate beef... IMHO.
Sure they could'a should'a would'a done some home work but, they didn't. They trusted the labeling.

Edit: And... remember... they had little choice! They could not opt for XP and, really, Linux wasn't an option (sorry Linux fans).

ScottWelker said:

Bingo! "...VISTA capable tag on equipment that was obviously not really capable of properly running the thing"

I dealt with many a unhappy soccer mom and.... pick some pithy idiom for the males... who purchased a dirt cheap Vista Home Edition PC with 1GB ram at... pick your favorite box store.

These people had a legitimate beef... IMHO.
Sure they could'a should'a would'a done some home work but, they didn't. They trusted the labeling.

Edit: And... remember... they had little choice! They could not opt for XP and, really, Linux wasn't an option (sorry Linux fans).

True, the Vista Capable thing was definitely the biggest cockup they could make. It's interesting to read those leaked email, how even some of the toppest of brass were violently against it. I have no idea who decided to pursue it, but it'd be nice if they were held responsible for it somehow.