Life After Vista

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Life After Vista

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Max Slowik
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Sep. 20, 2007

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Introduction

Vista makes you look good naked.

I've made the switch to Vista. Completely. My home theater PC and file server is running Home Premium x64, my gaming computer uses Vista Ultimate x64, and my laptop, my precious workhorse, the heart of my professional life*, is running Vista Home Premium x32. None of them run perfectly, but I'm never going back to XP, and it will take a lot to get me using Ubuntu or OS X again anytime soon.

*My professional life includes watching GI-Joe public service announcements that have been voiced over. "Pork chop sammiches!" "Who wants a body massage..."

I'm not tied to specific hardware or software vendors; even if I were inclined towards Microsoft, I can't knock the benefits of their competition, and there's no way I can succumb to fanboydom and remain impartial. On the other hand, I can't just sit on the fence and say with a straight face that all tech is created equally.

As a hardware reviewer, I might be inclined to pick nits and justify every possible angle and opinion for every possible option on the horizon, but I'm not. I've probably got more in common with the same people who believe that the blue shirts at the brick-and-mortars are experts, and ultimately just want to go home and use a computer that works. A computer that doesn't need to reboot to change settings or, worse still, have an update that sinks my UI into a murky pit of CLI despair.

There is a vocal minority of people who go nuts about percentages and tweak micromanagement and build revisions and...the list goes on. But I have to deal with beta drivers and engineering samples and scratching my head over why this stupid freaking card won't run 3DMark by itself, but works just fine in Crossfire all day. So, just like the remaining 90% of computer users, when the only thing standing between me and insanity is a guy holding a rocket launcher, I'll just lose it all if I have to first deal with a couple hundred megs of patching before I can (virtually) cleave someone with a shovel.

Before I get into the irony of Vista stability (it's a mixed bag: when Vista works right, it's great, but, when it doesn't work, there's almost no option other than buying different hardware and hoping the drivers are functional), I need to stress what I use a computer for.

I spend more time than everything else combined surfing tubes. This is stuff that any OS can do, right? Productivity in general can't possibly be improved by some clever features and the slick looks of Aero Glass...or so I thought.

Then there's the media aspect. Since first cobbling together a home theater PC, I got hooked by the elegance of a TV, video, and music hub, and I've found that an HTPC is another gizmo that's going to be the center of my entertainment system for years to come.

And gaming. I loves me some violent video games.

Lastly, Microsoft users need to take this to heart: Vista is where the wind is blowing. Let's assume that XP somehow manages to hold things together until Windows 2009 (or 7 or Plateau or whatever) comes out: the same arguments currently against Vista will still apply. "It doesn't perform as well as XP/Vista. All my programs are made for XP/Vista. It's expensive. I'm going to wait for SP1. I'm switching to Ubuntu Voluptuous Vole."

Why tilt against windmills? But, in making the change, Vista seamlessly improved all of the above things for me, with the exception of a few, er, seams. This article is completely anecdotal, and I have no intentions of tallying benchmarks and bandwidth numbers; I'm talking about what it's been like using nothing but Vista on every one of my personal computers since June.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Why Vista Isn't ME 2.0
Page 3: XP Limitations
Page 4: Vista Improvements Over XP
Page 5: What Vista Needs, and Who Needs Vista

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21 User Comments

1 - Posted by HCP2 on September 21, 2007 - 3:08 am

Reviewer <--- Vista fanboy

2 - Posted by aireiq on September 21, 2007 - 8:54 am

As long as TTL has one for every OS flavor, it'll be fine. I count a Vista fanboy and an Apple fanboy so far. I wonder if there are plans to hire a Linux zealot or BSD fanboy soon.

And what about Plan9?

3 - Posted by Kurtis on September 21, 2007 - 12:19 pm

I'm a Windows XP fanboy, if that counts for something.

And Brian was an Ubuntu fanboy for like... 2 weeks. :-P

4 - Posted by Rich on September 21, 2007 - 4:47 pm

Win2000 is all the OS you will EVER need! Although I will admit I am running XP at the moment.

5 - Posted by Bbig on September 24, 2007 - 9:24 am

So biased!
Win as Serversoft? You gotta be kidding me!

You tell (write) so much, but there are no points you make or give examples!

Sum up: Bad article from an Vista Fanboy or payed by very that company!

6 - Posted by Kurtis on September 24, 2007 - 10:14 am

Yup, that's it. We were "payed" by Microsoft.

Next time Max writes an article, I'll have him email you to make sure that you agree with his opinions. If not, then we'll have to change his article to agree with your own personal opinions. How's that sound?

7 - Posted by Bbig on September 24, 2007 - 11:17 am

I give you an example:

On the 5th page "Stability and Speed":
He says, that XP crushes on his "workstation".
- Eh, Hello? I'm an hardware-enthusiast myself - and XP is stable.

And on this paragraph he does _not_ mention, that Vista _has_ speed "failures", or how do you explain, that copying the same file on XP can take to ~60% longer?!
- That is what i mean, when i say, it is _so_ biased!

==> Sure, there are some "pro" arguments on Vista, but where are "all" the new kliller-feutures - right, you *hope* they come with SP1...

Sry, this is in my opinion bad journalism.

8 - Posted by Max Slowik on September 24, 2007 - 12:51 pm

> He says, that XP crushes on his "workstation".

XP and Vista both crash (just like any OS) but Vista crashes to the desktop while the same tests cause XP to BSOD and reboot. Furthermore, they seemed less frequent while running Vista. This was pretty easy to correlate by looking at my uptime logs. The virtualization and improved driver model really do make Vista run better, where the same practice of swapping hardware in XP makes it less stable, to the point where I constantly have to re-install XP from scratch for benchmarking hardware.

> And on this paragraph he does _not_ mention, that Vista _has_ speed "failures", or how do you explain, that copying the same file on XP can take to ~60% longer?!

I did, actually, address this. I said that the recent performance/service & reliability updates corrected this, along with the audio glitches. That was, in fact, the catalyst for this article; those were the two primary reasons for hesitance in endorsing Vista. Once they were corrected, or at least the symptoms abated to the point where they were not noticeable, I thought it'd be OK to tell people it was a worthwhile OS.

> but where are "all" the new kliller-feutures - right, you *hope* they come with SP1...

Even without them, I'd still use Vista; for me the real killer feature is the searching and indexing, with DX10 close behind. I do expect them to be in SP1, because they're a part of the SP1 beta right now.

> Sry, this is in my opinion bad journalism.

This is an editorial, just take it for its face value.

One of the things I stressed, and continue to argue, is that Vista will only run well on hardware made with Vista in mind. It, in every case where I tried to install it on older hardware, hardware that far and away exceeded Vista's requirements, didn't run well at all.

Still, it was much easier for me to switch over to Vista than from XP to XP x64, which was probably because of the fact that x64 didn't bring any new features, just incompatibility. Such is the nature of being an enthusiast; the willingness to accept problems in the face of being an early adopter. Sometimes this is disastrous, often it's merely painfully disruptive. But I'd rather be an early adopter than accept the popular standard.

Switching to Vista was far from cut-and-dry, but once I got it right, it became clear to me that it's a more featured, polished, and modern OS.

9 - Posted by Rich on September 24, 2007 - 8:04 pm

Since when do we get "payed"??? I have been doing this for free all this time???

10 - Posted by Brian on September 26, 2007 - 9:27 am

When do you get paid... when do I GET PAID??!!?!?!?

If we're sellouts like what's-his-face says, I want my cut first!

11 - Posted by Rich on September 26, 2007 - 12:28 pm

Oh come on, what do you REALLY do anyway.....IF selling out was an option how comes I am just hearing of it??????

12 - Posted by BCSchnei on September 27, 2007 - 4:14 am

I always find it funny that some of the most fanatical people are the first to label someone else a FanBoy if they don't agree with them. Like it really matters. If someone likes a product for whatever reason, then I would say they ARE a fan. So what, is that a bad thing!?

I think a persons preference to a OS is highly dependent on what they want to do with their computer. In my case I use it for browsing, email, some music and video tasks, capturing pictures from my camera and play games. For me being able to play the latest kick ass FPS, RTS, or RPG I only have one choice in OS's and that is Windows. I know it’s possible to get other OS's to play games. But that takes work, I already work in the IT industry and have to solve software and system problems all day. When I get home I don't want to have to monkey around for an hour or more to get to be able to play the game I just bought, or have to wait months or years for someone to make a port. Screw that! I just want the damn thing to work, and I find that Windows works best for me and the things I want to do. Now there are many people out there who don't play games so that may make a different OS a better option. Good for them!

I loaded Vista about 3 months ago. I have to agree with Max, it is a very nice OS, but not without its problems. The UAC is rather annoying at first, but after 3 months of use and having all my day-to-day software installed, it rarely pops up anymore. I have had a couple of old programs that I haven't been able to get to work, but I'm ok with that. I probably really need to upgrade that old Broderbund landscaping program from 1995 anyway. It is also a little annoying trying to find where some of the admin tasks are now located, but that is just a little learning curve and I am fine with that. If that scares you then don't use Vista.

Even with these issues, I still have no plans on ever going back to XP on my home computer, in fact I have started upgrading my kids' system so that I can take advantage of the built-in Parental Controls that Vista offers. I also really like some of the new troubleshooting and monitoring tools. I have had less problems with this upgrade then I did going from 95 to XP.

Nice article Max. I’m glad to see a review that is something other than just performance problems on old hardware and a list of issues that some whiney reviewer had getting a driver for a old scanner or camera to work.

Ben

13 - Posted by Rich on September 27, 2007 - 3:01 pm

Now if you could just get a Site license for Vista, I might consider changing...

14 - Posted by Max Slowik on September 27, 2007 - 4:49 pm

"Nice article Max. I’m glad to see a review that is something other than just performance problems on old hardware and a list of issues that some whiney reviewer had getting a driver for a old scanner or camera to work."

Thanks. I know I said it, but I'm right there with you with just wanting my computer to work; I knew I wasn't alone.

15 - Posted by Reflex on November 30, 2007 - 5:24 am

Max -

Just wanted to point out that Monad has already been available for a while now. Monad was the code name for PowerShell, and Vista versions of it are up on the Microsoft website. It is not getting integrated into Vista, although it will be integrated into Windows Server 2008. Go check it out, its worth the download.

As for WinFS, it is not in the SP1 release and at this time is not scheduled for any Windows release. The last statement made about it was back in 2006, and its dev team was essentially folded into the SQL team. It may make a comeback, but it won't be during the Vista timeframe unfortunatly.

16 - Posted by Max Slowik on November 30, 2007 - 7:56 am

I've been slowly learning how to use Monad, even back when I was rolling XP x64, and I know it's been available for a while as an option. But I had no idea WinFS got dropped that hard. That's a real loss.

I'm going to look into this some.

17 - Posted by Reflex on December 6, 2007 - 12:11 am

The official list of Vista SP1 updates/additions is up. I'd post a link but the forum software won't let me. DailyTech has a news article up about it now...

18 - Posted by Kurtis on December 6, 2007 - 4:36 pm

Yeah you have to be registered to post links. Here's the DailyTech link: http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+to+Target+Pirat...

19 - Posted by ND06 on December 10, 2007 - 4:48 am

Max, about WinFS, you can find a good FAQ on the WinFS blog that was posted last June. Since I cannot post a link, search "msdn winfs" on Google and it should be the first result.

20 - Posted by Kurtis on December 10, 2007 - 1:28 pm

Here's the link ND06 mentioned...
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/26/648...

21 - Posted by aln12483 on January 9, 2008 - 12:29 am

Well written article and all of my hesitations regarding the upgrade to Vista has been shed

:)

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