Is Vista Really Bad?
Following the initial release of Windows Vista, Microsoft received maybe the heaviest criticism from Windows users. New, shiny operating system failed to support some most basic hardware and some common tasks such as a simple file copy ran very slow. Powerful and expensive PC’s were required to run Vista. Shortly things didn’t look good. But in reality, is Vista as bad as it sounds?
Short Answer… No.
Today, Vista is a capable and visually attractive operating system bundled with a lot of useful features for an easy and efficient user experience.
Then, Why the Doom Talk?
Most of the criticism had a lot of merit when Vista was initially launched.
Timing of Vista’s release was the biggest problem. Actually, Vista today is what it was supposed to be two years ago. Microsoft simply released Vista when it was not ready for release. Though Vista was not in an extremely bad shape at the Launch date, hardware manufacturers were not ready with their drivers. Drivers either didn’t exist or had been insufficiently tested and optimized. When I installed Vista for the first time, it failed to recognize the most common Logitech webcam which I had for years. I had problems with the onboard sound even though Vista recognized the motherboard and installed the drivers. There is nothing more frustrating for a user to lose what he had before an upgrade which is supposed to improve his experience.
Another important reason for user-discontent was the success of the competition and I am not talking about Apple here. I am referring to the competition within Microsoft, which was the robust, mature and competent Windows XP. With vista, Microsoft’s challenge was to please a community who were extremely satisfied with XP. Obviously, it didn’t work well. Many people including myself reinstalled XP after the first Vista attempt.
Vista was very slow compared to XP. Boot time was longer while Microsoft tried to make us believe otherwise. Even though Vista displayed the desktop sooner than or at about the same time with XP, it took much longer to start being able to do anything useful with the computer. Poor hard disk kept spinning endlessly, and then the gadgets appeared. More spinning and system tray icons appeared after the other in slow motion. A file copy which is one of the most basic tasks of an operating system took forever to complete.
The final blow to Vista was the User Access Control (UAC) concept which indiscriminately annoyed every single user. The screen dimmed during most common tasks and users were asked to approve certain tasks in the name of security but without almost any practical consequence other than making users doubt themselves, feel more insecure and lose more time.
Despite genuine complaints, the “I don’t like Microsoft” syndrome contributed to overall unhappiness substantially. This group of people, mostly insufficiently knowledgeable Apple missionaries, used Microsoft’s Vista failure to bash Microsoft and Windows relentlessly. After this massive propaganda, many believed that if they installed Vista, they would no longer be able to boot their PC’s.
Today’s Vista
Vista even when it was released two years ago introduced quite a few new or improved features, to name a few, gadgets, new and extremely useful sidebars and navigation tools for the Windows Explorer, an improved and properly organized control panel, much more user-friendly networking controls and an extremely good looking user interface. On the technical side, Vista provided better utilization of multiple-core processors, new and more secure driver infrastructure, DirectX 10 and genuine 64-bit support.
The most serious problem of missing or inefficient drivers has been solved in time when hardware manufacturers released new drivers for Vista. Today, Vista is equally or more hardware-compatible than XP.
Slow boot or file copy times haven’t been entirely solved, however, after Service Pack 1, the speed has improved – or I feel that way because simply I got used to it.
The competition with XP is almost won. Microsoft focused their efforts on Vista Development and consequently stopped XP improvements aside from security. Vista caught up with XP and overtook it in many areas, particularly with its x-64 support. Except Vista’s higher hardware requirements, I don’t see a reason why one would go back to XP today.
UAC? ...Sorry. Still there.
As for the anti-Microsoft or anti-Windows lobby, I believe talk will always be around and Mac lovers will use Vista’s drawbacks as an argument to convince simple PC users to switch to Mac. Microsoft will still be accused of copying or stealing from Apple or if Microsoft does not adopt a Mac feature, they will be criticized for not having it (No misunderstandings here, I am not a Microsoft fan. I am planning to buy a Mac myself for different reasons though).
And yes, finally, I recommend Vista to anyone who already has XP or plans to buy a new computer.