Windows Vista underwhelms CNET!

[K. Eng]

http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_U ... 13603.html

Perhaps we're spoiled, but after more than five years of development, there's a definite "Is that all?" feeling about Windows Vista. Like cramming an info-dump into a book report the night before it's due, there certainly are a lot of individual features within the operating system, but the real value lies in their execution--how the user experiences (or doesn't experience) these--and like the info-dump, we came away shaking our heads, disappointed. Compared with Mac OS X 10.4, Windows Vista feels clunky and not very intuitive, almost as though it's still based on DOS (or at least the internal logic that made up DOS).

But is Windows Vista a bad operating system? No. It's just a disappointment for PC users who hoped that Microsoft would deliver something truly exciting to finally leapfrog ahead of Apple. They failed.

I've had access to Vista since the corporate release, and I have to agree with CNET's conclusion. I like the Vista interface, but on the whole the OS doesn't wow me. It's just not enough to make me move away from Windows XP SP2 (which I run in classic mode).

Stability and Security are two areas where Vista might beat XP, but honestly, the only time XP has ever crashed on me was when the video chip in my T40 went bad, and as that's a physical hardware problem, it can't be blamed on MSFT. It's anybody's guess how secure Vista is compared to XP.

[pianowizard]

Stability and Security are two areas where Vista might beat XP

Can we assume that as long as Microsoft periodically offers security updates for WinXP, it's almost as safe as Vista?

[jdhurst]

<snip>
Can we assume that as long as Microsoft periodically offers security updates for WinXP, it's almost as safe as Vista?

I think so. The only problem I ever had with XP was a failed UPS that led to a corrupted hard drive. It still worked mind you. I had a failed attempt at a Symantec Firewall at a company one time (BSOD on Windows 2000) on a Company computer. However, I can safely say I have had no BSOD's on my own Windows 2000 and Windows XP Pro computers.

I have not been hacked either.

So with XP Service Pack 3 due out in 2008 (delayed over Vista development) and given the first thing I did with Vista was put it in Classic mode, there is sure no rush.

As soon as Netscreen puts out a Vista client, however, I will probably purchase a Vista Certified pre-Loaded ThinkPad, because I will have clients who will move to Vista for some reason or another.
... JD Hurst

[tomh009]

Can we assume that as long as Microsoft periodically offers security updates for WinXP, it's almost as safe as Vista?

Well, those just patch security holes.

Vista goes a step beyond with security features mainly aimed at business customers: user account control, IPSec improvements, network access protection policies and service hardening.

[Kyocera]

I like the Vista interface, but on the whole the OS doesn't wow me

I liked it a little at first, never got the "wow factor" at all though.

[tomh009]

I like the Vista interface, but on the whole the OS doesn't wow me

I liked it a little at first, never got the "wow factor" at all though.

I didn't feel a big "wow" either. But then I didn't get that with OS X, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 95 ...

I remember maybe four "wow" moments (relating to computing environments) in my computing career.

1978: TRS-80 Model 1. This was a big shocker when you were used to queuing up with a deck of punched cards and then picking up your output. A system with keyboard and monitor that would respond instantly to your input. Impressive!

1983: 4.1BSD on VAX 11/780. Hierarchical filesystem. Visual editors (vi!). Email. Text processing. Laser printing. This was serious computing!

1984: Macintosh. It was unbelievable what the Apple engineers had achieved. Truly an impressive machine in spite of its compact size, a quantum leap even compared to the Lisa.

1994: Windows NT 3.5. Now this was a serious OS, not just another shell on top of DOS. System services. Unicode. ACLs. Proper security. TCP/IP and LAN Manager built in. Console subsystem. Some POSIX support. And no more 16-bit stuff.

Now, it's been 13 years since NT 3.5 ... am I getting jaded in my old age? Or are the improvements just more incremental in today's world?

[pianowizard]

Now, it's been 13 years since NT 3.5 ... am I getting jaded in my old age? Or are the improvements just more incremental in today's world?

I think it's because most of these "improvements" aren't really necessary. NT 3.5 (which, incidentally, I've never used) probably could already do most of what people need.

[K. Eng]

Windows 2000 was a big wow for me. NT was nice and stable, but the driver library wasn't that big, and the software compatibility was still not totally there.

Windows 2000 had no problem detecting my system's devices, and had few software compatibility problems.

I remember switching to Windows 2000 in July '00. I had been doing some video editing projects on Windows 98SE, and enduring the memory leaks and random crashes associated with Win 9x. Windows 2000 pretty much ended all those problems for me.

[tomh009]

Windows 2000 was a big wow for me. NT was nice and stable, but the driver library wasn't that big, and the software compatibility was still not totally there. Windows 2000 had no problem detecting my system's devices, and had few software compatibility problems.

I remember switching to Windows 2000 in July '00. I had been doing some video editing projects on Windows 98SE, and enduring the memory leaks and random crashes associated with Win 9x. Windows 2000 pretty much ended all those problems for me.

Windows 2000 was "very nice" for me as I recall -- a number of improvements over NT 4.0, and it ran much better on laptops. But not having run 95/98, it wasn't a quantum leap (for me).

But as pianowizard said, NT already covered much of the critical functionality, and subsequent releases have mostly added "nice-to-have" features.

[Kyocera]

Now, it's been 13 years since NT 3.5 ... am I getting jaded in my old age? Or are the improvements just more incremental in today's world?

I think it's being jaded but not necessarily related to our age. I got hold of Vista and OSX at the same time (within a couple of weeks of each other) and still use OSX but Vista has been relegated to dual boot nowhere land. Hopefully there will be another huge leap into something completely new and different someday. MS seems to be just content to improve XP and call it vista, they are playing it safe, it may take some total "unknown" to come up with something with that wow factor.

[RMD]

I couldn't disagree more with Cnet's assessment.

The fact of the matter is that Vista is an *excellent* OS. It is leaps and bounds better than XP.

It seems like these reviewers are judging Vista by just the interface. They don't seem to care a whole lot about the *many* under the hood improvements.

Things like PNRP, IPv6 support, the new services security model, kernel scheduling improvements, the new componentized architecture, and MANY other things make Vista must have.

[pianowizard]

I couldn't disagree more with Cnet's assessment......It seems like these reviewers are judging Vista by just the interface.

That's what the CNET reviewers always do. Look at how they review laptops. They only consider the immediately obvious things, like the number of USB ports, battery life, weight, etc. I have never seen them say a word about durability, software stability and other things that would require them to actually use the laptops for a while.