i bought an HP desktop with Vista in late June to use at home (I use XP on a Dell in the office).
I have been pleasantly surprised (we saved all data in preparation for having to reformat the drive and install XP instead). There have been very few problems. The few that we have are:
(1) Java, in spite of its claims, does not work consistently in Vista. For example, it refuses to allow interactive crossword puzzles in Netscape but occasionally allows them in MS Explorer.
(2) Occasionally Vista refuses to allow me access to my own folders (I am an administrator on the machine!) until I close and re-open Windows Explorer or occasionally reboot.
Except for these 2 problems, it appears to work well.

There are several advantages I have noticed:
(1)More and better choices to view files in Windows Explorer, including 3 sizes of thumbnails (called something else in Vista).
(2) the ability to see MUCH more data on a file in Windows Explorer - its creation date, first modification data, last modification data, the data a picture was taken...... probably about 40 data items you can display.

Except for that, I don't see much advantage for me (I am a user who prefers that the computer NOT do things for me), and it is noticeably slower in many ways.

Wow, almost 40 minutes and no one has posted their experience with Vista? Either your loyal readers are all on a coffee break or they're like me and refuse to install this bloated, buggy O/S until they're forced to do so. Windows XP runs just fine for me, thanks... I have no need whatsoever for an operating system that SLOWS down my computer without providing any added value.

My venture into vista first required a doubling of ram capacity just to get it to run.
The problems I experienced with the OS have driven me back to using XP.
My next PC will be a Mac or something with Linux

", even if the Flip 3D application-switching effect is no match for Mac OS X's Expose"
No match for Expose, hows about no match for Compiz-Fuzion (the renamed Compiz/Beryl)? Not only are there a much larger number of 'affects' the hardware requirements regarding memory and graphics system is minimal.

At some point mainstream tech writers need to consider alternatives to MS (and occaisionally Apple) products. The lack of coverage is akin advertising for MS.

I think that Windows Vista is the greatest thing that has ever happened...for Apple. I say this because using Vista makes me want to jump out of a window or switch to a Mac, the latter being the more reasonable option.

Vista is cumbersome, difficult, and buggy. For instance, the software seems to be missing codecs that play MPEG and other video files properly. Can I hunt down third party codecs on the internet and install them on my machine? Sure. But why should I after purchasing the latest and, supposedly, greatest OS to come out of Microsoft. I feel gypped.

Some people are awed by the graphic interphase, but is just fluff. Though the graphic interphase is more attractive than XP's, it does *not* make up for all the headache that using Vista represents.

I have yet to meet a Vista user who is happy. In fact, a number of people I know, myself included, are considering installing XP Pro on our machines. At least we will be able to be productive on them when software actually works properly and we are not bogged down giving permission for one action or another every two minutes. oi!

4 machines - all Vista. All great.

You guys are trolls.

No Vista for me...I left Windows last year for good and am using Linux.

If Vista was the way you describe it to be the economy of the US and worlds would pretty much come to a halt because of the reliance on Windows/Intel techology for running businesses in the whole freaking world. You are idiots. Go look at mac forums for problems with any operating system.

Read these commentaries (warning bad language)

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

I have been using Vista all summer at work, on a brand new laptop with decent specs. My impressions are mostly negative.

- Vista is very slow to boot, slow to open programs, slow to do almost anything.

- I am sick of the "Cancel or Allow" dialogs popping up for every little thing. Apple's TV commercial about this was right on.

- I have had some annoying compatibility issues.

- The 3D features and effects are sometimes an improvement from WinXP but usually come across as a cheap imitation of Mac OS X.

- Office 2007, on the other hand, has been very enjoyable to use since it stopped accusing me of piracy.

Conclusion: My experience with Vista has been unpleasant enough that I am considering making my next computer a Mac.

had to buy vista when my earlier computer hard disk crashed. bought new dell machine; dell xp printer would not work with (ever) lexmark never updated drivers properly; bought new hp printer--worked fine. vista fights kodak digital upload program, some of my direct x 9 games will not work; hold my breath every time i try and intall new progams. have learned to maximize use of windows programs (like media center) to avoid conflicts. overall, a step back from windows xp sp 2. oh, i disabled user account system so i did not have to click multiple times to do anything. the protected verson of ie 7 is disabled so i can surf the internet as greater than modem speeds (i have broadband, but it was slower than a modem with the feature on. oh, of three instant messaging programs only yahoo worked on my machine. i wish the japanese would buy up microsoft and produce a quality product.

Rob, Mr. Mac, what you seem to forget is that windows will be installed on 1 billion computers as of this year. You can troll for bugs, and bitch and moan, but those computers are giving people opportunities they never had at a CHEAP price. Go buy a 300 Mac and send it Africa - you can't do it. Maybe if Apple opened up their OS to hardware folks and allowed them to lower the price so most normal AMERICANS and folks in the GLOBAL world could have a chance to use the technology this would be a great conversation. I am so sick and tired of all this apple talk. They make great machines, but it's an elitist machine - deal with it.

Admittedly, I work in a primarily Mac office. We do need a few Windows computers and never had a problem with XP. We even use Parallels.

The new Vista computer has one bug we can't figure out that's driving me up the wall. It continually needs us to "Register." We've Registered and restarted, backtracked and tried turning off the option, all kinds of things. I think we've registered at least 12 times. And unfortunately, this warning pops up directly OVER powerpoint presentations. Which doesn't go over well at large meetings.

I got a new laptop in January; it was initially XP, but I installed Vista once the free upgrade was available.

So far it's been a fairly pleasant experience. Many of the little touches, especially in windows explorer and task manager, are very nice. Laptop functions like sleep and hibernate that did not work properly in XP do what they're supposed to now -- this alone was worth the upgrade.

The only program incompatibility I experienced was with Nero OEM, but other tools and the built-in burning capabilities suit me fine with Vista. The other glitch I have is that if the computer has been put to sleep, it somehow loses the digital rights necessary to play dvds. I have to reboot and watch them before ever putting the machine to sleep.

I bought a new Dell with 1 gig of ram that had the upgrade to Vista. Once I got VISTA installed (this took several days), the laptop felt like it was stuck in mud. Everything, especially the initial boot, took a lot more time. Aero was a nice effect but slowed the laptop down even more. Most of the applications worked ok, just slower. However, I could never get my firewall and virus scan working. I found another product that would work and installed a trial version. The security with the UIC was extremely annoying, turned that off almost immediately. After two weeks, I decided I would rather have the speed than a nicer looking interface and went back to XP. I won't go back to VISTA unless I get something with extremely serious horsepower behind in. I can't see that I would ever get a laptop with VISTA again.

James Fallows, at The Atlantic, has written about his experiences with Vista:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/biting_the_bullet_on_windows_v_1.php#more

I upgraded to Vista Premium. I can't say that I have noticed and positives from the upgrade.

I biggest negative: I appears that Microsoft and/or delivered stripped down drivers for may devices. I have an HP g85 all-in-one printer. With XP I was able to fax from within any program and print double sided documents. I now have to manually do both of these task. When I looked for solutions on Microsoft's and HP's website they suggested that I to Vista Ultimate or purchase a new Vista ready printer.

I think I'll upgrade to XP.

Installed Vista on year old machine after upgrading memory and graphics to meet requirements. Used it for a month; went back to XP. Only gain I saw was better graphics. Downsides included problems finding and installing drivers for peripherals, extremely slow file operations, VISTA wouldn't let me use new printer shared on an XP machine, had to edit registry when VISTA stopped seeing my CD/DVD drives. Final insult was VISTA wouldn't load when I installed another GB of memory. When I reinstalled XP, none of these problems occurred. Maybe I'll try again after SP1, now delayed to 2008.

Hey Guys

You all need to go out and take a look, Microsoft did sell a billion Vista programs at the wholesale and oem level, but the units are sitting on the shelves at Sam's, Wallmart and Computermegabox gathering dust. Come on, go take a look, make up your own mind.

Compared to XP, Vista the desktop operating system is buggy and inconsistent. UAC needs serious help, and I had to disable the Windows Search service to speed up basic file operations. But the enterprise utilities built into Vista are fantastic. They alone are worth the switch. The new firewall console is a perfect example. It's not quite as intuitive (or as dangerous) as iptables or ipchains, but you can deploy it via group policy, and that's a big improvement. Disk Management has dynamic partitioning. Awesome. The new boot (BCD) store is incredibly useful. From a command line (or a script), you can configure your BCD store to load an FS image into a ramdisk. Which is great for diskless (or USB device) deployment. You can script PnP driver installs with pnputil.exe. Sysprep is built into the OS. And so forth. There are a thousand little plusses that make Vista a much more sophisticated and useful operating system from an enterprise support perspective. I'm not sure that I would want to use it on my home desktop, but as an IT worker, I'd sure rather develop and deploy 1000 Vista boxes than 1000 XP boxes.

My girlfriend bought a DELL laptop with Vista, against my objections, only to find that for some reason we could not connect to the internet with it. Vista was not allowing the signal to come in, and kept saying our ISP was to blame. We contacted them, spent about an hour on the phone, the contacted Microsoft, spent two hours on the phone, and finally gave up. It was not working, and just staring back at us, mockingly! We returned it, and had DELL send us the same model, Inspirion, with Windows XP Pro, and it worked fine right away.

I've got an HP Laptop, but in a year when it's time to get a new one, I'm getting a MAC!

Using Vista on a Dell laptop...

Plus
- Resize icons and some text without changing the screen resolution. This allows me to keep the highest screen resolution and still actually be able to read from the laptop screen. Lowering the screen resolution on a laptop often has a loss of sharpness.
- Start menu seems better. Now if only developers would follow their guidelines and stop make six layers of folders for a single program. No, I don't need access to the README from the start menu (I think this has been mentioned here before). In Vista typing the name of the program also seems to work.
- Suspend/Sleep mode works much better for me than under XP. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm always shutting down by accident or not being able to wake up under XP. Vista is better at this.
- File browsing feels better as mentioned by others.

Minus
- Some hardware compatibility issues (National Instruments). Forcing me to still use XP.
- Nothing overwhelmingly better. Mostly, shrug, big deal, not much different.
- I also had some media issues.
- Memory hog. What is it using it all for? I hope not graphics - they're not THAT good.

Unsure
- Security/Administration makes a little more sense, possibly (I'm hedging my bets). Besides the annoying permission windows - which don't seem to occur as frequently now that I have most of the software I use installed - seems to be a little better. The user accounts are not so crippled that it feels like you can't do anything, but there remains some role for the administrator, without making everyone an administrator. Noticed mostly in updating programs - which sometimes requires administrators. I have not really tested the consistency of this feature though and can't decide if it's a real benefit or just a burden.

Conclusion - Still undecided but hardware/software issues keep me in XP a fair amount of the time. I was hoping for more radical changes in the user experience. It's very ho-hum for the time spent in development, more of an update than a whole new OS.

I bought a Mac and hated it so much, I borrowed the cash for a Dell Vista laptop. On Vista, it is hard to find programs I use often, I won't let me download and save new programs without interfering with the operation of other programs and thank goodness I purchased tech support with my new laptop or else I would be seriously hosed. I had to call them at least four times in the two months I've had the laptop.

But I would rather call Dell Tech support than deal with the slow as molassas no tech support mac behemoth sitting in my living room supporting my sound system.....

should i upgrade my vista ready pc or keep windows xp meadia center.

Got Vista on a new HP Quad core with 3GB ram last week -
Don't see a big difference in interface from xp except that you have to learn how to do things differently. Don't see big deal of aero. Haven't noticed any big benefits from my xp laptop. The built in media center is kinda nice and I can watch TV while working (helps productivity).

Negatives - Compatability. iTunes dies every time I try and import a file (grrrr). I bought Adobe CS3 Suite and Vista did not like it at all on the install. All programs would hang on 1st use. I had to uninstall - then disable the firewall - then reinstall and then everything worked. Seems the secirity police in Vista have problems with apps that try and check the web without permission. A very frustrating 6 hours. Vista has a compatability mode to run older XP apps - although strangely it does not show up as an option on some older apps. No divx support for vista.
Also - I have an apple router and the vista firewall randomly locks me out of a shared printer and usb hard drive that work fine on my xp laptop and another mac desktop in the house.

Overall - it came with my desktop so I am fine with it. But I wouldn't recommend an upgrade on an old machine. Just no real cost / benefit.

I bought a Thinkpad with Vista Home Premium preinstalled and had nothing but problems. The OS would ask for my permission to continiue but not tell me specifically what I was allowing to continue. It also had a fingerprint reader login system that only worked 1/4 of the time. Finally after letting it sit in the corner, I installed XP Pro this weekend. I'm still annoyed that I wasted the extra money to buy a machine with the premium version of the OS.

Vista re-boots itself spontaneously. 'Nuff said.

I installed Vista...really gave me a bunch of headaches with the common problems that have already been discussed...no need to mention them again.

A few months ago, I bought a Mac and love it! I still have the Vista machine, but it's basically been neglected since I got the Mac.

I bought a new Dell with Vista Premium Home. I tried to install a VPN on the machine to no avail. I finally got in touch with a Microsoft specialist (above the first tier of support help) who rather sheepishly advised me that this version of Vista would not support a VPN, even thought the set-up wizard was present. I have since learned that even the top version of Vista presents real problems with VPN hook-ups.

I have since gone back to XP.

I bought a new Dell with Vista Premium Home. I tried to install a VPN on the machine to no avail. I finally got in touch with a Microsoft specialist (above the first tier of support help) who rather sheepishly advised me that this version of Vista would not support a VPN, even thought the set-up wizard was present. I have since learned that even the top version of Vista presents real problems with VPN hook-ups.

I have since gone back to XP.

I got Vista on a new computer I bought back on March 17, and I have to say that I LOVE Vista. It makes file navigation much easier and its graphics and configurability are a major improvement over XP, more than XP was over 98. It took only a little bit of getting used to.

My biggest problems have not been with Vista but with companies like HP which have not provided proper Vista-compatible drivers and software for their "legacy" printers, scanners and whatnot. HP (and I am singling them out because they affected me personally, but I'm sure that other manufactures have behaved similarly) provided only rudimentary drivers for the HP LaserJet 5550, a not-that-old printer, and no drivers at all for their ScanJet 6300C, an older but still perfectly serviceable scanner. This is inexcusable, but it isn't Vista's fault.

I have had very few software compatibility issues, the worst being with the new version of Ad-Aware that actually was released AFTER Vista -- but the older version works just fine. Nero was a problem for a while, but they addressed it fully. All my freeware and open-source software has been fine (with the exceptions of the actions I just provided).

But the best thing is the truly rock-solid stability. I have had no problems at all of any kind, and I push this thing to the max nearly constantly with high-end graphics and video. I have yet to experience my first system crash, and I use the machine literally every single day.

There ARE differences between Vista and XP that some people might have difficult getting accustomed to, and there is no question that Vista is more resource-intensive than XP, so I would question the wisdom of upgrading an older XP computer to Vista. But for a new computer, Vista really is MUCH better and it's WELL worth the short learning curve, in my opinion. Indeed, in my opinion it's worth getting a new computer just FOR the Vista.

Vista turned me (a 15 year Windows user) to a Mac convert.
See my blog entry at:
http://vistasucks.wordpress.com/2007/06/18/a-thought-from-the-author-pc-vs-mac/

I have Vista on a new Lenovo T60. The OS just isn't stable. My previous IBM laptop almost never had BSOD's. This one does on a routine basis. I just had one on Friday. It was bad enough that I decided to install Ubuntu Linux. Linux was more stable, but its GUI is somewhat primitive and its power management options are poor compared to Windows. The people who insisted that I would be better off paying more for a Mac might have been right.

The big disappointment is that you are expected to throw out all existing devices and applications out of the window with Vista, unless they are 3 months old or less or the applications have been rewritten. For an average user the cost of switchover is fairly high and intimidating. I did manage to even bring back to life some devices which do not have a vista driver released yet, but it requires investment in time and some tech. skills, as I do not want to discard perfectly working apps/devices in XP. The partnership with industry and planning ahead would have paid better dividends.

Vista has been a difficult and unpleasant experience for me. Some factors:

1. I went from W98 to Vista. The
overall punishment was extreme, since few programs made the transition. Switching from Outlook Express to Outlook was brutally frustrating. What's more, OE was simple, Outlook is adsurdly complicated for basic users.

2. There is/was a continent -sized scam ongoing in retail stores. If you buy a computer preloaded with Vista, Miscrosoft will NOT provide support. That's right, you cannot call them with a question, they will politely directyouto your manufactuer (Gatewayin my case). Gateway will often say, ask Microsoft. Consider the bizarre reality: you have a brand new operating system which few techs do not use personally; it is incompatible with many program suppliers, who have not updated their code; there are few forums established with the usual deep bench of answers available through Search; and Microsoft will NOT help you. I had several argument about this with Microsoft reps. One called me at home. He said, essentially: "Look, we gave Gateway a discount when they put the Op Sysin their retial machines,and the terms of that deal are that they will provide support, not us." Fine. May I point out that this is a well kep secret from consumers: you wilnto see a sign in Best Buy saying, "You Should KNow that Microsft Does Not Support Vista Unless You buythe Program and Install it On Your Computer Yourself."

3. I was sold Spysweeper and Trend Antivirus programs. When browsing, a small wheel appears at every click as these multiple protections check for dangers. This made the new computer,with dual processers and a gig of ram, considerably slower than my old W98 machine. I subsequently turned off the ActiveX Shield, which helps some.

4. I purchased an additional 2 gigs of ram for a total of 3 gigs.

5. I have been writing and editing on computers since the IBM PC with 256K. Yes, I use Google EArth and Windows Movie Maker now, but the notebook in which I write down my tedious, endless troubleshooting notes, with printouts of the multipage tech chats from India, is filled more than ever.

6. I went to Vista in January. I felt like I was alone. I felt as if I were the only person in the universe using this system, and that my problems were brand new, never encountered before. More than half the time the tech on the other end was having his first experience, too. Together we grappled, failed, consulted supervisors, and apologized to each other. A Gateway tech in India went through four 20-minute contiguous help sessions with me, and went we succeeded he let out a yelp of triumph.
Oh dear. That is not what one hopes for, is it? To be in on the ground floor of universal confusion and despair?

The salesman at Best Buy took me aside. I wanted to edit homevideo, and have a faster computer. I had $1000 to spend, just on the box. He said, "Look, I have a Mac." I've had Macs, I didn't feel like making that paradyne shift again. I shoulda, because in my case--bear in mind, a long time betwen Op Systems--Vista has been pure punishment.

Who or what to blame? I blame the non-information agreement between retailers, Microsoft, and the buyer. We buyers got screwed.

We will not forget.

I have been using Vista all summer at home, on a brand new desktop with decent specs. My impressions are mostly negative.

- Vista is very slow to boot, slow to open programs, slow to do almost anything.

- I am sick of the "Cancel or Allow" dialogs popping up for every little thing. Apple's TV commercial about this was right on.

- I have had some annoying compatibility issues.

- The 3D features and effects are sometimes an improvement from WinXP but usually come across as a cheap imitation of Mac OS X.

Conclusion: My experience with Vista has been unpleasant enough that I am considering making my next computer a Mac.

To the individual who posted an earlier comment stating that the worlds' economy would stop if there was any merit to Vista's many problems; take note: I'm sure most of the businesses in the world who are using a Microsoft OS are using Windows XP SP2. I have a PC (home built) that uses an AMD Athlon 64 bit CPU and 512 MB RAM with XP Pro SP2 and I see no reason to upgrade to Vista. Those who are accustomed to Microsoft products know that the company never brings a new OS to market that is trouble-free. It takes 6 months to a year for MS to correct the bugs in the initial release.
My advice is if XP is working well, don't upgrade. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

To the individual who posted an earlier comment stating that the worlds' economy would stop if there was any merit to Vista's many problems; take note: I'm sure most of the businesses in the world who are using a Microsoft OS are using Windows XP SP2. I have a PC (home built) that uses an AMD Athlon 64 bit CPU and 512 MB RAM with XP Pro SP2 and I see no reason to upgrade to Vista. Those who are accustomed to Microsoft products know that the company never brings a new OS to market that is trouble-free. It takes 6 months to a year for MS to correct the bugs in the initial release.
My advice is if XP is working well, don't upgrade. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I never post to discussions like this, but my impressions of Vista are so negative that I feel I should. I have been a PC/Windows guy forever and am a pretty knowledgeable user. I bought a new Dell desktop with lots and lots of memory, fast processor, etc., for my wife/kids to replace a dying (6-year-old) Compaq running XP. The experience of moving existing files over (including Outlook PST file) and getting the machine up and running was so painful and unnecessarily difficult -- and the performance of the Vista operating system on a substantially better computer is so much worse than XP was -- that I am finally persuaded to give up on Windows. My next family computer WILL be a Mac. Only Vista could have convinced me of that.

I've been using Vista on a new work laptop all summer. I'm due for a new computer at home. For the first time ever, it'll be a Mac (and I've had home computers for 25 years).

Vista stinks and I would never pay my own money for this crap. It's wretchedly slow, using the most complex programs to open files rather than the simplest (what happened to the "open with" option anyway?). It bogs down all the time. There is no value in learning new ways of doing things just so the screen is prettier--it should function better, too, and it doesn't.

I don't know about others' experiences mentioned here about laptop hibernate functions working better -- mine gives an error and reboots every time.

You don't have to buy a Mac if you don't like Vista. Try Ubuntu, the free Debian-based Linux operating system. Ubuntu allows you to mount NTFS file system and access your documents. This allows you to keep your PC hardware investment.

After considering buying a Mac, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well Ubuntu is running on my Pentium workstation.

www.ubuntu.com

Wow. Very discouraging reviews of Vista. I need to replace all gear, but have no need for media/bells or whistles. Document intensive user [Word/Excel],e mail & Web for news & research. Am afraid conversion to Mac will raise compatability issues with my Windows only colleagues. Any thoughts ?

I upgraded to Vista Ultimate in February and for the most part I'm glad I did. Since it was a brand new OS, I was expecting to encounter problems, such as software and driver incompatibilities. Yes, there were a bunch. And installation was a nightmare. Luckily I'm a IT pro and am good at solving these kinds of problems; I'd hate to be someone who isn't as savvy. There still are a few annoyances, but overall things are running smoothly now and I greatly prefer the new UI. Most of the problems have been addressed by getting the latest drivers or finding new/different software or other workarounds. Due to the improved file system, my productivity has probably increased by a small margin. I have a fast machine (Core 2 Duo E6700, 4GB RAM) and have no problem with sluggishness. Still I'd recommend buying a new machine with Vista pre-installed than upgrading from XP.

Life with Vista

Needed a new laptop and Vista was coming out so I waited until Vista was a month old at the end of February. New computer itself was great, 17", 2 GB, huge hard drive. Same issues with software and hardware compatibility everyone else is having (I also blame Palm and HP for not doing their part with upgrades, and other companies that just went to a new version of their product without providing an update to the one you bought recently and now keep sending you e-mails to buy again, at full price, what you already bought from them, Nuance comes to mind). This issue will improve with time, I am sure.

In June the DVD drive stopped working and the internet broadband connection would drop without any reason. I called the computer maker and they couldn't solve it. Told me to go to plan B, reformat. I said no way (besides, the DVD drive wouldn't read the discs). They told me then to take it to their rep in DC, which I did. The solution, "reformat." I took the computer back for a few weeks because thinking of reinstalling all the programs I had in there again was a nightmare. Finally gave up and let them reformat it this month. Came back empty as expected, it was like going back to day one, start installing again (31 microsoft updates were required already after taking the computer back to the day I bought it)... The technician said that they don't know the reason but Vista will destroy the drivers for DVD drives, sound, internet, and USB. It seems that it tries to update, can't do it, and just gives up. You lost. They don't guarantee that it won't happen again but mentioned that nobody has taken the computer a second time to fix the same issue yet, they go back for a different one. They also mentioned they expect a Service Pack to come out and fix this situation. When? nobody knows.

I tell people it will be a good product in a year or two. As for me, next OS, not microsoft.

I bought a new HP laptop in Feb. with Vista Home Premium installed, & to me the new OS is nice but unneeded. XP was just fine for me; altho as others have said, some of the Vista flourishes are nice. I have 2 MAJOR problems/annoyances, tho.
1. Almost every time I use it, my HP laptop locks up/stops working when I'm using MSN Premium. MS says this is due to a problem with Adobe Flash player. I've tried uninstalling & reinstalling Flash several times to no avail. This NEVER happened with my 3-yr-old Dell laptop & XP.
2. As another poster said, HP has not provided Vista-compatible drivers for its HP printers. They expect you to use the generic driver in Vista -- but it doesn't allow use of the full range of features on my all-in-one HP printer, which is only a few yrs old & perfectly serviceable. With a lot of contortions I can find my way to all the features my printer offers, but this is ridiculous & in my opinion despicable of HP. HP has been saying for months that a new Vista-compatible driver is coming for my HP printer, but how long can it take when they've known Vista was coming for years?

I got a new thinkpad with a choice of XP or Vista Home Premium on it and I sort of regret choosing Vista. I had just assumed that there were growing pains like there were when switching to XP and anything bad would be fixed with a service pack in a few months.

The main reason I regret vista is the inexcusable memory drain. I was expecting the new laptop to be really fast with a 2.1ghz dual core, 2 gigs PC 5300 and a basic vid card. But it's just average. No faster than my 2 yr old XP desktop w/ 1 gig of ram. I turn on the laptop to use programs I have installed on it, not to ogle the OS.

The other thing I hate is the UAC. It even asks me if I want to let microsoft update run. I wouldn't mind if there was a "remember this setting for this program" but there's none. I definitely preferred setting up a low-access account on XP for day to day computing.

Final annoyance. I'm using AVGfree as my antivirus which checks for updates at startup and takes about 10 secs. The problem is that before it can finish that, Vista's security center keeps screaming that my antivirus is out of date.

I don't dislike vista. But I wouldn't say I like it either.

Vista stinks on the new HP I have, the imaged copy that came with it is a consumers nightmare of what appears to be an effort by Norton and MSFT to sell software.

As a comcast user, with free anti-virus from Mcaffee this is irritating and I wouldn't spend a dime for MSFT office let alone $500 USA.

I vote no confidence and plan to burn my HDD down now that I backed up the sys-utilities...

I don't see a compelling reason to go Vista.

I have an 8yr old HP Pavilion with upgraded RAM and an added external 32gig hard drive. When I bought my system, it came with MS Windows 98; good enough at the time. In 2001 I upgraded to MS Windows ME; a nice upgrade with features I liked. In 2003 a friend convinced me I would be better served by an upgrade to Windows XP. I spent $300 at a reputable local computer store to have my system upgraded. I had no problems with the XP OS and appreciated the features and functionality. Four months ago I started getting pop-up messages from Microsoft "advising" me that my system was in danger due to my OS being a "pirated version". I contacted Microsoft to advise them that I had been using XP for almost five years, that it had been installed professionally, that all the registration had been done in my name, and that I had not been plagued by any operational problems. The Indian or Pakistani tech support person suggested I copy out a particular OS file and send it to them. I started to do just that when I noticed the file consisted of 29,000+ pages of data. Since then I continually (every 1-2 hours when using) get pop-ups to "remind" me that my system is in jeopardy. I tried to disable the program that Microsoft "infected" my system with, but was not able to do so. I began immediately having difficulty running software programs that had never given me problems before, and could not install some software that I had the desktop resources to support. I finally decided to seek professional assistance in having my Windows ME reinstalled. I contacted Geek Squad and was told straight out that they were "prohibited by Microsoft from servicing any operating system more than 6 months old; meaning, if it wasn't VISTA, they wouldn't touch it. I have used VISTA on my job since it was installed this past March '07. My opinion: I wouldn't take it if you paid me. It's all fluff and no substance. Reminds me of Paris Hilton, a pretty face, but nothing of consequence behind the facade. I feel I'm being a victim, but not of a pirating issue; I'm being a victim of extortion by Microsoft, forced to live with the unstoppable virus Microsoft implanted in my system, or accept VISTA. It's no small wonder that Bill Gates is distancing himself from his once-great and powerful company; I'd run as fast as my stubby legs could carry me if I were in his position. VISTA is not worth the time or trouble to install it, and Microsoft Corp has lost me forever as a valued former customer. And I am readily sharing my experiences with every single person I know and posting notices such as this one on every site I can. Pay attention world; Microsoft is not the omnipotent savior of the digital universe it would like us all to believe it is. Shun VISTA! Shun Microsoft.

Four machines - one XP/Office03 desktop, one XP/Office07 desktop, one 3yo XP/Office03 laptop and, for the past two months, one Vista/Office07 laptop. Given a choice, I gravitate to the XP/07 one. Installation of software on the Vista machine is a bit like crossing the Styx with an immigration officer who needs more coffee. Just trying to use the thing seems to brand me as of criminal intent, as every move is questioned by Microsoft ParanoiaPlus. I don't actually need backgrounds seen through a glass darkly (I'm not entirely sure why we need backgrounds other than plain black). Office07 is, by and large, a boon - though I still have to find some of my standard 03 techniques (or, of course, better alternatives). My 20000 users need to demonstrate Microsoft Office capabilities or they can't move on - that isn't my stipulation, it's the market's. Trust the user, and Vista could be so much more appealing.

While my Vista home PC that I bought after my "Frankenstein" that I bought at a work garage sale crashed has not had the overwhelming problems that I read about here, I have, from time to time, seen whiffs of what everyone has mentioned here.

Just wanted to say, the comment about the world's business stopping is totally premature and incorrect. No business is installing Vista on their corporate networks, or few are. My boss did for my department, because he's a fearless visionary :) - however, all the developers have requested that it be pulled off.

It's ingrained in the business psyche now - don't upgrade the Windows OS for at least a year after release.

That being said, note that those that are not "off Windows" all say XP is fine, thank you very much. Remember what people were saying about XP the first few months.

My wife wants her own computer (we have an Apple iBook with a messed up hard-drive, and a fully functional iMac), and I seriously thought about getting her an HP laptop or Dell laptop. But after seeing how quirky Vista is, and the fact that the PC machines at work are ALWAYS messed up for some reason (this is at the Feds, with a huge IT dept. that is on top of the ball), I just decided to buy a hard-drive and install it on the laptop. I guarantee it will give less headaches than any Vista-enabled laptop out there.

I actually LOVE Vista. I was waiting for the right excuse to go back to using a Mac. After installing Vista and enduring the countless crashes, auto-rebooting, and slow motion running apps I ran to the local Apple Store. Thanks Microsoft for giving me a reason to return to the Mac!

This program is sloooooooooooooooow.

This program is sloooooooooooooooow.

I switched from Vista to Ubuntu. After vista hell, I installed Ubuntu. It took a few minutes to configure but it is the most stable and reliable OS I have ever used.

And free too!

I have four machines with Vista, and I will never go back to XP. All I hear are the same complaints every time a new OS comes out. "My old stuff doesn't work." Get a grip; life is change. A new one will be out in three years, and you can't have XP forever. As a matter of fact, when XP came out it was the same old story: "I'm never switching to xp! My windows ME (wow. This is hard to type) works great for me! I see no reason to upgrade. Grr arr *troll noises*"

To those of you considering upgrading to Vista, I highly recommend it. Best upgrade I ever made.

Reasons:

Setting up a home network has never been easier. Vista practically does all the work.

The improved search features make finding my files a snap. No more 10-minute dates with that annoying yellow labrador ( you know the one ).

90% of my old software works out of the box, and those which don't run fine in compatability mode. Those who say nothing works are grossly exaggerating.

When ther are hardware incompatability issues, like with my printer for example, the updates were easily located on the manufacturer's website. I have no hardwarethat can't be made to work 100% with Vista.

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

Those who say they HATE vista have probably never actually tried it, or came in expecting to hate it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Vista is wonderful. I can't wait to see their next one.

What could Microsoft have done to prevent this disappointment? Recently, they confirmed that 20% of people are buying XP machines, when they had pegged it at 15%.
Our resident tech guy at work, will not purchase Vista machines for business, and recently suggested our owners buy XP machines at home. I was shocked by this.
When computers are presented on QVC and HSN, they NEVER mention the potential of Media Center. Isn't this a possible Tivo-like feature. Walt Mossberg loved Media Center pre-Vista. What happened to these benefits?

I've been using Vista since launch (well, a few days before launch since I got my OEM copy delivered early), and despite the usual growing pains with any new OS (the first launch of XP was far more painful than Vista), I've been pleasantly surprised. Yes, there've been some compatability issues, but I place more of the blame with the hardware vendors for either not being prepared or for being too cost-conscious, and many of those have disappeared over time. (Case in point - it took them until May, but HP finally released a suitable all-in-one driver for my officejet 7300.) It seems there's a lot of FUD floating around, but that's not unusual...

As far as being a memory hog: it's true that Vista will utilize your machine's RAM for fancy behind-the-scenes operations that may or may not improve performance overall...I've had friends/family complain about how it's always using RAM, even when they're not using the machine, and I ask them why they care? So long as it doesn't interrupt normal usage (which, for the most part, it tries to behave, but not always) it shouldn't matter too much.

That said - for a normal user, there is rarely ever a good reason to upgrade the operating system. When buying a new computer, sure, but that's it. Most of the time, it wouldn't be worth the hassle to make the switch, especially this early on.

I run Vista Ultimate on a custom machine and it probably the greatest thing i have ever encountered including OS X. Dont get me wrong, OS X is fine and the lng awaited Leopard will have great stuff too but for a hardcore gamer/tinkerer i like MS Vista. It has amazing features and i have had no slowdowns or incompatibilities. And the issues about having to approve everything on the computer is a nice bonus, b/c honestly dont you want that control? this removes spyware and virus potentials when we actually have to approve everything that gets loaded on to the machine. It basically makes everyone responsible for thier computer, which is a nice change.

I have to say, I have been an MS fanboy for along time, and still remain one to a great extent. I have earned an MCSE in 2000, so I am fairly well versed in many MS products, and specifically in their OS's. Windows XP came out to a great deal of fanfare, and a great deal of negativity, and at first I did not like it at all. But after using it for a few months, I came to appreciate it's improvements over 2000, though there are some niggling bits I still don't like (inability to remove TCP/IP for one thing).

That being said, I was actually looking forward to Vista, and expected to overcome my intitial resistance within a couple of months as I got used to the changes. Here it is, 8 months released, and I am still not very fond of it. MS claims all kinds of workflow improvements, and to their credit, there are a FEW, but they've changed many of the most basic features of Windows (such as default file locations) that were already ridiculously obscure, and made them even MORE so. The file explorer is attrocious, an incredibly bad rip-off of OS X's explorer. The new 'security' or UAC as it's technically called, simply teaches people to click 'continue' because it doesn't explain what is being done that is insecure, and worse, won't even prevent someone who shouldn't be doing it from taking whatever action they like! OS X and Linux at least prompt you for an administrative password first, and disallows actions if one isn't provided. Vista tells you this is dangerous, but provides no means for stopping it!

Then comes the slowdown. I built what should have been a screaming machine, dual-core AMD chip, 2 GB's of matched DDR2 memory, 512 MB video card PCI-express 16x, a machine that is now 6 months old, and has never run as fast as a 2100+ with 512MB of ram running XP. Vista is beyond memory hungry, it is a drain on any system it's loaded on, with Aero being a cycle-hog. I build the system images for my company, and I turn OFF all the visual bells and whistles in our XP images, because even in XPthose features slow a system down, why waste your CPU's time making your system look pretty, instead of making it efficient? Just because Apple can? I'll turn off Aero when we finally allow Vista to be deployed, because it's not worth the process-time, pure and simple. And Aero is supposed to be the biggest productivity improvement!

I'm no Apple fan, but they innovate instead of imitate, a distinction lost on MS.

I have had Vista for 6 months and I have to say it has not been that bad as people are trying to say. The one issue I have is the compatibility issues, which I believe are the software venders fault.

LOOK ITS A NEW OS! I have NEVER seen a new OS come out without some growing pains. People said the same thing about XP when it first came out.

I have had Vista for 6 months and I have to say it has not been that bad as people are trying to say. The one issue I have is the compatibility issues, which I believe are the software venders fault.

LOOK ITS A NEW OS! I have NEVER seen a new OS come out without some growing pains. People said the same thing about XP when it first came out.

I installed Vista Business 64bit about 2 months ago and haven't gone back to my old XP Pro 32bit. It does pretty much everything I used to do on XP with a prettier interface.

Regarding your compatibility issue, have you tried using Virtual PC 2007? I run it to handle some old 16bit games and it works very well. And since I'm running 64bit Vista, I upgraded to 8Gb DDR2, which virtual pc apps eat up alot.

I also game alot and I thought it would be slower than XP, but I haven't noticed much of any performance drop between the two. There is a more noticeable performance drop between DX10 and DX9.

Last note, I also installed the Vista from scratch to make sure there wasn't any 'baggage' from the previous XP OS.

some comments regarding some postings on Vista booting up slow:

XP Pro boots in 74sec on my old setup from BIOS screen to desktop.

Vista Business 64bit boots in 29sec from BIOS screen to desktop.

I ran out and bought vista the day it came out to run on my hp laptop 5220us that was about one year old and have loved it ever since. well worth the money - not so much the length of time it took to come to market - but it is a worthy upgrade compared with XP.

New Dell Inspiron with Vista

1. Won't share printer with XP desktop - no fix anywhere

2. Bought Dell bluetooth mouse (logitech)and keyboard with the laptop. Won't work. Dell can't fix - says it Vista

My HP said Vista Ready. I am comfortable doing OS boots and installs and have switched OS's on my very capable desktop at least a dozen times. I attempted to install over xp media center (not upgrade) by doing a clean, hard-drive-wiping boot. Vista had no dice. I think it is HP's fault for CLAIMING the desktop was Vista Ready - they have serious problems with their Microsoft-HP relationship. On the computers that come new with Vista, it seems robust, but have heard about a lot of bugs that don't make sense. For me Vista wouldn't even install successfully. MAC is lucky that they design an operating system around their hardware. Perhaps windows should take more control and produce a windows-designed-hardware PC that fits their OS. It would work better. Two thumbs up for linux that runs on just about anything (even a comodore, an XBOX, a Mac, a PC, a PS3, an iPhone...). Linux... Now that's dice - if only their were more open-source software packages to replace design software like coldfusion, flash, final-cut studio, etc.

I have just finished cleaning up a new Toshiba laptop belonging to my son in-law. Vista along with the preloaded crap ware had his system running very slow and chewing up most of the 2Gig of installed memory. After cleaning it up and reloading the sound drivers (which mysteriously disappeared), the pc was almost usable. Task manager still shows 57 processes running with more than half of the system memory cached. This is after agressively killing off most processes in msconfig startup.He still prefers using my P3 Thinkpad with XP Pro and is seriously thinking of upgrading to X).

Had to buy my daughter a new computer as her old XP box didn't have the graphics or memory to support her newer horse theme games. Picked up a real good buy at Best Buy but Vista was the only choise in a PC box. Getting the machine started at home was easy but then the sky fell, about 1/2 of my daughter's horse theme games couldn't be loaded and of those that did load about 1/3 failed to run. Took the computer back the next day and ordered an XP box from Dell and she is now a very happy 10 year old using all of her old and new games.

Use the search feature if you want better workflow. It will find any key word (smartly) for tasks, or any document/thing you need. You people are weird.

I've got great 3-D desktop effects, effortless updates, compatibility with Office documents and windows software, and the computer has never accused me of being a criminal. Further, it came pre-installed on my Dell laptop.

Yup, Linux instead of Vista. $50 less to boot.

My personal opinion of Vista is that it's Microsoft's death nell.

Last month I bought Ultimate 64bit with which I could use more than 2gb of ram effectively. I've spent some time with it but not alot.

In order to use the system I've worked quite hard at turning off all of the new features, like UAC. Windows Explorer or what ever it thinks it is now is poorly designed and less efficient.

The new file system storage locations are poorly designed so that I'm locked out of using the traditional MyDocuments short cuts, I don't understand how hard it would have been to quietly re-direct that into the new Documents folder.

Certain drivers which I expected are not available, older versions of Java aren't available for the 64bit system ...

On top of all the little details which could make this a rewarding Mac like cushy interface experience - do basicly just the opposite. I don't understand how MS expects the average user to appreciate their technical brilliance, because over all it's harder to use than earlier versions - assuming one's used to Windows.

Just to start the OS takes anywhere from 1gb to 1.3gb to boot up - depends I think on the state of the background apps which are prone to run.

I've plenty of PC/mac experience with computers and provide IT/CAD management expertise to firms.

I have tested the 64bit 3dStudio Max and it's no faster than the 32bit version on XP; Overall Vista might be slower - especially the way others tend to use their computers. Even with a minimum system base of 4gb ram and a fast core duo processor.

In order to work with the applications and the software tools I require I still use XP, even though I'd like to use Vista more than I can.

As much as I like Office 2007 I am convinced that this OS will push everyone out to the web with it's less resource demanding web 2.0 applications.

It's the end of Microsoft. You can see they managed to conflate their need to control our computers with the users need to use them.

I expect alot of people will just abandon MS just like they have abandoned email when it became impossible to deal with without specialized staffing.

Lack of support for legacy equipment, especially printers. Not Microsoft's fault though. Had one client call HP for info on a driver for an older printer and he was told there would not be any driver forthcoming and that he should buy a new printer to use with Vista. They then charged him $40.00 for the priviledge.
Worst Vista problem to date has been wireless connectivity. Still haven't got that working, although it works fine on XP.
Next biggest difficulty has been setting up a Vista dual boot with XP. I did get that to work, but it does not hide the other OS partition so that Vista runs on the H: drive and the XP C: drive is visible and accessible. It's usable but not what I expected or wanted.
The major problem is that I just don't have the time to relearn all the things I already knew how to do, just because some cretin at Microsoft thought it would be 'cool' to change the UI. I thought the original purpose of the Windows standard user interface was "learn it once, know it forever", but Microsoft product managers and programmers seem to prefer beauty over productivity.

The problem reports as described in this blog are just the tip of the iceberg. How many other users are silently suffering Vista? On the hand, while they may not be blogging about it, they're likely telling all of their friends and family, about their Vista experiences.

If MS wants any chance of saving Vista from the software hall of shame, Service Pack 1 must be a true performance enhancer:

a. turn off the resource-sucking garbage like Aero and other unnecessary background processes. Vista must be re-tuned so that it runs WELL with 1 GB of memory and on-board graphics.

b. rollout legacy drivers for devices that
worked fine with XP/2000 but not with Vista.

c. The new security model adds nothing except annoyances. The pop up boxes constantly remind Vista users that their user experience has taken a permanent step backward.

Hmmmmmm, let's see. i think there were about six positive comments here, and a couple of them were lukewarm at best....

However, the vast majority of complainers were labeled as "trolls", "weird", and "idiots" by the "positive" comment-leavers.

Anybody on this post live in Redmond, Washington, or own MS stock? just curious

Since the delay after submitting the Post is significant, it would be nice to generate an immediate acknowledgement of the submission. I had to sit on my hands to keep from clicking the Post button again (and again ...).

XP Pro does everything I need it to do, and then some. Its debugged, and as long as you're semi-intelligent and have installed a hardware firewall and some good anti-virus software, its pretty darn secure. So why in the world would I (or you!) even consider switching to Vista?! Dell even reverted to allow its customers to purchase XP instead of Vista - doesn't that tell you all you need to know?

Those of you who have switched and are encountering problems, consider this for next time: when dealing with anything Microsoft, wait 13 months (I used to recommend a year, but they are getting worse it seems) from the release date before installing it. :)

Not from Redmond (currently in DC area) or own any MSFT (actually dumped all my MSFT stocks back in Jan 2006).

I however, do have 5 PC's running in front of me. 1 on Vista Business 64bit, 2 on XP Media Center, 1 on XP Pro and 1 on RedHat Fedora.

3 of the machines are overclocked and I am waiting on a Q6600 cpu to be delivered this week.

I am running a complimentary copy of Vista Business for a new computer I built, and a Vista Home Premium upgrade I got for free when I bought XP Media Center, for a computer that acts as a DVR.

On the new machine, it's a champ. It is as stable as XP, only more so, and makes a ton of little improvements. I haven't had any hardware disagree with it, didn't have an installation issues.

On my older machine, Home Premium is a pretty good fit except for one real odd bug involving time synchronization. It seems to be broken. Other than that, it is a great solution for someone with a decent older PC who wants a DVR.

I'm happy for all of you running Linux, and I have an installation going, too, but in the real world, it's Windows, Windows, Windows. Linux is like owning an old car - a long way off from mainstream use.

Looks WaHoPo has another Apple shill on its ranks. Dis Walt Mossberg and Stevey lobotomize you?

Its really not surprising journalists who cover technology who have no background whatsoever in engineering cs and the like gravitate to the toy like MacOS. Its understandable.

What I cant understand is their cult like fervor that disregards an integrity and to shill for and against a company.

Put me in the camp of folks that "upgraded" to Vista and then crawled back to XP Pro. I never learn my lesson with MS (whose motto should be "if you hate us now, you may like us a little better after a service pack or two"). Half of my peripherals (all of which were less than six months old and theoretically Vista compatible per the check I did in advance using MS's own upgrade advisor) went on life support after Vista upgrade. Being smart, though, I never even contemplated calling MS to work through it. Instead, I took the opportunity to clean reinstall XP Pro, with service packs, and my system is happily purring along again. And if, by some miracle, I buy Dell again (and that is a subject for another discussion), I will happily take them up on their offer to install XP instead of Vista - at least until I see that service packs are available. At least the Vista packaging looks pretty on my bookshelf. Lastly, it's a shame that folks continue to resort to name-calling for those who don't agree with their view: under any measurable benchmark Vista has been problematic. Period. I'm sure many have had wonderful experiences, but I (and, incidentally, I did not go into it expecting misery since Bill promised me in his ads that it would be seamless :) ) had a miserable experience (although easily correctible) with a relatively new machine with plenty of memory, storage space and processing power.

No thanks, we will not have a Vista installation here. If the proposed machine comes with Vista, the machine does not come in, period.

Last year I switched all of my machines to Ubuntu Linux and I am not looking back. I use VM Ware on one of those machines and run Windows 98 SE in VM Ware (No licensing isues)if I absolutely need a Windows environment.

I'm not particularly "techie." I just want a PC to do its thing, and do it well. All of the highly technical whining in this blog about Vista and the related glee about Mac's and freeware OS's like LINUX etc make me yawn. We bought an HP desktop with Vista Ultimate this spring as a replacement for our 10 year old home PC. We found that we had to buy a new printer too, as HP didn't have a driver for our old multifunction that was compatible with Vista, but we ended up with a great new multifunction, network capable machine that is a significant upgrade over our old machine. We have no complaints at all about the Vista OS. None. Zero. I expect that most consumers won't have any complaints either once they realize that, yes, you really need to get a new PC that's up to running Vista and, yes, just like the last time - likely years ago - that you got a new PC, you'll probably have to update or get rid of your old software when you get a Vista machine. Get over it. That's just life in PC-world.

We got one Vista machine to test software compatibility but won't be getting any more for now. Microsoft's own tools and applications programs run at as little as one-fourth the speed that they run on XP. Aside from fancy graphics, all major Vista features have been available on XP from third-party vendors. We can't afford the productivity loss.

Cripes people talk about how expensive a Mac is... I just upgraded my laptop to Vista Business for $300? That's $200 more than I'll have to pay for my home Mac upgrade for OSX 10.5 in October (if relased then)...

I much prefer the Mac for security, ease of use but am force to use Windows for work.

One vendor I have to access their website uses a bastardization of Crystal Reports - something never intended to be on the Internet. They chose it because they had someone who knew Crystal instead of building their website on products that were born on the Internet like php and mySQL... MORONS.

At the same time that I installed XP x64, a friend installed Vista 64-bit, both on computers that we have built ourselves. Since the installation, he has had major hardware and software compatibilty issues, and has spent many man-hours troubleshooting his system. He has now reverted to the 32 bit version of Vista, and is planning on adding dual-boot for XP x86.

I, on the other hand, have not even had a burp or hesitation out of my machine. The only problem that I plan on facing is the inevitable cessation of support from Microsoft, and an inability to run Directx 10. In addition, since I use the Windows Classic interface, I am not missing the slick Aero interface.

It is unfortunate that Microsoft has become greedy at the expense of the end user.

I had Vista pre-installed on a new Gateway notebook about 3 months ago. My first impression was that it was pretty, but slow. I disabled the annoying user account system and installed WinPatrol instead, which I have found to be very reliable and easy to use on my XP box over the last year. It warns me of the things I really need to know about, like new startup programs and the like. I disabled the new search engine to speed things up. I seldom search because I keep things organized to begin with. If I do need to search, I can wait a little longer for the results if it helps speed up my computer at other times. I disabled some the pretty graphics effects, but kept the overall "Aero" look.

I like the new Windows Explorer with the
"Favorite Links" view that is easily customizable, and the adjustable thumbnail views. I only use IE if I have trouble viewing a web page in Firefox, and I use Thunderbird for email because it doesn't hog memory and it does what I need it to do. I use my notebook in my car during the day, with a Verizon wireless broadband connection (it's more fast dial-up than broadband, though). When I get home I sync my files, via Beyond Compare, with my XP box on my home network. I use a wired LAN for this (the extra cable sits on my desk so I can just plug it into my notebook) and it works well. However, I have a lot of problems with my wireless LAN on my Vista notebook. I can get it to recognize and connect to a wireless network, say in a hotel room, but once I put it to sleep I usually can't connect again without rebooting and letting Vista do multiple "network repairs". Sometimes it can't find the wireless network, sometimes it can't find the card (although Device Manager shows it to be working), sometimes it connects without being able to find any wireless networks (interesting one, that) and sometimes it shows everything working but still can't connect. I've used the built-in wireless LAN, a plug-in card and two different driver's but the problem persists.

Office 2003 works well for me under Vista, but I had to modify most of my macros because Vista places "Documents" under "C:\users\username\documents". Since I have to sync my Office files and macros between the XP box and my Vista notebook, I elected to change the location and name of "My Documents" in XP instead of Vista, since I figured I would eventually have to have Vista on every computer anyway. It presented no problem changing it in XP, so all my files are in the same location on each machine now. I haven't moved to Office 2007 because it is not as customizable as Office 2003. Most Office users would have trouble on my computer because I have changed the standard settings and customized the menus so extensively that they wouldn't know where anything is. I couldn't do most of that in Office 2007 when I tried it. I prefer the interface to fit what I do, not have to fit my needs to the interface. Microsoft isn't too good at getting that.

To me, Vista is not worth upgrading my hardware for at this time. When I eventually reach Vista compatibility on my 6 home computers (I build and upgrade my own), I may upgrade to Vista, providing they make some marked improvements. I not holding my breath, however, since they aren't even going to issue a Service Pack, which I think is a huge mistake. They may be slowly issuing all the fixes and upgrades that would be in a service pack anyway, but having to go through the whole process with multiple machines is a pain I can do without. I would rather just buy Vista With Service Pack 1 and be done with it. The way Microsoft wants to do it now, I'm sure it will take about 50 reboots per computer to install Vista on my other machines.

Most of the above is more eloquent and comprehensive than what I can add. Suffice it to say that, for the average user of office suites (recommend OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office) and interactive internet processes, Vista is way more elaborate than needed. Trying to be "all things to all computers," Vista is a creaking, groaning behemoth that is a pain to maintain. My mid-year resolution is to learn Linux.

What buffoonery to even be using a PC in 2007!
GET A MAC!

Windows Vista is just a tool. No need for drama. Use Vista when you have to, use PuppyLinux,which runs in system RAM, for the rest of the time. Puppy is only 83mb (java and OpenOffice modules do add significantly to that), installs to a USB key and can be set in a dual boot with Windows Vista, for those lovely times when you want to use MS Office 2007, or play "The Sims".

FOr all of Vista's problems, I prefer it to XP, since it represents the Windows World, going forward.

I have an Asus laptop with Vista preloaded. I have only 3 problems with it:

1. I cannot use Windows Media Player any more, as it crashes when I read DivX files. I switched to VLC which works fine

2. The wifi connection drops after a period between 1 to 6 hours and needs a PC reboot

3. The only remaining bugged application is Webex

Now the reinstallation of DirectX 9c (needed by some game) was tricky, but works fine now.

So overall not a too bad experience

Windows Vista: Bill Gates Driving His Edsel To His Waterloo
My 1 gigahertz, 512 Ram Toshiba Satellite notebook was finally bogging down on me after several years of excellent service. It was time for a laptop with more oomph. I compared prices and reviews of all the state of the art computers and decided that I would stick with Toshiba and buy a Core Duo with lots of ram, big hard drive, blazing speed, etc.

Windows Vista had been out for six months, and I really had not been aware of some of its idiosyncrasies. Within an hour of powering up the new Tecra, I knew I was going to have trouble. After several days of searching for drivers, tweaking, crashing, bsod-ing, wrestling, sweating, not sleeping, learning, tech-help calling to Toshiba, and just general frustration, I returned the notebook to the vendor who was not that pleased to take it back. He begged me to keep it; I begged him to take it. He offered me a "reduced price copy" of Windows XP to install in the new machine - only if I would reformat the Vista machine.

Ah hah, I said, Toshiba already told me that 2007 Vista machines would not be driver compatible with Windows XP. He then said nothing and reluctantly refunded me $1200.00. OK, I'm a cheap power user and refuse to spend two grand on a computer.

I mean, why should I have to install Windows Virtual PC 2007 (which I did) in order to run many of my apps?

BTW MS Virtual PC does not support usb as of this week. Virtual PC is actually an operating system (XP) running separately within Windows Vista. Vista should be enough, but third party software developers have been lax and unenthusiastic about matching their programs to Vista requirements. One thing that I needed on Vista was my Winfax program which Symantec has not even attempted to supply drivers for. I will not blame Symantec although I will think twice about any of their products in the future.

Even as Chris Pirillo has said, Vista may be a "50-50" proposition for new computer buyers as well as upgraders, but not for me.

Not only are needed software drivers very scarce, the entire interface is klutzy. Too many ways to mention, but whoever thought of revising the Explorer file folder scheme should have included listing the C: drive in the left pain. Why should I have search for the Root Of All Folders when wanting to look at all the folders sitting neatly like ducks in the left pane as has been done since Windows 3.0? OK, I like to learn new things, but only if the new things increase efficiency. Game players may love Vista, and maybe some folks who have never used Windows XP. I really believe Microsoft has jumped the shark on this one and one Serice Pack (coming out in 2009 according to one comedic blogger) will not fix the problem(s).
If you really like Vista prepare to buy newer software programs as many of your old XP programs will not fit. You may have to buy new peripherals such as printers, fax machines, scanners etc. You may not even find drivers for some Vista approved products, much less non-Vista products.

I also was not thrilled with all the permissions and interruptions in Vista that intrude while doing normal tasks. "Do you want Windows to do this?" "Do you want Windows to do that?" Why should I have to hack the registry in order to debug Vista? Even something as simple as changing the urls for browser links was impossible. Power users are so used to shortcuts and tweaks in XP, I do not think they will be happy with Vista which will be pushing (MSs cruel intentions) an unsupported XP off the shelf in a year, even while some computer manufacturers are installing XP on their newer computers because of all the complaints. Dale, Acer, Toshiba have made complaints and some have demanded that Microsoft allow them to sell XP computers despite MSs objections.

According to Vista Beta tester - Geekoid Christ Pirillo (google his youtube comments) and others, Vista is actually Beta software tested on Beta software. I believe Pirillo attempted to advise MS on some quirks, but was ignored.

I was never so relieved as when I returned the Vista Toshiba to the retail store vendor and then proceeded to the Tohshiba Direct website to order a Windows XP Professional laptop which are "flying off the shelves."

I could find no one else selling XP on newer computers. I do cringe a little when I see all these better laptops selling beaucoup cheap during these back-to-school sales weeks, but at least I know that I paid more for a better product - Windows XP Professional. Thank God for those vendors/manufacturers who have held out and have seen the light that there are many people who will not be happy with Windows Vista.

Also very relevant are the recent comments by Acer President Gianfranco Lanci

Hasta la vista, Vista!

Also very relevant are the recent comments by Acer President Gianfranco Lanci

Hasta la vista, Vista!

I bought a Gateway notebook (Core2 Duo, 2MB RAM) in December and finally received a free Vista upgrade in May. A clean install went smoothly, aided by a second disc provided by Gateway that contained Vista-compatible drivers. Boot time is a little longer than with XP, at about 75 seconds. I agree that the User Account Control is mostly useless, but it is easy to turn off. Mostly I'm impressed with Vista and haven't regretted the upgrade for a minute. Vista software for my Canon printer and Panasonic camcorder are available from the manufacturers and work well. No issues with my wireless network at all. I have the same complaint with Palm mentioned by Rob, though they have just released a Vista-compatible beta of Palm Desktop.

I'm sympathetic to the pain so many others have had with their Vista experience, but I think that this points out the tremendous complexity involved with the myriad number of computer and software/driver configurations involved. When Windows XP came out, upgrading was a no-brainer because Windows 98 was so unstable - though I recall lots of similar complaints that this or that problem occurred after the upgrade. The decision to upgrade to Vista should only be done after careful research and many will be better off staying with Windows XP.

BTW, cw, there is no "continent-size" scam going on when you purchase a Vista machine from a retail store. When a computer is purchased with Windows preloaded, the manufacturer has always been responsible for tech support - even if their techs are not always up to the job. Yes, Microsoft only provides support if you buy a retail copy of the OS. There is no "well-kept secret" here. I already knew it. Where were you?

Everyone makes a valid point. However I can't believe that I haven't seen anyone mention the most important fact which is all the extra hardware required for Vista is so that your computer can constantly report to Microsoft what you are doing, what websites you are going to, and (the part sony helped with) what movies you are watching legally or illegaly. Illegal meaing that you don't have the rights to view the video (youtube videos could be considered illegal since you technically don't have the rights to view those videos). The more videos you view without rights the more your videos become degraded and eventually black even if you are watching a video from a dvd. All the other problems that were mentioned are fine and dandy but this is the most important. In fact because of this particular feature in Vista the U.S. government has already stated that it will not purchase the OS, it will be switching to Unix. I myself have not decided which OS to go to yet...Unix or Mac...never liked microsoft anyways.

Rob, it seems Palm has issued Vista-compatible software, finally. See http://www.palm.com/us/support/windowsvista/

Rob, another comment about Vista-compatible Palm software--it's only in beta form and has several disclaimers. See http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/windesk62.html

Is it just me, or--with only a very few exceptions--does it seem that the only people NOT having problems with Vista and/or singing its praises are IT Gurus or Quarter-century computer geeks? (check out the name of this poster before all you geeks start raging)

Hate to be redundant, but all any of those who are not part of the matrix can do to run their systems comfortably is:

a) Go back to XP

b) Move over to Linux...either as a regular install, a live CD, or from a flash drive

c) Get a Mac. I use a Mac Pro at work, but at home I have a G3 iBook and an old G4 sawtooth (both running OS 10.3.9) and even the older G4/G5 PPC macs are solid machines.

Hopefully, Uncle Bill is getting an earful of all this and thinking "hmmmm...that's not the reaction we wanted....they're talking about buying Macs"

and the last half of that thought is...

"well, just as long as they're buying Parallels we'll still show a profit..."

Hum............................................................................................................

Out of the 60 million Vista user having paid for it and having a hard time making it work. There are only 90 non paying happy customers using Acer laptops, telling us that we are out of our minds? Makes me wonder.

I recently bought a Dell XPS 1210 with 4GB of RAM and installed a copy of Vista Ultimate that I had received. I dual boot it with Ubuntu 7.0 and have less issues with Vista. All of my hardware works no problem. Since this is "my" laptop and not the wife's i decided to make it my toy so I loaded only freeware type apps. Openoffice instead of Office 2003 or 2007, I use AVG for my anti-virus, Picasa for photo stuff, thunderbird for email and firefox for web, skype, wireshark and a bunch of other applications and have had no problems. With my Ubuntu installation I can't get the Dell draft N wireless card or the bluetooth module to work despite spending multiple hours online in the Ubuntu forums and other places trying to get it to work. Since my office offers an SSL VPN I don't have any problems connecting in to do corporate stuff, checking email etc. . ..

Vista isn't some vast improvement over XP but I haven't found a reason to go back either. If I could get Ubuntu to work with my wireless card and bluetooth I would probably use that but since I got my version of Vista for free I don't see a real need to work too hard on getting it to work.

By default Microsoft products are junk. This is off topic but something to consider. If intelligent minds can't produce software that improves with updates, how could evolution be true, which says that updates of living organisms got better? Think about it. ;)

I have bad luck with computers. Every so often I find it necessary to reformat the hard dive and reinstall the operating system.After the second time, they called me a pirate and refused to sanction my installation despite my purchase of a genuine windows Vista operating system. Linux, here I come!

I have bad luck with computers. Every so often I find it necessary to reformat the hard dive and reinstall the operating system.After the second time, they called me a pirate and refused to sanction my installation despite my purchase of a genuine windows Vista operating system. Linux, here I come!

I purchased a Dell PC in February and chose the Vista Home Premium operating system, since it was a free upgrade at the time (and, since I was ignorant about certain aspects of the system).

One thing I can say about the version of Vista I'm using is that it has little regard for people with significant visual impairments; the accessibility features are nearly like an afterthought.

Comparing Vista to XP or Millennium reminds me of comparing consecutive year models of 1950s autos - the look is different, but that's as far as it goes.

Now that I'm used to the new look and functionality of Vista I'm fairly satisfied. My main complaint is that it requires a LOT of memory.

An ominous instance has been the occurrence of the so-called "blue screen of death," which has popped up twice in these five-plus months. Both times the machine repaired itself, but the mere fact that it's happened twice within a few months is somewhat alarming.

Some days I think I'd like to have XP Professional back.

Drew Officer

I've run P.C.s, I've run MACs. Both for a long time. About a year ago I switched back to MACs exclusively because I just couldn't take dicking around with PCs anymore.

Installed Parallels, but other than seeing that it booted properly I've never had occasion to return. I've never installed a Windows program on my MAC. Found everything I wanted to use on the MAC side of the street. Over one year later, with tons of media programs humming along on my Macbook Pro, it's still performing flawlessly. Boots quickly. Zero maintenance.

You say Vista is a dog? I could care less.

reading through all these comments, i realize how lucky i am because i've had relatively few problems with vista. most of the problems were more like annoyances than the tearing-your-hair-out variety.

one problem that came close to the tearing variety was the inability to print out my quicken 2001 register. i was able to install the program, enter data and back up the data, but the computer would not connect with my printer. the solution, i learned from one of my guru sons, is the: QWPATCH.EXE. i installed it, et voila - out came my register from the printer!

one other thought i'd like to share: i had no choice but to buy a vista machine [my 2000 and xp desktops died almost simultaneously, and i was unable to find any new pc's with either 2000 or xp.] so i took the plunge and bought an emachine with vista. i'm wondering if the fact that it's an emachine, not a dell [which so many people seem to have problems with], that explains my relatively painless transition to vista.

by the way, i buy emachines because their customer support is good and their website is user-friendly.

I have little first hand experience with Vista, one of my clients asked me to remove Vista Premium and reinstall XP Pro. What I did see was just not that impressive - but that is not why I am posting to this thread.

I just want everybody to know some of the positive reports of Vista come from Microsoft paid employees who purposely shill for Vista to give a positive spin.

This is not a new tactic for Microsoft who has been caught astroturfing (producing pro-Microsoft mems through email and write-in campaigns) and recently (the last couple years) has developed a team of Internet posters who try to appear legitimate but bash anti-Microsoft posts and opinions and vigorously post pro-Microsoft recommendations.

There are also many vested opinion makers who routinely post pro-Microsoft messages because they have a financial or occupational interest to protect.

None of these posted opinions are based on real life experiences and as such are deceitful at their best and fraudulent at tbeir worst.

What is my perspective? I used to be a Windows administrator many years ago until I was the subject of some Microsoft retribution because I dared to install a Linux server on a customer's site when Microsoft had let us down repeatedly with a required and promised service.

I now deal exclusively with Linux for network services and Linux and reluctantly XP for the desktop.

I am near retirement now and can afford any operating system and most any hardware I want and though I like the Mac, I love the stability, security and flexability of Linux.

Linux runs faster, jumps higher, crouches lower, eats less and does more and all without reading or agreeing to any rights sucking EULA.

Best regards,

CD 'Bar' Baric

The Acer President needs to take a look at his own unimpressive support organisation. I've been run through the mill with them over the last month. He might also care to address why Acer declined to provide beta drivers during the Vista beta program so that they could be hammered on by third party testers.

That said, I spent over 6 months beta testing Vista. The biggest shock? That most of the serious bugs (technical and usability-related) reported early on in the process were never fixed for RTM (despite claims to the contrary).

I switched to Linux