The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Windows Vista - the sick slug"

Microsoft do it to the world again with Windows 7

skeptic — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:52:00 +0000

How do Microsoft continue to get away with this? Why does the world keep going back for more? Is this some kind of sick co-dependent masochism? This alarming report from ComputerWorld

Most Windows 7 PCs max out their memory, resulting in performance bottlenecks...
the 86 percent mark for Windows 7 is more than twice the average number of Windows XP machines that run at the memory "saturation" point, said Barth. The most recent snapshot... pegs only 40 percent of XP systems as running low on memory....
The low-memory condition of most Windows 7 PCs is even more notable considering the amount of RAM in Windows 7 systems... "Windows 7 machines have almost twice as much memory to work with," said Barth, "but the numbers show just how much larger and more complex Windows 7 is than XP."...
Other data ...quantifies peak processor workload and I/O performance. Both of those measurements are also higher for Windows 7 systems than for XP machines. While 85 percent of the former are running at peak I/O loads, only 36 percent of the latter do...
"This is alarming," Barth said of Windows 7 machines' resource consumption. "For the OS to be pushing the hardware limits this quickly is amazing. Windows 7 is not the lean, mean version of Vista that you may think it is."

Do you remember all that bullshit about "Gosh sorry Vista wasn't the lean mean Windows we promised you but this time Windows 7 is. Really. Honest"?

I'm on the Ubuntu road and I'm never coming back to Mickeysoft.

Gartner says skip Vista

skeptic — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:58:00 +0000

I guess I have to agree with Gartner occasionally. i do when they say skip Vista. personally I won't be going Win7 though - Linix is looking good around 2014.

XP good until 2014 - hasta la Vista Win7!

skeptic — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:56:00 +0000

The good news in that Economist article above was that I can run XP until at least 2014 with support (and as long as I like after that of course). Microsoft arer only digging their grave deeper with news like this :

With Window 7, Microsoft provides a direct upgrade path only from Windows Vista, not allowing a similar scenario when it comes down to Windows XP. However, despite this detail, Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrades are indeed possible, but customers will have to turn to an alternative path, provided by the Microsoft Deployment Tool 2010. MDT 2010 is a tool offered by the Redmond company as a free download and offers components such as the User State Migration Tool, a solution capable of making sure that user settings for applications and the desktop as well as user files are transferred from XP to Windows 7 in the upgrade process.

Well why not just friggin' include it in the install then?!!! because if you didn't go Vista you have violated the sacred trust, the implicit deal that you will shell out for every version of Windows no matter how crappy. "Skip one? You're on your own pal and we'll make it as complicated and fraught with risk for you as we can".

Well MS can stick Win7. They have dumped crap on me once too often with the Vista experience. There will be no forgiveness. I'll run XP as long as I can then look at whatever flavour of *nix has evolved as the most user friendly. By then Google Docs will be an Office-killer - the rate I'm moving to Docs I'll be free of Office long before 2014. I'm happy with Office2003 until then.

Sing along now: "♫ Microsoft can kiss my arse, I've got alternatives at last ♫"

Another Vista fan

skeptic — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:34:03 +0000

i could bury the blog in Vista-haters but I liked this one from my favourite mag, The Economist

running Vista side-by-side with XP has confirmed all you are led to believe about Microsoft’s propensity for devising cumbersome bloatware....

Apart from the sheer frustration and the extra mousing around needed to navigate Vista’s security features, the locked-down nature of the operating system makes it run as slow as molasses and require far more computing power than XP to perform similar tasks. The extra security features also create a host of instability and compatibility problems. In short, Vista breaks lots of things users take for granted with XP.

So, why bother upgrading to Vista? It’s not as though XP is riddled with holes these days. With its second service pack, released in 2004, XP gained a range of security features that put IT managers’ minds at rest. By the time a third service pack arrived in 2008, XP was locked down as tightly as Vista but without the mindless restrictions.

Along with hundreds of millions of existing Windows users, your correspondent decided there was no compelling reason to adopt Vista—especially after Microsoft agreed to provide upgrades and security patches for XP until 2014

preinstalled copy of Vista

skeptic — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:07:24 +0000

Given that I am not a lone voice in this and that we recently had a case of a commenter inappropriately not revealing their identity, can i suggest that an anonymous post has little merit here. I congratulate you on your successful experience. You have a right to be glad because many many people do not share it. My machine too was a preinstalled copy of Vista on a Compaq Presario SR5160AN, not an upgrade. I have now set it freee and it runs like the wind.

upgrade vs. preinstall

Visitor — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:02:12 +0000

Last month our team was "forced" to go to Vista. It wasn't an OS upgrade, we were simply given new laptops after our data files were transferred. I dreaded what was to come but, so far, it has worked like a champ.

The interface is still taking some getting used to, but its been faster and more reliable than my prior XP laptop. (Of course, the new duo chipset helps). Overall, I'm glad we did it.

Kill Vista

skeptic — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:31:41 +0000

I did it! I finally did it!!!! I trashed f****** Vista and went back to XP. My machine is now startlingly fast, boots like a burned cat. And the video driver is better than the one that Compaq pre-installed - crystal clear. But oh the speeeeeeddddd!!!! Wheeeeee.

I needed a super-geek in attendance to get me through it (thanks Peter!) and we are still researching why my boot drive is H: not C: but man it's fast. And it is good old XP - it is gonna work. i wait with interest to see if the machine stops hanging, and my phone will sync and all the other grief goes away. I'll report back....

Vista by XKCD

skeptic — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:44:00 +0000

I've seen countless criticisms of Vista but none as witty as XKCD

doing worse

skeptic — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Haha, you mean Windows 7 would be "doing worse" right? Reportedly W7 is a hack of Vista, so if Vista was munted W7 wil be...?

Holden Kingswood HQ 1974I drove a 1975 Holden HQ Kingswood from 1986 until 2002 when I stupidly left it behind in Australia. Last time I cried in public. Really. Most of you don't have a clue what an HQ is, but if I tell you it had a three-seater vinyl bench seat in the front (that I fitted with wooden-bead seat covers) and three-on-the-tree column gearshift, you'll get the idea. I drove that car so long I could parallel park it in its own length or double-declutch it into first taking the Hoddle Street hill while changing lanes in peak hour traffic. It took six people, all their gear and their beer, and Cold Chisel [you foreigners download some] on the stereo sounded like a train smash in heaven. It's cruising speed was 30kph over the legal limit, it had more go than a burnt cat, and it could get many places that a 4WD could (they were designed as "farmer's cars" with enough room for a bale of hay in the boot/trunk). It cost next to nothing for service and parts. Of course it drank petrol but not as badly as a V8 - it had what was reportedly a reworked 1950s Chev 202 cu.in. straight-six truck motor in it that was virtually unbreakable. It took the fireroads of the Blue Mountains and the four lanes of the Hume Highway in equal comfort (admittedly not much of that: the only "aircon" was the manual winder handle in the door. But with all the windows down in the Aussie heat and shirts off listening to Midnight Oil [download them too] nobody cared much. In winter the heater rocked). It had no airbags, and the seatbelts only recoiled because I fitted new ones. But in a collision it was the other car that needed the airbags. There were reportedly quarter of a million Holdens running around Australia (they are much rarer in NZ - the sea air kills everything). Every mechanic learned on them. Every back-blocks service station had parts. They don't die unless you shoot them.

Now Holden make huge tin boys-toys with as many computers as a Jumbo jet and electric everything. They still guzzle gas and they still take off like a bee bit them, but they regularly score next-to-bottom of the heap on reliability surveys, just ahead of Fords. The Japanese piss all over them.

XP is a HQ Kingswood. I want it back like I want that Kingswood back.

You coud do worse ...

Mark — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:18:59 +0000

Why not "upgrade" to Windows 7 beta and see where that journey will take you?

Vista does it to me again

skeptic — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:24:34 +0000

Lord help me find the words to express how much I hate Vista, and how much I detest Microsoft for having done Vista to me. (I'm still procrastinating on doing the downgrade to XP but after this latest experience I have blocked out two days to do it)

They've changed the Tunga font. I'm viewing my first book, Introduction to Real ITSM, on two PCs, one with XP, one with Vista. Both are running Word 2003. Both are looking at the same file on the same disk. In Vista the Tunga font is a different size and the formatting of the entire book is screwed.

goin home: downgrading from Vista to XP

skeptic — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:50:00 +0000

Well I've had enough. Vista is fired. The hang that lost me a burst of creative writing was the last straw. Booting the Vista machine and the old XP one next to it at the same time didn't help either. Wish me luck because I am downgrading from Vista to XP.

(The funny bit is that I clicked "Help and Support" to check model numbers and the machine hung for a full two minutes before coming back with a window saying "loading help content" and asking me to wait. I know it was two minutes because the machine was so hung up the clock display stopped.)

Found someone else on the Web who's done it with almost identical model (same mobo and chipset)

Cut the Vista recovery disks.

Got all the drivers (haha famous last words).

Buying an XP COA with a Compaq PC attached to it for a few bucks on TradeMe, the local eBay.

Borrowing a vanilla XP+SP2 install disk from a friend.

Was always on Office 2003 anyway, never got sucked in by O2007.

Goin' home. Fingers crossed.

Do as I say, not as I do

JamesFinister — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:57:21 +0000

Foolish of me to buy a child a lap top PC with Vista installed. How hard can it be to connect to a wireless internet connection that took 30 seconds under both Linux and XP? Two and a half hours using ipconfig which I don't think is a typical consumer level tool. My Xmas pudding had gone cold.

Windows 7 is a bastardised Vista

skeptic — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:32:02 +0000

Someone else who thinks the same way. the bad news for me is that Windows 7 is a hack of Vista to get the memory footprint down.

hands up who thinks that will improve the reliability?

Vista is beyond bad

skeptic — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:53:02 +0000

Sorry to go on about this but I am beyond aghast. Empty machine, nothin else running, delete 12,000 files 400MB of data, permanent delete shift-del, not even recoverable delete, TEN MINUTES!!!!

20 files a second

Why aren't there burning PCs on Microsoft's front lawn?

tired & wired

Charles T. Betz — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 01:30:29 +0000

Tangent:

expired: Apple vs Microsoft
tired: Microsoft vs Google
wired: Google vs Apple

(original w/ apologies to Wired Magazine)

Charles T. Betz
http://www.erp4it.com

Good Find

kengon — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:32:14 +0000

Thanks for the prompt. Think I'll check my local library and see if I can find this. Will be a nice read for my holiday break.

Yeah, break... as if!

kengon

Show Stopper!

Red Pineapple — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:08:00 +0000

This book, ShowStopper was one of the greatest reads I had about NT and Microsoft. It is sad that a great piece of software like NT has been butchered!

Mothers tell your children not to do what I have done

skeptic — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:06:22 +0000

It's not too late: save yourselves. DON'T BUY VISTA!!!!!!

If I had wiped the hard disk as soon as I bought this new machine and rebuilt it on XP, I'd have lost no more time than I have with Vista problems. Right now Vista hangs about once a week. Total hang; no response to CD insertion or alt-ctl-del or anything. Back to that tectonic reboot.

XP licences are cheap: buy an old PC on eBay just for the COA sticker. heck, get them to post u the sticker :)

Second Chances...

kengon — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:41:40 +0000

Heh. Never thought about the shift in letters... that's either extremely funny or ironic.

I don't have many references left from that period of time, but your recollection is accurate. Indeed, it's one of the reasons why I think the early version was successful. The team had a vision for it that took things to the next level and they did a great job!

When I'd first heard of the proposed changes to the OS architecture to accomodate PnP, I actually tried calling MS about it. Needless to say, MS - 1, kengon - 0.

kengon