I wanted to stock up on Windows XP...

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: kevnich2
Windows 7 is said to be just as bad as Vista, which means XP will be even more popular than it is now. I can't count the number of people I've spoken to that say they hate Vista but they don't have any choice in the matter. Luckily, a lot of them did choose the XP downgrade, so I was able to reload XP onto it for them.

LOL please. Let me guess, you've never even used Vista too?

Vista is leaps and bounds better then XP in every aspect. The only thing I can understand people complaining about would be the UI, but that's personal preference and has nothing to do with how the actual OS runs.

LOL okay then.

I use both, both are fine. Vista is not earth-shatteringly good or bad, just another mediocre step forward, and with all the progress in the past 20 years, there wasn't a lot of room forward from XP. 99% of PC use is : Word Processing, Email, Web Surfing, Printing/Editing Docs. Vista doesn't magically make any of this better, although very disorganized people benefit from an improved search function.

Saying that Vista is leaps and bounds better (or worse) than XP just makes you look emotionally unstable.

 

[flxnimprtmscl]

Originally posted by: Elganja

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I'll throw my hat in as another person who has had 0 problems with Vista 64. So much for it being garbage.

I put vista on my HTPC and loved it. Loved it so much I ended up puting it on my desktop and it was wonderful. For about a month. Then I changed processors in my HTPC which completely broke VMC. I had to go find some hidden system file in some hidden system folder and delete it or else VMC couldn't find my tv tuner and I got all kinds of service crashes. At the same time file transfers over my wired network became almost impossible. Sometimes a file will transfer. Sometimes the transfer will hang. Sometimes Windows Explorer will lock up entirely. It's always fun, though. This is on a fully patched SP1 install of vista Ultimate in both cases.

Vista's great when it works, but it's not near as reliable as XP imo.

 

[XxPrOdiGyxX]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
they 'security' features and such are annoying as shit, i'd better get a legal copy of XP while i can.

I don't understand this complaint. Microsoft was given shit for allowing root level access and that was blamed for a lot of the security issues. As soon as they come up with UAC, which is the equivalent to what you get with some linux distros, there is complaints about it being annoying. Where is the complaint for Ubuntu? If it is that much of an annoyance you can just turn it off.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: XxPrOdiGyxX

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
they 'security' features and such are annoying as shit, i'd better get a legal copy of XP while i can.

I don't understand this complaint. Microsoft was given shit for allowing root level access and that was blamed for a lot of the security issues. As soon as they come up with UAC, which is the equivalent to what you get with some linux distros, there is complaints about it being annoying. Where is the complaint for Ubuntu? If it is that much of an annoyance you can just turn it off.

I think that UAC lasted about 15 minutes on my computer. I got sick of having to click "allow" several times while updating drivers really quickly! I had a LOT of driver problems with my initial install as well, since the Vista drivers sucked back then.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

As someone that bought Windows ME for a new build (the verdict on its suckage wasn't out yet), and having spent a lot of time using Vista now, I can say that in my opinion, Vista is truly Windows ME v2.0.

EDIT: Actually, I had fewer issues with ME than with Vista.

 

[XxPrOdiGyxX]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: XxPrOdiGyxX

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
they 'security' features and such are annoying as shit, i'd better get a legal copy of XP while i can.

I don't understand this complaint. Microsoft was given shit for allowing root level access and that was blamed for a lot of the security issues. As soon as they come up with UAC, which is the equivalent to what you get with some linux distros, there is complaints about it being annoying. Where is the complaint for Ubuntu? If it is that much of an annoyance you can just turn it off.

I think that UAC lasted about 15 minutes on my computer. I got sick of having to click "allow" several times while updating drivers really quickly! I had a LOT of driver problems with my initial install as well, since the Vista drivers sucked back then.

That is true...they do prompt a bit too much. Still, they are headed in the right direction, IMO.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: MotionMan
He was asked for personal issues. He gave them. You "debunked" nothing. All you did was explain them. However, he was not asked for issues that cannot be resolved. There are workarounds and fixes for most things. The real issue it that such things should not have existed in Vista in the first place.

IMO, Vista, out of the box, should have worked better than XP - Obviously it did not. That cannot be debunked. That many of the issues were eventually fixed is not in dispute, but, may be irrelevant to the discussion.

MotionMan

Out of the box, Vista works completely as intended. They made absolutely clear that some "legacy" applications might need a little care to work as they did in XP - and that was by design. It's not anyone's fault but their own if they don't understand how and why Vista works the way it does, and what needs to be done in common situations in order to have it work correctly (such as Run as Admin).

All I debunked is that most every "issue" that people have with Vista is their own ignorance. Vista is not the issue, the users are the issue. If you want a dumb OS, go back to MS-DOS.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: kevnich2
Windows 7 is said to be just as bad as Vista, which means XP will be even more popular than it is now. I can't count the number of people I've spoken to that say they hate Vista but they don't have any choice in the matter. Luckily, a lot of them did choose the XP downgrade, so I was able to reload XP onto it for them.

LOL please. Let me guess, you've never even used Vista too?

Vista is leaps and bounds better then XP in every aspect. The only thing I can understand people complaining about would be the UI, but that's personal preference and has nothing to do with how the actual OS runs.

LOL okay then.

I use both, both are fine. Vista is not earth-shatteringly good or bad, just another mediocre step forward, and with all the progress in the past 20 years, there wasn't a lot of room forward from XP. 99% of PC use is : Word Processing, Email, Web Surfing, Printing/Editing Docs. Vista doesn't magically make any of this better, although very disorganized people benefit from an improved search function.

Saying that Vista is leaps and bounds better (or worse) than XP just makes you look emotionally unstable.

Except for the fact that the masses of people don't understand the fundamental architecture differences between XP and Vista. Drivers running in User mode instead of Protected mode gives the OS much needed stability the in face of poorly written drivers. A complete overhaul of the TCP/IP stack as well and not to mention UAC(with the default settings) will prevent any virus or spyware from being installed without user intervention.

A very high percentage of complaints in this thread have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft or Vista. The only thing complaining about "Program X" not working will do is show that the people who wrote "Program X" don't know how to code properly not that Microsoft has a bad OS. On top of that, anything related to the UI or how it looks is useless to complain about given that it's fairly customizable. Obviously it's not nearly as customizable as Gnome or KDE(or any other Desktop Environment) for Linux is... but we're not talking about Linux now

 

[CRXican]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven
As someone that bought Windows ME for a new build (the verdict on its suckage wasn't out yet), and having spent a lot of time using Vista now, I can say that in my opinion, Vista is truly Windows ME v2.0.

EDIT: Actually, I had fewer issues with ME than with Vista.

User error

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: CRXican

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven
As someone that bought Windows ME for a new build (the verdict on its suckage wasn't out yet), and having spent a lot of time using Vista now, I can say that in my opinion, Vista is truly Windows ME v2.0.

EDIT: Actually, I had fewer issues with ME than with Vista.

User error

Actually, I only had one driver issue with Windows ME... and that was for an old Hayes 28.8 modem. I just installed the Windows 98 driver .inf file, and it worked! I wouldn't recommend doing that with Vista, though... you'll be asking for a world of hurt.

That said, Windows 2000 was soooo much better in terms of stability that it wasn't even funny. I think that is still my favorite Windows OS so far.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Crusty
A complete overhaul of the TCP/IP stack as well and not to mention UAC(with the default settings) will prevent any virus or spyware from being installed without user intervention.

Oh come on - you know just as well as I do that while 90% of all malware is installed by a user/user interaction on a workstation doesn't mean that UAC will prevent ANY kind of malware from being installed. There are attack vectors (particularly with unpatched machines) that exploit weaknesses in the operating system allowing malicious code to infect a system without any sort of user interaction or awareness that it is happening.

Other than that, most everything else you say is spot on.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: kevnich2
Windows 7 is said to be just as bad as Vista, which means XP will be even more popular than it is now. I can't count the number of people I've spoken to that say they hate Vista but they don't have any choice in the matter. Luckily, a lot of them did choose the XP downgrade, so I was able to reload XP onto it for them.

LOL please. Let me guess, you've never even used Vista too?

Vista is leaps and bounds better then XP in every aspect. The only thing I can understand people complaining about would be the UI, but that's personal preference and has nothing to do with how the actual OS runs.

LOL okay then.

I use both, both are fine. Vista is not earth-shatteringly good or bad, just another mediocre step forward, and with all the progress in the past 20 years, there wasn't a lot of room forward from XP. 99% of PC use is : Word Processing, Email, Web Surfing, Printing/Editing Docs. Vista doesn't magically make any of this better, although very disorganized people benefit from an improved search function.

Saying that Vista is leaps and bounds better (or worse) than XP just makes you look emotionally unstable.

Except for the fact that the masses of people don't understand the fundamental architecture differences between XP and Vista. Drivers running in User mode instead of Protected mode gives the OS much needed stability the in face of poorly written drivers. A complete overhaul of the TCP/IP stack as well and not to mention UAC(with the default settings) will prevent any virus or spyware from being installed without user intervention.

A very high percentage of complaints in this thread have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft or Vista. The only thing complaining about "Program X" not working will do is show that the people who wrote "Program X" don't know how to code properly not that Microsoft has a bad OS. On top of that, anything related to the UI or how it looks is useless to complain about given that it's fairly customizable. Obviously it's not nearly as customizable as Gnome or KDE(or any other Desktop Environment) for Linux is... but we're not talking about Linux now

I agree for the most part. I don't agree on that *any* virus/spyware angle, there are always holes to be exploited/plugged.

But yeah, Vista is not the return of Jesus, nor is it the AntiChrist. Its just another Microsoft OS, and not a particularly revolutionary one at that. The biggest steps have been

Dos to Win3.X
Win 3.X to 95
9X to 2000

Other than that, XP is a facelift + feature upgrade to 2K, which was basically a modernization of NT4 (which wasn't friendly enough to be considered for general consumer use), Vista has a fair amount of fundamental changes from XP, but many of them are arbitrary by nature. Which icons are default on the desktop, how to get to commonly used features, the layout of Windows Explorer, etc, not under-hood changes but rather layout/cosmetic.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Crusty
A complete overhaul of the TCP/IP stack as well and not to mention UAC(with the default settings) will prevent any virus or spyware from being installed without user intervention.

Oh come on - you know just as well as I do that while 90% of all malware is installed by a user/user interaction on a workstation doesn't mean that UAC will prevent ANY kind of malware from being installed. There are attack vectors (particularly with unpatched machines) that exploit weaknesses in the operating system allowing malicious code to infect a system without any sort of user interaction or awareness that it is happening.

Other than that, most everything else you say is spot on.

Fine, I should have said 99% of malware out there. My point was that UAC doesn't rely on definitions or heuristics to detect malware, it's prevention instead of detection and removal so by default it will catch malware before other AV or spyware scanners would be aware of it. To get past UAC you'd have to exploit UAC itself to allow software to elevate to the right privilege level in order to deliver it's payload.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven
If a person gets a netbook with XP Home, is there a way to upgrade to Pro short of buying Pro and doing a new install?

Nope, OEMs will not have the option to offer XP Professional. I think the upgrade version of XP Pro can be used to upgrade XP Home, though.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: MotionMan
He was asked for personal issues. He gave them. You "debunked" nothing. All you did was explain them. However, he was not asked for issues that cannot be resolved. There are workarounds and fixes for most things. The real issue it that such things should not have existed in Vista in the first place.

IMO, Vista, out of the box, should have worked better than XP - Obviously it did not. That cannot be debunked. That many of the issues were eventually fixed is not in dispute, but, may be irrelevant to the discussion.

MotionMan

Out of the box, Vista works completely as intended. They made absolutely clear that some "legacy" applications might need a little care to work as they did in XP - and that was by design. It's not anyone's fault but their own if they don't understand how and why Vista works the way it does, and what needs to be done in common situations in order to have it work correctly (such as Run as Admin).

All I debunked is that most every "issue" that people have with Vista is their own ignorance. Vista is not the issue, the users are the issue. If you want a dumb OS, go back to MS-DOS.

Don't you DARE speak ill on MS-DOS, I still run it. It's the ONLY OS MS ever made, and will ever make that has never and will never crash. I fucking hate GUI's on the OS level. If I could somehow get away with still using DOS 24/7 I would. I can boot it from a single floppy and never have to worry about BSOD's. Dos is a far smarter OS between DOS and Windows. Windows was originally started because Bill knew most people were too stupid to use a CLI. Windows Vista is possibly the most dumbed down OS ever.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: AdamK47
I hate Vista! I can't get any of my games to work on it.

Same here and ironically it's supposed to be the end all for gaming.