Originally posted by: VIAN
I tried Windows Vista for a few hours and I was very displeased. I thought half the new features in Vista were great and the other half were a step backwards in functionality. And the features I did like felt like they could've just been added to Windows XP with a few updates.
After waiting forever for my redemption form to kick in, I finally got a hold of Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade. I chose Home Basic because I don't need any Media Center functionality, nor am I going to pay upwards of 50 dollars just for the Aero interface, which I thought was a ripoff that MS didn't include it in Home Basic.
MS seems to be all about the money. You can tell that by how they name their editions. Instead of the more sensible XP names: Home, Pro, Media Center, they chose Home Basic, Home Premium, Pro, Ultimate. I feel that naming the small guy Home Basic, unnecessarily gives it a bad connotation. "Basic." What's so basic about it? It does everything that I need it to do. XP just had more functional names for their editions.
Now back to my experience. My issues with Vista aren't with drivers support, or program incompatibilities, or the UAC. No... my issue is worse than that. It is with Vista interface itself. Everything isn't easier. Instead, it's cluttered, confusingly structured and not easily accessible. XP is much more intuitive and faster.
Vista installed fine: a little more intuitive and quicker. Except that I found it funny that it said: if I made a mistake, to click on the back button and change it. Why is that funny? There is no back button. WTF?! Yes, everything must move forward at all times.
Right off the bat I had issues configuring Windows. I don?t think I?m a power user, but I like to go into the Control Panel and make Windows my own and try to get some better performance without going too deep into windows. I'm not going to touch the registry. I don't have the patience for that. The deepest I might go is fiddling with Services.
MS butchered the display properties. It used to be so accessible, and now it's a bunch of icons that you click on, some with functional names. Why? What was wrong with the display properties that have been used for years. Tabbed browsing is the way to go. I like the added functionality, but it's not an intuitive interface. It's just annoying to use.
The start menu. I could kill myself over it. First, I like to restart my system often. To do that in XP requires two clicks. To do that in Vista also requires two clicks, first on a small button and then you have to choose from the list that comes out of the button. It's not as fast. Second, The User folder is annoying to use. It has some things that I use, but I would've rather preferred to use the original My Documents and create my own folders than use specially made folders that like to recreate themselves after you delete them. It wouldn't be that bad, if only you could delete the User folder. But you can't. A novel idea for Vista would have been for the ability to create your own folders and place them there for easy access. I was hoping for that. Alas, I have to deal only with what's available, which is sorely disappointing. It makes me want to use the classic start menu, which would annoy me less.
All programs also has issues. Instead of doing it the way XP does it by expanding, which is much quicker and easier to read, Vista has All the programs in this tiny window in the start menu. You click on a folder, which I hope the name is small enough to fit in the window, and it stays expanded all the time. So this means every time I expand one of these folders, I'll have to unexpand it, which creates more work and wastes time. They also give you the functionality to scroll just in case the list gets too big. It was 10x faster in XP. Oh, but don't worry, they provide a search area in the start menu so that you could search programs. So that means I would have to point to the start menu with my mouse, click on the area provided, then move my hands to the keyboard and type and then move my hands back to the mouse to select. And that?s if it found the program. It takes more time. The old way was faster.
The power schemes, provides more options, but accessing them is annoying. The window in which you can access them is small and cramped and inside is loaded with all sorts of features you can tweak. It?s not tough to use, but it?s not something I want to keep using on a regular basis. And even after all that Vista didn?t let me put a power icon in the task bar. Why, I don?t know. A bug is my guess.
Upon configuring, I notice that the links to the left on all the windows have redundant links of easily accessible things. And you can't remove that panel from the window. Besides being cluttered itself, it adds clutter to the window. Vista really lacks streamlined interfaces. In Windows XP, the panels were removable; they were just as useless. I also didn't like that I didn't have the file, edit toolbar up top. Although you can bring it up, it doesn't look as streamlined and it has functions that I use often. The folders also don't look streamlined. They have too much detail on them. Instead of having this window with folders that is pleasing to look at and that you can read the name easily, you have a bunch of folders that might as well have come out of the baroque era. It?s all very distracting.
In conclusion, Vista is cluttered, hurts productivity and has some small, but interesting features which they could?ve just applied to XP, but instead charge us an arm for. I really think that one way we can avoid MS pulling another Vista is by having update subscriptions to Windows. Paying 49-99 dollars a year for REAL updates is better than paying $200 every two years, as it looks for the next windows, for a flashy new interface and changes for the sake of changes.
And yes, I have gone back to XP Home.
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