Dan Greene

7 things I hate about Vista

7 things I hate about Vista

I've had an OEM copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit version, with all the updates installed expect the foreign language ones, for about a month now. This article details the features which I do not like.

7. Instant search tool, great useless tool, the constant indexing of my hard drive has not actually made it any easier to find what I was looking for. Sure if know the exact name of a file or the general size yeah I can save time because I don't have to wait for a search to complete, but I generally have to do several searches to find what I am looking for. Still not very helpful

6. Inconsistent loading of the OS. I turned on my comp when I came home and just let it sit, didn't log in nothing, went to watch some tv for a bit, had dinner, came back to a blank screen, a solid on harddrive light and dvd rw drive light on solid, no signal to the monitor. I pressed the spacebar, wiggled the mouse, tried esc, then CRTL + ALT + DEL, nothing changed. I had to reboot because Vista feel off a cliff while I wasn't using it. Fucking lame.

5. UAC, nuff said, annoying as fuck, turning it off, in my system tray the red shield icon sits, unable to ever get that out of there, every once in a while when Vista feels like pushing my buttons, it pops up like the robot from lost in space "DANGER DANGER" whatever. When you turn off a feature in Windows it should go away, and bother you no longer. Not the UAC, I'm sure there is a hack, but I am seriously not motivated enough to figure it out cause I am just gonna scrap Vista if SP1 doesn't radically change my mind.

4. I hate with Vista, that sometimes programs like Yahoo messenger, lock up or crash, Doom3 has done it, and it brings the OS down as well, Like I can CRTL + ALT + DEL and get to the menu of options, which are all bad execpt the task manager, which is the only thing I wanna see pop up when it happens, but when messenger dies for whatever reason, it locks the whole OS up. On XP with this same rig, via my quad core, I could just select the process, and kill it, and restart Messenger, with Vista, I can't get the power of the 3 cpus not maxxed out, to the task manager. That's bullshit Microsoft!

3. Disk utilities, specifically the defragmenter, I'll run that, then I'll run the Aus logic disk defrag, and get another 5-10% better defrag from doing that, WTF?

2. Lack of extras and I mean serious lack. There is no Windows Virus scanning, so I use AVG, but with Windows having historical vulnerability to viruses you'd think that they would be interested in providing a free anti-virus for people running Vista, but my biggest lack of extra falls into the category of Word Processing. There is no MS WORD, no EXCEL, nothing, on the "Ultimate" copy of Vista. Basically you spend $200 on an OS, and then you can spend another $150-$600 on word processing software? Seriously, a computers primary job used to be word processing and it has never really gotten away from that. Imagine, a coffee maker that doesn't brew coffee anymore, but controls your television. Where the hell is Microsoft on the ball on this one?

1. Slowness, I hate that this OS runs slower, and bogs itself down, on a monster system. It is probably more secure and maybe more stable than XP, but I was doing fine with XP SP2, security wise, and stability wise, and experiencing much more responsive OS tasking, and switching between what I was doing. Vista is all bullshit when it says you can do more with more.

There are only two benefits that Vista has going for it, one is DX10 and DX10.1, and being able to handle more than 4 GB RAM. That's it. I have decided that everything else about Vista is either pure fluff or less than the value offered by XP.

[MOVED FROM BELOW DUE TO JU's PISS POOR EDITING SCHEME]

Well here are a few things I would have included in the Vista Ultimate package.

1. Better Speech Recognition The Vista Speech Recognition menu is slightly faster but it doesn't seem to recognize my speech any more effectively than XP. Which is sad. Gates said that he saw us using verbal speech to communicate with our computers much more than typing way back in the 70's/80's. For sure it would be faster and more efficient than typing. My first experience with speech recognition was in the days for a 500 mhz cpu. Then again with my single core 2.4 ghz processor. Now that I have a quad core, of which Vista mostly doesn't utilize, the experience has not significantly improved. This type of a program could/would vastly improve the versatility of an OS. It would also give Windows a feature other OS's don't have setting them apart.

2. Real Word Processing: MS WORD Where is the Word Processor for Vista? Oh yeah it's in another $500 upgrade package aside from the OS. What bullshit. They don't even include the back burner Microsoft Works anymore. They could have at least given the user MS WORD 97 or 2003 or something instead of nothing with ULTIMATE! What they did give you is the antiquated notepad which doesn't even "nextline" properly but reads text files great. Except for the free Textpad program which works even better and opens more different kinds of text files. Wordpad was also included but it's the same Wordpad as WIN95. Really is that what I'm paying for with Ultimate, a word processor that was midrange 13 years ago?

3. Faster and better performance than the previous OS Really instead of the whole sidebar crap they could have bumped the speed of the a window closing or opening from the half second you see, to something like a tenth of a second, increased the size of the red X bar so when you wanna close something, you close it on the first try every time, and instead of just renaming everything from XP to Vista, they should have errorer on the side of making fewer changes to names of things, because now everybody has to learn a whole new OS again. If I was going to have the sidebar, the first thing I'd have in there is a google map of where the computer is at, instead of a second clock, 4 inches above my digital clock on the system tray. Real big benefit Microsoft.

4. Driver Support for EVERYTHING I mean everything, Microsoft is the biggest company in the industry, they have an OS which is the basis for everything to run on and 3rd party devs to develop for, not the other way around. Vista, should have included all the drivers that XP had for programs and hardware, and automatically emulated 32bit mode when necessary. So that end users, i.e. me, don't have to go digging online to find drivers for stuff that works with XP just fine. On a 15 gigabyte install, there wasn't room for a folder with these updates/drivers?

5. Real Backward Compatibility With an Ultimate copy, or "Premium level copy" of anything, there should be support for programs that originally ran on older copies of Microsoft OS's. Start with DOS and work your way up. This should come standard, with Vista Ultimate and why not. Obviously end users aren't going to be able to remember every thing they run on XP or Win 2000 that ran on older stuff like 98SE, 95, and DOS. There are a very few but select programs that people keep and run be it because of older machines or just low IT budgets. Whatever, there is a need to run older stuff and that capability should be with Vista at the "Premium level copy" of the OS.
292,644 views 135 replies
Reply #51 Top
Here's a little comic relief for ya all.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1537662573997376122&q=vista&total=59793&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

My favorite part

"Oh I'll get it to work in this one" "It's loaded" LOL.
Reply #52 Top
unless I figure out how to run a virtual machine, which I have attempted without success.


VMWare workstation: It's not rocket science.

I think that the longer you keep up the tone, the less that you will get serious responses also.
Reply #53 Top
7. Instant search tool


I like that feature.

6. Inconsistent loading of the OS


I was surprised that they did not fix that issue. I had that issue from beta 1 days. What kind of prioritization these guys do?

5. UAC, nuff said

After using Linux for a while I started liking UAC.

1) The start menu
2) The start menu
3) The start menu
4) The start menu
5) The start menu
6) The start menu
7) The start menu
The single largest step backwards in O/S history. Who ever designed that folder system should be keel-hauled.


Depends on who you are asking. For someone who has tons of applications, a 10 foot long programs menu was messy to deal with. On Vista, I can just type in few letters and voila!

You should try skinning it, the skinning of the start menu has been significantly restricted now in Vista


I guess skinning was not one of the top priorities when they designed the new UI.

Anyway, why should you use a keyboard to find an app?


Better than scrolling through a very long list.

Most people that say they can't run Dreams, their specs contain 8000 series cards.


I have an ATI X850 Pro and cannot run the Dreams! My system goes nuts.

a more secure OS, a faster bootup, and a better experience, as well as the "Ultimate extras" which are nothing more than bogus features and disappointment.

M$ may have their own defintions for them. Why don't you spell out yours.
Reply #54 Top
7 things couldnt cover it.Theres way more to dislike(hate even)about Vista.
I'm not even thinking about how stable,quick,or secure.(it runs fine even on my borderline system)

It accesses the hard drive too much,especially at boot...seems to go on way too long.

It shut down my system without asking to install updates.(and would I please not power off the pc til it was done...with 27 of them)  

The start menu is horrible...a scrolling programs menu?(flyout menus are configurable,if your letting stuff pile up in there til its too freaking big,your not managing your pc very well.  )

I HATE search bars!Dont need them,dont use them and you cant remove them.

Where are my toolbars?!That lame horizontal one sux...and you get more crappy search and address bars...that you cant remove.I want my up,delete,etc...BACK!

One window view for ALL windows...change something in one window,it propagates to all others.

In the mistaken attempt at ease of use they went with obscurity...hide enough stuff and stupid people will THINK its easier.(SKS6 went down this same ignorant path)

Tabbed interfaces were fine...Vista has to open a config window for everything

Too many useless processes...

Taskbar toolbars are not removable.

Systray icons that are unhideable or unremovable.

No options for using XP type gui anywhere...its Aero or classic...booooooooooo!

Ultimate extras not so ultimate.  

Those horrible logoff buttons...yeah,clicked on the wrong one a few times and the system did dumb stuff...thats not even possible in XP.

Aero looks like it was designed by 3 different people...and that just leads to a long list of why it sux to skin.  

Thats all I can think of without actually booting into it...god forbid.  

Reply #55 Top
I also HATE disk accesses on Vista. I'm tired of that blue light flash... flash... flash.. flash... flash... flash all tome. >
Reply #56 Top
"may have their own defintions for them. Why don't you spell out yours."

Well here are a few things I would have included in the Vista Ultimate package.

1. Better Speech Recognition The Vista Speech Recognition menu is slightly faster but it doesn't seem to recognize my speech any more effectively than XP. Which is sad. Gates said that he saw us using verbal speech to communicate with our computers much more than typing way back in the 70's/80's. For sure it would be faster and more efficient than typing. My first experience with speech recognition was in the days for a 500 mhz cpu. Then again with my single core 2.4 ghz processor. Now that I have a quad core, of which Vista mostly doesn't utilize, the experience has not significantly improved. This type of a program could/would vastly improve the versatility of an OS. It would also give Windows a feature other OS's don't have setting them apart.

2. Real Word Processing: MS WORD Where is the Word Processor for Vista? Oh yeah it's in another $500 upgrade package aside from the OS. What bullshit. They don't even include the back burner Microsoft Works anymore. They could have at least given the user MS WORD 97 or 2003 or something instead of nothing with ULTIMATE! What they did give you is the antiquated notepad which doesn't even "nextline" properly but reads text files great. Except for the free Textpad program which works even better and opens more different kinds of text files. Wordpad was also included but it's the same Wordpad as WIN95. Really is that what I'm paying for with Ultimate, a word processor that was midrange 13 years ago?

3. Faster and better performance than the previous OS Really instead of the whole sidebar crap they could have bumped the speed of the a window closing or opening from the half second you see, to something like a tenth of a second, increased the size of the red X bar so when you wanna close something, you close it on the first try every time, and instead of just renaming everything from XP to Vista, they should have errorer on the side of making fewer changes to names of things, because now everybody has to learn a whole new OS again. If I was going to have the sidebar, the first thing I'd have in there is a google map of where the computer is at, instead of a second clock, 4 inches above my digital clock on the system tray. Real big benefit Microsoft.

4. Driver Support for EVERYTHING I mean everything, Microsoft is the biggest company in the industry, they have an OS which is the basis for everything to run on and 3rd party devs to develop for, not the other way around. Vista, should have included all the drivers that XP had for programs and hardware, and automatically emulated 32bit mode when necessary. So that end users, i.e. me, don't have to go digging online to find drivers for stuff that works with XP just fine. On a 15 gigabyte install, there wasn't room for a folder with these updates/drivers?

5. Real Backward Compatibility With an Ultimate copy, or "Premium level copy" of anything, there should be support for programs that originally ran on older copies of Microsoft OS's. Start with DOS and work your way up. This should come standard, with Vista Ultimate and why not. Obviously end users aren't going to be able to remember every thing they run on XP or Win 2000 that ran on older stuff like 98SE, 95, and DOS. There are a very few but select programs that people keep and run be it because of older machines or just low IT budgets. Whatever, there is a need to run older stuff and that capability should be with Vista at the "Premium level copy" of the OS.

6. Everybody
Reply #57 Top

Does it take a year for the Control Panel fly out menu in the Start Panel to open for anyone else? All other menus open fast but Control Panel is sloooooooooooooooooooooow.

Anyone else?

on Vista Ultimate


I can't see any reason why you can't adjust the menu speed in Vista as you can in xp, you can either make the registry edit manually or a real quick way is to use microsofts powertoy tweakui & use the slider to increase the time it takes or decrease,come to think of it ain't one of the apps in objectdesktop got that function adjustment
Reply #58 Top
You know what I really hate is when people jump in before you are finishied composing a post. Thanks Xscorp

Based on the times, it's quite clear you either didn't have a refreshed copy of the page open or didn't care that I was tidying up my post lol

November 10, 2007 03:04:45
November 10, 2007 03:06:39

LOL No worries, I'll just move this all to the top
Reply #59 Top
Tip for WB users: If you don't like the start menu search box, just use SK6 to set start menu search box the vertical margin to 50 - you'll never see the search box again
Reply #60 Top
Option to rid the UAC, done,
Checking your system to see if something installed that it doesn't like? How?
Compatibility mode, Done everything works except for Railroad Tycoon 2 which is apparently 16bit so I'm fucked unless I figure out how to run a virtual machine, which I have attempted without success.


Spyware, adware scans etc.

Switching to 32bit Vista will allow you to run 16-bit programs again.
Reply #61 Top
I think Virtual pc 2004 is free, so you can make a small win95 install work. Very easy indeed. Just use win 95 boot disk with cd support, use it to boot virtual computer, etc.
Reply #62 Top

there is only one thing concerning vista that i dislike. the lone thing is the fact that some people who have it and can't get it to work on their system(s) the way they think it should feel the need to constantly post threads complaining about. did these people complain about xp when it was released? probably. now, xp is the best thing since sliced bread and the toaster to these same people. most folks who didn't like xp came around when the first service pack was released. vista may have been in development for years but it's still in its infancy. maybe vista needs to grow up a bit but so do some of the people complaining about it. i readliy admit that some hardware changes to your rig may be needed for vista to install and operate but with the proper hardware, vista runs superbly. chances are, when these people switched from win 98 to xp, hardware changes were needed so why not expect changes to be needed now?

regarding the troubles skinning vista, that's a different subject and i completely understand how it can aggravate skinners. i'm sure with the development of wb 6 and sks in regard to certain aspects of the inner-workings of vista, these issues will be dealt with and eliminated in the near future.

Reply #63 Top
did these people complain about xp when it was released?


Not if they had ME first, they didn't...lol!

One of the biggest problems I have seen with Vista has nothing to do with Vista and everything to do with OEMs. And that is the fact that so many PC's are being shipped with hardware specs that meet the bare minimum requirements, in which case, Vista will be a guaranteed dog!

Is Vista good? Is Vista bad? The question can be yes or no depending on: 1) what kind of system you have, and 2) what you intend to do with the machine. In my case, a machine that was less resource hungry was a must, so XP was the favored O/S.
Reply #64 Top
Even though I have more than one copy of genuine Vista at my disposal, I don't use it unless I have to. For example, WB6 and hence SK6 were not supported on XP 64 until this week and I had to create a Vista dual boot just to use them. So, I am not a big Vista fan in any sense.

1. Better Speech Recognition The Vista Speech Recognition menu is slightly faster but it doesn't seem to recognize my speech any more effectively than XP. Which is sad.

I am surprised. MS uses their speech recognition for automated support. I found it to be really good. I thought they were using the same in Vista. I never used it so I cannot comment about the quality.

3. Faster and better performance than the previous OS

If you disable the fancy Aero, it is really faster than XP with classic GUI. I have first hand experience with that. But then again, I would not go back to classic GUI on any OS on my desktop. For a server, I am happy with just text interface.

4. Driver Support for EVERYTHING

That is what seperates Apple and MS. Trying to support EVERYTHING on the planet and not being perfect on anything. Apple supports only a fixed set and they are pretty perfect on that limited set. The real problem is that manufactureres change how their devices work and add features. MS developers won't be able to imagine all those things in advance. Moreover, these device vendors do not want to expose the device details MS or anyone else for obvious reasons. Without those details no one other than the vendor can develop an efficient and accurate driver. You may ask how Apple does that. They buy the hardware from the vendors and demand they provide all details in advance or be ready with drivers by the time they release the hardware. PC vendors care less. They can always blame MS or device vendors.

Disclaimer: I own no Apple products. My knowledge is from reading Apple fan boy stuff

5. Real Backward Compatibility

I wished it was the other way. This is the number one reason for Vista being bloated, slow and insecure. At some point we need a completely new OS without worrying about BC (backward compatibility) to the beginning of time. Get rid of all those API's written for Windows 95 etc. Many of the security loopholes in Vista can be tracked back to BC code in Vista. Those things were not written with security in mind and any changes to that will break BC.
Reply #65 Top
Funny thing about Vista...

I have a fellow willing to trade me his copy of Vista Ultimate for my Windows XP with the key. I have to admit, I'm seriously considering it, even though I'll have to double my RAM to do what I want...
Reply #67 Top
my biggest complaint about vista is..... the # of threads griping about the same thing....
Reply #68 Top
my biggest complaint about vista is..... the # of threads griping about the same thing...


Me too...how about getting a '7 Things I Hate About Vista Haters' thread started instead?

Here goes, in no particular order....

I hate Vista haters because many get confused if there are more than 2 letters or numbers in the OS name....can't have a decent conversation/debate cos once you say Vista and not XP, you've lost 'em totally.

I hate Vista haters because so many saw and believed those silly Mac ads denigrating it...and now can't make up their minds which is the worst OS, Mac or Vista, providing they can break the 2 letters/numbers barrier, that is.

I hate Vista haters cos so many of 'em bitch too much about not being able to find the shut-down button, when all they need is stronger prescription glasses.

I hate Vista haters cos too many of 'em try to run the OS on sub-standard machines, then blame the OS for crapping its pants when it runs out of memory.

I hate Vista haters cos they never leave the toilet seat as they found it and never replace empty toilet rolls.

I hate Vista haters cos they'll bitch about the price and how much hardware upgrades cost, yet they'll think nothing of spending big on a new car; a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant; 1st night tickets on Broadway or a visit to a bordello.

I hate Vista haters because the dawdle along at half the speed limit in the overtaking lane and slow progress while dithering about whether or not to engage a higher gear.


Well that's my list at short notice...who's next??
Reply #69 Top
The #1 thing I hate about Vista? The people who constantly cry and moan about how bad of an OS it is. Don't like it? Buy XP, install it. No more Vista, no more boo-hooing. Unless you want to complain about that too, that is.

For anyone interested, my girlfriend's uncle works for MS. He said XP SP3 is due out in Jan 08. As for Vista SP1? Who knows......
Reply #70 Top
I'm soooooo in agreement with Snidely (comment #62) on this whole 'I hate Vista' threads, post and so forth.

I moved to Vista a few months back and I wouldn't want to go back to XP unless I was forced to. My laptop is still XP and I really hate getting on there.

As for the 'Ultimate features being a bust'. How can a full/complete system backup be a bad thing? Granted certain things like the dreams are a bit of fluff and serve no true purpose other then just being cool.
Reply #71 Top
Oh, and another thing I hate about Vista haters, they start off huge whine fests and neglect to bring the blasted cheese.
Reply #72 Top
Next thing you know, WC is gonna have to start selling diapers.....  
Reply #73 Top
Next thing you know, WC is gonna have to start selling diapers.....


So long as they don't start selling dummies (pacifiers)...otherwise it'd be the scene of endless dummy spits ... rattle throwing tantrums.
Reply #74 Top
otherwise it'd be the scene of endless dummy spits ... rattle throwing tantrums.


really, all we're missing is the rattles....  
Reply #75 Top
"Switching to 32bit Vista will allow you to run 16-bit programs again."

Can't do that with the OEM VISTA, which is bullshit for an Ultimate product. Why do I need 2 OS's from MS to run things that were originally programmed to run on their stuff in the past?

"there is only one thing concerning vista that i dislike. the lone thing is the fact that some people who have it and can't get it to work on their system(s) the way they think it should feel the need to constantly post threads complaining about. did these people complain about xp when it was released?"

Thanks for the sympathy. But these complaints are well documented, shared by others with the same experience, and accurate. Vista is not a product worth the money they are charging.

"Funny thing about Vista...

I have a fellow willing to trade me his copy of Vista Ultimate for my Windows XP with the key. I have to admit, I'm seriously considering it, even though I'll have to double my RAM to do what I want..."

You know what Vista is all about Gid, listen to the angel on your shoulder not the one with the pitchfork. LOL.


"I wished it was the other way. This is the number one reason for Vista being bloated, slow and insecure. At some point we need a completely new OS without worrying about BC (backward compatibility) to the beginning of time. Get rid of all those API's written for Windows 95 etc. Many of the security loopholes in Vista can be tracked back to BC code in Vista. Those things were not written with security in mind and any changes to that will break BC."

So you are