Dan Greene

VISTA 3 Month Ownership Review

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VISTA 3 Month Ownership Review

Was it worth it? Answer.... no

from JoeUser Forums
First let me say I'm not joking when I say I'd love to reply to your posts, but I am seemingly unable to reply only edit the original post, does anybody have any suggestions, I'm using Vista lol and firefox. Is my brower missing the reply functionality?

I purchased an OEM copy of Vista, when I was given the dilemma by Microsoft of either purchasing a OEM XP License for about $10 less than getting an OEM copy of Vista via newegg.

What I can tell you is that I have been a computer user since the 80's and have a history of OS usage, dating back to whatever they called the OS on the Apple IIGS, DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1, Win 95/98/98SE/2000/XP and of course OEM VISTA ULTIMATE 64 bit.

I have finally settled down with Vista, but I am left looking for the new and improved features which really give me the feeling that they are all that (sorta) without the bag of chips.

I don't understand why Vista wasn't packaged as saleable service pack to XP because Vista truly offers an almost immeasurable benefit per dollar over XP.

One of the major downsides of Vista, is the necessity to upgrade hardware on older rigs to achieve performance standards easily obtainable with 2 or 3 or 4 year old hardware on XP. Also, with only 2GB of ram in the sytem, it is smooth, but it would be equally smooth with XP, so while there is intelligent (supposedly) buffering of the RAM by Vista, perhaps reducing the load time on programs you use consistently at certain times of the day, in Vista over XP I don't see that it is a major advantage over XP. I use XP at work daily, Windows 2000 weekly, and Vista at home.

At this point I am pretty comfy with Vista, I have totally disabled the UAC, and I am left to wonder if I am really safer with Vista vs XP. I did have a virus or nasty bit of malware at one time, with Vista, which I was able to safely dispose of using System Restore. On my old single core rig, System Restore no longer works for unknown reasoning, also I cannot reformat the drive, and install a clean OS, because I no longer have the activation code which I'll have to call up Dell TSupport and spend more hours of my life than it is worth to deal with that, while having a protected computer readily available should there be a problem.

However, with Vista Ultimate, no update to the speech recognition system, no word processor which interfaces with the speech recognition, and no real surviving feature that I get excited by.

At this point I would have preferred to get OEM XP and a cheap or bootleg copy of Office, just for the fact that I have spell check and compatibility with work computers, Excel files.

There are a few visual things but nothing to justify 5 years of development, nothing to justify the price, and certainly nothing to want me to invest any money in upcoming Windows 7 or go Microsoft in the future. Unfortunately they have damaged their company image, going from the evil almost monopoly to the exploiter of that power to release drab OS software that lacks completeness and robustness.

There is nothing that truly bothers me about Vista Ultimate, if you forget about, No MS WORD, No OS integrated Microsoft Virus Protection, and lack of incompatibility of the Vista Speech Recognition Engine with Open Office.

I believe that Vista, really does deserve the half assed product award. At this point.



How does one make a reply in ones' own post? JU must have changed since I was last here since I can no longer reply to users in the forum which is kinda stupid in my opinion.
46,138 views 125 replies
Reply #76 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You were the one who said it...gonna say I was controlling you now?


No you didn't control me. I said what I said to get you off my back. It seems you don't know when to quit.

Again...that isn't what you had said. All you could afford was a $40 motherboard to go with the CPU and RAM you already have.


And all I need is a 27 dollar stick of RAM to get this so called "dinosaur" into Vista land. I only wanted a new mobo so I could solve a few read/write errors on the HDD. I have a screwy IDE controller on my current mobo.

You work at Wal-Mart, right? It's not like people who go into Wallyworld to get a computer actually have a clue to begin with, so that hardly counts for anything.


Actually most of them do. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't make light of my customers.

At any rate, it's obviously an exercise in futility to attempt a reasonable debate/conversation with you since you've already made up your mind and will not listen to reason in any way, shape, or form, and when you get cornered you toss out insults like a child on the playground. *out*


Oh I'm capable of a decent debate. It seems you just will not give any thought to my side of the debate. You seem to think MS is not evil. So be it.

And last time I checked I haven't insulted you here at WC. What was said in IRC stays in IRC.

Can we just agree to disagree about Vista? It's no worth getting upset about...
Reply #77 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Is it over? aaaah craps iam late again. Man I love this site, iam like your nosey neibough got nothing constructive to say or add but just likes a good fight.On a serious note --- FREEDOM OF CHOICE --- me thinks iam going to get the last word !!! or is that because the Thread is now dead. Have a great weekend people.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #78 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's not like people who go into Wallyworld to get a computer actually have a clue to begin with, so that hardly counts for anything.


That was just wrong of you to say that.
I do have a clue even though I bought my PC at SAM's Club. which is a wal-mart store.

even though I could have bought the same PC at best buy and Paid $200.00 to $400.00 more
Reply #79 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Zubaz.....you are welcome to your opinion. You are free to state I do not know what I am talking about. But at least do so knowing you know nothing of my experience base with computers. Do so knowing that much of what we were told XP could not do in comparison to Vista has been achieved by intelligent geeks all over the world using XP and creating apps that do what Vista does. I did not make the statement to get into an argument nor to recieve an arrogant reply. I also do not mind what OS anyone is using as my previous post states. People use what they are comfortable with....I do however view Vista as over priced and granted more Kudos than it deserves. I had it on my computer and removed it. I run a Signwriting business and too many apps would not function correctly on Vista and I was in no mind to buy a bigger computer given the one I have works perfectly fine and has plenty of ram and a more than adequate HD to run Vista. Point is I need a reliable OS and for me...right now....Vista does not fit the bill nor does it measure up as an advantage over XP.
Reply #80 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you are a cheap bastage who has lots of time to find and install and configure your OS and apps every two months and want to be cooler than the guy next to you . . . go with *nix.


As usual you really don't know what you're talking about. Contrary to popular belief Linux does not need to be installed every two months. If anything Linux is more stable than Windows.

Look up on the net the longest uptime of a PC. Then guess what OS it uses...

Reply #81 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How is MS controlling any of us?


Buy Viiiiista! Buy Viiiiista! You know you want too...and Viiiiista is good for you! :LOL:
Reply #82 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks for the laugh. I sometimes get too caught up in this stuff don't I? :)
Reply #83 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As usual you really don't know what you're talking about. Contrary to popular belief Linux does not need to be installed every two months. If anything Linux is more stable than Windows.


First, please notice the winks at the end of teh line you quoted and teh one above.  If there was a tongue in cheek emoticon here I would have used that.  Sorry that tone doesn't always translate to text.

Second, I think that I'm wrong here less than I am right by a long shot.  That's one of the reasons why *I'm* the mod.  :)

Third, a *nix running as a webserver is not the same as a user's desktop.

Fourth, I use Vista and XP daily, Ubuntu and OSX monthly.  I do have some clue.  :)
Reply #84 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I used ME with no problems when everyone was whinging about that....

You were in a lonely club there then...;)

Reply #85 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Duh, my brain hurts...
Reply #86 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wow. What have I learned from this thread. Kona hates MS and apparently thinks Bill Gates is the anti-Christ. He also has a dinosaur as a PC.

Dan Greene hates Vista, too....

Oh, wait. I learned that from the LAST TWO posts Dan made about Vista.....

History does tend to repeat itself, doesn't it? ;p 
Reply #87 from WinCustomize Forums Top
History does tend to repeat itself, doesn't it?
I know that I've typed versions of the following a time or two.  :)
Everyone should use the OS that fits their needs.

Needs:

* Runs the applications I want
* Costs what I want to pay
* Has the security I want
* Looks like I want

Somewhere in that matrix is the OS you will use.


Why the hatin'?  ;)
Reply #88 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey!!

I don't have a dinosaur for a PC!!

2.4 GHz and 512 MB DDR RAM! 128 MB Video Card!

All I need is a memory upgrade to run Vista. I'm just gonna hold off and get a new PC. :)
Reply #89 from WinCustomize Forums Top
2.4 GHz and 512 MB DDR? 128 MB GPU? I think I saw a special on Discovery Channel about that...."When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth"....

Hell, I have an ASUS mobo w/ a Pentium 4 3.4 GHz w/ hyper-threading tech, and I'm ready to upgrade!! I also have 4 gigs of ddr ram (I love dual-channel ram, btw), and a nVidia 8500GT w/ 512mb on board.

As a tip Kona, I got this GPU at Best Buy on sale for $129.00. WITH 512 MB RAM ON BOARD!!!!!

It's SLI capable, too.....perfect for that new ASUS mobo I want......
Reply #90 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As a tip Kona, I got this GPU at Best Buy on sale for $129.00. WITH 512 MB RAM ON BOARD!!!!!


I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on a GPU alone...
Reply #91 from JoeUser Forums Top

I'm still back to the future with W98. Fast becoming obsolete; I had to give up Turbo Tax that no longer recognzed the old system; then this year HR followed suit. The last alternative was Tax Act on line--I hope they stick with  it. BTW does WordPerfect run with Vista?

Reply #92 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I would think so. I run Open Office myself.
Reply #94 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wow.

Some people are cheap bastards. I spent $40 for 2GB of RAM and another $40 for an el cheapo nVidia GeForce 8400GS. Is $80 for hardware upgrades really such a burden?
Reply #95 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Some people are cheap bastards. I spent $40 for 2GB of RAM and another $40 for an el cheapo nVidia GeForce 8400GS. Is $80 for hardware upgrades really such a burden?


And that's my point. I got 2 gigs of ddr w/ heatsinks for about $80 off newegg (i love u newegg!) and an nvidia 8500GT 512mb SLI for $129.00 at best buy. People want to bitch about their PCs not being good enough for Vista, but they won't go spend any $$ to upgrade and solve their problems. I guess people think that companies like MS should just stick with what's current.
Reply #96 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yes, Newegg is made of win and awesome. I actually put together this halfway-decent system for about $300 + tax and shipping.

This is what I don't understand: Person A says that Program X is crap. When asked, Person A says that Program X is crap because it won't run on old hardware. When asked again, Person A says that their hardware can't run Program X. Third time around, Person A says they're happy with Program X-1 anyway.

So what is it? If you want to run it but can't, that's one thing. But if you can't run it and don't want it anyway...then what's your point?
Reply #97 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Don, I have come to realize that some folks just want something (anything, really) to whine about. It's all a conspiracy: the software corps. like MS are in cahoots with PC manufacturers and parts suppliers to bleed the common folks dry. ;p 

I often wonder if people realize how stupid that sounds....
Reply #98 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Of course. It's all a conspiracy - these same PC manufacturers are taking orders from the oil companies (plastics, don'tchaknow), who ultimately take orders from the Illuminati and Thirteen Swiss Rabbis (or was it twenty-one? I get so confused).

It's different and new, and that makes it easy to find fault with. The average person doesn't understand the intricacies of RAM management, copyright protection, and the like. What they do understand is "requires better hardware to run." This, then, becomes a way for otherwise average people to look smart and connected - which is doubly ridiculous on a software manufacturer's company forums, where real software and hardware engineers post regularly.

I'm not saying there aren't valid complaints about Vista. It does do some boneheaded stuff. However, it's almost entirely at the back end, where the consumer won't see it. It's the devs who have to slog through its weirdness, not me. So, from my perspective, I really couldn't complain beyond "I wish some of the software I'm waiting for would come out faster." Once these engineers get used to Vista's ways, I'm sure the pace will pick back up.

By the way, anyone else find it odd - and maybe a little suspicious - that somebody is upset over having to buy new hardware, but claims to have tried Vista already? So are we to believe that he went out and bought a copy of a $150-$300 OS and just threw it in a drawer after trying it out when that same amount would've given him four times the computer he's using now?
Reply #99 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have been a computer user since the 80's and have a history of OS usage


So, basically, you don't know s**t.
Reply #100 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think the Masons are involved in this conspiracy too, Don. Let's not forget that they have their hands stirring ALL the pots.

After reading some of the other forum posts, I'm surprised that no one has accused SD of being part of the conspiracy (I think Brad and Neil are members of the Illuminati/Masons/your choice ofany secret society here).....