I am a long time user of Microsoft operating systems, all the way back to DOS 2.0. When each new OS comes out there are people that complain about it, drivers aren’t up to speed, and changes made that break a lot of programs. Some programs break because Windows behavior changes slightly and these programs don’t even realize that they depend on it. After a six months to a year things quiet down and then in a few years that OS is now the best one ever as the next new one comes out.

We just went through this with Vista and it’s time for Vista to become the best one. For several reasons Vista has been hit with bad PR and I don’t believe that Vista can overcome them.  In my opinion most of the reasons for the bad press are poor decisions by Microsoft. I put most of the blame on Microsoft and about 35% blame on the PC makers. Vista should be configured out of the box to perform up to it’s capabilities.

What I think is wrong:

  • Too many versions. We don’t need 4+ versions. Two versions (Home and Pro) are all that’s needed.
  • It’s too expensive for an OS upgrade compared to just purchasing a new computer.
  • Too many features are turned on by default, causing poor performance and annoying dialogs.
  • The vendors making PC’s are bundling too much stuff and in a way that actually makes the system perform poorly – (not just a Vista issue).
  • Anti-virus software bundled with new PC’s is poorly written and consumes too much resources.
  • When upgrading some hardware may need to be replaced, because the vendor chose not to support Vista.
  • Apple has done a great job with their commercials. Although I don’t agree with them. I enjoy them, they are funny, and they are based on enough truth to be effective. We all know that Macs aren’t perfect, aren’t free from virus’s, suffer technical problems, and have problems during upgrades. That doesn’t matter when the few Mac people affected can’t make the same noise as the number of Windows people affected.

My Vista SP1 reality:

  • I dual boot Vista SP1 and XP SP3. The reasons that I dual boot are so that I can compare XP/Vista and because of 3 games (MotoGP 3 [controller issue], Tiger Woods 2006 – [graphic issue], and GTA III – [controller issue]).
  • My games (except for the 3 mentioned above) run within a few percentage points of XP. Sometimes slower and sometimes faster.
  • Network file copies are the same or faster under Vista than XP.
  • I had to upgrade two things for Vista (Tunebite, and my sound card). I had an obsolete Turtle Beach sound card that no driver updates are being made for it. It was possible to bring it forward using the XP drivers, but I decided to only use hardware where the vendor supports the OS I am using.
  • My system runs quite well, extremely reliable, very responsive, and I can’t go back to XP. I’m forced to use it at work and I keep finding things that I can’t do in XP that I have gotten used to doing in Vista.

I do the following to Vista:

  • UAC – User Account Control – I have no use for it, so I turn it off. If I need to test something under UAC it is easy to turn on.
  • SuperFetch – While it’s goals are nice, they are not compatible with my use. I don’t find a program whose job it is to consume all of my free memory something I want.
  • ReadyBoost – The job of Readyboost is to help a memory starved Vista box. Install the right amount of memory and this becomes unnecessary.

I find myself in the position of liking Vista, while most people I know hate Vista (even if they have never used it). They just repeat things that they have read on the internet. Apple commercials have done their job and most people don’t realize how good Vista is.

The current Vista reality as I see it:

  • If you have an existing computer that doesn’t have Vista, I would not upgrade it unless you want/need the features that Vista offers.
  • When buying a new computer I would get it with Vista. I would not downgrade to XP.
  • For normal use 1 gig of memory is fine. If you are doing programming, graphics editing, video editing etc. go for 2 gig.
  • If it’s a new PC, uninstall unused programs. If you are upgrading, then install into a new directory (don’t upgrade over an existing installation).
  • Turn off unused services.
  • Make your own decision about UAC. Try it for a while. If you don’t like it then turn it off or do a safer variation as explained in this article Tim Sneath’s Windows Vista Secret #4: Disabling UAC.