PC Magazine Editor drops Vista

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2171472,00.asp

Thoughts?

 

I'd say he should learn to use a computer. My new M1330 comes out of Standby in less than 2 seconds, and my wireless network just a few seconds after that.

 

I had Good and Bad experiences with Vista on differ PCs. I even had to help friends out who had problems.

The problem with Vista is that it seems to not be consistent enough of an OS.(yet)
Sure Vista works damn good on some machines but sucks on others(with the same specs). I say at 40/60 success rate.

 

I'd say that someone in his position knows how to use a computer, and I would venture to guess better than you. Just because your computer works fine doesn't mean his does, and his point is that Microsoft hasn't fixed the errors that he's been reporting over the past 9 months. It's the same with Linux. Give somebody an AMD-based HP laptop and see how easy it is for them to install Linux vs. somebody with an Inspiron 1420N. The difference is that nobody is forcing you to use Linux, nor are they charging you $400 in the meantime.

 

Maybe instead of reporting to microsoft the author should've googled around or browsed some forums. Microsoft sure isn't going to pay any attention to one guy... regardless of job title or status or whatever else MS might use to categorize people.

Personally, my AMD-based desktop computer is running vista, and it's running well. Of course, I'm still using just the default drivers 'cause I haven't bothered to update or manually install any new drivers/tweaks 'cause I just don't have the time.

 

To be honest, this thread could probably go in the Windows forum. Just sayin....

 

These seem to be trivial reasons for dropping an OS... 30s reconnection time, failing standby function? I think he should have listed the more (if any) essential reasons for dropping it to give the article more value; for example, instability or poor performance or poor productivity for such and such reasons.

 

Actually, OS-troubleshooting-wise, I think I'm as qualified as anyone to know how to use a computer. If he's really having these issues, he should be doing a reinstall of Vista. Sure, Vista isn't perfect, but really - I don't know a single person with his issues that didn't get them solved by doing a reformat/reinstall. And yes it's possible he may have software conflicts, but that's another story... But feel free to venture to guess whatever you like.

 

It's only been seven months, not nine, since Vista's release. That's the only comment I have on the article.

 

Actually, Vista RTM was wrapped up in November of 2006 at which point it was shipped to a lot of key people for reviews and technical evaluations. It just wasn't released to the public until January 2007; it does take a while to ramp up production of a new product, after all, especially if you don't want to have short supply issues (a la Xbox 360 days).

 

I'd say core system functions that are outright FAILING to operate as intended, 9 months after the product is released constitutes more than enough reason to kick that trash to the curb.

Machines that suspend and never resume DOES constitute instability, poor performance, and poor productivity.

It's not like he's the only one complaining - across the web, from tech column writers to IT professionals to end users are comparing Windows Vista to Windows ME. And with good reason - it's a half baked, slow, flaky, unreliable mess - and it's disgusting that most users are FORCED to buy a copy of that trash when they purchase a new PC.

 

To be perfectly fair, if failing to resume from suspend and taking 30 seconds to reconnect to a wireless network after suspend were reasons to drop an OS, I would have ditched Linux ages ago. My computer barely suspended correctly prior to Feisty. I can suspend perfectly fine now with Feisty (assuming I'm not running Beryl), but hibernate doesn't work at all and requires cold restarts. And a lot of times, my wireless card fails to even turn back on after suspend. So really, "kicking that trash to the curb" does seem a bit trivial to me as well.

I think the large resource overhead, ridiculous DRM framework, and very poor backwards software compatibility would do it for me, though.

 

Suspend / Resume is still marked "experimental" in Linux, as is most of the WLAN stuff. To be perfectly fair.

 

imo if someone could come up with a linux based os that could run anything at all normally able to run on windows/vista id change in a heartbeat.. but that will prob never happen lol.. .maybe something will come close but i doubt it will ever be just that easy..

on vista i personally would much much rather it to xp. BUT thats after tweaking it to be the way i want it to run.. for instance my machine i have taken total administrative control.. so the uac is completly gone from the picture.. things like that... i have yet to have any issues with the running of vista on any machine i have installed it on even ones not designed to run it, older machines, and lots of notebooks. i have had (again except minor tweaking which is to be expected of any os even linux) 0 issues and 0 times to reinstall all the machines at our business' are still running the same first installs..

and with vista once it is tweaked a bit the ram usage can be brought way down.. i have it running on plenty of 512mb business machines just fine and its NOT SLOW AT ALL.. works great

as far as backwards compatability i have some anceint programs that run fine. i have my register and company programs that were made for xp.. they run fine, i have all of the wife's business' programs which were actually intended for 98 they run fine.. yes ive had a few albeit very few conflict with one or two older programs.. but one of those after some time and playing it is running fine now..

now im sure ill get some hate here, and i LOVE LINUX AS MUCH as the rest of you here... but i honestly cant really say that i have anything all that bad to report about vista. at home i dual boot to take advantage of both linux and vista.. but i do however find myself using vista more due to the lack of more popular software for linux... if this barrier could somehow be broken there would im sure be MILLIONS OUT THERE who would make the official switch to linux as well.. one day i hope to see that happen...

 

Whilst Linux is nice to use it does have the one disadvantage of being rather difficult to remove from the machine once it has been installed.

Whilst some people complain about instability in regards to Vista, in my brief forays into Linux it has come across as being both slower and less stable than Vista. But as pointed out - that might just be because my laptop is the way that is.

 

That's a bit silly to assert something like that. It's no different than ANY other operating system to remove. In fact, they're all exactly the same, Linux, XP, Vista, FreeBSD, Solaris x86, etc.

1. Remove (or reformat) the partition
2. Remove (or overwrite) the MBR

That's all there is to it! Am I missing something here?

 

For myself unfortunately, yes. I am clueless as to how one would go about restoring the MBR as I seem to need the GRUB loader to boot any OS now. Plus, as far as I'm aware I will need a Vista disc to redo the MBR. Which is something I don't have.

But that has nothing at all to do with this thread XD I just needed to vent a little fustration at the copy of Ubuntu sitting on my HDD eating space I could do with >.<

 

That's actually Microsoft's fault for not giving a clear and easy MBR recovery option. I know if you boot to the Vista install disc and enter the recovery console it should give you a command in the help. I know it did in XP.

 

If you have the proper tools and know what you're doing, it's pretty trivial to do.

If I were to install several different Linux distros on different partitions (using the same /boot partition), it's pretty trivial to remove any or all of them while leaving the remaining ones intact.

If I have a Windows partition and multiple Linux partitions, same thing.

If I have a Windows partition and a Linux partition, if I don't mind keeping GRUB around, it's still pretty trivial to get rid of the Linux partition and leave the Windows one around.

Really, for all of those, it's the same beast, remove the partition, edit the GRUB menu, two simple steps.

The only situation that requires a little more work is if you want to restore the Windows bootloader. Though the only real difficulty there is if you don't have a proper Windows install disk lying around. If you do, just boot from it, enter recovery mode, and run the "fixmbr" and/or "fixboot" commands and you should be set. You can remove the Linux partition either through Windows after that, or beforehand with a Linux LiveCD of some sort. That's all it took for me when I removed Arch Linux from my dad's laptop that I was borrowing for a couple weeks.

NOTE: The Windows in question in this case is Windows XP, I haven't tried doing the same with Vista, though I imagine it wouldn't be much different.

As far as stability goes, yeah, hardware can have a lot to do with it, my laptop has a couple problems now and then, I mostly blame the video card (ATi, bad Linux support). It could also have to do with using beta software, as pretty as it is, I stay away from Beryl for that reason (especially on my laptop).

For speed? All my experience has shown me various Linux setups being faster than Windows ones, but, admittedly that's really just a subjective observation, and a biased one at that. Also, when i use a Linux box, I have a tendency to use the terminal a lot, and I've never ran into a computer that doesn't run a command line quickly.

 

HAH. I hate windows, especially Vista. Tryed installing it on my desktop and laptop and nothing worked, so i gave up and loaded Ubuntu. Ubuntu rules.

 

VistaBootPRO is your friend. It has a built in option that will allow you to restore a default Vista MBR entry. After that, you can simply reformat the Ubuntu partition.

 

i have download the new two upates to improves the performance and reliability
for vista


i feel it is better now

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938979

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194

 

I don't know if it's changed with Vista, but the traditional Microsoft way of restoring the MBR is with this command:

fdisk /mbr

 

I was not aware of that command... good call. Can this be used on a live (i.e., mounted) disk?

 

It should be able to. Generally not recommended, though. Boot from an install CD/DVD into the Windows Recovery Console and run it to be safe.

 

If you're in the recovery console anyway, is it any different than running the "fixmbr" command?

Anyway, I mainly ask about this because there are occasions when you don't have an install disk handy and need to use other methods to fix things.

 

I know nothing about the author of this editorial, but it reads like a poorly-written attempt at a copy of an Andy Rooney segment without supporting facts or the elegant command of the language that Mr. Rooney would have employed.