Vista=Microsoft ME 2? And are problems related to Microsoft, or the user?

A bit too early to call it that wouldn't you say?

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39087

Yet we see obvious fanboys calling it that.

It seems the main problem they have from that link is that they can't pirate, either Vista itself, or other programs.

I hear the main complaint about Vista all the time is DRM, yet on my desktop I can use cds, mp3s, watch hd-dvds, all without any problems, windows dying, anything going down, AT ALL.

But I can't use daemon tools without windows going haywire, which makes me wonder about the truth in these people's sentences.

It's still an early software, so there will be problems. But alot of people bash it without even using it.

So really, are these problems related to actual problems, or have people become such asses that they must pirate everything, and if a program doesn't allow them too, they will complain and find another program to use?

(This is not bashing anyone actually, this is a theoretical sentence, used for mankind, it could mean me, you, everyone)

And is it too early to begin calling it ME2, before even 1 service pack has come out?

Now before anyone responds to this, I'm not accusing anyone HERE of theft. I don't wish a million people to come in saying they don't.

And in the same way I'm not saying that there are no problems at all with Vista, imo, you shouldnt use Vista until SP1. In fact, in some ways I like other OS's like Linux better a tad.

What I am saying, just like that inquirer article, is that I feel a good amount of the publics 'problems' with Vista is made up. The real thing is, they want to pirate, and they feel Vista won't let them (In reality, all you can't use is daemon tools, but lets not get into a discussion about how to pirate, umkay?). I've felt this since Vista came out, and people have been paranoid about drm. This is the real reason I argue about Vista.

Considering the Inquirer article, I think I may be right. Am I?

One last thing, I'm not saying pirating is wrong or right, all I'm saying is that it could be the reason people don't use Vista. Once again, like everyone says, my intentions are hard to understand.

 

I have always felt that people's problems with Windows in general are blown out of all proportion. Maybe it's just the way I use/keep my laptop but mine is very very reliable.

It's mostly sensationalism, I would guess.

 

Lots of people just hate Microsoft in general. They'd be screaming this even if Vista was breaking all sales records and bug free out of the gate. I agree that a lot of the complaints have to do with pirating the operating system itself and media. I've personally put my copy of Vista Ultimate aside until it ages a couple more months, gets some more field time, and a service pack.

 

Or it could have something to do with the fact that MS spent YEARS promising us that Vista would have a completely new codebase, that WinFS was going to blow us away and that they were finally going to get 64bit support right. Oh, and not to mention that they were finally going to clean up their driver model and make windows much more stable over longer periods of time than it has been in the past.

Instead of doing all of this they got a few years into the project, realized they were no where near finished and needed to release something soon, dusted off the NT codebase again, and whacked as many "improvements" into as they could. Then they did the important thing- they slapped a pretty new GUI on the whole mess. After doing all of this they rushed the final product to hardware developers and scheduled a release date so close to that release that no one had drivers that were close to ready.

So instead of having a brand new OS that is more stable than anything else we've used that is native 64bit we have ANOTHER 32bit OS (the 64bit versions of Vista don't come standard with any computers and suffer greater stability problems than the 32bit version) with immature drivers and serious stability problems. Oh, and did I mention that it eats up significantly more resources than XP at idle AND has a noticeable performance lag in gaming.

Oh, and the complaint in the article relating to piracy isn't that they made it hard to pirate. It's that for years they took advantage of piracy to maintain their monopoly, and now that they are taking a chunk out of piracy they are manipulating the market to maintain their monopoly.

I'm not a huge MS fan, but with XP they got it right. They finally dumped the creaking old 9x, DOS based codebase and switched to the much more stable NT codebase. XP was remarkably stable (which might have something to do with the fact that it was essentially win2k) took up more resources than the 9x systems had, but it did a lot more and it did it better, so we didn't mind as much.

 

Well, currently the biggest problems I know of are IE 7 not working in Vista. I've already known a few people who can't use IE7. It crashes on launch. Even after a fresh install.
And drivers, theres a ton of driver problems right now, but thats not so much Vistas problem, but it makes users not want to go and use Vista. Especially when their laptops say vista compatable, come with vista, and have hardware that doesn't work in vista.
DRM is bad for everyone.

The times I've used it, I like the new look of it. But it feels like a new skin on a poor, bloated system. The resource usage is huge. I haven't experimented with how it does with real memory managment yet, but damn....

Plus, there is a lot of software that will not work with Vista. It reminds me a lot of when we went from win 3.1 to win 95.

It is possible that it becomes another ME. It didn't take long at all for ME to die out (but that was largely because XP was out at the same time, and a better OS). The only real reason to go to Vista is for DX 10, which is hardly even here yet.

 

Sorry for the interruption but... doesn't this thread belong in the Windows OS and Software board? Seems to fit better than in Off Topic...

Matt

 

I moved it.
Tim

 

The problems are real, it's just that some people don't want to admit it. Sure, for the majority of users here, things are peachy. We have nice laptops usually. But what about the general consumer? My parents bought a brand new computer 3 years ago. It can't run Vista. That's ridiculous. Even if I upped the RAM to the motherboard's highest supported, the GPU would only give the Basic interface, and the processor would give incredibly slow boot times. Vista is the first Microsoft OS in a while to really alienate so many legacy users... and for what? A shiny new GUI and some DRM?

And just because you can play HD-DVDs now speaks nothing for in the future. Sure, anyone with a semi-modern computer and a DVI connection can play HD-DVDs now. But what happens when HDCP is enabled on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray? Unless you have a GPU, disc drive, AND a monitor that all support HDCP's latest iteration, you won't be able to watch them. And for those that have those three things, you get rewarded by being required a fast enough processor to keep up with Vista checking the media at all times for the correct DRM without dropping frames or losing bit-rate. Joy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know if we should be calling it Windows ME 2 yet. But there are definite problems that need to be addressed. Just read these forums...

 

I for one have a love-hate relationship with Vista right now. The interface is a step up from XP in terms of my productivity, voice-recognition actually works relatively well, and I at least have not suffered much in terms of loss of gaming performance. My benchmarks and personal experience indicate that the two OSes are actually about equivalent for me, but I kind of think that might be more a credit to ATI and their driver teams than to MS. I have better boot times than compared to XP, but slower hibernation times. Standby is faster, but will accelerate my USB issues so occasionally I have to reboot instead (see below for info).

But I have my problems too. About 1/2 my un-DRMed videos do not play correctly, and I do get the occasional crash. And then there was my big run-in with Vista's built in anti-piracy measures that almost got me hooked on Linux. My canon scanner doesn't scan to PDF correctly (though I am working with a canon support team to resolve it), my TV Tuner finally got updated drivers that work with the MCE functionality , but I've got problems with USB devices about once a week. Sometimes they do not work, and I have to reboot. Vista just doesn't register they are connected anymore, but I've never had that problem with XP. WiFi is also occasionally problematic, which just requires a reboot to fix.

For now, I'm on Vista because I enjoy the new GUI arrangement and that I'm at least working to ID some of the bugs. And yes, while I have my fair share of issues, I've found ways around them so I'm still okay. VMWare with XP as a guest OS running in parellel with Vista (I have VMWare 6.0 Release Candidate...5.x doesn't work with Vista), and use my scanner and watch movies from that OS. VMWare 6.0 also uses USB 2.0 virtualization, which is great for those of you who have issues with USB devices.

But another ME? Possibly. However, I think we can all agree that particular judgment is going to have to wait until SP1 for Vista...and possibly even SP2. Fix the DRM issues, fix WGA, fix USB connectivity and WiFi related issues. Vista has potential, but MS needs to wake-up and smell the crap before they can smell the roses.

And despite MS's belief they need to crank out another OS in about 3 years, I think they should not. They need to finish their work on XP SP3, stabilize Vista (SP2???), and then go for another OS...but build it on the coat-tails of XP/Vista yet still make massive improvements. 5 or 6 years from XP->Vista was actually a good thing for XP, and a similar wait will give MS a chance to make Vista just as good and learn from their mistakes. Sure, MS might have issues selling the new OS (anyone read up on how many prefer XP over Vista right now?) at first, but if they spend more time making a more rock-solid product, giving vendors more time to stabilize drivers, etc...and MS could really be one to something.

Oh, and abandon the WGA crap. MS knows that I spent so much time with activation tech support via email and phone calls that they spent more money paying those people to trouble shoot my issues than I had to spend purchasing your shiny new OS. Yes, DRM and WGA are bad for the consumer despite the industry belief Microsoft!

 

Then whose is it? Should I, who have little to no interest in Vista, have to pay more for peripherals now because the company that made my mouse or video card or disk drive have to develop a whole new set of drivers? You're right, it's 'not so much Vistas problem' but it is caused by Vista, they just pass it on.

 

I originally posted this inquirer link in another thread here(notebook news) but I have to say that line "people aren't going to shell out $299 for Me II Broken Edition?" is very true...

It is a broken edition because currently there isn't anything that vista does any better than XP (except that DRM garbage). The "vole" (regular readers of the inquirer know who I am referring to) needs to realize that flashy graphics and user account control are not what people waited all these years for. I can get the flashy graphics on XP with windows blinds and I as a windows veteran don't need windoze asking me every few seconds if to allow something or not, I am running the show here. Not to mention the increased memory usage with countless useless services running in the background. No wonder some OEMs are revolting against the vole to use XP again (smart move dell)

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to take a look at her notebook which came with vista installed. Well after about 10mins I told her flat out what is the point of this OS this is rubbish! Although the comp was connected to my university's wireless service "internet exploder 7" refused to go onto the web, strange thing was WLM signed in just fine . Even my professor who is a very experienced OS and programming guru told me to stay far away from vista and wait for the next windows version.

So lets face it the inquirer was right to call vista; ME II broken edition...

 

Vista and MS are not directly responsible for bad drivers in the sense that they did not code the drivers. In the sense that they were working on Vista practically until it hit shelves (and making significant changes) and didn't give hardware manufacturers anywhere near enough time to get their drivers ready it is absolutely their fault.

My primary issue with Vista, from which I think most of the other problems flow, is that the tech guys were not in the drivers seat for most of the decisions here. The decision to scrap the new code base and do another NT based os was made because they wanted another OS release in a certain time frame for profit/market reasons. The decision to try and have it ready for Christmas was made for marketing reasons. When that was shown to be impractical they released vouchers (without putting any real infrastructure in place to redeem them) and promised a rapid release after Christmas. After Christmas they got it "done" as fast as possible and got it on shelves as fast as possible.

The whole thing smells to me like a half-baked, partially finished release that was driven by marketing concerns more than the actual state of the product. I don't deny that Vista COULD turn out to be a solid OS, but it isn't there yet and it shouldn't have been released until it is. It certainly shouldn't have been released so quickly that no one had drivers ready for it.

 

Honestly, I believe the whole Vista = Me 2 argument is overblown to a degree. I was among those that used (unfortunately) Millennium Edition, and I barely even used it back then (definitely the worst, most embarrassing version of Windows Microsoft came out with). I remember having a few issues on XP that really annoyed me at the beginning, but I didn't compare it to Me. I do believe that there's still some issues that can improve Vista, but right now, I don't believe it's anywhere as bad as Me was.

 

Vista & ME both have problems, but it's still a mismatch comparison.

Vista just has some Drivers issues. More than what alot of us are willing to deal with at the moment, but things are slowly but surely getting better. Other than that Vista is a pretty solid OS. Everyone knew way ahead of time of Vista's hardware requirements, so to rate Vista on a machine close to or below the minimal requirements is unfair. As with the DRM problem, sorry but that doesn't exist in my world. I don't know what you guys are doing differ than me cause DRM has not affected me at all. And I burn/chop/copy/etc: legit DVD movies and Music CD's, new & old. Any other good things I have to say about Vista has already been mentioned in this post. I can't think of any thing bad besides the drivers, thats a good thing.

Windows ME on the other hand has been a complete BSOD, Unsecure with a million backdoors, Error pop-up prone, in need of a defrag every five days nightmare for the 3 years I've been using it. The only upside to ME I can think of is that I learned ALOT about troubleshooting on my own. What also sucked was as soon as XP came out, nobody cared to write some major apps for ME. I got tired of the "you need 2000 or XP to install" messages.

So the point I'm trying to make is ........

Vista just has some External problems at the moment. (Drivers, software compatabity & high hardware requirement being alot of folks don't have newish PCs)

Windows ME ...The actual OS itself is CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

If Vista did everything properly, and didn't tell me what I could run, I'd be using it today. But I'm not.

The problem is not "caused by Vista". Vista specs have been released for a long time. A minority of devs just haven't taken the time to port their code correctly yet. I'll concede this point that it's not MS' fault on the driver front. They don't write drivers.

 

Depends on what we put in the name.
To me, Windows ME simply means "a warmed-over version of the previous Windows, slightly prettier, but with no major improvements, and a handful of new annoyances". That's pretty much what ME was.
And it's also what Vista is, so from that point of view, the name is fully justified.

It would be silly to call Vista a failure, however. It sells, and as long as MS controls the market, their OS'es can't fail. If they stopped supporting XP tomorrow, everyone would be forced to buy Vista even if it was no better than Windows 3.1.
So a failure, no.

The main complaint we see on these forums are that people can't use their *legal* copy of Vista because Microsoft wants to treat them as pirates.

See above. When people can't use *Vista* without it dying, then the DRM is too restrictive. (The DRM on Vista itself, that is. Not neccesarily on music or videos)

That's more likely due to their (fundamentally flawed) attempts to lock down the kernel. Daemontools installs a driver for a virtual hardware device, and that is a lot trickier under Vista. (And might also trigger the above activation issues because suddenly there's a new hardware device)

You're missing something fairly obvious here. Vista can easily play pirated music or movies. That is because pirated (and cracked) versions have the DRM removed. You can just download the stuff you're interested in, and Vista will play it as completely ordinary unprotected media.
It's when people try to *legally* make backups of their media that a problem occurs. because whoops, according to the DRM rules, that *could* be used for piracy. To be fair, that is not a Vista-specific problem.

Why? Windows ME was called ME the moment it was launched

I use Daemontools for most of my *legal* games. It's so much easier to mount an iso than to find the cd/dvd and put it in the drive. Again, the problem isn't that we can't pirate, but that legal uses of software is prevented because it *could* have been piracy in the paranoid and out of touch world that a lot of the movie/music industry's bosses seem to live in.
Once again, if you want to pirate a game, why bother with daemontools? Just download a no-cd crack and the problem is solved.

 

True. Also, Microsoft has made the process of writing a driver *much* harder with Vista. Among other things, it *has* to be signed, which is an extra expense, takes extra time, and... doesn't really have any benefit. I think it also *has* to be tested and approved by Microsoft, which, you guessed it, takes even more time.
As you say, they made some significant changes to the driver model very soon before release (remember how RC1 drivers didn't work with RC2?)

See above. It certainly is MS' fault. It's their responsibility to make sure that hardware manufacturers are able to write drivers.

Or to put it another way, what has changed between XP and Vista? The same companies are writing drivers. They have the same people writing drivers. They put as many resources into writing drivers because writing drivers has the same priority for them. None of that has changed.
All that's changed is the amount of obstacles posed by the OS and by Microsoft.

 

Hi, having been using Microsoft Os's for many years. The most frustrating experience by far has been Vista. Have lots of Thinkpad x31s. Upgrade Advisor said, no problem, but no support for AERO. Not so fast:
1. The upgrade itself was plagued by a driver compatibility problem, which was only overcome by re-configuring the PC, a ten hour experience. Four more errors like that, my Linksys PrintServer didn't work, the HP Printer behind it needed a driver upgrade. But going through this i learned that the ONLY way to upgrade to Vista is through a clean install. 15gig of outdated windows files were eliminated. The second realization was that IBM had about fiften utilities running on that were machine that were not needed, at least by me. Many of the utilities start a second process, just to check for software upgrades. (trackpoint changes, hotkey fixes, keyboard customizer, mouse magnifier, all i seldom used). Result was the Vista then booted in 1/2 the time as Windows/xp, (not Apples to Apples), but a 'clean' windows environment worked much better.
2. All remaining issues had to do with drivers. Could not longer sync with my telephone. (Verizon and Motorola are not obscure companies) Yes Motorola eventually produced a compatible driver.
3. But then the Video. The Thinkpad x31 has an ATI Radeon 16meg video card. The driver recommended by IBM produced bluescreens. BTW, for me, those 16megs are just great. Aside from Google earth, i do not run very many 3D graphic transforms. However, Microsoft's stardard VGA driver will not run many of my apps. And, ATI catalyst install consistently fails during the hardware detect phase under Vista. And here is where three weeks of banging my head against the wall has permanently changed my impressions of the PC industry.
a. ATI- "what you see is what you get, no warantees real or implied,etc" We didn't sell you anything, IBM did. Ignore the video and quotes of the ATI CEO and Ballmer shaking hands. They are really not telling the truth. And that bothers me.
b. IBM/Lennovo - no hardware problems here. Windows/XP works great. And you PURCHASED the software from Microsoft. (had i known i would never be able to upgrade the operating system, would not bought 32 of these Thinkpads) Although prior to Lenovo, loved the Thinkpads, actually still do. Best mobile business laptop on the market. (2.6 lbs)
c. Microsoft - at first, we are not responsible for ATI's code. Currently, we will try to help you. (right after Dell announced that they were shipping XP again as an option) Now, they found an Omega 3.8.252 XP driver which works most of the time. BSOD every couple of days. And they have had a lot of strangers from strange lands (that is not an ethnic dig) remotely attempting to diagnose the problem. (they have concluded that yes, it definately is the driver) The problem is escalation within Microsoft. But I think that eventually Microsoft will pressure ATI. BTW, it bothers me to no end that ATI has published even certified the driver that I need. (fraud comes to mind)

So the take aways for me. Never buy an ATI product. (even embedded) Intel make a good graphic platform. And that is what is used in the Thinkpad x60. I NEVER WANT TO VISIT ATI'S SITE AGAIN. I THINK IT SOMEHOW DETECTS MY MACHINE, SERIOUSLY, AND OFFERS NO DRIVERS AT ALL.

What why the fuss. Someone here stated that Vista is bette than Windows Me. It is. However, now i run almost off of my business with this stuff. When i buy a car, I don't know (unless I want to) that the transmission was made in China, or by whom.

So, I am going to buy an Apple, just to see how many of the applications will work. They are now Intel compliant. And with virtualized OS's, i could probably install XP if absolutely necessary.

Someone mentioned profit, Microsoft's quarterly profit was excellent. It was. First Office 2007 is a very good product. But Microsoft never talked about units of Vista sold. My guess is that the units of operating system sold, are not much higher than a year ago.

Word is out. Vista is expensive. And smart people are worrying if it is worth the trouble. I believe that this will be a huge problem for Microsoft.

And in the days of Gates, they would be working they collective tails off to fix it. Not just the drivers, but there are enough 'got ya', like UAC that have to be reworked. Not only is it cumbersome, it causes incompatibilites in many applications setup process. (Adobe had no Vista compatible Adobe Reader application for over a month)

I do have one question, if the driver model has been totally rewritten, why does a XP driver work at all under Vista?

Joe Heller did have the correct word 'Catch-22',"A no-win dilemma or paradox, similar to damned if I do, damned if I don't. For example, You can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience unless you have a job--it's Catch-22."

But (i had glad that you asked) Vista has some really neat stuff:
1. Error reporting - after the BSOD it told me it was the ATI driver, and pointed me to their website.
2. Performance monitoring - great way to understand what is happening.
3. The graphics are very appealing - the student who did the Vista photos for microsoft (Harmad Darwish) has a number of other ones, posted for free.
4. Better integration of digitial music and video (DRM) not withstanding.
5. For me, boots/shuts down in 1/2 time, runs faster, and handles multiple tasks better.
6. More stable- it actually is. The ATI driver is of course the exception becuase parts of it still run with the kernal. Most other drivers do not.

But under the circumstances, most businesses will wait. And people are just intuitely smart. There is a reason Toyota just now ships more cars worldwide than any other company. There is a reason that there are 75 million IPODS on the street. The stuff works. And it is easy to use. So, someone (or group of people) are going to find a simple, core operating system to run PCs. Maybe the beginnings of it exist now.

Secondly for me, having now used PC for about 15 years. I have just lost confidence.

Confidence that when someone sells me something, it works, and they stand behind it.

If/when anyone finds a Vista 32 bit driver for the Radeon Mobility, please let me know. Me, and this is just me, I have sold the Microsoft stock. I am investing in Apple and Sansa. But with 90% of all desktops Microsoft isn't going anywhere soon. And with the pricing in place, they can AFFORD to sell fewer units.

All in all, they have been a very innovative company, and have changed/led the industry. But if Vista/Zune is what is in store, somewhere they have lost track of what is important for a customer. The weeks of getting an OS to run, is no different than bringing your car back fifteen times to the dealer. You don't buy your next car from that company.

 

I just used Daemon tools to install a bunch of stuff. Worked just fine.

Make sure you have the latest version.

 

I find that most people's hate of microsoft is a bit overboad.

Windows XP was one of the most stable OSes ever. It worked very well. Vista is working pretty well for me. I have no had any real problems with it that updating my software to the latest version didn't fix.

The thing that people seem to forget about Windows is that Microsoft has a huge hardware base to support. Apple only worries about their hardware for the most part, but Microsoft has to make their OS run on all kinds of setups. Supporting that much hardware and making your OS flexible enough to run on all kinds of combinations of hardware isn't easy and it's not going to lead to the most efficient system. I mean anyone who has been following the OSX86 Project (shhh...i know it's a taboo topic here) knows just how hard it is to get some pretty common hardware to work in OS X. Linux can support most hardware out there, but most of it requires the user to find and install drivers. I find it rare that Windows can't use a piece of hardware to at least some degree without me finding drivers.

Windows does all of this while still remaining very useable to most people. This is something Linux can't really say. OS X dumbs everything down so much so that users can't screw up anything, but it really makes using the computer a lot less pleasurable for me.

And as for security, Linux and OS X have just as many flaws as Windows, but no one really targets them because there aren't enough users.

I'm not a Microsoft fanboy in the least and I OS X and Linux daily in addition to Windows, but I just think that Windows gets a bad rap.

 

Vista runs fine on my laptop (HP NC8430).
I'll admit that there are several problems with Vista. I've yet to experience any issues other than that when going from sleep to hibernation (automatically) my laptop sometimes BSODs. Also, copying files feels slow at times. I mean, is it so incredibly hard to calculate the time remaining? I'm sure most Vista users know what I'm talking about.

Software incompatibilities however, I've noticed a few, but none who couldn't be worked around in one way or the other.

What ticks me off though, is some people's ignorance towards the whole case. '"Micro$oft" are the bad guys, making a new "crappy" OS just to wreck your whole day. And it's Microsofts fault that software designers haven't gotten around to make their software compatible with the new API.' Some of the people criticizing Vista are doing it just for the hell of it, and they would do it, no matter if everything worked and it had a thousand more amazing new features. I'm ranting, sorry.