Have You Abandoned Windows Vista and Gone Back to Windows XP?

[Jason Dunn]

I've been reading comments here and there, including in our forums here, about people who installed Vista and have ended up switching back to XP because of the problems they had. I figured it might be time to take a poll and figure out how many of you have made the swtich back and why. Vote and comment!

[Gordo]

I tried to upgrade my desktop to Vista, and was unable to get the video drivers to work. I had to un-install and go back to XP. I have managed to get Vista running in Virtual PC, and if I really need to use it I can. My new Laptop had Vista pre-installed so it works fine.

I voted that I removed Vista, as the desktop is my primary computer.

I am also now investigating a migration to Ubuntu and have it running in Virtual PC. I figure I can get my feet wet, without a full body submersion.

[MitchellO]

I have installed Vista on my desktop which doubles as a Media Centre PC with dual tuners, and I have been pretty impressed with it so far. It is dual booting with XP for now, but for the last 2 weeks I have only booted into XP for gaming (haven't installed the games in vista yet).

My primary machine though is a Macbook Pro so my primary OS is Mac OS X, but ! would be happy to use Vista on a regular basis.

[jeffd]

if you had more horse power then gods got green apples, and don't need to do a few specific task like video encoding which don't work to well in vista, then I say keep vista. Otherwise, for now, you can do everything vista can in xp, and be just a little bit faster.

[that_kid]

I installed Vista on my Digital Audio Work station but because of audio driver issues I had to go back to XP. Other than that things worked great but until they work out the audio driver issues I have to stay at XP :(

[MsInferno]

Hmmmm.... To keep Vista or... to smash it to smithereens... If I hadn't needed a computer to work from home on an immediate basis, I would have smashed this new HP in a heartbeat...

I have had so many hateful thoughts against MSv that it isn't healthy. Driver issues; old programs no longer compatible; trying to find new drivers (which most are still in beta version); having to troubleshoot every piece of gadget equipment (Samsung i700; Samsung i730; Creative Labs Vision W; HP 6210 All in One Printer; MusicMatch; Audible.com; Windows Media Player 11; ofoto now upload program) and the list just goes on and on...

I've sent more e-mail to tech. support or to Microsoft itself in the last two months than I have in my entire computing life. Why can't I set my favorites to "my way"; why do I have to scroll? I liked knowing exactly where to click, i.e., third down in second column; now, I get them just they way I like them and, dang, if I don't have to download a new driver and then viola, they are back to alphabetical -- ARGH! Another ten minutes of my life putting them back in order....

Why can't I have activeX just "work"... Why must I "approve" it with every website... Why do I feel like MSv has a ruler in its hands and just keeps snapping my knuckles at every turn...

I've contacted HP to see if they will take this back and send me one with XP installed... Still waiting on an answer and imagining that if I hold my breath much longer, I'll be a lovely shade of blue for eternity...

So, if I could walk into a local store and see a new HP with XP, I'd be there before the doors opened...

[Bob12]

I have Vista on all three computers - Home Premium on two desktops and Ultimate on the notebook. All my hardware is working properly (HP Photosmart 8450, 8750, & C6350, Scanjet 4670, Blackberry 880, and several external hard drives.) The only program problems: I had to reload AVG free on the two desktops (32bit), install a couple of patches (Family Tree Maker, WordPerfect Office X3) and download/install a new video driver for the Nvidia 6800 in one of the desktops. I have a $1500 mapping program that my employer provided and everthing works except its Help system which is proprietary for some dumb reason. Otherwise, everything working together nicely.

[Kris Kumar]

Vista has had almost 50-50 survival rate when it comes to my PCs.

- Loaded Vista at home, only to find print driver not being available. Luckily I had installed it as dual boot, so went back to XP. :-(
- At work, loving the Vista install on my PC. :-)
- Work laptop #1: loaded Vista had to go back to XP. Drivers. :-(
- Work laptop #2: a new Dell D620, came with XP, switched to Vista. Having wireless network disconnect issues. :-) :-(

I am at the stage where I am loving the new user interface changes and find XP boring. I cannot go back but if the issues continue on my new laptop then I will be forced to switch back.

[RichL]

I was building a new PC around the time that Vista got launched and like the fool I am I ordered the 64-bit edition of Vista with it. I assumed it would be OK since I'd been running the 64-bit version of XP Pro on my previous machine. How wrong I was.

Let me list the problems I had:

At launch, there were no compatible motherboard drivers despite my motherboard being "Vista ready". No motherboard drivers = no RAID = no installation possible. Eventually, I managed to grab some generic motherboard drivers from nVidia's website but they're quite unstable.
My brand new Linksys wifi card isn't supported under Vista and Linksys have no idea when support will be coming.
Creative's Vista drivers are all round awful.
My Sony Cybershot camera is missing drivers too. It can only be used in read-only mode.
Media Centre Extender lags like hell due to an issue between my router and Vista. It lags by about 30 seconds just scrolling around the menus.
My web cam doesn't work (it's old so I'll forgive Vista for this one).
Most bizarrely, iTunes/Quicktime won't play my H.263 video collection due to a weird 64-bit time stamping problem. They played fine under the 64-bit version of XP Pro though.
Various minor software issues.

So I ended up buying a new version of Windows XP MCE to replace Vista. Windows XP MCE works fantastically, despite not having the graphical eye candy of Vista. There's not much I miss about Vista really and I now value and cherish the stability of XP. Microsoft must love me since I bought two Windows operating systems for one machine. :)

Next time I might just bite the bullet and get a Mac. I don't have the time to mess about with Windows any more.

[surfer]

Nope im trying to stay with vista :D The only thing im missing right now is stable software from linksys to run my wmp300n, altough I got a netgear card from my local computer store during this period :D

[whydidnt]

I have Vista installed on 2 Dell Laptops. It is not as stable as XP was on either. My biggest complaint is that there is not a stable full functional touch pad driver. I downloaded the Vista TP driver from Dell, but it frequently locks up when using the built in scroll function, which is a must have for me. The drivers included with Vista did not include this function, I'm sure they knew it would be an issue.

I also had very poor Wi-Fi connectivity with one of the Built in Intel Wireless cards. It was slow and would disconnect frequently in the middle of transfers. Added a PCMCIA Pre-N card from Belking (matches my router) and that improved things, but performance is still worse than on XP.

On both Machines, Firefox frequently hangs -- I know FF has memory issues, but never had these problems on XP.

I actually own 4 more Vista licenses, but I'm not upgrading any other machines until I am more satisfied with Vistas performance. I have found the built in indexing to be inferior to Copernic which has been a must have for me for some time know, and battery life on these notebooks is almost 1/2 what it was on XP.

I just ordered a refurbed MacBook Pro form Apple - If I like it and can run what I want to run on it, I may make the jump completely to Mac. I'm tired of paying through the nose for MS products that are more of a pain than a benefit.

[karen]

I have vista on most of our desktops and laptops. For one two year old laptop, the CPU is pegged most of the time, but it works OK. I can hear the fan running more than before and the harddrive seems to be spinning all the time. It's as if that laptop is hyperactive....

The only trouble I've run into is that MyTVtoGo can't run under the tighter security, so no more TV on my PPC. And my one year old HP tv tuner won't run under Vista Ultimate.

But I've had to real problems at all. Most of my frustration was learning curve ("Where the H E double hockey sticks did the hide that feature now!"). After a couple of weeks, I'm not really having that problem.

In general, I've been happy with some of the newer features and I don't think the Aero inteface is anything nifty after the the first 5 minutes.