My Vista Top Five: Some Ugly Things, Some Good Things [Archive]

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Jason Dunn

08-22-2007, 11:00 AM

I'm involved in a private forum as part of the <a href="http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/community/allcommunities.mspx">Microsoft Featured Communities</a> program that Digital Media Thoughts is a part of, and someone posted a link <a href="http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/joshs_blog/archive/2007/08/20/hindsight-is-20-20.aspx">to this article</a> and asked us to post our own five. So here are my top five mistakes I feel Microsoft made with Vista: 1. Drivers: So ugly I can't even speak about it. The first few months were SO painful, and seven months in I'm still trying to get stuff working properly. Software too - Vista wasn't baked long enough for developers to prepare their software for it. 2. Too many SKUs & Pricing Was Too High: No matter how many Microsoft people showed me shiny PowerPoint slide decks, the number of versions of Vista available is just silly. It's also too expensive - though I suspect that Microsoft made it expensive on purpose because they knew people using older hardware might have a less-than-great experience and it was better for people to buy systems built for Vista. 3. Assorted Media Center glitches: I use my Vista media center computer daily - probably 8 hours a day - and there are still so many bugs and performance problems it's sad. Media Center 2005 was much faster, more stable, and an all-around better product. <!> 4. UAC (User Account Control): For most users, it's not such a big deal - my mother in law doesn't do anything to trigger UAC prompts, but day to day I bet I trigger 30+ of them. It just ticks me off to no end - but I don't want to turn UAC off because I've read about programs having problems with UAC being turned off...and UAC turned on is the assumed mode that everyone programs for, so I'm forced to click ALLOW a hell of a lot. 5. Performance & Bugs: Some aspects of Vista are fast, but there are so many slow-downs and strange things that happen (yes, even with the latest two "super patches"). For instance, on my Velocity Micro Media Center PC, if I have System Restore turned on, the hard drive will grind...endlessly...forever. No, it's not indexing. No, it's not anything else - it's System Restore. Using the Performance Monitor I can watch the hard drive BLAST away, reading and writing 10+ MB/s. That's LOUD when it never stops. I turn off System Restore, and it stops. It's pathetic that even with a high-end video card and the latest video drivers, the UAC "black screen" comes up chunky and slow. <whew> And to think that at first I didn't think I'd be able to make it to five. I must have repressed some things. ;-) Now in the interest of fairness, here the top five things I like about Vista: 1. Better Networking Performance: I love that I can browse my local network and the other PCs appear within 1-2 seconds. So much better than XP! 2. Integrated Search: It rocks. Period. Works great, is super fast, love it. I no longer need to organize my start menu manually, I just type what I want to use. 3. Windows Mail: I actually like the little guy - I do my personal email (and NNTP) using Windows Mail and it works quite well. I like the Contacts approach where each contact is a single file - I sync that folder using FolderShare and all my PCs have the same set of contacts. Works like a charm. It has it's share of idiotic problem though - why can't I select English (Canada) as my spell check language? <sigh> 4. Performance: Always a double-edged sword. When Vista performs well, it performs REALLY well. I love how Vista aggressively uses all my system RAM rather than leaving it mostly alone like XP did. With 3 GB of RAM, everything kind of "floats" in Vista. I also love that if an application is open Vista doesn't purge it from RAM forcing the "disk grind of death" that would happen under XP when you restored a minimized application. 5. Windows Movie Maker Can Edit DVR-MS files: I record TV shows frequently on my Media Center PC, and I want to be able to edit them easily and grab clips. Windows Movie Maker FINALLY can help me with that! What about you? What are you "Top 5" lists with Windows Vista? Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He likes Vista...mostly.

Filip Norrgard

08-22-2007, 02:44 PM

Well, here my top 5 good things about Vista:

1. Multitasking and Performance- I don't really know what is different with multitasking in Vista, but things like starting Visual Studio 2005 doesn't lock the other programs up like it did back in XP, which really is a good thing. Performance is better when it is sorta "working". (Comparing Vista and XP on the same spec'd computer)

2. ReadyBoost - Using ReadyBoost on my laptop (2 years old) really seems to speed things up. I'm using the integrated SD card reader and an apparently fast enough 512 MB SD card for boosting Vista, and boost it does.

3. Drive Image Backup - Finally integrated disk image backup! Now, if only it were possible to extract only some of the files from the image, I would be a happy camper... or if Gparted can be made to work around the NTFS protections of Vista...

4. Better Boot and Sleep Times - Vista is way faster at booting and more reliable at sleeping than XP ever was on my computer.

5. Integrated Search - It is adequate, but ugly and too much of a hard disk thrasher for me to really *love* it. Google Desktop Search is better.

Now for the things I don't like in Vista:

1. UAC (User Account Control) - Come on! This irritating, nagging so-called feature is just bad design by design. F-Secure has a much better UAC-like feature that feels smarter. UAC is off on my computer, always.

2. Driver Installation and Corrupt INFCACHE - I cannot install any device in Vista before I've deleted INFCACHE. (http://filips.net/archives/2007/08/21/how-often-should-infcache-corrupt/) That is a strange rule nowadays in my copy of Vista. Sure Vista tries to find the drivers, but it cannot find them before I've deleted the cache file. Utter crap cache.

3. Driver Updates from Windows/Microsoft Update - Never, ever install the driver updates from Windows Update! They only cause more problems, like the problems I had with the Bluetooth update that I accidentally installed (http://filips.net/archives/2007/07/12/dont-install-the-vista-bluetooth-update/). Why is it that Vista lists updates for drivers that I don't even have installed?

4. No ReadyBoost Errors - My SD card has stopped ReadyBoosting without any warnings. The only indication is to go to Computer, right click the ReadyBooster, check the ReadyBoost tab. If the ReadyBoost tab says there's no space on the device, then you'll need to reformat the device to get ReadyBoost working again. *Sigh* Why no error reporting, Microsoft? Don't tell me to check the Event Viewer, cause that is just lame.

5. 64-bit Driver Signature Requirement - Come on! That's just useless to require drivers to be digitally signed on 64-bit versions of Vista! It's not like it is preventing crackers from gaining kernel access. Luckily my love-hate TV tuner AnySee has installed a workaround to get the tuner drivers working in 64-bit Vista. (Unfortunately for AnySee, this doesn't make AnySee's sucky TV viewer program look nor work any better.)

brianchris

08-22-2007, 02:58 PM

I know I'm going to get hammered for this, but here goes:

I'm a freelance computer consultant (Microsoft Partner / Small Business Specialist) and I've been doing this for ten plus years now. UAC gets trashed by almost everyone I know, but I think it’s one of Vista BEST features!

For almost as long as I've been working in this field, I've been setting my users up without administrator rights....mainly for security purposes (a virus needs install rights to infect a system, users can't, intentionally or not, make system changes that would herm the workstation, etc. etc.).

That practice has resulted in very stable network environments for my clients for years, but it hasn’t been easy: A surprising amount of software was created with the expectation of administrative privilege being present (QUICKBOOKS!!!) and therefore didn't function properly. Also, anytime I made a legitimate administrative level change (install software, windows update, system change), I had to close all the user apps, log the user off, log in as an admin, then make my changes, the log off and log the user on. True, there has been the "run as" feature in XP, which was helpful, but it wasn't available 100% of the time, and was sometimes flakey.

UAC, IMHO is a stroke of genius in that 1) there is no true administrator account anymore.....UAC is always invoked for both standard users and admin accounts (unless you turn it off)....the only difference is whether you need to enter a password when UAC is invoked. This FORCES software developers to deal with the lack of true administrator rights. and 2) Now, on the fly, I can make administrative changes without logging users off first.....brilliant!

UAC basically is responsible for a MUCH securer desktop environment. Besides what it allows (detailed above), if you click on something with the shield, expect to see UAC. If UAC comes up on its own (without you clicking on an action with shield icon), something sinister may be happening in the background (virus, spyware, malware, etc.) and don't approve the UAC prompt. Bam.....your system is safe.

Someone may point out some significant flaws with UAC (other than its "a nuisance"), but I love it, and I feel like I'm the only one in the world who does. :?

Jason Dunn

08-22-2007, 04:34 PM

Someone may point out some significant flaws with UAC (other than its "a nuisance"), but I love it, and I feel like I'm the only one in the world who does. :?

I think the IDEA of UAC is great - it's just the implementation that leaves me unhappy. The one thing that would make me fine with it? A "Never ask me about this again" prompt. I've been firing up the Performance Monitor on one of my PCs basically everyday to check the disk thrashing, and EVERY BLOODY TIME I start it I have to click yes to a UAC prompt. That's just irritating.

I think UAC irritates power users more than anyone else because they're the ones always mucking about with tools that trigger UAC. So in protecting everyone else, Microsoft made Vista frustrating to use for the rest of us.

Jason Dunn

08-22-2007, 04:37 PM

2. Driver Installation and Corrupt INFCACHE - I cannot install any device in Vista before I've deleted INFCACHE. (http://filips.net/archives/2007/08/21/how-often-should-infcache-corrupt/)

That's really a strange problem! I've never seen that on any of my six machines running Vista, nor have I ever seen anyone else have that problem. I wonder what's causing that?

3. Driver Updates from Windows/Microsoft Update - Never, ever install the driver updates from Windows Update!

Ugg - I agree. I've been bitten several times by installing things that are "recommended" and then something goes really wrong.

randalllewis

08-22-2007, 06:41 PM

Nice challenge Jason, let's see if I can get to five:
Things I like about Vista-
1. Integrated search
2. Direct X 10
3. Windows Photo Gallery
4. Ready Boost
5. Aesthics (Aero, better control of desktop, Sidebar, new Start menu, etc)

Things I dislike about Vista-
1. Issues with drivers (I don't know who I blame for this).
2. A Microsoft acknowledged bug that requires me to re-plug my Firewire external hard drive at least once a week because Windows stops seeing it for no apparent reason.
3. Extraordinarily slow copying of files (has the recent update fixed this?)
4. Declining performance (my Reliability Index has dropped from nearly 10 a month ago to under 5 today because of mysterious failures of both Windows and IE7.
4b. I don't generally have a problem with UAC, but it does bug me that it is required for checking the Reliability Monitor. That doesn't make much sense to me.
5. I can't think of a 5th.