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VISTA is nothing but frustration.
I'm the IT administrator for a small business. I've installed virtually every version of DOS and Windows Microsoft has put out since the early 80s. VISTA is the worst operating system I've ever seen. It is BUGGY, UNINTUITIVE, a RESOURCE HOG, and INTRUSIVE. It boils my blood every time I have to use it.
The browse boxes are so unintuitive, it is hard to figure out what Microsoft had in mind. They removed the "up one level" button in favor of a button that gives you a list of your most recently viewed folders. It takes lots more clicking around to get to the folder you want. This is total STUPIDITY.
The wireless networking is so buggy as to be nearly useless. You'll need to continuously reboot your machine to get your connection to work.
You'll come to hate the "whirli-gig" and you'll get lots of NOT RESPONDING messages when you try to launch or use applications. If I had a dollar for every time I got a NOT RESPONDING message, our Dell M1330 laptop would be free by now.
So often, I'll launch an application and the whirli-gig will come on the screen and then I wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. What is this Core Two Duo laptop doing??? VISTA has so many intrusive processes, it is frustrating to even launch an application (and my machine is a 2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive). This machine would fly on XP.
If you enjoy spending lots of time trying to figure out why your machine won't do simple things reliably, if you want to spend lots of time talking to technical support people with thick accents who really can't help you because the operating system is basically JUNK, then by all means buy VISTA.
We are abandoning our VISTA experiment and going back to XP because it is reasonably reliable and because we need to get things done on the computer rather than always battling with its VISTA-isms. VISTA is a huge step backwards for Microsoft and I seriously doubt that Service Pack 1 will be enough to fix such major design flaws. Maybe when they come out with VISTA RELEASE 2 their poor sales will force them to listen to consumers.
I sure wish I could convince all my competitors to buy VISTA machine because it would absorb so much of their resources it would give our business a real boost.
I am a web developer and I had a test run of Windows Vista Business on my development machine for about a month. To sum it up -- a terrible and painful experience.
I do most of my work on my Dell 640M laptop:
1.6 GHz Intel Dual Core
Built-in video
2 GB RAM
80 GB hard drive
My laptop came with Windows XP and I got Vista Business as a "free" upgrade, even though I had to pay over $30 for shipping.
First, I installed it as upgrade -- a terrible idea. It was incredibly slow and would freeze on simple tasks like copy/pasting text or files. Many programs would crash or simply would not load.
Off goes the upgrade, on comes the clean install...
Things are better this time around, but boot time is at least twice as slow compared to Windows XP.
Next thing I tried to do is to use a briefcase to synchronize my development projects. There's this big site I'm working on with probably 1000 files in it, and Vista could never quite finish copying all the files to the briefcase over my home network (no such problems with XP). About half-way through, it would just freeze.
The Aero interface looked nice, but I had to disable it because it was just too much for my built-in Intel video chip. Still, simple operations like copy/ paste result in a small freeze, then up comes the system warning which other reviewers mentioned and then finally the "paste" part.
Same 5-10 sec freeze when I do development work and call up some application or try to display a simple HTML page from my local IIS server. Again, no such thing with XP.
Next gripe is the system shutdown. The default option is now "Sleep" which is real fast. But if you select, "Shut Down", prepare to wait. Possibly, forever. All in all, it ends up turning off about 30% of the time, other times you just see the never-ending "Shutting Down..." screen and have to turn the power off manually. All my applications/ drivers are Vista-capable, so this should not be caused by 3rd party application sotware "in theory".
Next, what is up with changing item labels? "Add or Remove Programs" is gone. "Programs and Features" is apparently much cooler according to Microsoft's marketing dept.
I get a feeling that they just moved the stuff around to make it look "newer". There are no improvements and often things are hard to find/ not intuitive on the control panel, in display properties and other areas.
Windows Explorer used to be great. I'd add copy/paste buttons to the toolbar and such operations would be a matter of a few clicks. Not anymore. Even simple browsing ("directory up" for example) buttons are gone. So you go through Desktop, then my computer, then C: to get to your main hard drive partition. Ridiculous!
Applications in general (I work mostly with Adobe/Macromedia Suite -- Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, etc.) run *much* slower on Vista compared to XP, often with the beforementioned freezes whenever a simple operation is performed.
After about 1 month I had enough. Back to Windows XP Professional. Couldn't be happier. Everything is fast, responsive. It lets me do my work without getting in the way just as an operating system *should*.
Sorry Microsoft, I am not going to be a beta tester for your unfinished, bloated product just because it is "new" and shiny. An "upgrade" usually implies a better, faster, more intuitive O/S. Vista offers none of these things except a shiny interface and a few useless visual effects. All they do is drain system resources.
If you're looking for a fast, reliable and secure O/S, go with Windows XP Professional. Don't waste your money on Vista.
There are serious compatability and speed issues with Vista. Count on much of your current bussiness software not to run. Count on having difficulty downgrading back to Windows XP as Microsoft has rigged Vista to make it difficult to downgrade without buying a new XP from them
Vista is processor and memory heavy. It will dramatically slow older computers. Even with a newer computer it may appear no faster than windows xp and possibly slower. I however, have the home edition on my brand new home computer and it is plenty fast. However, the premium and business editions are much slower and require more memory.
I recommend never to put Vista on a computer with less than a duo core processor and 2 MB of memory. All businsess owners should stay away for at least a year until all compatability issues have been resolved - assuming that is possible.
Last april, I bought a Dell system with Vista business preinstalled. It came with McAfee internet security that was so buggy that I had to uninstall it to improve system performance. The security prompts are very annoying. I have a year old HP2840 color laser and as of Aug 20, I could not even get updated drivers from HP that support network scanning and printing. My existing versions of Adobe CS, Macromedia does not work without an expensive upgrade so I keep the XP machine beside me to print with InDesign and to create PDF's. This OS is so much trouble that I will be reformatting the drive and installing XP over it.
I've stopped using the Mac for the past 4 years because most of my business softwares are PC based. Last year, I took a serious look at Macs again. I can say with certainty that I'm moving my entire office to the Mac platform and Microsoft made this decision for me.
Vista features cause seizures in people with pattern sensitive / motion sensitive epilepsy and they can not be disabled. ( There are options to turn off blinking cursor and "unnecessary animations" if you search for them, while having seizures of course while you do so )
I wanted to purchase a newer notebook than the one I am currently using to write this review so I purchased a brand new HP Pavilion ( HP Pavilion dv9500t ). See order below. I wanted better screen resolution as I have fairly serious eye problems and I wanted better performance than this Compaq R4010T that I had to go back to to write this review on..
I have really bad epilepsy ( and it is getting worse and worse because I keep getting clobbered by this bad technology ) and I am having seizure after seizure using THE NEW COMPUTER WITH WINDOWS VISTA ON IT because of Microsoft Vista's inaccessibility.
The problem is that Microsoft has gone from the innocuous "hourglass" icon to the Apple "spinning wheel" style icon whenever you click on almost ANYTHING. I have turned off every option, feature, flag that I can trying to stop this and I can't.
I absolutely can't use this computer and I can't use Vista. What sort of idiots are these people? Haven't they ever heard of epilepsy? I abandoned Apple Macs because of my epilepsy and now Microsoft has to try to out apple Apple with this lemon.
My brain really can't afford to have any more seizures. I have repeatedly told my doctor that I have to go to ZERO blinking / flashing / animations with NO exceptions. Good luck with all this terrible technology. Unfortunately, nothing will kill me so I have to suffer and suffer and suffer. I have to use a computer as that is the ONLY way I can get anything done such as shopping.
The problem is that I can see that the clock is ticking and it is just a matter of time before I, and people like me, are totally disenfranchised from the moder world. ( Recently I had to go back to a rotary telephone because I no longer tolerated my higher tech LCD phone )
Anyways, this review won't last long because we all have to have a rosy view of how great everything is and we don't want to be disturbed by roadkills like me on the information superhighway.
$1823.27 down the drain.
Thanks, Bill.
Roy S. Miller ( I'd give me name, address, phone number and shoe size but I am so ill that all I am doing right now is trying to survive. The best analogy that I can come up with is that someone chained a concrete block to me and I was thrown off the stern of the Love Boat. Everybody on board is too busy partying to care about anyone or anything but themselves. )
- Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Business (32-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 17.0" WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)
- 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 511MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS
- HP Imprint (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection and Bluetooth(TM)
- 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- FREE Upgrade to LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
- No TV Tuner w/remote control
- 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works Suite 2006 includes Word
I have been using a trial version of Office 2007 and it has been nothing but difficult and frustrating. I am an advanced user of Excel and PPT, however in this version I feel like a beginner - as if I've hardly ever used Office products before. The use of the ribbon instead of the drop down menu completely changes the entire user experience and I will definitely not be buying '07. I recommend going to the MS site and downloading a free trial of '07 prior to purchasing - I really had no idea how different the interface would be and I'm glad I only have a trial version and can easily get rid of it.
I believe the next time Microsoft makes a new version of the Microsoft Office Suite, perhaps they should go back to DOS. I have never had the displeasure that I have now since purchasing this software suite. Imagine everything you know about Microsoft Office being stripped away and being replaced with a new program that has the same exact functionality (nothing new what so ever), only every button, check box, function, and flexibility being stripped away. What you are imagining now is the new 2007 version. If you buy this program, the moment you start it for the first time, you will realize you made a mistake. Go back to 2003.
After spending days reviewing everything I could find about Small Business 2007... from the videos at the Microsoft site, to reviews from the private sector, chatting with Microsoft pre-sales to ask all my questions, 1-800-426-9400, (about 7 times over 3 days) and the reviews on Amazon, I decided to take the plunge.
While reviews from some folks left me concerned about leaving Office 2003 behind after 3 years of heavy daily use, I pressed on.
I was glad for the tip about cutting through the clear tape (it's hard to see its there) around the hard plastic package in order for the red tape/tab to be pulled to open the box.
The install went great. Tip- if you have a previous version of Office on your machine, remove it from your system using the control panel-> add/remove programs. After the removal is complete, re-start your machine before installing 2007. (Some of the pre-sales folks at Microsoft told me 2007 would install over 2003.... wrongo!)
Initiating Outlook was easy. 2007 remembered all my settings from 2003 and all my folders, sub-folders, signature files and settings and installed them intact. Very nice. (I did make a .pst back-up from 2003 and didn't need to use it. I do think however, it's a good idea to have a back-up.)
I've already created some very cool graphics and training forms that I couldn't do in 2003. Probably a 'user deficit'! So I guess this bears witness to how intuitive the interface really is for me.
A lot of folks are bashing the new 'ribbon' interface and talking about it functioning slowly and it being difficult to use. This is not my experience at all.
I have only 512 MB of RAM on the XP OS and 2007 runs no differently than 2003.. no lag time or hour-glass waiting... even with changing between word - power point - and excel docs all open at one time. I guess it depends on what other programs you have running in the background- drawing off your RAM resources. I don't let anything run in the background except for my anti-virus program and printers. Everything else I open as I need it from my start menu. This is all in how you've configured your start up options as your computer boots.
The ribbon menus are very straight forward, and with mouse over tells you exactly what everything does. Also, if you're in word and want to do something you used to do in 2003 and can't figure out how, you can type this phrase into the search field inside word -> "Office 2003 Interactive" (without the quotes).
This will open a window in your internet browser that will have a view of 2003. You click on the menu selection or item you used to use in 2003, (right on your screen, this is why its called 'interactive') and it will show you what you need to do in 2007 to achieve the same task. That's pretty handy.
All in all I'm pleasantly surprised. I feel I made a good buying choice after doing my research.
My recommendation is to do your own research, and look at the videos Microsoft has available which demonstrates how 2007 is different. At least this gives you a visual.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/newday/default.mspx?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=DF7DDF87-E82B-4DFF-B637-7A7198470DCE
(If this link gets chopped up in the post, be sure to copy and paste the whole link into your browser.)
And:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101635841033.aspx
Chat with the pre sales folks. If you have a question that is technical in nature and they can't answer it, they get you in touch with a technical expert specific to the program in office your inquiry is about, at no charge to you. Also you can always download a free trial, and if you don't like it at the end of the trial don't buy it.
I really felt a social obligation to write about my experience to help those who are on a 'due diligence journey' as I was. Hope this has been helpful. ;->
Sorry Microsoft, but your "ribbon" user interface is the most retarded upgrade feature ever. It renders all your Office applications useless. I have no interest spending hours to learn a completely different UI and to recustomize the toolbar all over again (I'm not even sure if it's even possible to customize the "ribbon"). The ribbon is ugly and WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY too big.
My advice: try to avoid upgrading for as long as possible.
Bought it for the contact database feature. Still trying to get used to it. Looks effective at first glance.
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