What Vista Is Like

Today's press release from CoCreate reminded me that I was going to describe my experience with Vista:

Customers are now in position to transition their CoCreate product development and lifecycle management platform to the next generation of Windows operating system and take advantage of the benefits and technologies offered by Windows Vista.

Discretely enough, the press release doesn't get around to mentioning the benefits offered by Vista, because there are none.

My new sort-of TabletPC runs Vista, and so I have firsthand experience of the operating system people love to hate. I think the best way to sum up Vista is in this way:

Switching to Ubantu Linux is less annoying than using Vista.

I'll list some of the hassles I've experienced:

- can no longer sync my Zen Micro, because Creative will not ship a native driver.

- cannot use middle button (or scrollwheel) on Logitech mice for double-clicking, because drivers no longer support it. (I downloaded Logitech's 55MB "Vista" driver, only to find that it displays only a "Contact Logitech" in the SetPoint software, claiming that Logitech support is built into Vista.)

- my Palm T|X syncs, but Palm has only gotten a beta version of its Vista interface working at this point, and so numerous features are missing.

- Microsoft removed its awful fax software from the Home Premium version of Vista, which is good. What is bad is that third-party companies couldn't figure out how to make fax software work with Vista until this month.

- no security. You've read the horror stories of Microsoft bolting down the security in Vista, where you cannot make a move without having to agree to some poorly worded dialog box or another. Here's the joke: when I restart Vista, it fails to prompt for a password to get back in. Kind of like DOS does.

That's right: Vista blocks me from installing software and drivers, it keeps asking if I am sure (and when I turn of that bug, it keeps asking if I am sure I want the "are you sure" bug turned off), but anyone can physically access my computer.

Comments

[Kevin]

You can't blame Microsoft because Creative won't make drivers for Vista. I've downloaded and installed Logitech's Vista setpoint for my Logitech MX300 wireless mouse and keyborad without any issue. Microsoft also isn't responsible for Palm getting their stuff out either. It isn't like Vista snuck out of blue. I had been using Vista for a year and a half before it was released. I'm sure that Creative and Palm had access to it far longer than that.

I think you have something set up incorrectly. I am always prompted for a password when I login or resume. It's funny how the cancel or allow is a great feature in OSX, but it is considered a "bug" in Vista.

How many viruses have you heard of for Vista now?

It's OK Ralph. Change is good. I don't like going back to XP now. Let go of your anger for Microsoft. It will be OK.

Kevin

[ralphg]

I would argue that it is Microsoft's fault for creating a replacement operating system that is so incompatible with its predecessors, yet delivers little additional value to end users.

[Tony in SV]

Yes, you can blame MS, because they changed the driver model for Vista for no good reason (to support DRM / disabling drivers).

How many times has the Linux device driver model changed?

[Herb Fuhrer]

I wholly agree Ralph - Ubuntu is easily less annoying than Vista, and several magnitudes more efficient. Try Mepis for an even bigger grin.

I give up trying to like Vista.

Herb

[Kevin]

So if I can't run Inventor or Solidworks under Ubuntu is that Ubuntu's issue or Autodesk's and Dassault's? By your logic, it would be Ubuntu's issue. Looks like they have some work to do.

Microsoft is starting to break compatibility with legacy things to get rid of the problems that have been dogging Windows for a while. Now, I won't totally disagree with the DRM thing, but I don't think they are as evil as you would like to believe they are.

I don't know how many times the Linux driver model has been changed, and I suspect not many other people know either. If I can't run my software in it, I don't care.

Kevin

[Roger]

When I first found out that Vista would not support my new Open-GL card, I started looking at Linux. I've since found that I dearly love Ubuntu... it installed flawlessly on both my desktop and a brand-new laptop. Every hardware device was recognized on the first try. (video, sound, network, USB, etc.) I've never had that happen with a Windows product. I wish the major CAD-CAM vendors would see the light.

[Sigivald]

Tony said:they changed the driver model for Vista for no good reason

Huh. What an intersting worldview.

In my world, however, they moved them out of kernel mode (except for graphics drivers, and even they aren't totally kernel mode).

So there's a "good reason" right there; in fact, it's huge for stability. A crappy audio driver can't crash the whole system, because it's not running in ring 0.

(And let's not confuse signed drivers with DRM. Requiring signing of kernel-mode drivers on X64 is not "DRM".

Or, as Bott put it, Everything you know about Vista DRM is wrong.)

(Full disclosure: I've run windows since 3.1, MacOS since System 6, and linux since the 1.2 kernel, and I run all three OSes (both XP and Vista on the Windows side) to this day, at home, because I find them useful - I have no platform-partisan axe to grind.)