What operating system do you use?

Originally Posted by Mandi

Vista. And it sucks

Indeed it does. Which is why, I believe, Windows 7 is being made, though it seems like a visual update to me. Actually, the Windows 7 theme works faster on my computer than any other theme, including the Classic Theme. (I did a bit of downloading. D Though there is something about Vista that makes me like it. I have no clue what that is.

On a side note: I have recovery disks from my grandma's laptop, but I know my computer has nowhere near enough hardware to run Premium 64-Bit (it has a bit trouble running Basic!).

Originally Posted by ZeldaMaster#1#1

On a side note: I have recovery disks from my grandma's laptop, but I know my computer has nowhere near enough hardware to run Premium 64-Bit (it has a bit trouble running Basic!).

Vista x64 will improve your performance if you own a 64 bit processor, as it allows the OS to take advantage of the full 64 bit CPU bus, instead of the standard 32 bit bus, thus allowing the processor to make twice as many calculations per clock cycle. It also allows the OS to recognize something like 16 exabytes of RAM, or some similar crazy, post-singularity value.

The main computer I use is 32-Bit; my grandma owns the 64-Bit.

(And I'm trying out the ReadyBoost thing, so perhaps Vista'll run better.)

I'm curious why people here don't like Vista.

I vastly prefer it to XP, since it has a much more sensible and organized GUI, is far more secure, and has a much more complete feature set at almost no cost to performance.

Originally Posted by John

I'm curious why people here don't like Vista.

I vastly prefer it to XP, since it has a much more sensible and organized GUI, is far more secure, and has a much more complete feature set at almost no cost to performance.

It doesn't scale down well.

There's a pretty big hit to performance, it's just that Vista compensates for that with better support for multiple cores and a 64 bit version which doesn't suck. This is fine, unless you have a P4 processor, or any other similarly single core, 32 bit processor.

It really seems like the biggest hit to people with modern machines is the graphics card, as the GUI is drawn in directX now. It's not terrible, but it does steal some GPU cycles.

The main computer I use is 32-Bit; my grandma owns the 64-Bit.

Are you sure it's 32 bit? The last 32 bit processor anyone made was the Pentium 4 Cedar Mill in 2006. If you have a core duo then you can run a 64 bit operating system and software.

Originally Posted by John

I'm curious why people here don't like Vista.

I vastly prefer it to XP, since it has a much more sensible and organized GUI, is far more secure, and has a much more complete feature set at almost no cost to performance.

****ty gui, unskinnable, bloated, worse compability, it thinking i'm stupid, crashycrash on half the pc's i tried, a huge performance hit, this , this , this , this

"Can I just check online really fast to see if this progra--"
"NEIN! Anzwer ze question! Or ve vill SHOOT ZIS PUPPY!"

, this

anything else?

Originally Posted by fratey

****ty gui,

It's practicaly identical to XP's.

bloated,

Compared to what?

worse compability,

Opposite of my experience with it.

it thinking i'm stupid,

When?

a huge performance hit,

What hardware?

this ,

Er, yes? That's not Vista's fault, it's the people who program the software, and it restores the default colour scheme when the program causing the problem closes.

this ,

Er, so? XP has almost exactly the same dialogue, save that it takes it longer to go away.

this ,

I fail to see the problem there, actually.

this

Use an administrator account.

anything else?

Improved hardware compatibility, much more open and honest about what it's doing, far more customization and options for behind-the-scenes stuff, far better diagnostics, far more troubleshooting options, a much more logical GUI (The small differences from XP make it far more usable), massively improved security, removal of legacy code that was pinning Windows to the past, searchable start menu (massive, massive, massive time saver), more information presented in the GUI...

It's XP, only better in every conceivable way save memory footprint.

Originally Posted by John

It's practicaly identical to XP's.

Except that it's shinier. Kinda like blinding it.

Originally Posted by John

Compared to what?

XP, Tux

Originally Posted by John

Opposite of my experience with it.

I highly doubt that.

Originally Posted by John

When?

Always. I quickly learned that Vista thinks I'm stupid and Vista thinks it has to do everything for me. Vista asking a user questions and then making its own adjustments may be preferred by people who have little to no computer experience

Originally Posted by John

What hardware?

As I said, a huge performance hit.

Originally Posted by John

Er, yes? That's not Vista's fault, it's the people who program the software, and it restores the default colour scheme when the program causing the problem closes.


Er, so? XP has almost exactly the same dialogue, save that it takes it longer to go away.


I fail to see the problem there, actually.


Use an administrator account.

The answer is 'Not really' to all of those questions, and sure as hell it's an admin account.

Originally Posted by John

Improved hardware compatibility

I give you that in some cases.

Originally Posted by John

much more open and honest about what it's doing

hahahahahahaha

Originally Posted by John

far more customization and options for behind-the-scenes stuff

such as

Originally Posted by John

far better diagnostics

sure

Originally Posted by John

far more troubleshooting options

sure

Originally Posted by John

a much more logical GUI (The small differences from XP make it far more usable)

No, it's hardly "much" more logical.

Originally Posted by John

massively improved security

Not really. Memory security improved? Yes. The rest? Not really, because it's a prison cell.

Originally Posted by John

searchable start menu (massive, massive, massive time saver)

I use Launchy in any OS (XP, Vista, 7), so it does not concern me in any way - plus launchy > Vista start menu.

Originally Posted by John

more information presented in the GUI...

Depends.

Originally Posted by John

It's XP, only better in every conceivable way save memory footprint.

Not really. As I said, GUI plays a huge impact. XP customizability >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Vista's.

Originally Posted by John

Use an administrator account.

I know from my experience with VISTA that even if you use an admin account you still need to confirm you're the admin AND go through a billion warnings before you can open folders like Windows. Now this is of course good for those that aren't experienced with computers but at least give a way to turn it of EASY.

Originally Posted by Nictel

I know from my experience with VISTA that even if you use an admin account you still need to confirm you're the admin AND go through a billion warnings before you can open folders like Windows. Now this is of course good for those that aren't experienced with computers but at least give a way to turn it of EASY.

Solution: Google + a little User Account Control tinkering.

I've been using Vista for nearly a year now. I've had no compatibility issues, I've been able to find everything, I've had few crashes, the GUI never bothered me, and I much prefer it to XP.

You know if you actually read through the user guide for vista, it's actually better than XP *gasp*. It's called this great new thing called UPGRDE! Damn, I hate anti-vista people because they have this hole they sit in called 2003. Wake up people, and learn how to use new software. When the new version of Linux drops , people learn how to use it, but they won't learn to use Microsoft. Oh, and XP support will be dropped by Microsoft in... April 21 of next year. So all of those who chose to stay away from vista just because of what they heard, are going to be sol. I run Windows 7, which by the way, has been out of beta for about a month.

If you hate vista that much, all I can say is buy a Mac and f*** off.

Originally Posted by fratey

Except that it's shinier. Kinda like blinding it.

Then switch the colour scheme. Mine's a nice subdued black.

XP, Tux

Eh, I'll have to check again, but last time I looked Ubuntu had a similar memory footprint to Vista.

Always. I quickly learned that Vista thinks I'm stupid and Vista thinks it has to do everything for me. Vista asking a user questions and then making its own adjustments may be preferred by people who have little to no computer experience

Some examples would be nice, 'cause I've not noticed this at all.

As I said, a huge performance hit.

On what hardware?

hahahahahahaha

It is. Seriously. It hides substantially less than XP, and doesn't outright lie (which XP does. You're far more likely to end up with corrupted files on XP due to the way it presents information about file transfers, say)

such as

Much better audio setup, for one.

Heck, anything in the control panel.

No, it's hardly "much" more logical.

You'd prefer to have to right-click and select properties to find out anything about any file? Or Hard Disk? Vista gets far more information out into the open and groups things together logically, XP...doesn't.

Not really. Memory security improved? Yes. The rest? Not really, because it's a prison cell.

Prison cells are, by definition, secure. And it's far less of a cell than Ubuntu, say, is. I rather wish it was more cell like.

Originally Posted by Nictel

I know from my experience with VISTA that even if you use an admin account you still need to confirm you're the admin AND go through a billion warnings before you can open folders like Windows. Now this is of course good for those that aren't experienced with computers but at least give a way to turn it of EASY.

I just went Start > Computer > C: > Windows >System32

Took me about two seconds. Not one dialogue box or warning.

First time I did than in XP I had to ask it to show me the contents of the folders at least twice.

Originally Posted by uǝzoɹɟ

I've been using Vista for nearly a year now. I've had no compatibility issues

Try to run a DOS game in fullscreen.

I know that might not sound like a huge issue, but it comes up for me a lot.

Prison cells are, by definition, secure. And it's far less of a cell than Ubuntu, say, is. I rather wish it was more cell like.

Ubuntu is both more secure than Vista, and less restrictive. It's far more secure in user mode, and far less restrictive in root mode, and sudo allows the user to easily gain access to root mode if they have access to the root password.

That said, Ubuntu isn't Linux. It's a distribution of Linux. Ubunutu is one of the most bloated, most restrictive Linux distros in existence. It's also very good. If you want something more flexible and less restrictive try out Slackware, Gentoo, or Arch Linux.

Originally Posted by The Farmboy

You know if you actually read through the user guide for vista, it's actually better than XP *gasp*. It's called this great new thing called UPGRDE! Damn, I hate anti-vista people because they have this hole they sit in called 2003. Wake up people, and learn how to use new software. When the new version of Linux drops , people learn how to use it, but they won't use Microsoft. Oh, and XP support will be dropped by Microsoft in... November. So all of those who chose to stay away from vista just because of what they heard, are going to be sol. I run Windows 7, which by the way, has been out of beta for about a month.

If you have vista that much, all I can say is buy a Mac and f*** off.

Microsoft Pledges Windows XP Support Through 2014 Yeah whatever.

Upgrades aren't always better.

I don't use Linux because I don't want to learn how to use an OS every time again. Sorry but the OS is the way for me to get to my programs. It has to be easy, quick and not interfere.

Beta OS? No thanks. Not worth the risk for me.

So vista or else buy a mac? Now that's a sound argument.

Originally Posted by uǝzoɹɟ

Solution: Google + a little User Account Control tinkering.

I've been using Vista for nearly a year now. I've had no compatibility issues, I've been able to find everything, I've had few crashes, the GUI never bothered me, and I much prefer it to XP.

Originally Posted by John

I just went Start > Computer > C: > Windows >System32

Took me about two seconds. Not one dialogue box or warning.

First time I did than in XP I had to ask it to show me the contents of the folders at least twice.

When I used it there wasn't a solution out yet, or a service pack. Which probably makes a big difference. I like XP now and see no reason to switch. Besides it will cost me a lot of money to buy vista now. When windows 7 is around the corner. Not mentioning that I know I will have hardware issues with my current system. It's not vista's fault perse but there aren't vista drivers for all my hardware.

Originally Posted by 8bit

Ubuntu is both more secure than Vista, and less restrictive. It's far more secure in user mode, and far less restrictive in root mode, and sudo allows the user to easily gain access to root mode if they have access to the root password.

That said, Ubuntu isn't Linux. It's a distribution of Linux. Ubunutu is one of the most bloated, most restrictive Linux distros in existence. It's also very good. If you want something more flexible and less restrictive try out Slackware, Gentoo, or Arch Linux.

Fair enough, I was assuming a "typical user" scenario, since it's pretty easy to get around most of Vista's restrictions if you can use Google.

One thing that I've never understood is how people don't mind Ubuntu's endless sudo prompts (far more of those than you get XP UAC ones) that are more of a hassle to deal with (you have to enter a password, set Vista up right and you just click a button. Plus, Vista's prompts don't make the entire screen unresponsive) aren't complained about at all, but Vista's UAC gets massive amounts of flak.

Apparently it sucks because it's Microsoft.

I was using something I made myself (not to brag), but I switched over to Windows 7 to see how it is... And so far, I'm not disappointed... Microsoft really out-done theirselves with this new OS!!

Originally Posted by Nictel

Microsoft Pledges Windows XP Support Through 2014 Yeah whatever.

Upgrades aren't always better.

I don't use Linux because I don't want to learn how to use an OS every time again. Sorry but the OS is the way for me to get to my programs. It has to be easy, quick and not interfere.

Beta OS? No thanks. Not worth the risk for me.

So vista or else buy a mac? Now that's a sound argument.

Good, before you say something, at least reference from Microsoft. Read this http://support.microsoft.com/lifecyc...icePackSupport and say that again. It's only for businesses and the government. Now, do you work for the government or own a small business, then shut up because your not going to get support. And, oh 7 has been RC for a month already. If you are going to call someone a liar, then make sure you read everything. Until you read MSDN and actually pay attention to the details, then don't argue over Microsoft.

Originally Posted by John

Fair enough, I was assuming a "typical user" scenario, since it's pretty easy to get around most of Vista's restrictions if you can use Google.

One thing that I've never understood is how people don't mind Ubuntu's endless sudo prompts (far more of those than you get XP UAC ones) that are more of a hassle to deal with (you have to enter a password, set Vista up right and you just click a button. Plus, Vista's prompts don't make the entire screen unresponsive) aren't complained about at all, but Vista's UAC gets massive amounts of flak.

Apparently it sucks because it's Microsoft.

If you go to the Ubuntu forums or Digg, or any site where a majority of Linux users are Ubuntu users you're not going to hear those complaints.

If you go to any other Linux centric resource many users will bite your head off at the very mention of Ubuntu. One of the reasons being this. Ubuntu doesn't want the user logged in as root, so it depends on sudo to do just about everything which would require root access. (a lot of things.)

However, there are four reasons Ubuntu actually does this better than Microsoft:

1. This actually helps with security. UAC is completely worthless if all you have to do is click a button. A bot can click a button, a bot can not so easily guess your password. UAC attempts to protect the user from the user. Root access passwords attempt to protect the operating system and user documents from an attack.

2. The popup you get with Ubuntu, I believe, is not a Sudo popup. It's a Keyring popup. Rather than reason that the way that Ubuntu actually does this better
just being a prompt for Sudo, this is a prompt for Keyring, the Gnome password manager, thus, you get this prompt whenever an application asks for a password stored in the operating system, and you can assign one master password. (I believe in Ubuntu the master password for Keyring is automatically assigned to the root password.)

3. If you are in root mode you are given full access to the operating system without question. Windows feels really weird because even when you're in administrative mode you still get popups warning you about things like that, and with UAC off I remember having issues running certian software, getting a constant warning about having UAC off, and occasionally STILL getting UACesc warnings from the OS.

4. Windows Vista does it far more often than Ubuntu when UAC is turned on. You get a warning every time you move a file. This. Is. A. *****.

Forgive me if any of this is inaccurate. I've stopped using Ubuntu a while ago. I've switched to Linux Mint as both my primary Linux distro and my primary OS. (It's simply a modified, more polished redistribution of Ubuntu, with some tools built specifically for it. Basically, Conical releases an Ubuntu build, and then a month or two later a new version of Linux Mint comes out based on that latest release of Ubuntu.)

Originally Posted by 8bit

If you go to the Ubuntu forums or Digg, or any site where a majority of Linux users are Ubuntu users you're not going to hear those complaints.

If you go to any other Linux centric resource many users will bite your head off at the very mention of Ubuntu. One of the reasons being this. Ubuntu doesn't want the user logged in as root, so it depends on sudo to do just about everything which would require root access. (a lot of things.)

I always got the impression that people would bite your head off because one can use Ubuntu without spending six months memorizing Unix command line instructions.


I don't actually mind the Ubuntu sudo prompts. They take almost no time to go past, and I don't see them all that often.

However, there are two reasons Ubuntu actually does this better than Microsoft:

1. This actually helps with security. UAC is completely worthless if all you have to do is click a button. A bot can click a button, a bot can not so easily guess your password. UAC attempts to protect the user from the user. Root access passwords attempt to protect the operating system and user documents from an attack.

Well, the default setup on Vista is to have it prompt for a password. I've just decided to be horribly insecure.

Originally Posted by John

I always got the impression that people would bite your head off because one can use Ubuntu without spending six months memorizing Unix command line instructions.

That's part of it, yeah, but you only get that from people still using Slackware for everyday desktop use, or anyone else who prides themself on taking a really long time to do really simple things.

However, there are valid complaints with Ubuntu. I don't use Ubuntu, but it's not because Ubuntu is too 'easy'. I use Linux Mint.

I don't actually mind the Ubuntu sudo prompts. They take almost no time to go past, and I don't see them all that often.

I don't either, considering how short and insecure my password is.

Though I would prefer to not have to enter anything, however, I'm also too paranoid to operate casually in root mode.

Well, the default setup on Vista is to have it prompt for a password. I've just decided to be horribly insecure.

Oh? I don't remember that, actually, though I do have Vista as my secondary OS. Maybe I did the same thing.