Bits from Bill

Technology thoughts leaking from the brain of "Bill Pytlovany"

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Please Don't Upgrade to Vista

I’ve kept an open mind regarding the new Vista operating system but I can’t be quiet any longer.  Over 5% of the traffic here on Bits from Bill appears to be coming from Vista users. If Vista fails to take off there really could be an impact on our economy. I really want it to succeed but to be true to my readers, at this time, I must recommend against it.

I received the following today from my nephew currently serving our country in Iraq

Hi Uncle Bill,
  Hope all is well.  I have a question about Microsoft Vista.  I bought a new laptop that came with Vista; I am having a lot of problems, it seems that every time that I try to load AOL it causes the computer to “crash”; It has given me the “blue Screen of Death” and won’t shutdown properly. 
.
.
I really like the graphics that Vista has, but I am ready to load XP instead and try to get it (Vista) running correct when I get home.  It takes FOREVER to download on the network, really slow…

MSG John N. Cavaliere 
Camp Striker, Iraq

John is on his 2nd tour in Iraq and still has 5 1/2 months to go. He purchased the laptop to keep in contact with his wife and kids who are struggling with his absence.  While I’ll admit my reaction today is a bit emotional I’m not alone. I’m also willing to blame AOL but I thought the Blue Screen of Death was a thing of the past.

A number of popular Windows experts have quietly jumped ship and are recommending against upgrading to Vista.  Even Ed Bott who has been defending his promotion of Vista has acknowledged he’s baffled by error messages telling people their version of Vista is invalid.

BambisMusing: Trouble in Vista Paradise … Paint me surprised.
USA Today: Vista causes an array of problems
BBC News: Falling into the Vist trap
PC Advisor: Vista cuts off broadband users
Associated Content: Vista Slowing Down Broadband Users Worldwide
InfomationWeek: Dept of Transportation Bans Vista Upgrades
Microsoft Channel9: How to uninstall Vista

Share on Facebook


7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bill P.,
I'm glad that I took your advise to wait with upgrading to Vista. Like you recommended to wait a week when new updates come from Microsoft so I wait with Vista and I may not upgrade at all unless I have to! So many of my friends who could not wait to get Vista are all now having all kinds of problems.
I spent years perfecting my windows XP so it works just right. If you surf the web in a sandbox your 99.99% safe!
My son had problems with Vista so much so he also has uninstalled it and went back to XP.
All the bugs and glitches are not out of Vista yet.
Until MS stops supporting XP I'll stick with it.

1:28 AM  
Blogger Hermes said...

Like any other operating system it's best to give it some time and see how it beds in before upgrading to it.

having seen some of the posts about problems that security vendors have had porting their software to it, it's better to have peace of mind from it having been out there for a while.

2:51 AM  
Blogger David said...

I've been using Vista at work since November, and personally for a couple weeks now. To put it simply, I love the OS. Not only are the graphics gorgeous, but so many nuances are included that fix small issues that irked me in XP ("breadcrumbs" navigation, an integrated Windows Update interface, etc.) Likewise, the security features are spectacular, seen and unseen. I clean-installed the system, and, knowing how much crap accompanies new systems these days, and how much of that crap may not be well-tested in Vista, I'd venture that it's just as likely the software and far less likely the OS.

Some people may be crying wolf on Vista (some of the links provided, not you, Bill!), but of all the people I know using it, no one's having problems beyond that of XP's rollout. And, for me, any such headache is worth the price.

3:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have to agree with David. Vista has its bugs, no sound from the dog, etc. However, it is more secure than XP, has better graphics, navigation is light years ahead. IE protected mode sandboxes the browser for additonal security, the information avialable in dialogues is far better than XP, and on it goes. Driver and application woes should be expected for a time, particularly given that the operating system is much different than XP.

3:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had intended to upgrade to Vista by now but my cost to upgrade to Vista may exceed $500 (exclusive of the cost of Vista) and no changes are required to the pc itself.
My 4 year old HP printer which operates fine, must be replaced. HP has announced that it will not write Vista drivers for it. I use older versions of software (including PhotoShop CS, SnagIt and Clipmate) which may not work in Vista. Adobe apparantly has announced that it will not adapt older versions of its software to use Vista.
At least Palm has announced that somewhere down the road it will release Vista drivers for my device.
There are just too many downsides to upgrade.

7:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well if my widdle Scotty loses his widdle bark then I ain't upgrading to Vista...I've had Scotty for a long time now and I ain't about to disturb is little house, he's been very happy with me for a long time...

Anyway just a question, will Scotty be alright with my Lavasoft and my AVG Free Antivirus? Can someone add some light to those questions, please...

What is Blogs or blogger mean???????

3:44 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

For me this is the last straw for vista. I can’t copy files above 700mb from my network drive to my local drive because “Insufficient system resources”. I have 2G Ram and 200G disk space and I still get this error.

http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1444560&SiteID=50

There’s no fix or patch and the best workaround is to use the command line which just isn’t practical.

I’ve struggled for 2 months to work my way through all of my vista issues including:

Connecting Samba: You need to set the Security Level manually in Vista.

VMWare – just forget it

Copying files from my old XP disk to Vista. Only possible in Safe Boot because Administrator has insufficient permissions

There are a thousand other problem with this OS but if you can’t rely on copy to work reliably then all bets are off.

7:27 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home