So my wife told me about the Mojave Experiment by Microsoft tonight. I was intrigued about it. Vista has it's issues without a doubt, but are they all as bad as we make them out to be? How much does what we hear make us think the worst?

http://www.microsoft.com/nz/digitallife/so...dows_vista.mspx

It's an interesting idea, but inherently flawed due to the fact that the participants were not the ones actually performing the tasks (see the official blog post from Microsoft: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsv...ideo-posts.aspx). It's really no different from your typical sales pitch if you have a "trained retail salesperson" giving you a demo. I'm sure that you could do the same thing with any operating system and have people absolutely love it, only to find out that they can't really do everything they want when they're on their own.

To their credit, they did note that respondents "wanted more time to use it themselves," but that was spun as the reason for why scores weren't higher than they were. Everything just seems geared toward the idea that there are no actual problems with the product itself (which is clearly not true).

But yeah, Vista does get a bad rap, both deserved and undeserved. If the "experiment" were more scientific and if the marketing for the experiment results were less skewed (e.g. leaving out the fact that the people being surveyed didn't actually touch the machines), then I'd be more inclined to treat it as simply an issue with perception.

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On a side note, wasn't there another topic about this before? It seems to have mysteriously disappeared....

Well do I sound strange that I heard horrible rumors and then actually didn't find Vista so bad.

It's like Apple and Windows combined but it was just longer for a techy, like myself, to get to things that were easy to get to before. Now its, by all means, more user friendly but a little less techy friendly. I think I would be curious about how much harder it will be to be techy on it but how much more "user friendly" it will be.

The point I was going for is how many people just assume something about a product, before even trying it? This doesn't even have to be about Vista. I was raised in a family that was Chrysler. I was told that other cars are horrible, break, are cheap, etc. I own a Chevy now and could not be happier than I am right now.

I think people are afraid to try new things, see things they have become accustomed to change. That was the point, not to defend Vista or MS. Apple, Vista, and Linux all bring something to the table. Hopefully, they all inspire something positive in the development of future products.

People are ignorant. Plain and simple. Even if they want to believe they aren't.

Work retail for a few years if you haven't. The stuff you hear and are told by customers makes you lose faith in humanity a little more each day.

"So, do you have any of those Microsoft Wii's in yet?"

"When will you be getting in any of those Sony 360's?"

"Look, I KNOW that a megabyte is more than a gigabyte. Don't try telling me it's not!"

And so on.

People listen too much to their family friend or family member that they think is a know it all about the subject they are asking about. When in reality the person they were told by probably has yet to get higher than a 5th grade education. Or are just as ignorant as they are.

Ignorance is bliss and some people are in heaven.

Vista is no where near as bad as people seem to say it is. In fact, it's not bad at all. With SP1, it's far better than XP will ever be. I don't think people are really badmouthing Vista so much as they don't see the point to it, as XP has been around for seven years and they've grown comfortable with it. And truly, Vista is not revolutionary the way the transition from 98 to XP was. I think people just see Vista as nice, but not essential, and that's how ME was viewed, as well.

/me waits for Windows 7 in 2010 before trying vista again

Vista has run more stable on my comp than XP did. Too me that says something. I have Vista Pro and love it. Wouldn't go back to XP since many if not most of the XP functions I used are a part of Vista. And in some cases improved.

never judge a book by its cover, when windows vista came out people failed to realise that the biggest problems weren't with vista it was the 3rd party applications and drivers for hardware. Now these issues are starting to be resolved windows vista suddenly because more "stable". Its also the age old thing that people don't like change. The same thing happened when xp first came out i'm sure the same thing will happen in the next release.

Sorry, but having actually used Vista, in my experience the hype around it is valid. Wife got a new laptop with Vista and has had nothing but problems with it ever since. It's as stripped down as I can get it with a few extra processes and tasks running at the same time and it's still slower than her 10 year old Gateway laptop running XP. She's constantly coming to me with questions about how to do things on it and I have to tell her "Sorry, I don't know how to do that in Vista".

I'm happy you're all loving it now, but I'm happy I'm still on XP. I can't afford to upgrade every computer I own just for a prettier OS.

I was in Best Buy in Columbus, Ohio when I was visiting my parents this summer. I heard the sales rep tell the customer that having 6gb of RAM instead of 4gb made the computer more secure against hacking. It made it almost impossible to happen.

and i believed him too!

Many of the consumers these days are looking for bargains and good deals. The sad fact of the matter is that Vista does not run well on bargain PCs. Windows XP ran significantly better on the budget PCs...however, when XP was new, and the budget laptops that were initially made for Windows 98 that were "XP Compatible" also ran like sheer crap.

To have Vista run as it should, the computer will need to be at least a mid-tier, or high mid-tier level computer. Buying one, especially a laptop, that does not have significant resources (video card, RAM, processor) will easily show horrible performance.

Granted, Vista is more resource hungry than XP was in comparing the switch from 98->XP, and XP->Vista (from my recollection, anyhow - it's been awhile)...perhaps it's just that the hardware technology isn't improving as fast for price to performance; more likely is that there are many more bargain machines being sold than before. This is why Apple is doing so well right now: they oversee what hardware is allowed to be sold with their OS to give the proper experience to the end-user. (Something which may change if Psystar gets their way - they are currently suing Apple over this.)

It was a brand new, top-of-the-line Dell laptop, designed to be used with Windows Vista. In fact, I tried once downgrading her to XP on it, was unsuccessful, and was told by Dell that the laptop would only support Vista.

As a technician I am constantly bombarded with complaints about Windows Vista from the average consumer of computers. The majority of these issues stem from the fact that the users are running vista on an underpowered machine that was purchased new and with Vista.

What I explain to these consumers is that Dell, among other cheaply made computer manufacturers, they create hype around the system claiming the system will run Vista. Sure it will run Vista, just barely. I've asked a few to simply bring me their system for a small update of memory and see what an impact the additional RAM makes...if they don't like it, I remove the RAM and they don't pay me a dime.

Many of these consumers after their systems were updated with 2 GB of ram, found Vista to be very satisfying in terms of speed & reliablity. They now prefer Vista over XP. What gets me is the consumer that complains about Vista without running a system that really can run Vista. 2GB is the minimum amount of RAM that I would recommend for running the Vista OS. Anything less and you will not be satisfied with the operating system.

Personally, I am running Vista on an X2 6400 with 8GB of Ram. XP is a distant memory.

All technical stuff aside, all I'm going to say is:

It sucks that WindowsXP works faster on my computer than WindowsVista.

A new version needs to be: faster, more reliable, and more powerful (more features). Speed should always be #1 priority.

On the technical side of your computer experience, what are your PC Specs?
Vista is faster, more reliable and has more features than XP...depending on which version you go for.

Vista Ultimate is the best edition available for the Hard Core PC user.
For the general consumer Vista Home Premium is the best edition.

So I've got an XP machine that works great, is stable, secure, fast, etc. Why would I pay for a new OS, and then have to pay to upgrade my hardware to support that new OS? It must be nice to just have money falling out of your ears that you can throw at things like that, I have things like a mortgage, groceries, and student loans that I have spend my income on. I have never seen anything about Vista that excites me, and have more headaches with it than any other OS I've ever worked with, back to DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1. I'll be sticking with XP, thank you very much.

I agree with your earlier comment that regardless of how Vista Ready or what you are buying your machine with, Vista needs at least 2 gigs, of RAM, I had 4 in my machine and it works fine. All my XP games worked fine, although now I rarely game so it doesn't matter but still its fine. People need to stop complain about it and try it and its YOUR FAULT not MS or Vista's if your hardware cannot support it. 2 gigs RAM and a 256 Nvidia GFX card atleast. Although I have the RAM, 8800 GTS, and my processor is a junky Intel one awaiting upgrade, in the future it will run even faster.




Well thats how it works, why should I have to pay to run Leopard on Apple hardware, when I can use my own? We all have expenses too, so your not alone, don't forget taxes and W2's If your fine on XP don't upgrade, if your machine can't support it, don't upgrade - its that simple. And if anybody the money he is talking about, please visit my profile and donate - your contributing to my college education.

I don't mean to pick a fight, but seriously...

Everyone eventually upgrades to keep up with technology.

You may not upgrade for a new OS but you may upgrade when a new amazingly fast processor comes out. I upgraded from Intel 4 to Quad Core 2 and Vista came with it.

lol, a friend of mine had that problem too. Its easy to downgrade as long as you have the right resources and tools

and by downgrade you mean reformat and new install right? XD

I'm sorry that the top-of-the-line Dell didn't work as it should have with Vista. I'd wonder if pre-installed apps played a small part in that (as it bogged down my XP MCE install before I cleaned it all out). Regardless, I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience with it. If you're happy with XP, that's fine. I'm not trying to evangelize anything. I only recently purchased Vista (Ultimate x64) because I built a computer that can support it, and support it well. I still use XP on my laptop though and it runs great.

I bought a cheapish Asus laptop ($1,000) that runs Vista great. Though, I was upgrading from a 6 year old computer (that had like 258 MB Ram and a 20 GB HD which ran XP mediocrely because there was like no room for anything >.>).

Though, like people have said, processor speed and RAM play a huge part in it. Alot of computers run Vista, but barely because they're trying to sell you a crapish computer for more money. What I enjoy is walking through a store like Best Buy and seeing computers/laptops and on a sheet by it, it has like "Intel Core 2 Duo Inside!" yet no where does it actually list the processor speed. )

All I have to say though is that Linux runs much faster than Vista/XP, though only if I knew what the hell I was doing half the time (I'm a new user).

I work retail. Have most of my sad life since I was old enough to work.

The problem is, even though most driver issues have been fixed and were mainly launch issues (XP had the same issue at launch), people are STILL thinking that's the case. The problem isn't as much Microsofts as it is the people that make the drivers for the products you want to use. Some people still want to use that awesome printer from 1998 and can't understand why it won't work. But rather than blame the company that made the product, they blame the OS and Microsoft.

Even to this day people still mention the drivers issue. When in reality it's not much of one anymore. (Actually I had another one today mentioning the drivers issues.) Let alone all the old fogies that are just now wanting XP (even though it's been out since late 2001) because of the stuff they have heard about Vista. Let alone the fact it's close to end of life. I rarely if ever have people come in and complain of actual driver issues from a new comp with Vista they bought, unless the item is ancient.

And by the time they get around to getting Vista, the next OS will be coming to market and the other one going to end of life.

I look at it this way. I don't care if people don't like change or not. If they refuse to keep up with the times, then it's their own fault if they get left by the wayside and don't understand whats going on. Life and progression wait for no one.



The transition from XP to Vista for me was pretty painless. Minus a few minor changes in Control Panel layout, Vista and XP are much the same. Same locations for most everything. For some reason a new coat of paint throws people off. In fact, if it makes her feel better put it so it looks like Windows 98. lol Nothing will change other than the look and she'll likely know where to go. People make it harder than it really is.

People rely too much on those premade computers too. They hope the companies like Gateway, Dell, Toshiba, etc. know what they are doing and that the computer hardware is optimized for the OS. Let alone the OS optimized for the hardware. Much of the time it isn't. People blame Vista (and used to blame XP), when much of it also lies on the manufacturers of those computers.

99% of the time the graphics chipset in premade computers sucks. Thus problems with OS's like Vista. Crappy sound boards can do the same. But people have no clue on this. They automatically blame the OS when in reality it is only as good as the hardware it's on. My comp runs better, more stable, and faster than it did with XP. Why? Because I optimized it for Vista. ALL settings are maximized and turned on. Not bad for a homemade computer that's 3 years old. Yet people with 3 month old computers with Vista Basic and technically better stats, have issues. Figure that one out.

My comp:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ cpu
Geforce 3 MOBO
ATI X800XT graphics card
1GB DDR RAM (NOT DDR2)
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum audio card.

Honestly unless you want to drop a wad of cash on a good computer, odds are high you will NOT be getting the most out of your pre-made computer. I love when people buy games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and try returning it the next day because it won't work on their pre-made comp that cost $800. When did they buy it? 3 months ago. But they think because its new, it should be able to play all the latest games. When in reality with what it has, it's lucky to play solitare. I don't care if it has 3GB of DDR2 Ram. Or a 500GB hard drive. Or a quad core processor. If you don't have something to offset the motherboard based audio and video processes, you are lucky to get much of anything done. Let alone the fact most mobo bases audio and graphics chipsets suck and are lucky to even show the Windows 98 GUI.

If you don't have a dedicated graphics card, things like the OS GUI must use some of the system CPU power. By having a dedicated graphics card (which you can get a good one for around $50-$100), it offsets that load and eases up on system memory and cpu memory. Thus allowing it to do more things. Same with the audio. Get a cheap audio card even. Offset as much from the cpu and system memory as possible. If you don't and it's all motherboard based, your system memory and cpu are getting eaten up by audio and video alone. Let alone other processes. Thus more OS issues.

We live in a computer world. Educate yourself on how things work or you will always be left in the dust and having nothing but problems down the road.

You don't have to believe a word I said. Facts are facts though. Most pre-made computers suck. Sure they have a nice big LCD screen, lots of RAM, a nice cpu, and a big hard drive. Ever notice though the graphics capabilities and audio capabilities are lacking though? Why do you think you are getting that comp so cheap. They had to cut corners somewhere!



That sales person should have been fired. Plain and simple. Sales people know that with most computer related things, most people are gullible and thus just try taking them for a ride.

As far as Vistas bad rep goes... I think it's justified.

I have tried Vista several times now. Every time I had big issues, either permission issues, performance issues or driver issues. While these things might not be only the OSs fault, they prevent it from properly operating. And thus it's useless to me since XP can just do it better. And every time I say this, I get an answer about how Vista works great on proper PCs and that I should upgrade. I wouldn't call a C2D E6750, 4GB of RAM and a ATi 3870 an old machine. But that's just me.

It wasn't until 2 weeks ago when I was buying a new HDD that I gave it another try and everything finally worked as it should. I was trying it out roughly every 6 months since release.

I have used for a while.

Everything works the same for me?

Any issue that I had troubles fixing at some point were fixed quite easily when I waited for an update.

I'm in the EXACT same position - to the "T".

My wife got a laptop from Rent-a-Center at one point (running XP) and we decided it really wasn't worth it. Was looking for something reasonably cheap just so she wouldn't have to go downstairs to check her email with the kids and what not.

Went up to Best buy and bought an Acer - admittedly a "cheap" one at $500, but it had reasonable specs. Dual Core Intel processors, 2GB Ram, plenty of HD space (to check your email at least), and so on. Came with Vista. I figured what the heck, you can't even get XP in a store like this anymore so I won't complain. We've had constant issues with it.

Setting aside the speed problems, ESPECIALLY with shutdown/wakeup, it frequently likes to randomly disconnect from our wifi and immediately reconnect for no apparent reason (our iPhones, for example, have no problem staying connected with a strong signal given that we're about 20 feet away from the router). I know, I know - you could optimize this, or track down this issue. Problem might be with the laptop itself. Blah blah blah.

At the end of the day, I've never had issues with XP. Everything just works, and works reliably. Vista, on the other hand, I've never had a good experience. My wife must tell me once a day (she obviously uses the laptop daily) that she absolutely hates Vista. She has asked if we can downgrade the laptop multiple times.

Truth is in the pudding, so to speak. We've tried it, and we don't like it. It's sad too, because I was excited about it's release (mainly for WinFS, which wasn't even included). Perhaps in a few years when I feel like updating our hardware and stuff I'll give it another go. My Win XP Pro x64 pc however runs fine for now and I have absolutely no intentions of updating it in the immediate future.

Why does every windows release require an even more significant amount of specs? Windows XP can do pretty much anything you want it to do. How does Vista hog as many resources as it does when compared to XP? What about Vista 64 bit vs XP 64 bit? Out of the features that actually do improve productivity (regardless of where they were inspired from), how many of these are actually responsible for increasing the system requirements?

Release after release Microsoft tends to add more and more sugar bloat to the system that is really unnecessary. There is so much legacy code left over and piled on top of it's ridiculous. Do you really need translucent windows?

People prefer XP because it does everything they need to do, and they're tired of all the crap.

For Microsoft's sake, I hope Windows 7 is actually redone from scratch, as they claimed they would do with Vista (which they didn't). At some point they have to drop all the backwards compatibility from windows 95, and concern themselves more with productivity than how pretty it looks.

My boss ordered a top-of-the-line laptop from Dell and asked for XP. They shipped it with Vista, he thought he'd try it, and it crashed on the very first use. Not slow sluggish performance... Blue screen of death crash. Vista is crap.

and I still wait for 2010

YES
when we all will lost our Mouse-Thinking,
there will no mouse be there

another thing:
does anybody remember what we say abouth WIN 98 some years ago ??
I remember the hard days with short sleep, because the system was not stable !
Then WIN-ME comes along (horrigble....2)

I like Vista only in 1 part of my job:
there are old ppl, they dont neeed much programs,
they just like to write an mail, watch TV, loking pics on 17 inch-diskplay in the Big-Hymer Lory on the weekend...

They got no problems,
when the system is set up well from good hands...
Just throw away 6this nasty-software from the "cheap-Systems" with 30 days trial-versions

like the most resseller do, like Dell (brrrrrrr.....)
thats the thing why vista (for younger ppl) sucks !!

We build our systems our self, and i can tell u that 99 % of desktop's in germany are XP-systems..
in Laptop/Notebook thats min. > 90% Vista...

I think what a lot of people forget is that XP had just as many errors as Vista did when it was first released. Actually, no, XP had more errors, and truly critical ones. Just like Vista, XP was barely usable until SP1. Really, this is what happens every single time a new Windows OS is released. People get comfortable with the old one and they see that the new version has issues, so they just assume it sucks. And also remember that XP was released in 2001, seven long years ago. Back then, the Internet was still sort of a "techie" place, with no social networking, blogging, etc. But suddenly in 2007, any moron with a blog has suddenly become a certified IT professional who knows what they are talking about. So now more people than ever are complaining about Vista. However, the people who dislike Vista for whatever reason are still in a very vocal minority. Just like XP, the vast majority of people who run Vista are silent, as they are either indifferent about it or genuinely like it. There were some major issues facing Vista when it was released, but they have been fixed as of SP1.

There are two major things that contribute to Vista's (undeserved) negative image. First, XP -> Vista is an evolution. 98 -> XP, however, was a real technological revolution, as consumers went from DOS to NTFS. Suddenly, Windows became much more stable and usable. Secondly, prior to Vista, most major Windows releases came every 2-3 years. Vista came a little later, about five years later. This gave people much more time to get comfortable with XP. Thus, if it's not broken, why fix it? If XP works great, why upgrade?

I think that Microsoft was too generous with its minimum system requirements. They should have made it 1 GB of RAM instead of 512 MB. I do have a computer with 512 MB RAM that can run Vista quite well, but of course it can't use Aero Glass. Because the RAM requirement is so low, we are seeing budget PCs run Vista that really should be using XP or Linux. Thus, I do think that a lot of people who have issues with Vista either have a computer that really shouldn't be running it, or have faulty drivers.

The fact is, if you get a high-end PC, fill it with lots of RAM and then run a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, I see no reason whatsoever why anyone would ever bother with XP. Our college campus just upgraded all the computers in one of its labs to Vista, as well as replaced the PCs with newer ones that have 4 GB of RAM. The PCs are unbelievably fast and responsive, whereas the older ones that have XP are noticeably slower. I think Vista is really an OS that needs to be run on a very good PC, unlike XP which was able to run on just about anything.

I've said it countless times, Vista isn't all that bad. Sure it's not the most stable OS out there, but it does work. Usually.

My problem with Vista is all of the broken promises.
"Vista will run perfectly on any machine that can run XP!"
"Vista will be more stable than XP!"
"Vista will be the OSX killer!"
...etc.

All statements from Microsoft pre-Vista, when in actuality, it has much higher hardware requirements, crashes more frequently, and really just took a bunch of features from OSX, moved them around, and called them Aero. Oh, not to mention the fact that it took a few years longer than they had originally said.

I use Ubuntu 90% of the time and will continue to do so until someone gives me a valid reason to switch. Windows is for games, and that's about it as far as I'm concerned.

Yep, I think we found out how gullable people are.

1) If Microsoft even so much as THOUGHT Vista could "run perfectly on ANY machine that can run XP", they wouldn't have created "Vista Compatable" in the first place.
And the requirements wouldn't be HIGHER than that of XP.
2) With the right drivers (and vista versions of software), it IS much more stable.
3)... yeah in no ones dreams.

Where on earth did you hear those for promises of Vista?

I am/was exposed to vista at work and wouldn't touch it for personal use. I even backed off at work to W2k pro because it is so much faster to run the simple programs I do use at work. And with customers waiting on me, I refuse to wait on my only tool to help them. I would be scared to really go into what I use at home with it as my OS.

I look at this 'experiment' as a statement of "lets fix the users/hardware" rather than deliver what is desired. MS has been making the decisions for what you need for so many years that what were once vises have become habits.