PSA: Mainstream Support for Windows Vista Ends Today

[phump]

Still using Vista with no problems. I guess I'll consider windows 9!

 

[phump]

Still using Vista with no problems. I guess I'll consider windows 9!

 

[Soda88]

[citation][nom]sporkimus[/nom]The main issue I hate about Vista is Windows Update. Have you ever run it before, especially on a fresh install? It's the most brutal task I've ever seen run on a PC. The last time I ran Windows Update on a fresh Vista install, it took nearly 12 hours on a cable modem connection to download the updates. WU takes FOREVER to scan for new updates. You may as well go take a nap while it determines what it needs.[/citation]
That's an understandable issue for an OS this old.
I keep my Windows 7 installation up to date with virtual machine and imagex to avoid being caught pants down in case any of my machines requires reinstall, or when I'm installing it on new machines.
Works alot better than 3rd party tools for slipstreaming updates such as W7Tool, ever since Microsoft decided to stop supporting slipstreaming.

 

[shafe88]

[citation][nom]SteelCity1981[/nom]Windows 7 will be the new Windows XP as Windows 8 will be the new Windows Vista. Watch how many people that buy computers with Windows 8 on it will want to demand a downgrade to Windows 7. [/citation] Windows 8 will not be the new vista, Vista with SP2 is almost as good as Win7. Ive tried Win8, and the Metro UI makes me sick to the stomach, it so irritating to use and look at, I'd choose Vista over Win8 any day, I'd even choose windows ME over Win8.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]foscooter[/nom]Vista, like ME, was just......UGH!Windows 98SE and XP were good, but I must admit, 7 is great.Except for no native e-mail client, like Outlook Express and whatever Vista had, Windows Mail?[/citation]

Vanilla Vista was pretty bad, but once you have SP2 and Platform Upgrade, it can stand toe-to-toe with Windows 7.

Compare any Windows to ME again, and I'll come over and teach a lesson. NO Windows versions come even close to ME, except for Microsoft Bob.

 

[24oz]

Never had problems with Vista except not being able to find a driver or 2 early on.after SP1 no more problems.

 

[jj463rd]

I never had any problems at all with Windows Vista 64 bit home premium edition.Then again I built my system in 2008 with a quad core CPU and had 8 gigabytes of DDR2-800 RAM (which was inexpensive at that time).I've heard that Vista like 7 uses a lot of system memory.So the fault was likely with those with older component systems and little system memory.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]tleavit[/nom]My company is still 75% XP and the other 25% in Windows 7. We skipped Vista. I see no reason why M$ stopped with the silly version upgrades at xp and just updated it. In the modern age (2012) there's no reason XP couldn't be updated with everything Win7 has other then to make M$ more money. Its actually pretty silly now.[/citation]The XP kernel was rewritten for Windows 7 and it can't be "updated" to carry all the new features effectively. Many limitations in terms of managing updated hardware are difficult with it. It's not practical to ship an operating system designed to support what was legacy hardware in 2002 (eg. hardware from 1998). Windows 7 supports hardware from 2005 onwards quite well though. Additionally, XP 64 had some issues and a 64-bit operating system is essential for MANY users nowadays.

No, XP should pass quietly in the night. And we will remember it with fondness. But to say we should have rebuilt it into some sort of bionic XP, isn't a practical solution.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]Windows Live Mail is the successor to Outlook Express. It will even allow you to import/transfer an old Outlook Express mailbox to Windows Live. It is actually a pretty good free mail program, if I ever used local mail programs anymore (thank you Gmail...) They just made it easier to get rid of it because of the EU requirements.Windows Vista was an incomplete package, but Windows 7 took most of the good from Vista (and there was a lot of good in Vista, like superior automatic plug and play, built in networking for WiFi/Blutooth, superior security) and enhanced it to make it usable.[/citation]
Windows Live Mail may be the successor of Outlook Express but does it come with windows 7 by default? Not! So how can it be the default email client if it doesn't come with windows 7 and even if you install every single update it doesn't get installed. You have to go to the live website and manually download and install. Some time back Microsoft included Windows Live Essentials in the updates but as removed it for quite dome time.

 

[namecnassianer]

Microsoft releases OS's twice as fast as the public wants them.

QFT. But they make money only by selling "new and improved" software, not by releasing patches and updates.

 

[sporkimus]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]Windows update hasn't changed in Win 7, there just may be fewer updates now due to age.[/citation]
It has nothing to do with the overall quantity of updates, the process of Windows Update scanning for updates it was takes so damn long. Hell, I can put a fresh XP box and Vista box side-by-side and start the Windows Update process. I guarantee you that XP will smoke the Vista box. Do some Google searches. You will find that Vista is notoriously slow for running Windows Update.

 

[trumpeter1994]

It seems to me like Microsoft has had an on-off cycle with their OS in more recent years
Windows 98 = Good Windows ME/2000 = Bad Windows XP = Good Windows Vista = Bad Windows 7 = Good Windows 8 = Looks pretty bad thanks to Metro

 

[holyprof]

[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]I liked Windows Vista and if it hadn't been for the minimum requirement computers released with Vista, the poor press, and the lack of available drivers at launch I believe Vista would have been much more of a success. Everyone complains about Vista but rarely do they actually say what they disliked about it. It looks VERY similar to 7, has the same core drivers, and has generally the same compatibility. If you want something to be mad at MSFT about, complain about 8. Now that's trash. Vista had a couple of problems. 8 is an attack on the fundamentals Microsoft has built for Windows during the last 20 years. I agree that Microsoft releases OSes too fast but Vista was not Microsoft's fault. It was the vendors and the press that made Vista into something bad.[/citation]

Did you ever tried Vista and W7 on the same PC? A clean Vista install takes 2 minutes to boot up on my laptop, Win7 takes 45 seconds. On desktop, Vista takes 1:35, windows 7 takes less than a minute (all clean installs from images). And overall, Win7 is faster and more reliable.

 

[eddieroolz]

Vista still has a special place in my heart. I just gotten into tweaking XP and messing with computers a year or two before Vista was released, and I quickly found myself admiring the Aero interface. It was miles better looking than XP's bland interface, and as I found later, the host of improvements like start menu search proved to be invaluable.

 

[smugdad]

I"ve wondered for a long time why people have this big problem with Vista. I've had good luck with it from SP1 forward and SP2 is better. I've set up Vista SP2 and 7 SP1 both and they run about the same to me, both as to stability and speed. I frankly really love Vista and it's far superior to XP.

 

[smugdad]

To follow up, I began wondering why everybody hated Vista and loved Server 2008. It's the same kernel. I built a Server 2008 domain controller for our law firm and it's bulletproof. We never used Aero, because in a corporate environment it made no sense. People can either use the Classic menu (full start menu but basically gray and boring ) or Vista Basic. Turned off most of the fancy visual stuff, and we're all running 85% or more stability according to the "Stability Monitor." It's more secure and for us easier to use. People who didn't like it on their home machines use them here with no problem and have actually done to their systems what I did with them at the office.

 

[Guest]

Look what a pattern Microsoft have for their last six OS's:

98: Good
ME: Bad
XP: Good
Vista: Bad
7: Good
8: Bad