Hasta la Vista, baby...

[Dave Lewis]

... I admit it, I stole the title of this thread from a blog by a disgruntled BBC journalist.

Why is he disgruntled? Because his electronic life has been thrown into disarray by the wonderful* new world of Microsoft's Vista.

Who's in? Who's out? Who's waiting? Who's bovvered?** Who's scared? Will this thread still be going by the time everyone on PS has shelled out for Vista?

Actually, will PS still be going by the time everyone has shelled out for Vista?

Your thoughts, comments, justifications, rants, and general rambling discourses about all things Vista here.




* Cough cough
** Sorry Tony...

[Rob McCow]

If I had it for free, now, I wouldn't install it. XP works - I've seen it working. It looks nice. It may clog up and slow down over time, but you can fix that. Vista is too much of a risk to let loose on my system. Think of the hours wasted finding drivers for your sound card! Nasty.

I spent a lot-of-money on a new PC lately, but still Vista was never a consideration.

[Dirk Gently]

My laptop is Vista capable but I'm not going near Vista until the bugs are all worked out. Remember when XP came out, there were patches & downloads galore needed & still are. I think it takes about 2 -3 years for it to be reasonably workable. People like Alex are the guinea pigs & will have to put up with the Trojans, worms & viruses that will even now be being written to attack it.

[Rob McCow]

From The Register - more justified scaremongering!

Windows Vista suffers from a bug that causes many machines to stall while deleting, copying and moving files, a flaw that has provoked consternation in online forums.

"I've seen this bug in action, and trust me, it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM," one Reg reader complained. "To add to the problem, you can't cancel or anything."

According to a thread on Microsoft's TechNet site, Microsoft has issued a hotfix for the problem, but it has failed to quell the outrage. For one thing, individual users must get Microsoft's approval before the fix can be downloaded, according to our tipster. And for another, hotfixes are more of a pain to install than patches.

We've contacted a Microsoft spokeswoman, who promised to see if a patch for the problem in the works. Meanwhile, Vista users continue to grumble.

"I simply can not believe that I updated to a new computer and put windows Vista on it to find that it's not even capable of moving and deleting files in an efficient manner," one disaffected user posted in the Microsoft forum. "Microsoft must be kidding! The most basic of features that I use all the time is a slow train wreck."

Rumours that Vista makes your skin turn orange and sends all your website hits to Mohammed Al Fayed are still unfounded.

[Wayne]

You can't beat '98!

[Pip Madeley]

In a way, Wayne's right. Windows 98 was/is very stable. I use XP because it was already installed when I bought this PC, and I'll continue to use it - if it ain't broke, don't fix it... and as Tim said, Vista's got a lot of problems (very slow installation, incompatibility problems with drivers/software, the need for a high-spec PC etc).

[Anthony Williams]

The only problem with 98 these days is that Microsoft no longer offers support for the product.

A fully up-to-date version of XP is rather stable, and I'll be sticking with it for the next few years.

Ant x

[Wayne]

The only problem with 98 these days is that Microsoft no longer offers support for the product.

Then again i've never needed support for it.
The time will probably come though, when new programs won't run on '98 anymore, But it's fine for everything i use. At the moment, anyway.

[Rob McCow]

Windows 2000 offers some benefits over '98, but if you're just browsing the net then they probably won't matter to you.

[Wayne]

Probably not. My PC is just a disc burning/internet machine.

[Pip Madeley]

Add graphics/video editing to the list and you've got mine.

[Alex]

People like Alex are the guinea pigs & will have to put up with the Trojans, worms & viruses that will even now be being written to attack it.

That's not good. Though it doesn't surprise me. If I'd had any choice in the matter I'd definitely have gone for XP too. It took about two weeks to get the computer working properly (mainly as the McAlfee Virus software it came installed with was causing problems unknown to me), but it is frustrating that sometimes I download a programme and then it fails to work.

I can't see the advantages of Vista either. There's probably a lot there for somebody who uses their PC for lots of crazily different stuff, but I'm like Pip in that mine's mainly for the net / burning / writing stuff, so there's no real pluses for me.

Ah well, at least, erm...it looks pretty? Ish? hmmm...

[Darren]

I may have no choice as my PC is slowly dying. I keeep getting disc read errors and have to use my recovery disc. And my CMOS battery has gone.