Before Microsoft Vista was released, there was much anticipation by the Microsoft user community. The so-called Longhorn version of the Operating System was going to be the latest and greatest since Windows for Workgroups. However, as Microsoft kept pushing back the launch date of their new OS; people became, a little more leery about the new product, even in spite of the media hype put forth by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
The delay in the release date was seen by many as an indicator of some problems in the development of the Operating System and now that it is out, it seems as though those worries were well founded. For the average user Microsoft Vista presented a lively and vibrant environment. Nevertheless, the Operating System itself was far too different than XP and people soon found that they did not have the patience for the learning curve that Vista presented them with.
One item of contention which was supposed to be a positive was the security enhancement features of Vista. However, users were soon bogged down with the OS querying them on every move they made. This became a hindrance to the Operating System as well as to the average user’s patience. Overall Windows is a very nice looking Operating System and security is a bit more protective, perhaps, a bit over protective, but it is still not the best.
No matter what Microsoft does, it seems someone, somewhere will figure out a way to get into your system, and to be fair this is usually the fault of the user. This is where Microsoft made its mistake in my opinion. Microsoft developed an OS that made it so that nothing could be done unless the user approved it thereby eliminating any blame to its Operating System. However, this plan has backfired and many users find themselves switching back to XP.
As a matter of fact, the abandonment of Vista for the XP Operating System has been so prolific that Microsoft has started producing commercials to fight this embarrassing exodus. The commercials show a person which is in a situation, very much like the old blind taste test commercials, and they are told by the spokesman that they are using a new Operating System called Microsoft “Mojave.” The people are then so surprised and so absolutely love the new Operating System that they start praising it. That is when the Spokesman lets them know that they are actually using Windows Vista.
Unfortunately, this will only work with people that have not tried Vista but have been informed by others to stay away from it. If you have used Vista, you will know that what I state in the beginning of this article is true. The learning curve is too high and it is even difficult to figure out where your downloads, and documents are if you are used to the other Window’s Operating Systems. It is very easy to get lost in the Vista Operating System and usually a hard reboot will be required to set things straight again.
I recently upgraded my laptop to Windows Vista. Certainly, I could not tell you about it if I had not used the OS myself. So, with that said my experience was so bad that I have now gone back to XP in less than a week, and I am an advanced computer user. Installation of Windows Vista went very smoothly. However, it gave me a video card driver that would not enable Direct3d which makes everything on the screen jumpy. When I went to my laptop vendor’s website, they did not have a Vista driver and said that Vista supplied the driver now, strike one.
I noticed right away that my computer ran a lot slower, and when I say slower, it seemed to be moving at half speed. I finally figured out a few ways to speed it up a bit, but it was not enough to suit my needs. Whenever I would try to install a driver, Vista would not install them but it would pop up with a box offering me a choice of saying that it was installed properly or reinstall using Vista’s recommendations. Okay, I do not need that, just do it the way that it works, jeez guys who thought of that, I hope he was fired, strike two.
Now while all of this is going on I still have to acquaint myself with where all of my documents and folders are. There are slight differences, but when you use one Operating System for so long any little change is going to throw even the best of us off. I can say that I did not like the Start Menu at all. Something about it did not feel right and when I used it I was left feeling confused, it could be psychological, but either way it was a hindrance. Then out of nowhere my programs started shutting down on me including Internet Explorer and all that I was left with was this sympathetic message telling me the computer is sorry but my program must be terminated, strike three.
So, I struck back and pulled out my old faithful XP disk and booted Vista right out of my computer, literally. My old XP was a sight for sore eyes and as a matter of fact, it even seemed to run faster than before I had upgraded to Vista, good for me, bad for Microsoft. I imagine if you buy a new laptop or desktop with Vista already on it then it might be just fine. However, I am betting that if you take off that Vista and put XP on, you will have a screaming fast PC.