Since Windows Vista has gone RTM, it seems like we haven’t posted much about the positive aspects of Microsoft’s newest OS. Instead, we’ve ranted (well, within reason) about UAC, Vista’s ease-of-use, bugs, UAC, security, UAC, drivers, and compatibility issues. While each “rant” was properly documented, with plenty of workarounds, numbers, or sources as the case may be; we feel the wrong impression might have come across.
In light of several posts on the internet by certain Windows Vista “enthusiasts,”1 we felt it necessary to plaintively put our point across: Windows Vista doesn’t suck. That certainly isn’t the most beautiful and eloquent language we’ve used to date, but it does get the point across – we hope. Windows Vista, despite the stuff we’ve posted, the stuff we’re going to post, and the stuff that we neglected to mention, is still Microsoft’s best operating system ever.
Oxymoron? Paradox? Not really. It’s still (very) rough around the edges and in need of a serious (and preferably immediate) Service Pack to address some of the issues (particularly UAC, networking GUIs & frameworks, and Internet Explorer slow-downs/crashes), but it’s a very far cry from Windows XP and it’s non-existent (read: slapped on) security policies and implementations – plus, Vista looks a hell of a lot better, too.
Like we ourselves said before, it’s not just enough for Windows Vista to be better than XP, it also has to measure up, to some extent, to Linux and Mac OS X – and it does. With the latest ATi drivers released earlier last week, Windows Vista has regained its stronghold over the gaming community. It offers a fairly straight-forward and (for the most) clean & purty user interface. It’s security is on-par with other operating systems as far as the design and user restrictions go.
Windows Vista isn’t necessarily the best operating system ever released (it isn’t), but it’s not that bad. The reason why we post the bad stuff is because we feel that’s what people need to see. Microsoft is doing a decent job selling Windows Vista to the masses and let’s face it, sooner or later, everyone’s going to upgrade their Windows XP to Vista.
We feel it’s more important to point out the weaknesses and the flaws and post workarounds/fixes than it is to just sit at our PCs and copy-and-paste the Vista website over to NeoSmart Technologies. Most importantly, posting the good stuff doesn’t get anything accomplished. Vista’s great, yadayada… to be honest, no one cares. But when you post the not-so-pretty and the bad, you actually accomplish something. It’s not whining for the sake of whining all the other “enthusiast” sites are doing now, it’s whining for the sake of getting something fixed and raising awareness with regards to a particular issue.
NeoSmart Technologies recommends that people upgrade to Windows Vista – for God’s sake, XP is ancient! It’s Windows 2000 + a real user interface, so that makes it what, 8 years old? Wow!
Upgrading to Windows Vista or not isn’t the question. What’s important is when to upgrade – and no, we’re not talking about SP1. If you’re a gamer and you have an ATi card, go ahead and upgrade – if you’re on an nVidia-powered rig, you’ll want to wait for nVidia to get it’s gear going. If you’re a business user – nothing stopping you from upgrading right now (except the money, perhaps) – Office works great, and Windows Mail & IE7 are waiting for you.
Basically, wait for real drivers for your hardware – not ones that say Vista-compatible, but the ones that really mean it. If you have software you can’t live without – wait for an update.
But, whatever you do, don’t sit on your PC and blame Microsoft for everything wrong that’s happening, waiting from someone from Microsoft to drop you an email, begging you to come back to Vista – that’s just stupid. Do something real. Post, complain, program, and get ready – that’s what we’re doing.
Note the quotes, they’re there for a really good reason! ↩
http://whydoyouwork.blogspot.com/2007/02/vista-ultimate-first-48-hours.html