Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech Windows Vista - My Review

I had my first experience of Vista the other day. I was asked to set up a new laptop for someone, and what I predicted about Vista was true - and worse.

Now this was pre-installed on a brand new top of the range laptop. They had the option of buying the same Model with XP installed for £250 cheaper, but they thought they'd choose Vista to be set for the future.

For starters, when I was first running the setup, it took ages to configure everything and restarted about 3 times, the screen flickered on and off god knows how many times and after displaying several DOS prompts (good to see Vista is run by the most simplified, yet the most reliable OS developed by Microsoft) it started up around 30 minutes after pressing the on button.

I was amazed by the graphics, but still, the latest version of Linux SuSe has far better graphics and standard effects compared.

I then tried to navigate my way around masses of pre-installed crap which mounted the taskbar and made it look like a toppled mile-high totem pole.
After clearing most, I came across 3 of the last 6 icons. All 3 were security related.
The first being Norton Internet Suite or somecrap, which was notiftying me that the system required scanning.
The second was some sort of Windows security suite telling me that updates and a scan were needed.
The third was a Windows Notifier telling me that it had detected Norton and Windows Security Suites needed attention

I then tried to turn off the two windows notifications, to which I was suddenly blocked from doing anything before I answered to the Spanish Inquisition.
I was prompted by windows that what I was doing could possibly be making changes (no sh*t).
After clicking continue, I was then prompted by yet another so say windows is making changes to windows, do I want to continue.

Christ! All I wanted to do was turn off stupid shitty notifications.

Then, after struggling for 10 minutes to find somewhere, anywhere to enter an activation key for Norton, I saw past the "solutions" and the useless "help" links, topics and buttons I found somewhere to enter it in.

I was then prrompted by yet another one of these daft messages telling me something stupid like "this product is about to update, do you wish to continue?"

Oh, and these kept popping up and blocking my actions everytime I did anything such as, put a disc in the drive, open up control panel...almost anything.

As I said, they people who I was setting it up for paid £250 extra for vista pre-installed so that they would be ready for the future, however, it turned out, none of the brand new 2007 software they purchased for it was not vista compatible...what a surprise!


So, upon my breif experience with Vista, I was horrified even though I was expecting the worst.

It seems Microsoft have tried so hard to make the new Windows more secure and easier to use, that they have actually made it even harder to use. I even got confused by many of the standard security features. God help anyone with either little or even some experience.


Anyone else experienced the horror yet?

Hehe and heres me going back to my old Windows 2000/XP combination soon!

This is one of the problems a "Chief Micrsosoft Advisor" pointed out in 2006, which Microsoft quickly moved to state was untrue, the amount of the stupid wizards and notifications etc installed. He said it was simply tedious to use Vista in its present form, and it sounds like it hasnt changed much, and he has been proven right.

If I were to buy a new PC or laptop, I would buy from someone like Dell or HP, who give you the option to buy it with XP pre-installed and a free upgrade to Vista whenever you wish to install it.

Vista simply isnt ready for mass deployment yet. I know it was supposed to be launched in late 2005, but the only reason its being launched so late is due to delays with producing it, not because Microsoft have got it right for once.

The amount of "useful" features they have removed from the final product/roadmap, originally codenamed Longhorn in 2000 is beyond belief. And the amount of "useless" features they have replaced them with and are now promoting is again, beyond belief.

Hopefully they will get Vienna right and not remove promised features just to rush the release of it. But then again, maybe not.

I agree, far too much useful stuff removed and replaced for useless crap.

And as for Vienna, my guess is that it will go down the same route as previous versions.

if it aint broke,why fix it?

XP does the job just fine for me,i want an OS, any other bits i want i'll get myself. i suppose the thinks u talk of joe are to stop everyday owners from fooking up important bits,if they get click happy on things they dont know about?

long live XP. it does me just fine, i need to upgrade my computer soon tho.