So, my 2 month trial of Windows Vista (the latest OS from Microsoft) is over! What I mean by this is that as I’m writing this blog, I’m re-installing my laptop with Windows XP. I’ve had some serious debates with co-workers at work trying to defend my love for Windows, but I have to throw in the towel on this one.
Why did I decide to give up? The biggest reason is there are too many obstacles for me to do my job efficiently at work using Vista. I had the same problems when I tried to switch to OSX (Macintosh) for my work operating system, but Vista is a bigger nuisance and I gave up a lot faster.
So here’s my biggest gripes…
- Resource Hog – I’m running a PC with 2 GB of ram and a very fast Intel processor (T7200). The performance I get from my machine is slower than the same machine with 1GB of memory and it’s also slower then many other machines I have with less memory and slower processors
- Networking – There are a bunch of item related to this, but the short list is:
- Internet connectivity is spotty. We have 2 offices, at our main office speeds are fine, but at the office I work at the majority of the time, my uploading speed is pretty much zero and downloading is cut in half.
- Security – They added this security feature where you have to designate the type of networks you are on each time I go to a different network. For instance my home network and my work network are different. I have to designate what access level I should have for each network. The biggest problem to this is when you want to share files/folders on your PC, it use to be soooo easy, now it’s a big pain in the ass!
- Domain controller group policy over rides my local admin priviledges. For you non-technical friends of mine, I can’t install software or configure my machine if my IT group’s default setting say I don’t have privileges. In the past, if my IT group gave me local admin rights, then I could configure my computer any way I wanted.
- Software incompatibility
- Can’t install many of the software applications we use at work on Vista, they kind of work, but not the way I need them to.
- Having issues with some of my old Windows XP programs not approved to install on Vista
- Couldn’t install a free online game, I’ve heard multiple people complain that gaming just doesn’t work on Vista
- Administration approval prompt – To tighten down security, there are many things that require me to say “I approve” installation of this software or hardware. This seems really inconsistent to me on what or what is not required for approval. For instance I was required to give permission to copy my music to a USB external hard drive, not sure why, but I think it’s stupid! I could name a bunch more instances, but this can become another pain in the ass. I’m sure many of you have seen the Apple commercial, which sums it up. If you haven’t seen this, check it out at:
http://www.apple.com/getamac/
Click on the “Security” video
- Pre-installed applications are not compatible with some of my software. I guess this could go under the software bulleted item above, but Vista comes with Window Media Player 11 and all the latest MS application versions. I’m finding out that some of the software that seems to install fine is incompatible with the latest versions of MS pre-installed software. An instance of this is Windows Media Player 11 doesn’t work with the version of Roxio software I use and I can’t roll back to Windows Media Player 10.
Well that’s all I can think of for now, I’m sure I’ll think of more gripes to write, but I think you get the picture. If you’re one of my family or friends that purchased a PC with Vista or upgraded, I’m sorry to say it won’t be a fun battle to deal with.