The void that is Vista

I've been running Vista on my desktop since July. I think that it's about time for the OS to go, and for me to replace it with something else. I've had numerous stability issues with the operating system. The device driver support is certainly lacking - no wireless network card seems to have anything other than beta drivers - and I have a 5 minute minesweeper break each morning since that's roughly how long it takes for the wireless network to reactive itself.

The system is also approximately as slow as molasses. It's not a problem with the components - it's all new stuff and not bargain basement. Some of the slowness is intentional - that ever annoying DRM. Some of the slowness is just ridiculous - I remember it taking nearly a minute to extract about 10 files from a 250 kilobyte zip file.

Some wish for Microsoft to simply ditch the OS and move on:

While Vista was originally touted by Microsoft as the operating system savior we've all been waiting for, it has turned out to be one of the biggest blunders in technology. With a host of issues that are inexcusable and features that are taken from the Mac OS X and Linux playbook, Microsoft has once again lost sight of what we really want. - Don Reisinger - CNET

It seems that I'm not the only one interesting in a switch - computer manufacturers have been responding by introducing "downgrades" to XP. Microsoft has had to do the same for corporate customers and also extend the lifetime of XP. For me the question is: XP or Linux?

Most of the eye-candy that's new to Vista has been around in both Linux and Mac OS for what seems to have been an age and a half. XP, on the other hand, means the ability to deal with audiobook DRM

Comments

I built myself a laptop this week and went with Vista because XP doesn't support Intel Turbo Memory. From what I've seen and heard, Vista is less troublesome on laptops than desktops. I plan to run XP on my desktop for the foreseeable future.

Why not dual-boot XP and Linux?

I accidentally created something like 70 directories - all empty - due to a typo in a script. Windows has been busy deleting those directories for the past 20 MINUTES! (and it's only removed about half a dozen thus far). Every few minutes it'll pop up a dialog asking me if I really wish to delete the next.

It seems everyone has forgotten how much XP sucked when it came out. It was only after service pack 2 that things really became stable and started working properly. As I recall, no one wanted to move away from 98 SE at the time either. When XP came out, the only reason to upgrade was to replace ME.

Well, this time Microsoft has been pushing out patches on a regular basis - they've been arguing that this time the service packs shouldn't really make a major difference.

Vista has also been in development for an age and a half, so that should have gotten rid of any major issues. So, are you willing to concede that Vista presently sucks? (You seemed rather happy about it on Saturday)

No. I like Vista. Of course if still could be better. I've noticed slowness particularly as well. However, for the most part, I like working with it. I was just saying that, sooner or later, Vista will probably go the same route as XP did: people hating it because it's unstable and it sucks and then (after some upgrades) people actually saying how good it is.