What's wrong with vista:

1)The "security guy that asks "everything".

2)The need for upgrading. Sure, RAM is cheap, on the US and maybe UK. But what about the rest of the world?

There's not real NEED for Vista. XP has all, apart from Direct X 10.

Danny

As a gamer I saw more problems with Vista (compatibility) than I liked.

I LOVED the quick search from the start menu but I didn't like how confusing and often wrong the file system was. I was used to C:\Documents and Settings\Blah to get to my app settings and what have you and now there was this odd Roaming folder. Also when I have FF download to my "My Downloads" folder It would occasionally "lose" the file - I would D/L it and then go to where it should be and It wouldn't be there but if I took a different route to if (ie. click "My Documents" on the desktop") it would magically appear.

I didn't mind vista over all but I am a big fan of trying new software and everything I had any problems with the software I had to troubleshoot twice - once to see if it was a Vista problem and then again to see if it was the software's problem.

Vista's only feature that stood out to me was the search b/c the 3-d program switching was not "that cool" and I am addicted to Alt-Tab, The thumbnail preview was ok but I never used it (Most programs I run are either games or uses tabs (ie. FF, Notepad++) so it wasn't helpful) and the media center was a null point b/c I have a WHS

Overall vista is nice and for the average Internet+word processing people - buy away - I however will be waiting until XP Pro is no longer the better option or DX10 games come out that make me want to switch (ie. no DX9 support)

Darkmatter91

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing:
- Stability. Vista has been rock solid for me for the past year I've used it.

Giolon

There's just a bunch of "little things":
- Integrated search in the Start Menu makes it essentially a power command prompt.
- The integration of Windows Desktop Search is absolutely outstanding (once it finishes indexing).
- Real-time updated window previews are priceless. Lets me alt-tab out of WoW or something and hover my mouse over its taskbar entry real quick to check what's going on in the game.
- Sidebar + Gadgets
- Breadcrumbs folder navigation. People bitch all the time that the "Up" arrow button is gone. That's because it's been supplanted by the superior breadcrumbs. Click the parent folder in the breadcrumb path...or its parent...or any of their sibling folders. It's the "Up" arrow on steroids.
- Flip 3D. It's not as good as Exposé no, but I find it more enjoyable to use than even the new Alt-Tab.
- UAC. I like the fact that it enables IE7 to run in a sandbox, limiting my vulnerability when browsing some of the shadier sites on the web.

Giolon

I am in agreement that Vista has been infinitely more stable than XP. I can't tell you how many times I've had to "end process" on Windows Explorer under XP, because it was obsessing over something trivial like a blank CD etc.

I am also tired of the IT whiners out there who refuse to support Vista. I'm no Microsoft agent, but I am a network engineer. All you IT people out there with your too proud stand "we don't support Vista." GROW UP! Buy a new friggin' computer already with Vista and learn it! Personally I still prefer Linux, but like normal IT techs, I had to learn about Vista to support it properly.

bachcottage

Direct X 10, and that's about it.

evangelistc01

Vista x64 is much more user friendly than XP x64 is and with the current price of ram you're selling yourself short with a 32 bit OS if you run memory hungry applications. The RAM limit of a 32bit OS is made even worse by the large amount of RAM on current video cards, especially for a multi GPU setup.

I also find that Vista has excellent support for multiple sound cards and if you like media center, the Vista media center is pretty sweet.

vsboxerboy

I just got a new laptop with the obligatory Vista install. The things I like about Vista are as follows:

1.The start menu instant find feature. You hit your windows key and start typing the name of the application or window you want (e.g. Control panel) and it finds it for you. You can even type in uninstall Appname and it lists the uninstall exe. It's like having an built in launchy with slightly less keyboard strokes (windows vs Alt+space).

2. The one-click folder view change. When you are looking at the explorer window, there is a "view" button that you can use to change the folder view. Unlike XP, in Vista you can click on it to toggle through the various folder views (Instead of having to select from the drop down list). Very handy for quickly getting folder size, or changing to thumbnail view.

3. One other sily thing. I like the sounds. The bells/dings when you logon and logoff. They are more discrete and briefer than the XP musical tunes.

That's my two cents, or should I say three cents.

EracMan

1. search feature in start menu
2. quick launch and task bar customization
3. independent volume controls
4. media center
5. dx10
6. ReadyBoost
7. file thumbnail preview

jonwilks

Really? I run Vista on a brand-new Dell at school. This isn't any mass-bought machine either, this is a high-end machine ($2500, roughly) that I'm the only one using. I've gotten patches and things, and it's crashed at least once a day ever since I started using it. Unfortunately, I know it's not going to get any better, because our brilliant admin blocked MS update. (Just to note, it's not the brilliant admin who bought the machine, it's our CISCO networking academy...uh...facilitator. He prefers his custom-built machine, so I (the most advanced student in his class) got this one.)

kuroshi

+ Watch video

Honestly, with the right hardware, Vista has run more solid for me than XP Pro did. I have yet to see any proof of how horrible Vista is except for folks who just jump on the bandwagon and go with the trend of MS hating. Do your research, get the right hardware, use the freely available tweaks and things like the UXTHEME.DLL patch and it is incredibly nice, as well as long running. It DOES NOT CRASH, and I have yet to lose anything.
[www.y0himba.net]

y0himba

Don't forget for ultimate Dreamscene is extremely cool.

Furious911

I'm of the opinion that if you have XP, there is no reason to upgrade to Vista. If you are getting a new computer, however, might as well get Vista.

For me, Vista has run MUCH better than XP ever did for me. DirectX 10 is a major plus, and I'm not gonna' lie, but what makes Vista the "Shiny XP," as I call it, is awesome - eye candy.

People were anti-XP as they are anti-Vista. Once enough updates come around, the newer operating systems get better (SP1 has done wonders for me over vanilla Vista, as SP2 did for XP, although I remember the initial SP2 for XP had a ridiculous amount of issues).

- PR-0927

PR-0927

I purchased a Dell XPS410 with Vista over a year ago. It had some problems, the most annoying of which was with compression files (took a long time to unzip). Today, everything works fine. Mine doesn't crash at all. I turned off UAC and use Windows Live OneCare. Here's what a specifically like about Vista:

-Start Menu search field: SO convenient.
-Improved Start Menu: Much cleaner and more efficient (it scrolls and expands like a folder tree instead of making oversized cascading fields).
-Got rid of the "Documents and Settings" and shortened the path to your user folder.
-Better file previews and the "details" pane that you can toggle on in Explorer.
-DX 10
-Vista Media Center included.
-Looks much sleeker and you can easily customize with the UXTHEME.DLL patch. The XP blue skin always looked silly and childish to me.
-Sidebar. One click on a gadget and I can stream NPR, or look at real-time traffic, write a post-it note, read news headings, etc...
-Improved clock: viewing dates for future months is simpler now (click an arrow instead of using the clumsy drop menu).
-Vista icons: Way better looking icons can be downloaded off the net and can be resized to large or small on the fly.
-Folder navigation is better.
-Program specific volume controls: I love being able to silence a game and listen to music on the fly with just a few button clicks. Some games allow you to silence the volume but you have to go through a ton of menus.
-Window previews on the task bar by hovering your mouse...again, very neat.
-ReadyBoost.
-DVD burning in Windows Explorer.
-When you use large icons on the task bar, the tray apps appear as two lines instead of one, saving some task bar space.

berribrand

I'm one of the people who just doesn't see the need to upgrade, and after asking this exact question several times and coming up with nothing more than a couple rather inconsequential things and Direct X 10, still doesn't get it.

XP has been solid for me since the start. I've had no problems, no strange crashes, no viruses.

Could my system run Vista? Oh, yes. Easily. But I won't until I actually hear a convincing reason to fork out the cash for it.

I'm planning on holding out until a version of Windows that is actually worth it, or moving to another OS entirely.

Still, I'll be watching this thread just in case someone has a compelling reason. :)

katra

Ok I forgot to add that the * at the previous post was yes, it did crash for me once, it was a nVidia driver fault, and after upgrading the driver, I haven't had any issues since.

rizzle

I've been using Vista since beginning of last year on a machine that I made, and so far it hasn't crashed on me once*.

I think a really interesting question to ask on LifeHacker would be how many people like Vista which was installed clean VS someone who got it on their laptop, with pre-installed software.

For me, everyone I've talked to who've gotten Vista come with a new machine, have had and issue or two. For those capable of installing it on their own, the experience was a lot better. I'd be curious to know if that's the case for many of the other Lifehacker readers.

Anyway, things I like about Vista:

1) One button "run". Press the Start key, and start typing. It's great

2) The visible search field in Explorer. I've gone and organized my massive music collection into folders with artists / albums, etc. And all I have to do is open my audio folder and search near the top and it brings up what I want, and fast.

3) On a Toshiba laptop, plugging in a video cable to the RGB port, would automatically cause it to detect the secondary display and correctly adjust the resolution. The same laptop running XP Tablet PC Edition didn't do that.

4) The options for managing multi-displays is great. Single click to mirror vs 2 separate screens. This functionality existed in XP, but just much easier in Vista.

5) Honestly I like Aero. I like it even more if you make the window borders slightly thinner

6) I like how the folder names in a Explorer path become clickable when you hover over them.

rizzle

...and my spelling today is crap.

xint

I dual-boot xp and debian. I doubt I'm ever going to downgrade to vista. I am planning on switching out xp with reactOS ones it becomes more stable as a beta.

AvgJoe

@Giolon:

Hey man how does this work with 3D Games? I have a nice machine and my real time star bar thing doesn't show me whats happening in game it just has a window with the icon or something in it, it does work with videos and stuff on the desktop but not for me in anything 3D

Furious911

I wish that I had the chance to figure out if there's something about Vista that's worth your while.

But when I got my new INSPIRON 1501 with VISTA it crashed everyday.

Non of the security programs and diagnostic software that I use for work and personal research do not work at all, or do not provide full functionality in VISTA.

For some reason the video diver that comes with VISTA, installed by DELL, and according to them there's nothing wrong with the driver, kept shutting off the laptop's LCD.

As soon as I installed XP, all of the software I use worked flawlessly, all drivers installed and worked flawlessly, no crashes, no blank screens.

All security diagnostics I have done on the laptop have been absolutely perfect and the laptop is still running flawlessly.

I have used the laptop to test security on other systems and I have to say that all tests have run perfect.

VISTA will never work for me.

xint

I am using Vista Ultimate on a fairly high end Dell XPS 1330. I have been using it for about 6 months and have yet to have a bluescreen. I could see that there would be problems if you were upgrading to Vista, with older hardware and needing drivers, etc. But I have been very happy with it.

The features I use the most are the sync center and the start search. Plus the looks are a lot cooler/sleeker (aero).

Letsgohokies

More and more, I'm thinking Vista is the Win ME of the new Millenium. Every bit of this seems eerily similar to how MS tried to keep the public enthralled with all the "enhancements" that Win ME brought to Win 98.

In the end, though, I think Vista will prevail. Not because it's superior to Win XP, arguably, but because it represents where MS wants to take the computer user in the future.

Their OS roadmap, like the one for CPU development at Intel, will step beyond Vista in a few years, and we'll (mostly) be unwillingly carried along I'm sure.

pdok

I have Vista on my HP m8200n and the only problem I've had with it is, when you put it in standby it just turns back on. Other than that I love it. Everything runs fast and smooth. I gave the XP to the kids.

eighty82

It's just so much more stable. And thats a lot, since XP SP2 was already very stable.

Fact is, I've been using Vista since May2007 and have yet to see a blue screen.

Stable, solid, feature rich and, most important, TONS of available software.

I believe that Windows, Linux (Ubuntu is great) and Mac OSX are all GREAT systems. But the number of title available that run on Windows make all the difference to me.

And an OS main job is to be the bench for other applications to run. Just for that matter, Windows is great.

My servers, Asterisk, etc, all run on Linux. Workstations are all Windows.

nrp

Oops, sorry for the double post, but I just remembered:

3)The search of the start menu, use Launchy ;) Love it.

4)And about the IE sandbox, use FF and you're fine :P.

Danny

the vista i've had for a year was pretty good.... until a week ago.

at one point i loved the speeded search function, but apparently the index is now messed up and it only finds half the files on my external hard drive.

it certainly crashes less than xp... but last week it's temp memory overflow managed to eat the empty half of my HD, crashing it pretty hard.

the only real 'features' are eye candy which i grew tired of the first week and turned them off....

sigh

fuzzymuffins

Without a doubt, ReadyBoost. It's the greatest thing they put into Vista. Other than that, and the sidebar, it's just a flashy XP.

Caroofikus

I find Vista to be very stable. I have not had even one blue screen since I started using it.

There are a lot of nice improvements over XP, although to be fair most of them are pretty superficial and many can be re-created in XP with third-party utilities.

All in all though, the improvements to the interface (like the breadcrumb navigation mentioned before, the Aero GUI, the improved Start/Search capabilities and many more small well-thought out improvements) are a welcome evolution of the environment if in no way "revolutionary".

If you have an older machine (anything less than a dual-core CPU and 2 gig of memory) then I would recommend staying with XP until you need to buy a new PC. If you are buying or building a new computer I highly recommend Vista.

jsmorley

On my Vista Home Premium laptop, I got the BSOD when I installed a program that apparently did not work nice with Vista. I kept getting BSODs as soon as the OS loaded, and couldnt even uninstall the program. I had to reformat, which wiped out my brand new system that didnt come with a restore disk.

rdldr1

I've had Vista on my laptop since I got it(standard software). I wanted to use XP at first but, after I gave Vista a chance, I discovered that it didn't let me down.

There are some nice things to Vista like the start menu search and the more polite sounds Vista makes for start-up and such.

Bottom line, IMO, if you already have XP, there's no need to rush out and upgrade. If you've got Vista out of the box, give it a chance before you go spending money on a copy of XP. You may not be disappointed the way the reputation and hate would have you believe.

Eclectified

Vista has been the most stable OS I have used - had it running near constantly on my laptop for the last 12 months and the only times I've had to restart is when I have installed programs that insisted upon it.

Sidebar, Clock, better thumbnail image support, better DivX codec integration, a slightly smaller (or so it seems) overall footprint.

As for the bad - as everyone has said, the over-zealous security guy; but as soon as you switch him off, you don't miss it at all.

cerulgalactus

@rizzle:

There's a setting that allows you to make the aero border size any size you want. just google it.

startswithone1

DirectX 10. That's about it.

And that requires DX10 hardware, which I don't have yet.

Ortzinator

I got a laptop with Vista pre-installed. I tried downgrading. To my surprise, downgrading was actually more difficult and all of the drivers were not working correctly. So I was stuck with Vista. I had to tweak it, get rid of all the junk software, replace the virus protection and upgrade the RAM.

I love the shiny interface. But that's just about it. I'm still looking for a way to put a soundbank on the computer so I can produce music.

The only thing I can say is that of all the months I used Windows Vista, I only got BSOD once.

I tried to give Ubuntu a try, but due to a lack of hard drive space, I decided to just use Vista. After SP1, I managed to tolerate it a little bit more.

I don't see an advantage or disadvantage as far as DX10 because I don't really play games on my laptop, other than "Fate", some Moonpod games and even Gametap, none with uses DX10.

Other than that, I don't see anything special about Vista that makes me do the happy dance. At least it handles the software I threw at it... and that's good enough for me.

Nu Digi

Not that XP crashed that much for me, but I can't think of the last time Vista has crapped on me. Been using it for about 7 months now.

Also, if you can get over the absence of the "Up" folder button, Explorer is much better in Vista. Alt+Up still works too.

Ramrod

-Windows Photo Gallery (which is available for XP as live gallery)
-Image thumbnails for the Desktop
-The Address Bar, where you can click the directory or browse directly from the system url.
-User Folder- Video,Pictures, and Downloads, get equal weight on hierarchy with Documents, before they dump them together in My Documents
-Details reoriented to the bottom

Coldice4678

I would argue that there really wasn't huge resistance against XP when it first premiered (other than from a vocal minority of IT pros who insisted on holding onto Windows 2000). XP benefited home PC users, most of whom were on Win98/98SE. XP brought the stability and power of the Windows NT line to the mainstream.

With Vista, there is far more resistance from home/casual PC users. Really it is quite similar to the resistance in the market that Windows ME faced.

So Vista does not equal XP. Vista = Windows ME. Windows 7 has the possibility of being the equivalent to XP, in terms of public acceptance, so long as Microsoft doesn't screw it up and actually presents features in Windows 7 that most people actually need.

thewriteguy

I only have to restart my computer once every 2-3 weeks due to firefox using 3gigs of RAM.

I can't wait for FF3

Archavious

- WPF (although not many programs are making use of it yet)
- DWM
- Search
- Breadcrumbs
- Live previews
- Live folders
- Security features
- Stability

cavalierex

That it doesn't crash as much as XP. I have had Vista crash after I installed SP1, but thats when it first came out. The only other problem I had is when somehow my Zune drivers got corrupted and I had to re-install. But all was not lost, (well some crap I didn't need is) but a reformat every 6 months keeps my computer running smoothly.

spyguy99

Nothing...
Really, nothing makes Vista worth it.

Name just one thing, apart from DirectX 10 that's really worth it? (and yes, not all of us use it).

My Toshiba A135-S4427 came with Vista (not "Vista Capable" it is indeed made for Vista) and i used it for 6 months, but i upgraded it to Ubuntu (where the only hitch was the audio driver but solved easily by copying and pasting 5 or 6 steps from a blog to a terminal screen).

It's faster and i can do far more with this setup than with Vista. Throw some Emerald + Compiz Fusion to it and you get better eye candy.

whiskey

I used Vista Home Basic x32 on my stock inspiron 1501. frankly, it sucked. Then, I up'd my RAM to 4GB and everything ran quite smoothly. Then, I upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64. Despite occasionally getting a BSOD (because of the craptastic Zune software) it runs rather well. My favorite new feature is the built in meta-data editor in explorer. Second would be the breadcrumb bar in the file browser.
-Craig

crgwbr

Frankly I'm with Danny on the little security fellow asking me every time I want to run a disk clean or optimization if I'm sure I want to do what I just clicked. I turned off UAC because it was bugging the sh*t out of me. Why I can't run a program without being bothered once or twice before it actually runs is beyond me. If I wanted my hand held I'd buy a playskool computer.

PopcornDave

First is the Start/Search thing. While the hardest part of Vista to get used to for me it is now what I miss most when on an XP machine. There are two things I wonder about though. 1) Why do we still have the programs directory? 2) How can I get shortcuts for things like "Connect to" and "Control Panel" back.

Second the whole not crashing thing is wonderful. Only one "for Vista" program has had problems for me and that was DeskScapes/DreamScenes. These problems have since been resolved, and everything seems to work fine.

Third the volume mixer, allowing me to mute my browsers while still watching movies or listening to music.

The new setup for user folders. The 'home' folder is now located on a much shorter path, which saves me a lot of typing on the command line. Even better it is easier to customize the locations of a lot of these folders. There are still some issues where something will be placed on the default path instead of the one I set.

The easy to customize favorites/navigation bar is really nice and makes it very easy to files around without needing multiple windows.

The complete computer backup is nice.

I don't mind UAC, but then I've tinkered around with *nix enough to realize that this is more or less normal as is discrete compared to using 'su' everytime you want to shutdown.

The boot manager though is a big problem for me. The windows bootloader won't allow me to boot another OS if I set it to hibernate, so I'd like to replace it, but whenever I've attempted to write a different bootloader Vista would have a fit and insist being reinstalled.

ixel

I think it's great for tablets. Otherwise, I'll stick to XP for a while longer.

Famf

Download DirectX 10 for Windows XP
[www.techmixer.com]

yncn

the only thing I notice in vista that worth my time is a little faster response over the internet vs XP. still not as fast as linux on the same box.

dewetha

1. Vista Media Center. Its worth the upgrade alone, and its been incredibly underrated by the press.

2. Start Menu search. Works really well, and combined with Start++, I can't go back to not having it.

3. Voice Recognition. Also underrated by the press. I use this a lot, it really convenient once you set it up.

4. New Built in programs Calendar, Photo Gallery, DVD Maker, Meeting Space, Backup and Restore.

5. Little things: Breadcrumb address bar, live previews in Alt-Tab, File previews in Exporer.

Tyrax

1) It was free from the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

2) The start menu. Instant search was worth my time to upgrade.

3) Faster bootup.

4) Prefetch really does improve app load times.

5) Shiny bits aren't a reason to upgrade, but they are a nice bonus.

6) The window previews in the taskbar and alt-tab seem like they could be useful, but so far not really.

7) Application-specific volume levels.

This is on a Q6600 with 4GB running Vista 64. A comfortable place to be, yes, but no faster than the $2400 machine that's causing #3 above so many problems. Who might want to head to microsoft.com/downloads if MU is blocked.

davebarboza

- Hand writing recognition from what I heard (came with my first tablet)
- Media Center Home Premium (which comes with almost all computers now these days)
- Search (essentially like launchy?) No more going through a buncha folders to get to a program.
- Sidebar. It's pretty neat to have some useful gadgets there, like a timer, weather, and meters. Also those novelty gadgets that go through your pictures and change your wallpaper.
- Stability (please don't kill me lol). I haven't had one freeze or BSOD so far on Vista for over a year.
- Windows Update. Seems more integrated, and easier to use than it was on XP. (Mainly cause its integrated).
- Snipping Tool. Really nice when you want to just take a small snapshot of something, and not the entire screen or window.
- User folder structure. Your personal folder has all these other folder categories, Music, Videos, Pictures, Documents. It isn't My Documents>My Music/My Videos etc anymore, which for me makes more sense.
- Explorer. The address bar was new to me, really hated it at first cause I couldn't see the entire address without clicking, but because of the way its structured now, I can skip to other computers in a couple clicks oppose to hitting folder up, to get to the folder then going to another.
- It's new. It's the latest OS. Why stick with something old? I like to move forward, because the newer things are built upon and become old. If you don't get used to Vista now, you'll be still be lost in the next Windows, since it'll just have features from Vista anyways that are new from XP.
- UAC. I was annoyed at first, but I tried linux out, fixed a mac once, and saw it was similar, just a little bit of over kill. I like how it annoys the common users sometimes, because it forces them to read what the hell is going out with their computer instead of just spamming okay, then frying their computer with spyware and viruses. But also, unless you're digging around with system files or messing with system settings that average users usually never touch, you never run into this. Only a few programs will ever prompt you for it.
- Aero. It looks nice, and one of the biggest reasons to get a Mac is how sexy they are. Aero for Windows is a a better step in a direction of looks of their OS. Of course classic is available to those who don't care. But I like the Aero glass, and the transparency, it adds more to the user experience, and also has an affect on the user. If you don't like the looks, you'll feel uneasy, if you do you'll feel more relaxed. That's how aero is for me, it's more relaxing than the classic look.

The OS is essentially a front end to the mechanics of a computer, so for me, the User Interface is important, and in Vista the User Interface is much more user friendly than XP in my opinion anyways. Those features, and small things I mentioned are what make Vista much more appealing to me than XP. I think the biggest problem with Vista is the price. If it was only maybe 75$ to upgrade to Ultimate from XP, you wouldn't have so many people complaining. 210$ is a bit excessive for an upgrade >.> And for people who "try" Vista out, you kind of have to have a more positive mentality, and want to learn more about what Vista can do for you. If you're already going in hating Vista because you heard from others that Vista sucks, then Vista will most likely suck for you. I know so many people who know next to noting but turning on their computer and logging onto myspace, and they say they hate Vista, then I ask if they've tried it, they say no, so a large part of enjoying Vista is having an open mentality, and learn what Vista can do for you. Heh. I was one of those who didn't like Vista before, but I think I was just afraid of change, and not to mention afraid of its price tag. Now that I got a computer with it, and forced myself to learn what Vista can do for me, I find it much more enjoyable than XP. That search function? I never used it till I forced myself, now I use it all the time seeing how much faster it is than going through the program directory. The only feature on Vista I think is very useless is Flip3D, its purdy and all, but doesn't work well in execution as well as Alt-Tab does, especially now with Aero and the live window previews. I don't play many games, I mainly use this for graphic art in my spare time, so DX10 isn't something so important to me. Overall. if I can choose between putting XP and Vista on computer from now, I would chose Vista, it makes using a computer for my much easier, and a much more enjoyable experience.

SDreamer

what i like about it:
stability
start menu search
better organization (menu, explorer, etc)
uac
it seems to multitask better than xp -- my xp machine with similiar hardware tends to choke if i have a lot open, vista runs them all a bit smoother...

just my opinion, thats all

natenovs

After a year and a half, I really have to say I like Vista. If there was a single feature that I love, its the search in the start menu. If you download Start++, you can even type "sudo" and then a exe file to run it as an admin. As a programmer, that has been hugely useful.

And contrary to the standard attitude, UAC is BY FAR a net positive for users. It could use tweaking but there is simply no reason why most users and their programs should have automatic access to change the system. Ubuntu has almost the exact same functionality now when you try to change system settings and files. If you don't like it, turn it off its actually pretty easy to do. I think you're making a very bad decision by doing so but to each his or her own.

wwahammy

(no particular order)
1. readyboost
2. superfetch
3. search from the start menu
4. not much different than xp, so if you get it pre-installed from the PC you bought at best buy, there's no reason to bitch.

dkong1026

I'm just echoing things that have already been said, but for me the start menu search rocks, the new explorer views, folder searching from any point in explorer is nice and fast, even for non-indexed locations. I also love the visual appearance and speed. I built a new PC on my own to put Vista on and it's been 100% stable. I would not happily ever go back to XP on my main machine.

dcis-steve

"...with the right hardware..."
@y0himba: That's the qualifier that always gets me. When I finally get around to buying a desktop and it comes bundled with Vista I don't think I'll mind, but at the moment no way I'm going to put my Core Duo (no, there is no missing '2') tablet PC through the wringer that is Vista.

kureshii

Tablet support is better. Much better.

Aero has Compiz-like potential (like how Switcher has employed the DWM and the preview hooks), and doesn't have the white jaggy problem that previous window managers had (yay for rendering each window seperately).

I suppose DirectX10 is a draw, but it's an artificial one, and OpenGL is fine anyways.

Reilaos~

1) Stability. In the past year I've only seen 2 bluescreens on my Thinkpad. Both were due to installing a buggy piece of cad software from a campus network drive. On XP it would BSOD on a weekly basis, and do a random full system lockup every other day Built a new desktop in January, yet to have a crash.
2) Handling of media. Linked up with my 360 it's a wonderful combination to get media to my TV. Long gone are the days of fandangling the laptop to attach by S-video or shuttling things to the divx dvd player by usb sticks. (That is when my 360 isn't red ringed... another issue entirely!)
3) Custom favorites/quick folder things in the left hand side of explorer windows and save/open dialog boxes. Saves a heck of a lot of time getting to where i need to be without any hacks
4) Breadcrumbs built in. I had it in xp with explorer breadcrumbs [lifehacker.com] but that was finicky at times.
5) Voice commands. It's such a random thing to be excited about, but with the new macro thing [lifehacker.com] and some AutoHotkey scripts, voice commands can actually add something to my workflow for window commands. (I'm also in awe of the coolness involved in skipping to the next track in a playlist by saying "Megatron, next track.")

Shmoo

The way it handles wireless networks. Infinitely better than XP, if only because it was built in from the start.

Karl

Vista is stable. Running XP Pro my machine would crash regularly, and I found I would be re-installing twice a year. I've been running Vista since it first came out, and I haven't crashed yet. Readyboost (I'm using a 4 gig iram drive) is awesome for the Adobe Suite, and search on the start menu is handy.

WhatThe...

Vista Ultimate has been pretty stable on my MacBook.

What I like:
Program prefetch
UAC (yes, most people need this!)
seems to run duo core better
Type in to search for programs from Start menu

What I don't like:
Windows explorer
Network can be flaky at times

Overall, it runs very nicely on my MB!

hermitlife

* Search function from the Start menu - WAY faster than scrolling through my list of installed programs
* integrated sidebar - Yeah, I could get it from Google, but this one is just as good and ad-free.
* Stability - On XP, when something went sour, it was a BSOD and restart. On Vista, something goes sour, and it's a friendly little note, a slight pause in processing, and then the process restarts and we're back to operation. No restarting to fix crashes. I haven't had a *true* crash since I started using it.
* Integration of picture editing and management
* Media Center Extender - granted, it only works with my XBox 360, but it's sweet for watching my Amazon Unbox movies on the big screen downstairs

TsuKata

I love that the desktop is listed as a window when I use alt-tab or win-tab buttons.

zanzibuz

@Archavious: Perhaps you should restart Firefox once in awhile. I restart it at least once a day. If you've got session saving turned on, you might lose some of the history of each tab (though I'm not sure even if you lose any), but you don't lose your open tabs and the RAM frees right up.

I've been running Vista on my dekstop since I decided to upgrade my MOBO, CPU, and RAM 5 months ago. It's definitely more stable than XP. I also agree that the most obvious improvement is Aero - yet Compiz blows it completely out of the water on my laptop with much lower specs.

My favorite improvements:

- improved file copying/moving (once they got the network transfers figured out). I installed TeraCopy when I first got Vista, but there's absolutely no need for it.

- as so many have said, built-in indexing and the Explorer search bar and breadcrumbs ( although I wish the breadcrumbs extended all the way to the root, rather than just a couple of folders back).

- unless I'm mistaken, XP doesn't have filtering in the open/save dialog. When your program (whatever program) opens up the open/save dialog, try typing the name of what you want (when your in the folder where it's located). That's the feature that saves me the most time on a daily basis.

As soon as I can figure out how I want to organize my drives with data and OS, I'm installing Ubuntu and putting Vista inside VirtualBox. Hardy was the easiest Linux install I've tried, and the amount of great software in the repositories has won me over (of course, being able to fall-back on Windows apps in an easily-installed virtual machine makes the decision that much easier.

joelena

No BSOD? Umm sorry to rain on the parade, but I get BSOD at least once or twice a week on my Dell XPS m1330.

Vista does boot faster, but that's about the only thing that is great about it. In most other regards, it's a jumble of leaping dialog boxes and the usual windows BS but now with more eye candy.

titaniumtommy

No BSOD;
Simple and intuitive networking;
Great hardware support (since SP1)
Fast boot, execution and sleep function
No virus in 13 months;
Great multi-language facilities

Initially i encountered the BSOD and wakeup from sleep problems but turned out my DG965RY board was at fault. Since i installed a P35 board i have not had one failure.
The biggest problem was the audio\video codecs and the open-source programs for conversions - but they run quite well with Virtual PC. I also keep a XP-SP3 machine (the DG965RY was under warranty so i use that), a UBUNTU machine, my wife's Vista machine and 4-5 others i remotely manage.

Vista runs faster, boots faster and the sleep function works beautifully.

Vista networking is intuitively simple and i have had no problem with connecting to other machines - and the machines i connect to cannot access my computer. This type of access is difficult (at best) with XP-SP3 or UBUNTU.

Vista's MUI (Multi-language user interface) is excellent - My wife is a professional translator and quickly switches between languages.

I have yet to have a virus (use AVGFree, Vista installed on 1977-05-01) but do get the occasional spyware due to my continual install\test\uninstall of programs. (At times i override or uninstall UAC which causes problems)

bcarpent1228

Well, the Mah-Jongg and Purble Place games are nice.

Hasn't anyone noticed that every time Mr. Bill's Boys foist another one of these "upgrades" on us, the first thing their claque chimes in with is "It's MUCH more stable!"

infmom

1) Improved search function - no longer are you going to the usually useless "help", you go to "search".

Other than that, there hasn't been a ton for power users like myself, but for older folks (eg: parents, aunties/uncles), the built-in tools *almost* make it Apple-like.

2) Novice-friendly image tools:
- image transfer
- image editing
- image e-mailing
- image burning
- slideshow CD/DVD creation

3) Novice-friendly movie creator and DVD creator tool

4) Novice-friendly Windows Media Center

5) Novice-friendly backup/restore tools

sodakar

As a software installation developer for my company, I got to follow the development of Windows Installer 4.0 & now the 4.5 Beta on Vista and they're doing some pretty interesting things on that front.

Also, I had been eyeballing a TabletPC and snagged myself an ASUS R1F and Vista SP1 runs like a champ.

Start menu search is nice & voice recognition was neat, but give me google desktop and cygwin and I'm a happy camper.

I think the biggest improvement is that tablet support is built into the OS instead of tacked on like Tablet XP.

GilbertErik

I used vista for 5 months ... then bought a Mac.

seangates

Why would I pay 300$ for a bloated, buggy, slow, not that much eye candy OS that forces me to have a High end PC... ?

Yeah, I do have a mid-high end notebook that came pre-installed with Vista. I used it for about 6 months because I was too lazy to reinstall XP. I decided to give OpenSUSE and Ubuntu a try and never looked back. I will never buy a MS product ever again. Ever. I can run any software I want under wine (or almost anything I want) and I can run it either on my new notebook, or on my old one without a problem.

So, no thank you M$

K5Doom

Faster, stabler.

Ok, so I'm running it on a brand new HP quad core system but it's done nothing but work since we installed it, now that the apps on it are all compatible it's been nothing but great.

And yes, the search function in the start menu tops the list of good things about it.

deeleea

Microsoft should be very dissapointed that so many on Lifehacker think Vista's stability is the biggest step forward.

With Vista Microsoft had the opportunity to bring the quality of interaction up to OSX's standards. By this measure, the only one I care about, Vista is a miserable failure. I'm a professional C# developer but MS have flunked too many chances so I have, not with sadness, switched to Mac and am now a happier computer user than I've ever been.

jamescoleuk

I hate to be a fanboy here, but as someone who has been running xp pro to some degree for the last 6 or 7 years (torrent'ed it pre-release), and linux for longer, i have to make the following observations.

1) search - people seem to like and index-based search feature. and they like it to be extremely accessible. locate has done this for years, as has indexing service on windows, so i guess its the accessibility/default-ness of the feature that people like. this probably also makes an impact on performance for most people.

2) stability - the only problems i ever had with xp stability had to do with too many processes or hardware malfunction. i do take meticulous care to know what every process that's running is and generally don't run anything too suspect, but i certainly thought that xp was better than 98/2k in this manner. needless to say, linux has always been WAAAY more stable than any windows variant i ever used. never had a time when i couldn't kill/kick off the right processes to get things running again (except when i screw up recompiling the kernel).

3) multimedia tools - definitely something that linux has lagged on. mythtv is awesome, but bloated. personally i don't use the fancy media center apps, but can understand why people do. good for vista for improving on this one.

4) improved moving/copying - this one's ridiculous. copying i can understand, but moving, why didn't xp have it? it's just friggin changing a pointer to an inode.

5) it's bullshit that there have to be "for vista" programs out there. the designers of unix figured out the OS api 30+ years ago. no need for additional features. i get that we have graphics cards and disk arrays and all kinds of other sweet stuff now, but dammit, don't mess with perfection. a program that uses a limited api should work just as well as one that uses a more complete one.

gmplague

I've been completely satisfied with Vista. Here are the big points:

* Start menu search is fantastic (I scan tons of pdfs with the ScanSnap, and I can hop to bills instantly. SMS also remembers recent web pages, not just documents)

* F2 (Rename) only selects the prefix of the filename.

* Wireless is much better
* Shedding of all that BLUE.
* Sidebar (with calendar, XM radio applet)
* Alt-Tab shows true thumbnail
* Windows Photo Gallery - Allow heirarchial tag structures.
* Aero looks great.
* In Windows Explorer select any level of the directory structure in the address bar.
* One time purchase with free updates for many years to come.
* Answers to occasional problems are easy to find with large market penetration.

dmccall

Hmm... Well I'm happy with either xp or vista. I like readyboost and the start menu search (althought they totally screwed up the "all programs" menu). Vista's a bit shinier I guess (coming from someone who's turned off aero and patched his uxtheme ;)

koalasthewise

my laptop (xps 1530) came installed with home premium. was using vista in my office before that. i must agree htat i hated it initially but it slowly grew on me. may be because it's little different than xp that i was used to. it does have some annoyances e.g., vista sidebar doesn't show weather (tried the lang and region hack)
wifi connection drops and doesn't reconnect if i switch the machine to sleep/stand by mode.
i hardly use IE cause i'm too used to frfx.
i've never used the start menu search. i use launchy for it (may be because this feature was missing in xp and now i'm toooooo used to alt+space :) )
i've never used the built in search (i use copernic on xp and google on vista)
flip 3d is just an eye candy and i disable all the fancy effect although i kinda like the aero theme.
but one thing is for sure - the system has NEVER crashed all of a sudden. it is a LOT stable system compared to xp.
is vista an upgrade worth the money? may be not if you have an old machine but if you are getting a new machine and your only os option is windows, i would definitely recommend it.

rawheat

I bought my little notebook (a 12" screen with dual-core and 1GB) with XP Pro installed. Unfortunately, it came with the HK version of XP. Soon after I got it, I installed Ubuntu on it. Later I switched my mind and decided to go back to XP Pro. But, with HK version of XP, I had no clue how to restore the media. (I don't stay in HK anymore, so there was no one to help with the chinese script.)

With all the enthusiasm, I went out and plunked hefty monies for Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 complete. Bad, bad decision!

Vista was slower than my pet tortoise on that notebook. Upgrading to 2GB made its performance a bit acceptable.

Installing a couple of Microsoft programs crashed Vista consistently. Which programs? MSN messenger. The blog writing tool that they have made freely available. And other such "goodies" or "baddies" (take your pick).

Vista Ultimate installed with a bunch of software that I did NOT need (because I had Outlook 2007): a calendaring program, an email reader (not outlook express), etc. In XP you can uninstall unwanted Windows components. In Vista you cannot! You are stuck with having these components on your disk. And due to some weird program associations, these programs would popup instead of Outlook.

The UAC has been talked about all over the net, so I am NOT going to say much about it other than the fact that it is REALLY ANNOYING.

There are way too many other things to note about how BAD (horrible, pathetic, PoS, etc) Vista is, but, that will need a thesis.

Naturally, I took Vista off that notebook within a couple of days of installing it. I am now back to Ubuntu and XP.

That said, does Vista have anything good going for it? You bet:
*) The Aero desktop (itself a bloatware) has some good design elements to it
*) There are some good fonts in Vista which, as has already been pointed out, can be obtained on XP through the PPT2007 viewer
*) Some good desktop backgrounds most of which are freely downloadable now
*) Some good desktop customizations like transperencies and color schemes (whatever they are called)
*) .... helped MSFT fleece a good chunk of money off my wallet

srmdesi

I did a dual boot with Vista for a bit, so I could get the hang of providing basic tech support info.

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE the start menu search bar.

I also like the whole "see all your tabs" thing that's similar to OS X, makes switching so much easier.

The whole permissions thing started getting annoying, but it was fairly simple to get around most of the time. So much better than my experience with OS X. I just needed to install Final Cut Pro and do some software updates on 10 macs, and I wanted to shoot myself with the amount of times I had to enter the admin password.

Siegeman

I ran Vista ultimate for about 3 months when it first came out but had too many compatibility problems so I went back to XP.

I did really like the start menu with search and all the "pretty" visual effects.

I work in a computer repair shop and deal with Vista regularly and honestly I've heard far more gripes and complaints than anything.

It seems that IF you have all the right hardware and stick mostly to Microsoft applications, you'll probably be happy with it. But start throwing in other 3rd party programs and "Vista-compatibility" driver patches and such, and you're asking for a headache.

It just hasn't yet reached the level of broad flexibility that XP has, and while I'm willing to give it time, I'm of the opinion that Microsoft screwed up.

Tyson0016

On the plus side, Vista is driving people to Linux. Which is probably a good thing.

CWW

Ive been running my Vista Ultimate (compliments of the Windows Feedback Program) since Feb, and have yet to have explorer crash, or a BSOD. My Vista installs have run more stable than any XP machine I ever had.

techhead89

Ok, here are some reasons us IT Pros don't particularly care for Vista:

I have to replace (these are not upgradable to vista standards) 13 workstations, and upgrade the other 22 workstations to run vista (need WAY more RAM). Where as XP runs just fine.

I will have to disable most of that eyecandy or I will never be able to get any work done for all the user questions.

90% (yes you read that correctly) of the business critical applications that I have to support will not run on vista reliably (and yes I have tried EVERYTHING).

I will also have to replace approximately 45% of the printers at our main office because vista doesn't work with them "yet".

Now, try explaining this all to a boss that doesn't want to spend any more money than absolutely necessary, without lying and telling him that XP is not adequate (there is absolutely no compelling reason for us to upgrade at this point).

So, since M$ is canceling XP sales I will be forced to support two completely different OS's (when all the folder paths are different, this is more difficult than it sounds).

I don't speak for all IT Pros, but I know more than a handful that are facing the same issues. I WANTED to like Vista, I WANTED there to be compelling reasons for my to upgrade our workstations.

Unfortunately we didn't get any of those. On the upside, I am extremely impressed with Server 2008, and can't wait to upgrade all our current WS2003 servers. Oddly enough Server 2008 has been working out awesomely as a desktop OS for me (a bit to expensive for me to put into production like that though).

jglessner

Where to start? I much rather prefer Vista over XP. I like the UI, the mobile device center is incredible, my hardware works better with it (on XP my Viewsonic LCD 20.1" monitor wouldnt go into standby), start search is great when you have 30+ programs installed, the wireless support is better. Very polished look vs the XP cartoon look.

Things I change asap on a fresh install? Turn UAC off, turn thumbnail previews off, turn windows defender off, turn sidebar off. I think thats all. Oh, and if its a laptop i turn of search indexing.

techhead89

Vista was the final straw that converted me to OS X.

wildness

It's a small thing, but I kind of like Vista's placement of the gadgets or whatever they are, on the side; I wouldn't mind if my OS X Dashboard did a similar trick, essentially putting its widgets into a new, always-visible Dock.

Beyond that, most of what I've heard from Vista users I know is that the best feature is "you can uninstall it"...

What's really interesting about Vista is how wildly varied the responses are. Among legions of users who report real disasters (I was most recently reading [www.microsplot.com] , but there are a million similar discussions online), there are people who report 100% smooth sailing, everything perfect.

That's what's been most striking to me about Vista: how uneven the experience has been for users everywhere. Strange!

vonsplat

@Furious911:
I believe you won't see applications in the pop-up from the taskbar if they're full-screen. Only when it's windowed. Including games, of course.

oleg

Stability. I've been running Vista in my main PC since it was released. It has been rock-solid since the very first install. I've never had a BSOD in Vista that wasn't my fault (overclocking or using beta drivers/patches). I can't say the same for XP. Going from Windows 98 to XP was a nightmare. XP to Vista was a much smoother transition. I got BSODs weekly, if not daily, on XP initially. Even up til the release of Vista, I was still getting weird hangups and quirks on XP that I could not find any explanation for. I've gotten a few errors on my notebook running Vista, and it's been good at pinpointing the issue for me. I was able to resolve the problem within minutes.

The XP installation process is also antiquated compared to Vista's, which I've found to be one of the easiest OS installations that I've ever done. I have a Toshiba M400 tablet and XP installation on it is the most difficult thing I've done on any PC due to it's weird SATA drivers. Vista installed w/o issue.

Hayes

I used to have a bunch of things to say here, but the list is getting shorter... I have vista ultimate on my home and work computers, and i'm using windows classic (the grey and blue) theme on both because they're stupid aero was hogging 80% of system resources. The only real reason left is directX10, which only like what, 3 games require? And FYI halo 2 pc sucks, don't buy it.

Swizzler121

Correct if I am wrong:
- you cannot manage (ie, change properties, Ip adress, etc) network connections that are not currently connected (if you do how to do it, please tell me)
- Vista asks everything twice (until you disable UAC)
- The memory footprint is huge. I feel I'm running a Ferrari with handbrakes pulled.
- Too many shiny little details, purely visual, with no real advantage (I've disabled all of them).
My HP notebook come with Vista, so i'm kinda stuck to it... :(

Dan

The only good thing about Vista is DirectX10. Everything else can be found on other systems in some way or form and it's often better. Not being much of a gamer myself, Vista and all the things that suck about it (DRM, UAC, etc) is the reason I switched to Ubuntu.

theNitwit

start menu search, 3d windows flip, DX10, sidebar, windows explorer folder access. I have 2 machines both running Vista premium home ed. The gateway has minor update problems but it has not crashed since the first week I started running it. The Sony that I've had for the past couple of months have been a dream. Neither machine has SP1 installed, however, am hesitant, since I've heard and read of lots of software incompatibility with the serv pack. The gateway has been running fine for 5 mths since that first week.

amw1972

New start menu (mostly the search)
Not running as admin (I used to do that in XP, but it was painful)
Reorganization of the user personal folders ("Documents and Settings" was just a messy retarded thing)
Media center
New explorer features (stacks, search, etc.)

lordabdul

Vista turned out to be an unexpected desirable experience for me. The reasons for vista for me would be:
1. Start Menu - The incremental search can also search other stuff like history et al, so it's kinda like Spotlight
2. Aero - I prefer aero over leopard-aqua; both aesthetically and functionally.
3. I really like sidebar - I keep it always-on-top on my widescreen and it automatically updates itself, unlike OS X gadgets.
4. Stability - By a great degree.. If an app starts freezing it doesn't bring down the system like it does in XP
5. Lots of apps built-in - I'm uncomfortable installing many applications on a computer, most of the apps one needs are already there. The two apps they need to include IMO would be Paint.NET and a decent audio software..

What I really hate is most of the people base their judgements on word of mouth, or use it for a little while with their mind already made up. IMO; if you wanna use vista don't rely on an Intel chipset...

Leafy

I've only gotten to use Vista Business, so I can't vouch for the Media Center.

That said, the most common things people are bringing up (UAC, improved start menu search/launcher, sidebar, breadcrumbs, fonts/sounds/UI experience) not only can be duplicated on XP, but most were available before Vista came out.

And an XP system, even one loaded down with apps to duplicate all these features of Vista, requires less RAM and is more hardware compatible than Vista.

I'll go with jglessner - Server 08 is to Vista what Win2k Pro was to ME. The ability to select the components you want and never install the bloat you don't want transforms the OS.

It's frightening how well it mirrors, as though Microsoft learned absolutely nothing in the eight-year intermission.

oboreruhito

@nrp: stability is something I will argue - I am using XP Pro for 6 years now - have not seen BSOD once - IMHO it comes down to user and HW/SW he uses; most of times BSOD is a result of seat-to-keyboard-interface error
All the eye candy - I need to work not look at wallpaper and beautiful taskbars and icons; Aero is for people who browse web and download photos from their camera; if you use your computer to make money for you - you will most likely turn it off

Rastislav Stana

1. start menu search

2. renders every window at all times, not just the active window and the visible parts of the windows underneath it, meaning no more white splotch when one window crashes on top of another one. (hard to explain but you'd know it if you saw it.)

3. gadgets (some people might prefer google desktop)

4. desktop can be alt-tabbed to

5. previews of windows in alt-tab and when you mouse over the task bar

6. eye candy and visual effects (although these can probably be recreated in XP)

I got my copy of Vista free from my school, otherwise I wouldn't have made the upgrade. If it comes with a new PC, definitely go with it, but the upgrades are not really significant enough to warrant paying for a new OS. Just make sure you have a good PC to run it on, Vista is not meant for clunkers.

greatslack

I have posted before with Vista gripes, but I am warming to it. I think my frustration was largely due to a dislike of change. There are still things I don't care for, too much eye candy, etc., but it's all tweakable. Since I did a clean install on my Dell (thanks for supplying a proper install DVD), it has been very stable and a bit faster. I think SP1 has helped, too. I've often been an MS critic, but never an MS hater. Much of their early work (Plug n Play, etc.) has allowed them to present a stable, usable product to the mass market. Geeks and aesthetes can opt for Linux or Mac if they really want soemthing different.

algypug

@xint:

My girlfriend has the exact same computer. She's had to have it fixed. The motherboards in them are very unreliable.

The computer's video card is even more so than the motherboard itself

Otokonokorisu

Sorry. Dangit. SHoulda stopped the Submit!!! NOOO... I also should add. Places like Best Buy and Circuit City that have Vista tags still have horrible compatability with drivers and hardware. =/ I saw a laptop running 1.2GhZ SINGLE CORE. That had Vista Ready on it. Ppl should look into that.

ph15h needs a nu job

This is going to be VERY fragmented, be warned.

The vast majority of complaints about Vista are just silly gripes.

It crashes all the time - what? I'm running Vista and it's never crashed, not once.

The main problems that stop vista in its tracks are, in this order:
1. Crapware on new computers - get that stuff off! Especially antivirus.
2. Bad drivers. NVidia was singlehandedly responsible for 30% of Vista crashes last year. Their poor support helped the community put the bad stamp on vista before it ever really had a chance. Drivers have improved massively in the last year, minimizing compatibility issues, especially with newer hardware.
3. Cruddy software! Things that write to the Program Files directory and such are big nonos and cause their share of problems. A friend had vista crashing issues, removed some roleplay assist program she had and boom, worked like a charm from then on.

Most of the stuff in Vista can be duplicated in XP, such as eye candy, the gadgets, the additional alt tabbing... yeah sure, at a cost. ALt Tab replacements slow XP way down trying to rerender all those windows for you all the time. The eye candy still lies over the same XP graphics engine which renders all windows at the same time. It's just so much cleaner.

Stuff like Launchy and the like really are great, but Vista builds a lot of that stuff in.

I'd be curious to hear from "business users" how turning off all the eye candy helps you make more money. The performance increase is negligible on all but the oldest hardware. And older hardware SHOULDN'T be running Vista anyway - by that token we should be able to run Vista on the same hardware we had Win3.11 installed on, right? Oh wait.

Defragging in Vista is great. I don't have to watch a bunch of dumb blocks stack up so get a performance increase out of my computer. Vista handles defragging at night when I'm not using the thing and handles files and the like in such a way that things just fragment less in general.

I'll bring up UAC here. Why don't Ubuntu users complain about having to TYPE IN THEIR PASSWORD every time they want to do something, but Vista users gripe about it constantly? Get over it or turn it off. I don't mind UAC - it makes me think twice about what I'm doing. When I'm logged in as admin, this is a good thing.

Microsoft is in a catch 22. They get it for being "so big and old and behind the times," then they make some solid changes and suddenly they're going and screwing up a good thing.

Troubleshooting tools!
Ed Bott on zdnet had a great post where he went through all of Vista's troubleshooting features.
[blogs.zdnet.com]

The live performance monitors, the reliability and problem reporting - can troubleshoot virtually any problem in Vista with no need to install additional hardware. How cool is that? You can look up a full history of any weirdness you've had whether it was some old software or a power outage or whatever. It's super informative.

I really want to sit and respond to all the various posts here but... I don't have all week.

piratesyar

-Quick Searches in Explorer Window and in Startmenu
-Easier File moving
-Alt-Tab includes Desktop
-Media Center Runs smoother. (Unless you have 6GB of Videos to go through...)
-Only One, BSOD and that's because HP is being assholes and keeps telling me to update stuff that's putting be 3 versions behind what intel already released throguh WIndows Update.
-breadcrumbs
-dx10
-faster startup.
-better tablet support
-better multimedia support in general

If u just buy a new computer and new parts that say Vista Compatable or do your research and see if they are but not listed, all your compatability issues will be gone.

My Gripes:
-NO LUNA. I luved her.. <3 i mean. I loved that skin
-No Filmstrip. I miss it.
-UAC gets annoying at first if you mess around a lot..
-View Status for Internet Connections take more clicks to get to.
-Needs More Games
-homebrew games don't get much compat. but oh well.

Everything else, I'm fine with.

@eighty82: You probably set it to wake up on Network Activity.

ph15h needs a nu job

I'm running vista on two PCs. One a dedicated Media Centre and the other my main home PC. I admit I did have to upgrade the media centre and bought a new home PC, but Vista runs fine on both with no problems what-so-ever.

I think much of the problems that people claim to have had is due to the fact that the machines they were running weren't up to spec, but if you do run it on a suitable machine, its rock solid and I've not had a single problem, either with crashes, drivers, or anything else. Not something I can say with XP.

Nick P

Well, vista has integrated search.

The new start menu is a dream, i really liked a lot.

Vista seens to be more stable than XP

Vista is more secure.

And the so much called "User Annoyance Control" its really a step forward, since with it i don't need to be and administrator to install programs, and i can run the system as a normal user wich is waay more secure than being an administrator.

So once more vista is more secure, if you see the number of critical flaws on XP and seeing that nowadays we use PC to access bank information, and buy stuff, i think noone wants something unsecure right?

My machine is a Core 2 Duo T5500 with 1GB of ram, it isn't rocket fast running vista, but its not an unbearable thing either.

yasudevil

I run XP-Pro on my desktop and Vista on a laptop. I have exactly the same programs running on both (some 10 years old) and synchronize using SecondCopy via my network. There is little difference between them but for bloated Vista to run well you need really good hardware .... that is the secret! The thing I dislike the most about Vista is it's Windows Explorer.

Richardo

The flip 3-D I had via TopDesk in XP and I NEVER used it.

I just put in Vista basic and have something called "Visual Task Tips" freeware which gives me the visual tab preview which I did want :)

Hawaiibadboy

I know I'll get hit for saying this. But in some ways I compare the progression of XP to Vista, to the progression of Gutsy to Hardy (Ubuntu 7.10 to 8.04). Basically it took a product that inherently worked, did everything that was needed and jazzed it up so that a lot of things don't work (driver issues in Vista, my wifi card which worked in Gutsy doesn't work in Hardy).

abhiroop

1) Vista's DWM is a much smoother experience than XP
2) Keyboard shortcuts. Vista has more, and more is better.
3) My computer is high-enough end that Vista runs better than XP. 64-bit is awesome.
4) Vista is, flat out, more stable.
5) Breadcrumb navigation, implemented way better than GNOME.
6) Searching
7) Cleaned up implementation of user profiles and associated privledges

And, finally, the few errors that come up in Vista are much easier to diagnose and fix.

tigerhawkvok

Good things with Vista... Hm.
Well, DX10 will, wether I like it or not, become the new standard for games, and Wine won't be supporting it any time soon - and neither will XP.

Other than that, Vista is too much of a resource hog to be seriously considered. I mean, seriously - check the hardware requirement for any game, it's going to demand almost twice the hardware in VIsta as it does in XP. Not to mention the amount of harddrive and RAM Vista uses just by sitting there. Vista is the primary reason for me to try and switch completely to Ubuntu. Perhaps I'll get Vista running as a virtual machine when VirtualBox gets DX-support, but until then - no, not a chance.

krank23

This isn't my own personal experience, but when I got my latest physical, the doctor (name of Snook, no relation) was using a Vista-based tablet PC to take down the data. I saw the Aero on the screen and asked why they used Vista, expressing my distaste for the newest Windows version. He said the handwriting recognition made it for him.

So, not personal experience, but testimony nonetheless. Now I must go shoot myself for passing on evidence that Vista did something right. :P

Voyagerfan5761

Nothing.

I upgraded, and now I dont see what the point was.

I run my pc on the classic theme, and its still less stable than my old xp machine was.

And launchy does all the search-focused things vista was all about :P

m0u53m4t

After enabling the real Administrator account I have found Vista very stable and usable, I don't get any of that UAC nonsense.

gareth.pn

1. UAC *gasps*. I'm actually a huge fan of UAC with the secure desktop feature disabled. The secure desktop had a nasty habit of crashing running 3D apps. I've seen apps that tried to execute malware and failing because of not having enough privileges, although if you're one to blindly click 'okay' to everything it doesn't help you.

Its a huge pain to run WinXP as a normal user.

2. Start menu

3. Indexing. Face it, the old XP/2K3 indexing service sucked.

4. User data storage structure. The \Users\ folders.

5. symlinks integrated right in with the mklink tool. Yes you could do directory junctions since Win2000 but it was never a proper seamless integration.

6. Kernel level firewall with outbound filters. Firewall profiles help greatly if you're on a laptop alternating between home use and random wifi hotspot.

7. Aero. It's about damn time actually make use of the GPU. At the same time, there's a lot of UI design oddities and inconsistencies through the entire OS that should be looked it.

8. File renaming that doesn't have the extension selected by default.

Mythokia

I guess the only thing from Vista I (maybe) want is the search thingy in the start menu. That's it.

zoddic

I thought I'll be reading a lot of MS hate comments today but yeah I've got to admit that Vista is stable. Using the right hardware I think it surpasses XP.

@Danny:
You can't expect a Windows 3.1 Machine to run a Windows Vista upgrade. "Upgrading" needs some common sense.

pierre

@EracMan: I have to agree about the sounds. I uninstalled Vista after instability but the sounds were way less intrusive and annoying than XP's. I don't know who ever though percussive, long, low notes would be a good idea for alert messages. Makes me want to throw the stupid computer across the room when it happens too much in XP. In Vista, I just want to hug it.

tommertron

i've had vista since it came out. i even upgraded my computers memory, hard drive, and graphics card. i've never once had one problem with vista. i can't pick out any one thing that vista does better xp, it does everything better than xp. after figuring out how vista works, that only took me a few hours, i was 100% impressed by it. but i have figured out why people bash vista, 1. they're trying to hide how poor they are, 2. they like to hang onto the past no matter how outdated and sloppy it is, 3. they just don't have the intelligence to figure it out.
also one of the biggest scams related to vista are those computer repair shops offering to install xp over vista. i bet those shops beat up the elderly in a back room too.

rand0mCreep

I removed Vista for XP on two machines at home. Both due to proprietary software from work not being compatible. I also installed the Zune theme (can't stand Luna), so the Vista color scheme isn't an issue.

However, I plan on installing the 64 bit version on a new machine. Vista was never intended to be a 32bit OS, IMHO. Most of the issues people have are in the 32bit version.

All my experience with it has been more 'finding stuff' than anything else, and network setups. I don't much care for wizards, as I like to configure things on my own.

Norcross

I beta tested Vista right through, and it was fine. But I didn't upgrade as I didn't feel the need. Premium Upgrade can be bought here for AU$150, so it's not too bad cost-wise.
I have installed it on many new builds for people and had NO problems. It certainly feels like an older system when I move back to XP, even with all my UI hacks to hide that awful Luna!
Vista is no ME, maybe 2000 to XP is a more comparable shift. I know many ( me included) said many of the same things about that change, but once we migrated we most of us didn't want to go back again. Vista ain't as good as it could've been but with the right specs it's worthwile, and I wouldn't install XP on a new machine unless there was a critical XP only program needed!

antman70

I think Vista is a huge improvement on XP. Both my laptop and my desktop are relatively high end so I don't know if I would be saying the same in the case of an older machine, but on the other hand I think that the things that everyone has mentioned (better search function, dx10 etc) make life quite easier. Plus stability. I am impressed. For months now it hasn't crashed. I dont remember xp ever being so stable. And seriously when I look at xp now it looks really old school. But then again it's a matter of preferences

alexandr0s

I prefer vista in just about everything but the major thing for me is that it is immensely better at home networking. I have a mixed setup with one mac (wireless), one stationary pc (wired) and one pc laptop which I use with both wireless and wired. In XP I frequently lost my connection when switching between wired and wireless having to "install the network" over and over again. In Vista everything just functions (almost like osx but not quite).

I also like the overall feel of vista. XP just feels old.

The worst thing for me with vista is it's sloooow file copy. that is really annoying.

pomj

Just to join the throng...

Upgrading an old machine from XP to Vista is probably not worth it due to the hardware issues....but on a new machine I love it. Reasons include:

1. It's pretty. If I'm sitting at a computer all day, I want pretty. :)

2. Instant find on the start menu -- it's nice compromise between GUI and command line, especially if you are diligent in adding any scripts you might use to the Start Menu.

3. Desktop Search.

4. Sidebar.

5. Far superior support for Ink, for the tablet-inclined.

6. Vista really is more stable than XP on hardware that can support it.

7. On Ultimate, the ability to change your display language is a neat trick, which potentially adds to your street cred when, say, making a presentation to an international audience.

8. Readyboost, for those of us who have laptops with