It’s no secret I was a bit disappointed with Windows Vista. It was an incredibly ambitious project that delivered a massive, under-the-hood update to Windows. Where it failed was that it was released just a bit too early. Too early means not enough polish on things that could have dramatically improved the first impression of the new OS.
Here is what I said back in 2006 prior to Vista’s launch:
What will happen if they ship Windows Vista if it comes out in 1Q2007? I predict it will be a disaster. Driver compatibility, rough edges in software working, weird and unpolished UI design, etc. The acronymn UAC will come to haunt Microsoft and they will rue the day they didn't wait just a few more months to get driver compatibility together.
Windows 7, by contrast, is all about polish. It fixes the mistakes made with Windows Vista.
Unfortunately, I still have to deal with Windows Vista. And now, even issues I hadn’t noticed before in Windows Vista become painfully obvious now that I’m used to Windows 7.
Below are 10 things that are driving me crazy about Windows Vista now that I’ve got Windows 7.
Reason #1: Nothing is ever responding
In Windows Vista, it seems like the OS is just waiting to declare a window isn’t responding. This is particularly obnoxious when it comes to network windows. The Windows 7 GUI is much more responsive and it’s far less likely to have that annoying “not responding” behavior occur.
Reason #2: The UAC
I still can’t believe Microsoft hasn’t updated UAC in Windows Vista so to make it less annoying. Every time I go back to a Windows Vista machine, it’s one of the first things that comes up. Prompts. Prompts. Prompts over the silliest of things.
On Windows 7, there’s a lot more control of these annoyances. Windows is still the “are you sure” OS but it’s a lot less annoying.
Programs like Tweak 7 make it easy to further refine this. For instance, the delay/darkening of the screen theoretically can add more security but it’s just annoying. On Windows 7, I can turn that off.
Reason #3: Basic Usability
In Windows Vista, if you want to change the resolution, you either use the video card’s built in add-on (seen at the top) or you have to jump through menus. It’s ridiculous.
in Windows 7, you can get to screen resolution quickly by default. A very nice touch.
Reason #4: The System Tray
I had no idea how annoying the system tray system of Windows Vista (and before) was until I started using Windows 7. Going back to Windows Vista is like going back to system tray hell.
No comparison. On Windows 7, it’s clean and nice.
Reason #5: Explorer Usability
Windows Vista (above) is just a lot less useful with explorer even though it seems more cluttered (to me anyway).
By contrast, Windows 7 (above) has common sense options up above and the navigation pane on the left is much more useful as well.
Reason #6: Customization – Vista sucks at it.
For reasons unknown, Microsoft insisted on putting lots of hard-coded colored images in the Vista UI.
Windows 7 still has the problem somewhat (baby blue) but it’s a lot easier for programs to customize a color than it is to deal with an image. So if you run a program like WindowBlinds that lets you customize Windows, Windows 7 makes life even better.
Reason #7: Cyan borders.
This goes with Microsoft’s love affair with various blue-like colors being baked in. Vista had cyan borders on the edges.
On Windows 7, the colors are neutral. I should also add that Aero doesn’t have that annoying reflection texture in it anymore.
Reason #8: Useless network object
How often are you going to want to sift through all the computers on your network? Windows 7 cleans up (it could still be better) the network experience.
Reason #9: Devices
This is something that seems obvious in hindsight but Windows Vista does not have it. A nice, simple screen for dealing with the real world stuff that people use.
Reason #10: Windows XP mode
Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate include “Windows XP mode”. For most people, it’s not a big deal. But it’s a handy tool that one would have thought Vista would have included for programs that had compatibility problems.
You can install things from within the environment and then they will run seamlessly on your desktop.
So if you have programs that don’t like Vista (or Windows 7) you can run them within Windows XP on the desktop. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well with games very well.
But imagine how things might have gone with Windows Vista if it had had something like this.
There you have it…
Well look here, I just got handed a Windows 7 Professional DVD. Goodbye Windows Vista.
If it's the Run command in the Start Menu, it works the same in Windows 7 as it did in Vista. I am sure Jafo already knows that but for those who don't, you right click on the Start button, select Properties and then Customize. Scroll down and put a checkmark next to "Run Command." Click Apply and Okay and it will appear in your Start Menu.
You're most welcome... any time I can help.
I disagree. We have both in the house here and 7 works better.
You're right, kona! While Vista and Win 7 may look similar, there are many improvements under the hood that make Win 7 a better, smoother and faster OS to use. I like Vista and have/had no major issues with it, but Win 7 has gone up a gear and (using a motoring analogy) is a pleasure to drive.
I agree. I'm even getting to the point that I dislike using a PC with XP.
I got to that point long ago... never liked the look of it, with its yucky Fisher Price appearance, which made Vista (appearance-wise, for other reasons too) a most welcomed release. I never had any serious issues with it, and Vista x64 runs like a dream on my current rig, but the advent of Win 7 has certainly changed how often I boot into Vista these days. Usually it's once a week to keep everything up to date/running smoothly, but other than that I'm in Win 7
Well at first I was concerned with the boot times of 7 but now I'm just happy all works well.
2 separate harddrives [in caddies] ....both 32 bit OS....one Win 7 Ultimate the other XP Pro.... Win7 has lots of ptoggies installed...XP has MS Office and that's it.
Boot times... 2.5 minutes vs 1.5 ...from button press to end of HD thrash.
P4 3.0, 2gig ram.
7 is the faster.
Well Jafo on this machine - AMD Athlon 64 3200 with 3 GB RAM the boot time for XP was 30 to 40 seconds from power button to a stable desktop minus the time needed for wifi to connect. 7 takes a minute and a half. It really is trival. I like how 7 handles programs and the whole way 7 works far better than XP's way of handling business.
Perhaps when I upgrade this mobo and CPu and get DD2 or DD3 I will see better results. For now I'm happy.
My Win 7 install.... from power on to usable desktop 57 seconds... and that's on a dual boot machine. Could probably shave a couple of secs off that again on a single boot and a few more services trimmed back.
Dunno how you got it down to that... even with all non-essential services and startup apps disabled I could never get XP below 1 3/4 minutes.... and that was on an AMD Althon 64 6400 @ 3.4 and 4gb RAM.
I turned off everything except the antivirus program and wireless. I seemed to be that fast. I might have been off in my timing.
Another reason why W7 seems more polished than Vista it's becaues software developers in general have got more polished themselves. For example, lots of games used to write things in "Program Files" (save files, download updates,...) but the problem is that "Program Files" is a place where only installers were supposed to write, so that in Vista forced a lot of games to run under administrator privileges. That doesn't happen anymore, developers have gotten used to write in less restricted locations (although now they like filling "My Documents" with a lot of crap instead of using App Data and User Data... But at least is an improvement).
My thoughts:
Yeah, the shell doing that is pretty silly. Win7 fixes that.
Although that won't fix individual apps that are locking up. Firefox still locks up badly on my system.
It didn't bother me so much, but it's good to know Win7 improves it a lot .
There's no going back to nothing, though - a ZDNet blogger got hit with some malware on XP that very likely would not have been able to install itself with a system with UAC on.
I agree. A lot of nice, wonderful tweaks have been added to Windows 7 that really makes it better than XP and Vista. It makes my work flow much, much better.
Another thing they changed was they went to great lengths to allow you to go up in the address bar. Which I like, because frankly I really missed the up button in Vista when they removed it. I still miss it, but this is an okay compromise.
I really love what they've done with the system tray button. That arrow in XP/Vista was totally annoying. I'd expand it, go to what I want, and it would just contract again, making the icon disappear. It's noticing and fixing even small things like that that really makes me love 7.
BUT - if you put a Stardock skin in, you know it's a XP/Vista skin when the arrow is pointed in the wrong direction . Hopefully skinners will be smart and make Win7 versions of their skins.
Agreed.
I never really noticed that until somebody pointed it out in some blog somewhere. Maybe it's because the pixel edges on my CRT tends to be a tad softer than an LCD.
I notice that blue is used a lot in general with UI stuff. I guess it's considered a "safe" color to use.
Agreed, just another layer on the networking heirarchy that wasn't really needed. I am so glad the computers are visible at the base level instead of going through a bunch of sub-groups that nobody uses anymore.
While I'm technical enough to use the Device Manager, this is certainly a plus for people like my mother who would just be confused by all of the strange stuff in it.
A nice feature to have for those worried about backwards compatibility, but I honestly don't have any software that doesn't work.
. . . and frankly, Microsoft should've really included it in all editions of Windows instead of just Pro. Backporting to Vista would be a nice consumer confidence boost too, although I doubt they'll do that.
Yeah, well that's because VMs generally don't do hardware video acceleration. Their target market is businesses for the most part, and businesses don't play games.
However: VirtualBox from Sun Microsystems does in fact have hardware video acceleration, and may work with some games. Haven't tried it with any games, though.
It's not an entirely new OS, no. But it soooo improves a lot of the small little annoyances previous OSes had!
Personally, I've been using a C:\GAMES folder since the days of DOS . . .
I've switched back and forth a couple of times, but in the end I think that a separate folder for games is usually a good idea. Less headaches.
Win7 on a desktop is fantastic. It's better, no doubt.
Win7 on a netbook? I'm a bit split. Some things seem faster, but it does seem to act a bit as if there's not so much memory available. A lot of paging it seems. But when the largest software is closed and there's not so much paging, it's faster than XP.
Fuzzy Logic: Frankly, I gave up on "All Programs" as early as Windows 95. I never liked it. I always shoved the icons into folders in a Windows 3 fashion, and I definitely loved Fences when it came out . I gave up a long time ago trying to organize it.
And meh - window resizing hasn't worked in any of their OSes since Windows XP. XP forgot window positions, Vista forgot window positions. They've never worked.
Windows XP mode is designed for companies, not for normal users. That's why it doesn't really matter it doesn't support graphic acceleration or why it doesn't come in all editions of W7.
The main problem of Vista was that it wasn't used as the desktop for computers in companies (no way to run XP/IE6 apps/web apps easily, resource usage, drivers,...).
Well, the place to install programs is "Program Files", and that's where most users install their apps, so programs should play nice with that folder restrictions.
I've always installed games off the OS drive...and in a folder called 'games'....reson being that in most [not all] instances you don't even need to reinstall the game when you change your OS or its install.
That helps massively when you have add-ons to games such as GTR2 numbering in the Gigs.....so far, 15,270 files or 6.297 gig....
BTW...installed in XP Pro...P4 3.0 32bit....now running in Win 7 Ultimate....i7 920 64bit.
But we aren't what Windows targets as "normal users"
Well, it's about a month in and I've had my first hiccup with Win 7... it got as far as the logon screen and hung indefinitely after typing in my user p/w. Can't think why, no changes had been made since the previous boot (Id just checked my emails and WC) and the shutdown was normal, so it beats me.
Anyway, I performed a startup repair from the installation disc and all was well again... though it remains a mystery.
They should, yes. And newer software generally does.
But a lot of older software doesn't. This is especially true for games, as most games are not maintained indefinitely. This is in stark contrast to regular apps, which are updated on a fairly regular basis.
It's very unlikely I won't update an application - I'll generally get the new one that follows the rules.
But when it comes to games - I still like to play old, classic games. Many of them were created before the new restrictions were in place. So yeah, I still have a games folder.
I also use it for MMORPGs. Unlike an application, which may be updated once in a blue moon, MMORPGs are updated constantly. So if you dump them into "Program Files," you're in for a lot of pain as they like to change themselves very often. Being as they like to update themselves so frequently, and being as they're not in any way, shape, or form vital to the functioning of my system, I'm fine with putting them in a folder with less restrictions.
I won't lose any sleep if something messes up a game. The restrictions of "Program Files" are there to protect things like Word, which are a lot more important than a game.
I don't dislike vista much, I obiviously waited one year before get it so to avoid completely the driver compatibility issues.
To me it looks like all those points brought up in the first post are just minor or simply aesthetic issues (except the driver one), which all goes by a subjective perspective of the user rather than effective usability of the os. I for example like to see all the tray icons without having to expand a menu and obiviously disable the "hide unused" things from the first minute after the install.
Some of them could also easily got around with 3th party software like nvidia/ati drivers (and you need them anyway) to change the resolution from the tray icon with two clicks, or by setting the os options to how you like more.
I'm surprised you didn't mentioned the "sxs" folder, that would have been what I consider a valid point since they don't tell you before installing that this folder is going to eat your free space on the system partition as a everhungry monster, with little to no counter options to get around that (mine is ~14gb now..).
What's important in a os to me is that it is stable and my Vista64 sp2 is almost rock solid, even with overclocking, and it's far more better than xp (even if maybe worse than 7).
I discovered that adaptability could get you more far than complaining what you can't change when it comes to it, I'm...satisfied and I won't change to 7 unless I'm forced to by games&apps, or an year has passed since its release.
Lo
Starker - I've never seen my W7 hang there. I don't use passwords though.
Hi I'm a previous Vista user and I'm a bit dissapointed in using it, it's so slow and I can't finish work on time. Then the time came when my computer crashed so I decided to install Windows XP. Now it's whole lot better than using Vista and my computer is a bit faster than before. As for Windows 7 I still haven't used it but I hear positive reviews with it.
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I've been using Win7 since the public beta and I've not seen hangs during logon.... at any time, for that matter, so I'm mystified as to why it happened.
It was suggested that maybe I'd picked up a nasty from one of my emails, but I didn't actually open any as there were no new ones I needed/wanted to read. It may have been a Windows Update I didn't notice, perhaps? I've heard of that sort of thing happening after updates.
Oh well, it's all good now.
The PC of mine will not let my redo the performance score. It gets to the end then has an error.
Runs out of puff?....
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