#42; Operating Problems

Tomorrow sees the release of Windows’ latest operating system, Windows 7. There’s been a fair amount of anticipation about Windows 7, as it seems set to correct everything that many people feel went so wrong with Windows Vista. From my own personal point of view and usage of Vista over the years, I am part of this group that feels Vista was a pretty poor piece of software from Windows. However, I do realise there will be readers thinking ‘Well I’ve never had a problem with Vista’ – fair enough. This isn’t any propaganda or persuasion to get people to upgrade, this is just me explaining why Vista will soon be a past memory and one I won’t be reminiscing in anytime soon.

The biggest problem with Vista was when it was first released. I managed to use the OS not long after it was made public in January 2007. When it was first released, to me at least, it was almost unusable. There were bugs left, right and centre, the operating system itself caused some serious conflicts with games and program being used, and the hardware itself that the system required was a bit annoying. Whilst most computers at the market at the time could run Vista with no problems, or so was thought, features such as Windows Aero seemed to be pushed in and rushed so quickly they just caused crashes and problems. It was very, very annoying. Furthermore, you had this ridiculous amount of programs with the Windows tagline greeting you on a fresh install. Shovelware forced upon you that I was never going to use. If you want to find a way to annoy me instantly Microsoft, that was a perfect start.

Going back to the mention of gaming, XP was a fantastic system in it’s support and compatibility of games amongst it’s system and various system requirements that all PC games have. Vista needed, and still needs, more powerful requirements although it’s obviously less important and obvious with no games including XP requirements anymore for obvious reasons. I’m a big fan of older games but once more with Vista, they just simply did not go hand in hand – the biggest example I can think of is Theme Hospital which is near impossible to work with Vista for reasons I have no ideas about, yet it worked fine on XP and even on the Windows 7 beta I had no issues. To be honest I wish I had a greater understand as to why these problems occurred with Vista when other operating systems have no problems! Annoying!

My final area of annoyance I’m gonna quickly discuss is the fact that I’ve lost god knows how much work over the past 2/3 years with Vista. I understand if there is scepticism that this is Vista’s fault but how is it I can use these programs (NetBeans, Borland, etc) on XP in our student suites at university on XP perfectly well and then, when it comes to home use and Vista, it be such a pain in the arse to achieve a positive outcome without problems? It’s been really frustrating and this is almost turning into a rant but I’m holding back for my own sanity I think! for myself, it’s been too frustrating.

Oh, and User Account Control. Quite simply the stupidest feature I have ever encountered.

No operating system is perfect. I’ll happily admit that Windows Vista in it’s current state (with two major Service Packs now available to help) is a lot more usable and stable, and it is nowhere near as bad as when it first came out, but for me it still doesn’t make up for it. Over the years the many crashes, moments of lost work unexpectedly, conflicting hardware and software, rushed inclusions and just general frustrations I’ve experienced with Vista want me yearning for Windows 7. Sure, you could argue that I should jump over to the Mac or try out Linux (something I actually have plans for very soon but enough on that for now) but for me, Vista is soon to be a recent memory I’ll hopefully not be revisiting. The funny thing is, for all I know I could come back on here in a few months and absolutely destroy Windows 7 and everything it’s supposedly promising to do for the user.  Should we have to pay for these major upgrades though? Not necessarily no. But that’s life.

Apologies if these seems an annoying few paragraphs to you, or seems a bit fickle to be so annoyed at Vista, but it’s my own personal views and I respect that everyone will have their own experiences with the way they used their computer. I just hope now that Windows 7 lives up to the promising feedback it seems to be getting!

Operating Systems. Serious Business.