Comments on: Don't Fear The Vista From Your Windows

Larry Magid Reviews Window's New Operating System As XP Goes The Way Of The Dodo

[nativewoman]

For those users who would like a more 2000-like or XP-like feel to the programs displayed when you click on Start:

1) Right-click the Taskbar (usually on the bottom of the screen by default)
2) Click Properties & a box labeled Taskbar and Start Menu Properties will open
3) Click the tab in the box labeled Start Menu
4) Click next to the words Classic Start Menu
5) Click OK and the box will close and you will go back to whatever you had open on your screen when you started with Step 1 above.

Now when you click the Start button, generally in the lower left corner of your screen, it will look more like what you are used to.

[nativewoman]

Sorry, Larry. I cannot agree with your cheery assessment of Vista. Perhaps for the casual home user your observations might be true (not for me) but Vista offers its share of problems in an Enterprise situation.

The "much better security" you mentioned is proving to be a headache for our IS Department and they are busily searching for workarounds before Vista is deployed throughout the Company. With any luck at all, that won''t be until 2014. :)

Vista has a couple of annoying little "features" or "enhancements" that I detest but they can be disabled if you can find them.

As you obliquely mentioned in your story, Vista does NOT play well with some applications. My Company recently pushed out a remote connectivity application that immediately upon download trashed Vista so badly that Vista had to be completely re-installed from CD on several computers.

This weekend, I''ve been trying to install an Adobe Reader upgrade on my home computer. I am the Administrator but Vista keeps telling me I cannot write to the directory and to contact my Administrator.

I don''t have this problem with just Adobe Reader but on the other hand I don''t have this problem with everything I try to install either. What''s up with that?

[dredre2k]

I''ll switch to a mac before I switch to VISTA. Vista will go the way of the DoDo once Windows 7 is released. My brother has vista and hates it... it slows down his computer and locks from time-to-time. Its time for Microsoft to step up its game and do something new. Apple''s leaving it in the dust!

[vsolanoy]

To the comments - Come on... Vista isn''t that bad. And on corporate updates -- it takes large corporations a few years to migrate to new OS''s. I was running Windows 2000 for 3 years before my former company switched to XP... and there were a lot of problems initially... that''s after 3 years!

For consumers, there''s no excuse for not having Vista on a new PC... and I''m also a Mac user! However, I do agree that if you''re on an older PC, stick with XP...

In a household of 2 Mac laptops and 2 Vista laptops, I''ve never had problems with either! Being the lead tech head in my household, the Macs have never given me problems. The 2 Vista laptops haven''t had a single problem either! Reliability Mac vs Vista -- it''s a tie!

The real problem Microsoft is in the variety of system providers out there. Apple doesn''t have as many problems because they control the hardware. Microsoft has hardware standards that need to be followed, but there are so many variations in the way hardware is configured that control is near impossible.

[cyberus-2009]

Oh yeah .. another thing ... of course Microborg is dropping XP while Vista is still buggy .. then need the income from the "pay per minute" Vista help lines

[cyberus-2009]

Note to self ... purchase a couple copies of XP for future use.

[yongamerica]

VISTA is pretty: pretty expensive, pretty processor intensive and pretty memory hungry. In order to get the full benefit of this OS a person needs a quad core processor, at least 3 gig of Ram and a gaming quality video card with preferably 512 MB of memory. With this system configuration applications will run as fast as if it was on an XP machine. VISTA is fat and bloated, like its pricing structure. It is not near as stable as XP, yet. Microsoft had a vision when they created this OS, but it was grossly out of focus.

There is a good reason large corporations are hesitant to migrate to VISTA, and it isn''t peripheral compatibility; its the overall cost of ownership and sometime flakey operation.

[andor3]

Vista is not an upgrade from XP... it is a terrible mistake