Why does Vista suck so much?

[klutch]

Oh my god....I'm about ready to smash my laptop against the wall.

I've been having nothing but problems with Vista since I got my new Dell 1420 2 months ago. Core 2 Duo processor, 2 gigs of ram, and that fancy new Nvidia 8400 dedicated graphix chipset - and it still lags when running high-def videos. Connectivity issues as well, and I know its Vista to blame: I've got three other systems here on the same network, same settings, but no other issues. And so many small bugs - trying to delete or move files on the system, and Vista wastes so much time "calculating how much time is remaining" instead of just moving/deleting the damn files. Shutdown time is rediculously long. So many driver incompatabilities, and the continual updates Microsoft releases seems to mess them up further. The amount of resources used, even with some of the fancy visuals off, is astounding: right now, with just ieexplorer open and NAV08 in the background, its using 50% of my CPU and 871 megs of ram.

I wish I'd had the option of spec'ing this thing with XP. Why couldn't Microsoft have finished developing and testing Vista instead of releasing a botch-job, 85% complete OS?

[Viper007Bond]

Fixed your thread title for you.

[klutch]

Heh, thanks Viper. Guess I got caught up in the passion of the moment/hatred...

[Viper007Bond]

Okay, fixed for real.

[powah]

Well, Vista = fail, I think that it's definitely worth finding a copy of XP. Luckily some manufacturers are beginning to see the light and are shipping computers with XP on them again

[Lilleput]

It's not Vista it's your hardware.

I have been running it for about 1½ months now, playing Crysis watching 1080i movies without any problems. Update your drivers.

[awdrifter]

Vista needs ungodly amount of ram, if you want to keep using Vista, add 1GB (or 2GB if you have Vista 64bit) it should smooth out the playback.

[Lilleput]

Originally Posted by awdrifter

Vista needs ungodly amount of ram, if you want to keep using Vista, add 1GB (or 2GB if you have Vista 64bit) it should smooth out the playback.

I got 2GB of GeiL DDR2 and it's working fine.. Everest says i got 1300ish to spare right now.

[awdrifter]

I have played with comps that has 2GB of ram and Vista (on friend's comp), the ram usage is always 60-70% even when I'm not doing anything. So playing a hi-def movie with only 30-40% of ram could cause problems.

[chvvkumar]

Ok...RAM is used in completely defferent ways in XP and Vista.

Let us concider there is a system with 2 gigs of RAM.

First XP: Let XP alone take 400megs of memory at boot time. So, the remaining RAM available is 1.6Gigs. Now, you may think thats well and good; but the thing is the remaining is unused and sitting there doing nothing.

In Vista: In vista there is a thing called prefetch. Its job is to monitor your system usage and based on that observations, preload the frequently used files at system startup.

For example you use office2007 frequently. Then after a couple of days of observation, the prefetch loads all the files needed for office (and other apps that you use frequently) into the RAM AT BOOTTIME. So when you open up the app next time, it will open VERY quickly.

Now, when vista tries to fill the available RAM (after loading the OS files) with this prefetch files until another app (like a game-which needs large amounts of RAM) requests more RAM, when some of the prefetched files are unloaded to create more space that is required.

In effect, vista puts the available RAM to a better use than let it sit idle.

For some more reading see theese links:

http://members.rushmore.com/~jsky/id37.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/...boostanalyzed/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/05/w...oost-analyzed/

[Ottobon]

Originally Posted by Lilleput

It's not Vista it's your hardware.

I have been running it for about 1½ months now, playing Crysis watching 1080i movies without any problems. Update your drivers.

Your a spy for Microsoft, aren't you?

[Whappeh]

Vista is this decade's ME.

[Lilleput]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

Your a spy for Microsoft, aren't you?

Im trying to be the IceBone of Microsoft Products.

[Final Daihatsu]

I wish I could agree with you because I hated that vista as soon as it came out. But my IBM R52 is far from being able to run vista, so I can't say it's rubbish to live with.

[ESPNSTI]

I run Vista at work, and dual boot with XP at home.
Other than disconnect issues in Live for Speed, and some minor annoyances in usability, it hasn't been that bad. (Then again, I'm someone who could get Windows ME to run well too ).
For the disconnects, try this:
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=43263
I'm still evaluating if this worked for Live for Speed or not, but initial tests look promising.

[klutch]

First of all, it ain't my hardware. The computer is a month and a half old, and the machine is pretty freakin quick. As configured, this laptop has set the benchmarks for performance on that big laptop site, can't remember the name...so I know it shouldn't be suffering. Drivers are all updated.

Originally Posted by ESPNSTI

I run Vista at work, and dual boot with XP at home.
Other than disconnect issues in Live for Speed, and some minor annoyances in usability, it hasn't been that bad. (Then again, I'm someone who could get Windows ME to run well too ).
For the disconnects, try this:
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=43263
I'm still evaluating if this worked for Live for Speed or not, but initial tests look promising.

Thank you! I do have many connectivity issues; the router (also new) will frequently die out, even when setup properly. Sometimes ieexplorer will disconnect, even when the connection is still active. I'll give this site a shot.

[epp_b]

and it still lags when running high-def videos.

Ah, this one I can explain...

From http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...ista_cost.html

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware every 30ms for digital outputs and every 150 ms for analog ones to ensure that everything appears kosher. This means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that… nothing continues to happen (commenting on this mechanism, Leo Laporte in his Security Now podcast with Steve Gibson calls Vista “an operating system that is insanely paranoid”). In addition to this polling, further device-specific polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are still as they should be. We already have multiple reports from Vista reviewers of playback problems with video and audio content, with video frames dropped and audio stuttering even on high-end systems [Note I]. Time will tell whether this problem is due to immature drivers or has been caused by the overhead imposed by Vista's content protection mechanisms interfering with playback.

So, basically, this is a big "screw you" from Microsoft and there's nothing you can do about it. Microsoft has made Vista hyper-paranoid with their lips firmly planted onto Hollywood's backside. With that incredible polling rate, it's no surprise you're having problems, especially with HD videos.

the router (also new) will frequently die out, even when setup properly.

Do you have your router plugged into a UPS?

Why couldn't Microsoft have finished developing and testing Vista instead of releasing a botch-job, 85% complete OS?

85%? You're too kind.

[vikiradTG2007]

Maybe 45% done... that's why I've got XP on my new computer. I'll wait until Vista is much more stable before upgrading to it. Maybe 2-3 years... until it's a completely functional OS.

[Scooby5]

Originally Posted by chvvkumar

Ok...RAM is used in completely defferent ways in XP and Vista.

Let us concider there is a system with 2 gigs of RAM.

First XP: Let XP alone take 400megs of memory at boot time. So, the remaining RAM available is 1.6Gigs. Now, you may think thats well and good; but the thing is the remaining is unused and sitting there doing nothing.

In Vista: In vista there is a thing called prefetch. Its job is to monitor your system usage and based on that observations, preload the frequently used files at system startup.

For example you use office2007 frequently. Then after a couple of days of observation, the prefetch loads all the files needed for office (and other apps that you use frequently) into the RAM AT BOOTTIME. So when you open up the app next time, it will open VERY quickly.

Now, when vista tries to fill the available RAM (after loading the OS files) with this prefetch files until another app (like a game-which needs large amounts of RAM) requests more RAM, when some of the prefetched files are unloaded to create more space that is required.

In effect, vista puts the available RAM to a better use than let it sit idle.

You make it sound so clever

I'm not having any problems with vista, using 2GB of RAM but my colleague has pulled his hair out on several occassions, usually because it takes an hour to connect to our network...... and HE'S our IT guy