Not a pretty Vista
Posted on Tuesday 17th April 2007
I did it again. Yes that’s right, I broke my laptop for the second time. Some of you will remember that shortly after getting my Lenovo laptop, I managed to break it by putting Linux on it. Then yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade it to Windows Vista. In retrospect I should have remembered that history repeats itself, as it turned out to be a monumental disaster. Fortunately this time I remembered to backup the computer, so it has now been restored to its former glory.
Cue the dispensing of yet more advice – don’t upgrade to Vista if your computer runs XP. For once Microsoft got it right, and despite its many flaws XP is a very versatile and user-friendly operating system. Most importantly I have not come across a piece of hardware that didn’t work straight after being plugged in.
By comparison Vista is clunky and obstructive. They have put too much emphasis on its appearance and not enough on making the user experience pleasant. The see-through windows are actually confusing, rather than impressive and the black/grey colour scheme winds up hiding menu bars if the window content is dark. Most annoying is the constant badgering by the system asking for permission to do everything. This is intended as a security measure to prevent viruses running without your consent, however it would be easy to hoodwink naive users into installing rogue software.
To get rather nerdy there is a fundamental problem with the way the permission system works. They are trying to emulate Linux but have missed the point. In Linux the user by default has very few rights which stops them trashing the system. The administrator has more rights, but has to be specifically invoked. An authorised application (like a web server) which needs specific rights it is given its own user group with just those rights, and hence doesn’t affect anything else or compromise the security of the system.
Vista does it round the wrong way. The default user is an administrator so can do too much. If applications need to run they have to ask permission rather than allowing allocation of rights. This is fine if the application asks for permission to run, but many do this silently (assuming the user has global rights), but since there is no dialogue box to tick the application either hangs or fails. Also the way they have configured the kernel prevents many applications, particularly anti-virus programmes from running properly. As such recent AV software releases are crippled versions with far less protection than their XP equivalent.
So the moral of the story is: unless you have a pre-installed computer with Vista, don’t bother. Most people won’t notice the difference versus XP and there is no great reason to upgrade at the moment. In time they may fix the bugs but for the time-being I’m sticking with XP.
Can’t say I’m suprised.
I think I’m gonna just get a mac.
It runs a nice unix based operating system that works and is friendly. For times when I need to remind myself why I bought the mac, I’ll boot it in to Windows XP or Vista and then quickly revert back to the propper OS….
Leigh.
Hi Rick
I thought I told you this when we spoke the other day. I bought a new computer with VISTA as an operating system and am still regretting with it. I don’t have a broadband because neither AAPT, Optus nor Big pond are compatible with the version. They say they could manage and I burnt my fingers with AAPT. After taking their broadband service and struggling for a week to get it going, I left the idea of using broadband. Unfortunately I have no other option but to hope that VISTA would be made compatible with standard applications soon.
No one should really be going for VISTA for the timebeing.
Good to speak with you the other day, by the way. Hope the weather’s more bearable now.
First two days at school have been ok, actually…fingers crossed…
ed
Hi Rick & Regan,
I hope you are both fighting fit. News from LFE is that Nick (ex Leicester Central) has joined the team and managing the Studio. We now wait for decent RPM classes (which are promised soon :-)).
I am glad to hear you backed up this time. Although my advice with Vista (or any Microsoft OS) is always wait for SP1 as most of the scary bits have been resolved.
Keep well and exercise hard.
Tonestar
Hi Ric I havent seen vista myself as of yet will say
that with the comments on your blog is enough to put you off think i will be staying with xp.Say hi to Reagan hope your training is going ok and so glad for you that you have your laptop back to normal running
Many thanks to Ravin for pointing out this article on the BBC news website:
Users force Dell to resurrect XP