[mdlug] First impressions of Vista

[Robert Adkins]

Ingles, Raymond wrote:
>  As I'd noted, my wife was unsatisfied with OpenOffice and Crossover. It's
> possible she could be persuaded to get used to either, but in the interest
> of marital harmony (arguing with pregnant women can be problematic) we
> picked up a Windows computer for her. In particular, the cheapest possible
> desktop Dell offers, the "Dimension C521".
>
>  The specs are all right - an AMD Sempron running at 1.8GHz, 80GB disk,
> GF 6150 graphics. But since it would come with Vista Home Basic, I bumped
> it to 1GB of RAM. Ironically, at least on paper the specs are roughly
> equivalent to our current Linux machine. I bought that almost exactly four
> years ago; it seems that nearly equivalent power is now available for ~20%
> of what I paid then.
>
>  The good:
>
>   1. It's *much* quieter than the old machine. Almost silent.
>
>   2. Once the data was copied (see below) Thunderbird and Firefox
>      were easy to migrate. (I'm not *stupid*; I've hidden IE7 from
>      view.)
>
>   3. Maybe I'll put a couple Windows games I have on it. I kinda liked
>      Tron 2.0 and NOLF2.
>
>  The bad:
>
>   1. I am *very* glad that I added the extra RAM. Vista is a pig. It's
>      even more sluggish than I anticipated. I haven't booted a Linux
>      live CD on it yet for direct comparison, but it takes quite a bit
>      of time to boot, to log in, to switch users, etc. Why is a 1GB
>      machine swapping when not running anything in particular?
>   
    I completely agree. I had downloaded Vista RC1, which I understand 
had little difference between itself and the final release, and it was 
an absolute dog on some fairly decent hardware. My wife found it 
abominably slow and couldn't stand the interface.

    She has no issues with Windows XP's interfaces and now that machine 
is free of Vista, it dual-boots OpenSuSe 10.2 and Windows XP, defaulting 
to OpenSuSe. She has no issues, except for how long it takes OpenSuSe 
10.2 to boot, with using Linux to do what she already normally does on 
the home PC.

>   2. Vista UAC is not *quite* as annoying as anticipated, but pretty
>      close. It shows up for program installation, which I expected,
>      but it *also* shows up for apparently *any* file operation, like
>      just deleting files. First it warns you that you'll need to confirm
>      the action, then it asks you to confirm it, then it asks if you
>      really want to delete the file. (Then, of course, if you *really*
>      want it gone, you have to empty the "Recycle Bin", too.)
>   
    I found it annoying from the very beginning.

>   3. The interface has changed, again, and not for the better. Took
>      me a web search to figure out how to see hidden files and full
>      extensions. (How can I find Thunderbird's profile if I can't see
>      the directory it's in?)
>   
    This is the one thing I despised the most in Vista. I saw no reason 
to rearrange how to do everything, again. Then they come out and say, 
"We made it easier to use!!1!!!!"

    They didn't make it easier to use. They changed everything so you 
had to relearn how to do everything.

>   4. I couldn't connect to the Linux box via Samba to migrate the
>      data over. Not sure what the deal was there, but Cygwin and
>      scp to the rescue. Got the data copied over in reasonable order.
>   
    I would like to think that Microsoft didn't do anything to make this 
more difficult to next to impossible. Unfortunately, I have my doubts.

    -Rob