Windows Vista

Ok, so I know Windows Vista is infamous for being "the worst operating system ever" but what exactly earned it that name? I've heard a lot of things, like it being poorly optimized, or it just flat out not working on computers of the time. But from what I can tell, it just looks like Windows 7 but older.
 

The starting point of a lot of people hating Vista was the introduction of UAC (User Access Control) and how fickle it is by default. Doing almost anything in the OS brought up the window asking "hey you wanna do this?" and it got tiresome really fast. You could literally just sneeze and a UAC popup would appear.

Also, it had much higher system requirements because of Aero, was typically slower, the new search option was godawful, and finally it had quite the unstable drivers. Unstable to the point where it wasn't uncommon to have a BSOD every week or so. In comparison, I used Windows 7 for almost an entire decade and I had like 2 BSODs in total during this whole timespan.

Vista doesn't look much different than Windows 7, but anyone who used both OSes could tell they were a world apart. Windows 7 was essentially Vista, but properly finished and polished.

The main issue with Vista was that it was the first release with a new driver model. This had the unfortunate effect that upon release a lot of hardware had problems with it. By the time these got ironed out it wasnt really any worse than 7.

UAC had to be disabled, though, to make the system usable.

I was VERY wary of Vista when it first came out. There was a review of it on Hard|OCP that was critical of it, claiming it was, IIRC, "very dangerously unstable."

Eventually, after my short run with Ubuntu, I did wind up getting Vista with SP1, and it appeared that most of the serious issues that plagued many users were fixed. After upgrading to SP2, I never had any issues. I skipped 7 because I didn't see a reason for it.

As the Posts before said, mostly because UAC was pretty aggressiv at the Beginning and some had Issues with Drivers, because Manufactors didn't update their Products.

But i don't think you had to disable UAC, after you did everything once it stoped to question for Everything, since you weren't installing Stuff all the Time.

Also, they changed it in a Way as it works today after some Patches.

I had a pretty good Machine at the Time and no Problems with Drivers* or the System itself.

It worked so good that i even skipped Windows 7.

*I even used some older Win 2000 Drivers for some old Stuff.

But here i was maybe just Lucky ;)

I feel like the only person on Earth who had a pretty stable experience with Vista. UAC complaining about every action I wanted to do did get old pretty quickly, but other than that, I had no issues with the OS. Don't even recall it ever BSOD'ing on me.

I remember having to kill the Windows Explorer process in Vista to get Doom Builder 2 to work, but I'm not sure if that was specifically a Vista problem.

On 10/18/2021 at 5:30 AM, Kanzen said:

Ok, so I know Windows Vista is infamous for being "the worst operating system ever" but what exactly earned it that name?

Windows Vista the wordt OS ever ?? Nahhh, not by a long shot !!

Try Windows Millennium Edition and then come back here . . .  8)

I had the bad luck that back in the day my boss persuaded me to install ME over 98 at my workplace. It was the worst mistake ever, stability of the system went down the drain after the downgrade.

5 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

I had the bad luck that back in the day my boss persuaded me to install ME over 98 at my workplace. It was the worst mistake ever, stability of the system went down the drain after the downgrade.

 

Way back in the time I couldn't find our Windows 98 disc to reinitialize my dad's PC but for some reason he had a burnt copy of Windows ME. So meh, might as well give it a try, I thought.

I installed Windows ME and everything went well so far. Then I decided to install the video drivers for our Radeon card. The moment I restarted the PC, Windows never ever booted properly again. Not even in safe mode.

Needless to say my mind about Windows ME was set then. I eventually reinstalled Windows 98 SE and no more problems were had.

I also have bad experience from Windows Me. I was tempted by the low upgrade price and I purchased a legal upgrade copy (I had the impression that you couldn't upgrade Windows 98 to Windows 2000, you had to purchase a full license). After a couple of months (of blue screens) I finally got Windows 2000 and the only useful thing that remained from Windows Me was a DOS boot-able CD.

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

I had the bad luck that back in the day my boss persuaded me to install ME over 98 at my workplace. It was the worst mistake ever, stability of the system went down the drain after the downgrade.

Wetter it was an upgrade or a fresh install, neither mattered for the stability of Windows ME especially compared with Windows 2000 which was released around the same time as Windows ME. I had upgraded some rigs in order to test it but went either straight back to Windows 98 SE or went to Windows 2000.

In my opinion, Windows 2000 was the best OS that came out of Redmond. It performed better with 64MB RAM then what Windows XP could do with 256 MB RAM. Vista was something I never used, I went from XP (XP64) straight to Windows 7. Don't get me started on Windows 8, which I also skipped . . .

Many people consider Windows ME to be good if you don't mix up VxD and WDM drivers, replace IE5.5 and frequently defrag the HDD.

Funny how everyone is mentioning how UAC was disruptive to their user experience and not the way that it almost doomed humankind to destruction by the forces of Hell

6 hours ago, Apprentice said:

Windows Vista the wordt OS ever ?? Nahhh, not by a long shot !!

 

Try Windows Millennium Edition and then come back here . . .  8)

That's another OS that I've heard was god awful. I saw LGR's video on it a while back, and I'm pretty sure it was just Windows 2000 but for home users (As far as I'm aware, 2000 was only for business users). But the only problem I have with ME is that XP was right around the corner. 

Idk, the oldest I've gone was XP, I couldn't fully figure out how to get 98 and 95 working on a VM back on my crappy laptop, but since I have a considerably better pc now, I can give it a shot again.

5 hours ago, Kanzen said:

That's another OS that I've heard was god awful. I saw LGR's video on it a while back, and I'm pretty sure it was just Windows 2000 but for home users (As far as I'm aware, 2000 was only for business users). But the only problem I have with ME is that XP was right around the corner. 

Idk, the oldest I've gone was XP, I couldn't fully figure out how to get 98 and 95 working on a VM back on my crappy laptop, but since I have a considerably better pc now, I can give it a shot again.

Windows ME is DOS based as Windows 95 and 98.

 The Thing is, they tried to hide Dos and make it more "consumer friendly" .

Leading to annoying Changes for the Audience back then.

You can see the same with Windows 10.

Everything they try to make more "consumer friendly" ends in being messed up Menues, "appification" from Programs or forced Store usage.

Try Windows 98 SE, it is the most stable with included modern Features (USB support).

Windows 3.11 is easy to install and usable under the Dosbox (using it myself).

Windows 2000 was great.

I would say it was XP without the fancy Look.

Ah, what i like about Windows 3.11, you can just turn the Switch and turn it off.

Who needs that modern Shut Down Function, pfff :D

I somehow unintentionally managed to avoid ever having a system with the OS.

20 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

I had the bad luck that back in the day my boss persuaded me to install ME over 98 at my workplace. It was the worst mistake ever, stability of the system went down the drain after the downgrade.

 

Yeah, Windows ME was really bad... I still recall Dad having problems with it... thank God Windows XP came out pretty quickly.

I heard it was really bad upon release due to compatibility, drivers, etc. but by the time I was using it a couple years in it was... fine. It was a Windows OS.

I had my wife running a fresh install of Windows ME, and she never had a problem with it. Go figure. Then again, she mostly used Microsoft apps on it, with only one or two exceptions.

I skipped Vista and went straight to Windows 7. Never looked back.

22 hours ago, Kanzen said:

That's another OS that I've heard was god awful. I saw LGR's video on it a while back, and I'm pretty sure it was just Windows 2000 but for home users (As far as I'm aware, 2000 was only for business users). But the only problem I have with ME is that XP was right around the corner. 

Idk, the oldest I've gone was XP, I couldn't fully figure out how to get 98 and 95 working on a VM back on my crappy laptop, but since I have a considerably better pc now, I can give it a shot again.

I used 2000 for awhile, it was basically just a slightly different XP. Hell of a lot more stable than Win9x though.

I mean, it had a bunch of stuff you didn't need if you were a home user, and obviously you were pretty boned if your devices didn't support the NT driver model, but otherwise it was just fine.

(Nobody bring up linux nobody bring up linux nobody bring up linux..^{linux is a bad omen and it wants to kill my pc..})

Oh, excuse me.

anyways, for some reason a lot of the games i get require compatibility mode with vista, or the xp service pack or something like that.

i suppose it is because i like to play older games (and most of the time i have to because my pc isnt great.)

I had Vista on the 1GB RAM Dell laptop I used in college and it choked the laptop to death constantly. Every update I installed slowed it down more and more until after one year owning the damn thing it was like it was 5 years old and with a dying hard drive. Drove me completely apeshit, so glad Win 8 was an improvement. 

The OS that gave me nightmares....

16 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I had Vista on the 1GB RAM Dell laptop I used in college and it choked the laptop to death constantly. Every update I installed slowed it down more and more until after one year owning the damn thing it was like it was 5 years old and with a dying hard drive. Drove me completely apeshit, so glad Win 8 was an improvement. 

Win 8? Improvement?

Someone drank the Kool-Aid...

Win 8 was far better than Vista, the only thing I did to it was install an app that brought me to the start menu on startup. Never had a single issue with 8. 

On 10/17/2021 at 11:40 PM, PsychEyeball said:

The starting point of a lot of people hating Vista was the introduction of UAC

Damn Union Aerospace Corp. Why can't they stop breaking everything?

1 minute ago, Nevander said:

Damn Union Aerospace Corp. Why can't they stop breaking everything?

be grateful they are breaking things! their mistakes are what molded this entire community!

Just now, Yandere_Doomer said:

be grateful they are breaking things! their mistakes are what molded this entire community!

True. Thank you UAC for opening portals to Hell!

3 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Win 8 was far better than Vista, the only thing I did to it was install an app that brought me to the start menu on startup. Never had a single issue with 8. 

Yep, the main issue with Windows 8 seems to have been the default desktop interface with all those tiles, or whatever they're called. Install Classic Shell to create a proper start menu, and it's problemo soluto, or at least it is if you're using Windows 8.1

I've used Win 8.1 as the preferred OS on my desktop and my main laptop since 2014, and it's by far the best ever version of Windows in my view, and streets ahead of Windows 10 in terms of reliability, straightforwardness and general capability. I'll be very sorry when Microsoft withdraws support in early 2023. Might then use Windows 10 for a year or two, but almost certainly won't adopt Win 11.