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Come down off the soapbox. Biggest single failure in operating system history? I'd love to have whatever you're smoking.

As a user of Vista Premium on a recent laptop purchase I've had little issue with this operating system since the day I first began using it. Compared to the number of times a Blue Screen of Death would happen with Windows XP versus Vista, Vista is a dream.

XP was definitely prone to BSOD and I was graced with it's presence at least once per day. With Vista I've seen a BSOD exactly 3 times in over a year, and I intentionally caused it by a software program I was making myself.

I agree Vista is not a complete system and was rushed out the door. But calling it the single worst failure in operating system history is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Next time, try thinking before you open your mouth. You may have realized that the single worst operating system failure in history was Microsoft Bob, not Windows Vista.

Gosh, William, it seems you have a soapbox of your own. I disagree with your opinion, and the way you stated it, but everyone has a right to an opinion.

Enjoy that Vista.

Michael

I think Vista is just an OK operating system. However, given that it had been five to six years (millenia in IT years) since MS had come out with a new OS, Vista was a huge disappointment. I would say it is more stable than XP and it looks nicer than XP on a superficial level. The way they moved things around within the OS is horrible though. (How do I create a Network Place again!?)

There are also huge annoyances that are new to Vista: UAC and the fact that in Windows Explorer, when you click the "down arrow" next to the path, it doesn't show you the directory tree like it used to but instead shows your most recent paths.

I'm hoping the next version of Windows is what they promised Vista would be. In other words, I consider Vista to be "Windows Millennium Edition II" - a crappy stepping stone to a ground-breaking OS.

I think Vista is just an OK operating system. However, given that it had been five to six years (millenia in IT years) since MS had come out with a new OS, Vista was a huge disappointment. I would say it is more stable than XP and it looks nicer than XP on a superficial level. The way they moved things around within the OS is horrible though. (How do I create a Network Place again!?)

There are also huge annoyances that are new to Vista: UAC and the fact that in Windows Explorer, when you click the "down arrow" next to the path, it doesn't show you the directory tree like it used to but instead shows your most recent paths.

I'm hoping the next version of Windows is what they promised Vista would be. In other words, I consider Vista to be "Windows Millennium Edition II" - a crappy stepping stone to a ground-breaking OS.

Chamberlin -

I sincerely hope that you are right about whatever comes next. If it is not much, much better than Vista, what comes next may be a unified Linux offering or OS X. I would disagree with you on the stability issue. I think XP is rock solid, especially as compared to Vista. Vista is also slower, an odd combination. For those of you that wish to stay with Microsoft, despite their glaring ignorance of what the computing public wants and deserves, I hope they can manage to retool both their minds and their software quickly enough to avoid being one of the largest corporate funeral pyres in history. It is not bad enough that their offerings are of poor quality and stale as last year's bread; they also have some sort of innate need to treat their customers with inordinate disdain. I can no longer support their bad software or their bad attitude. For the sake of those of you willing to put up with them, I hope they can reverse course and make amends. You deserve much better.

Michael

I think Vista is fine, some of its features are definitely better then XP such as the new Start menu search which I find myself using quite a lot each day. (As opposed Launchy which I used in XP).

I'm a big free software proponent and I'm running Ubuntu right now, the only reason I keep using Windows is that there's just such a wealth of games/software for it that can't be emulated by WINE.

One thing I like about Vista is it's networking which is tons better then XP. I'm saying I love Vista but it offers ordinary users a usable system which is relatively friendly.

"XP was definitely prone to BSOD and I was graced with it's presence at least once per day."

Wait, once a day? What the **** were you doing?

I've been using XP heavily for 4-5 years and I've caused BSOD once, when I tried to play Ultimate Spiderman with a FX5200. I've seen it a handful of times while other people have been using it, even then if you spread it out it works out to 3 or 4 time per year, tops.

XP is rock solid, unfortunately it seems your brain while using it is slightly more wobbly and gelatinous.

Sam -

It was when I first read the excerpt that you quoted from Mr. Burns that I suspected Mr. Burns had probably never used XP, and perhaps not used Vista. Maybe he was running very old Linux? Maybe he still has a TRS-80? I have a houseful of computers running XP. Two of them work very hard, have tons of web development, software development, and database development tools on them, all of which get regular use. Between them, they share a terabyte and a half of data. I had never seen the BSOD, in person, until a friend was showing me Vista one day...

Michael

ps - Friends don't let friends use Vista!

William, while I do agree that calling Vista the worst failure in operating system history is going a bit overboard, your experience with Vista does not prove it wrong. For a product to be successful it has to be wanted and adopted. Vista has not been adopted by corporate customers, and there don't seem to be many scrambling to make that step.

I tried helping a kid setup and use Vistabomination... I feel that some of the apathy expressed by Windows users is rather deserved.

His PC came with Vista, but it has a sticker on it that tells the reader that XP can make the PC run up to 2 times faster - the PC maker thinks XP is faster. People who gripe at how sluggish Vista runs have some backing.

Me, I use Linux, so I know that soapbox rather well.

Spuffler -

Thanks for dropping by. Looks to me like you have nailed the past, present, and future. I bought a MacBook, am weaning myself off Windows as fast as I can afford the software, and am pretty sure I'm on my way to Linux. Everything you said makes absolute sense to me.

I have never had a bsod on my xp system, ever. i get a bsod whenever we switch users on vista. because xp is still the primary OS for developers, im stickin with it for now, but i did use wubi to install ubuntu on the same box. when vista becomes more popular than xp, i will switch completely to a linux OS.

I have helped quite a few people with they're PC's over the years, and although Vista looks pretty I cant find one person who bought a computer with it pre-installed (except some very girly girls), who are happy to use it.
It is very slow.
I've had to reinstall XP on a few because people were fed up getting errors and high load times for things they used quickly and regularly on XP.
If Microsoft release a service pack I think I'll give it another try but until then...

Vista is not the worst OS ever released.
You are forgetting Windows ME :-)

Dillon -

You have certainly seen some of the problems with Vista! By the way, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Vista. You can get it here: http://tinyurl.com/5fbq96

Michael

Joshoua -

Yikes! Windows ME! I never used it, but I understand it was indeed awful!

Michael

I prefer my Windows XP system over my Vista system. XP lets me actually do things. I can't even create a directory in Vista without getting the 3rd degree interrogation from Vista. As a developer, I'd much rather have my stuff running on systems that just work, not the one that's going to cause a deluge of tech support costs.

Ryan -

All excellent points! Thanksfor stopping by and sharing with us!

Michael

Vista is the biggest failure of an O/S by several metrics.It cost way more(billions of $) to develop this turd, than either ME or Bob. It took way more man-years to make this piece of useless excrement who's sole purpose is to bring hardware to its knees by performing corporate DRM management on every possible transaction occurring in every possible area of the device it is running or should I say ruining? Take the same machine load Vista and Xp and see which one runs faster, better and is easier to use, try copying large files across networks, try installing software. What is the point of VISTA? It is a useless upgrade, that slows your computer and doesn't offer any benefit? This from the brightest bulbs in the world, if this is the best they can do Microsoft is doomed. I sold my Vista to some poor sucker who had to have the latest and greatest and reinstalled XP. I'm glad I did, its great to have a fast stable system again.

Puzzling Evidence -

I can tell you're not bitter about it or anything. ;o) Your parameters for "worst operating system" are very close to the ones I used to put it at the very top of that category. Never before has so much money been spent on and so may user turned off by an operating system. The company that popularized the graphic user interface (not that they invented it) has absolutely run out of steam. My column for today wonders if they are not in truly dire trouble.

Michael (BestBizWare)