Cameron Speed - Ellington I.T.
This is Cameron's first blog post. DE
I get a lot of questions about Vista, even now after two years after its release. The main question is whether I like it or not. The answer is NO. That’s not to say it’s all bad…I like the way the start menu is configured, having the folders work like the favorites window in IE 7. Certain small details of the interface almost feel like a MAC, but this doesn’t add up to a great product.
When I give my response to this question I’m invariably asked to explain why I don’t like Vista. My answer has three parts: I don’t like being forced into anything-much less an operating system, I like having the control of configuration, and the performance ultimately is not acceptable.
Microsoft has proven over the years that, as a company, it knows how to make money. The company started roughly 20 years ago, and has since become one of the largest companies in the software field. Not only that, it dominates and controls the software market in ways that no other company can. Think about this: It was estimated about five years ago that 95 percent of the world’s computers were running some form of Windows. Name one company that can touch this kind of real world user market share. With this kind of power to play with, Microsoft has essentially forced Vista upon consumers and businesses alike. It has gotten to the point that to get XP on a computer one must buy online with VERY limited selection, buy a system directly from a vendor and actually purchase a Vista license while having XP preinstalled, or build a system from scratch. Now, building a system from scratch is fine if I want a desktop but what if I want a laptop. My customers are buying laptops noticeably more than desktops, at rate of at least 3 to 1. Sure I can buy a Vista system and downgrade it, but I have no support from the manufacturer what so ever. I can’t even get reliable drivers for XP unless the system was sold with XP preloaded. This is essentially forcing Vista, albeit in an arguably passive manner. I can accept that the sky is blue and the grass is green, but do I really just have to accept this?
Also, think back to Windows 2000. Sure it was not widely accepted over 98 when it came out, but that was mainly a consumer issue. As a side note, NT came first but was not a consumer product. It was strictly a corporate setup. So back to Windows 2000: Businesses loved it, they just had to learn it. For the first time Windows really had security and it was amazingly versatile. Anything was adjustable. Granted, a lot of the adjustments were hard to find or just plain hidden but the internet was really spreading, making these tweaks and customizations easier to understand and perform. The internet was easy to lock down, files were easy to encrypt, RAM was easy to manage, and a console was even available for startup processes. User rights were even applied and maintained fairly easily, and they worked. Now, all of this was not unheard of on a corporate level using NT, but now consumer, e.g. parents had these options. XP heralded a new era, and with it the customization was still there but lessened. The internet was not as easy to lock down without third party software and user rights were simply determined by the choice of administrator or user, with little else to configure. Vista has not improved this situation. Instead it continues the trend of A or B with no in between.
Finally, performance has been a big topic regarding Vista. Additions such as ReadyBoot and SuperPrefetch are nice on paper, but in the real world it simply adds more to the system load and ultimately cancels out the boost that they are designed to give. I will concede that the hardware is not as equal as it once was. CPU’s, GPU’s, and motherboard throughput have continued to speed up at amazing rates while the speeds of hard drives and optical drives have not improved in performance at a similar rate. However, the additions aforementioned along with others in Vista are simply adding to the overall tax of the hardware and not improving it. Think of it like opening a door. If I want to open a door the first thing I do is turn the knob and push or pull. If the door is unlocked then it opens. This can be equated to older operating systems such as 98 and 2000. If the door is locked then I must find the key, insert the key and turn, pull the key out, and open the door. It’s the same door, it’s just locked. This is the effect of Vista, with all of its new features to deal with hardware (the door), and it doesn’t work. The field test for this is downgrading a Vista system to XP. It always seems to run faster. To further add to the performance issue are the security features built into Vista. Viruses, malware, and malicious code are outpacing the growth of any other type of software in existence. As such, Microsoft tried to lock down Vista better than XP had been. The end result is at least one message popping up asking me if I am sure I want to do that, followed by at least one more message asking me if I’m really sure I want to do that. This is not only annoying, but slows my work flow down. Not only that, but now I’m frustrated with my computer which means I’m more likely to get less work done. A happy employee is a productive one.
So, ultimately Vista has failed in my eyes. I watched it start out as Longhorn, which was scrapped, followed by multiple other projects that were scrapped. In the end, the final product was an amalgamation of scrapped projects that slowed my system down, frustrated me endlessly, and didn’t even have the decency to let me lock it down so that my kids could use it without spending more money to buy third party products that slowed my system down even more.
