This may be news to Jessica Mintz of the Associated Press, but not every Vista user has been griping. … I haven’t had too many issues since RTM. I’m running with UAC on, and I don’t run into UAC prompts all that often. I’ve rarely had driver issues (except for the first few weeks when Acer didn’t update their US support site), and all three machines in my house are running it. Overall, I love Windows Vista, and I can’t stand touching Windows XP. Heck, my mom and kid sister use it every day too, and they’ve hardly ever called me about tech-support issues.
Good reading.
Technorati Tags: Windows Vista
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
Color me happy about it. Of the three other friends of mine who are on it now, one loves it, the other loves it, and the third likes it although needed some walkthroughs to get a game working.
Not scientific, of course, but my point being that all this hand-wringing about Vista users being uniformly disgruntled is dishonest at best.
Not every Vista user isn’t griping, either. Color me ready to move to Leopard as soon as it is released. After 22 years, Vista has broken this Windows user’s will to go on.
I’ve heard from quite literally thousands of users of Vista, and here’s my take:
Users with a fresh install that aren’t trying to install old software are very happy.
Users upgrading XP and trying to use old software are very unhappy.
That’s pretty much the breakdown.
How-To Geek makes a good point, and in fact, one that Ed himself made several times in this blog over the past year, which is that Vista really shines on a Core2 Duo machine with lots of memory and a big new videocard. Short of that highest quality “Windows Experience,” Vista will be disappointing on standard XP hardware.
I just wish Microsoft would be as straightforward as Ed by recommending new/er hardware for Vista. I don’t mind; just tell me; I can handle it.
Honestly speaking, I cannot wait to transition to Vista. Actually I’ve been itching to do that because my current XP box is acting funky (for example, it won’t let me log off another user on the box until a good 15 minutes have elapsed!) and I really don’t feel like reformatting and re-installing XP again. But, there’s one big thing holding me back on Vista: Games.
I’m a pretty avid gamer, and I do love my games…but everything I have read so far seems to indicate that the graphics drivers have a long ways to go. Having said that I’m really on the verge of going through with an upgrade….but video drivers and Creative’s craziness with it’s Alchemy project is really making me wonder about whether I’ll be ready for the transition.
Where Vista really shines is on clean installations. The problems people are probably having on older systems may not just be a matter of older software… it could be badly designed software, or even leftover malware. A clean system is really the only way to guarantee that you’re getting the best experience possible.
Another new option is to use the Easy Transfer Companion to package up your old software, do a clean install, and then redeploy your old programs.
Either way, the best way to enjoy the Vista journey is to take as little baggage with you as possible.
I did a clean install on my ThinkPad T60 as soon as it was released. I agree with Ed that I will never go back to XP! I’m still struggling with my OKI printer but outside of that the experience is great.
I love it!
You’re right Robert:
“Either way, the best way to enjoy the Vista journey is to take as little baggage with you as possible.”
Vista problems come from trying to integrate Vista into an existing ecosystem … problem is, since XP came out things have changed a lot even in the consumer market and more home users have more than one PC and are savvy enough to think that they can migrate old hardware and software forward. That’s when things get difficult.
Happy Vista user here. XP is old and shows it’s age. I’ve had good experiences for the most part. Clean installs on my machines.
I’m a Vista user and i’m loving it… but it’s my fault really that sometimes Vista breaksdown on me or gives me some unexpected and annoying errors.
It’s because I love playing with it and discovering new facts and programs and other added features in Windows Vista. even trying software that are not compatible with Vista and finding ways to make it work at my Windows Vista is quite fun don’t you think…
Plus I love tweaking Windows Vista like I loved tweaking my WIndows XP. hehhe…
I think that part of the problem is that happy users don’t crow as loudly as unhappy ones do. Combine that fact with the shear number of Windows users, and it seems like a wall of unhappiness.
I run Vista x64 on a Dell Dimension with 4GB of RAM and I like it.
I bought a new HP dv9340eu notebook with Vista Home Premium preinstalled and I am really pleased with Vista. Apart from NIS 2007 giving me anything but a quiet life (un-installed) and now using Windows Live OneCare which IMHO is alright but not very good at letting you configure the thing to your own liking. The only other thing is that I have to run Photoshop Elements 4 as administrator. I just hope that when SP1 comes out MS will make Vista better and not cripple it. I await with interest. J.B.
I think it depends what software you use… with some games and other software I use, the UAC screams like a raped ape as soon as you start them up. With others it doesn’t give a murmer. Okay, this is down to bad software authoring rather than anything in Vista itself (it’s reasonable for UAC to need confirmation to install a patch, for example, but silly to have to give UAC confirmation every time the software checks for an available patch), but annoying is annoying no matter who’s to blame.
Jim Blog,
Can you give me some examples of software that causes problems with UAC? In general, any program that does that is just plain badly written and has been for years. Those are the same programs that made it so difficult for XP users to run in limited accounts.
All that UAC does in these cases is expose these crappy apps. So if you can name some names, that would be helpful.