Top 10 Windows Vista Annoyance Myths

Before I start; I’ve been using XP since SP1 and I’ve never had problems with it. With Vista RC1 & RC2 I gave up on strike 3, driver and application support was horrible for me, although driver/app support improved drastically since RC1 & 2. With al three times I had a dual boot with XP, so if Vista stuffs around just restart, no prob.

I’m going to give Vista another try, but this time with sp1 included (yes I know, always keep an open mind) and making more effort to solve driver and software conflicts. No dual boot, all guns blazing, dare devil style this time.

So today I came across this article by Diana Huggins on TechRepublic, she wrote a very well written (unlike my posts sometimes;) ) article about the top 10 Vista annoyances. She makes some good points and she obviously feels very strongly about her vista experience.

I read though the article and couldn’t help saying “but that’s not true” the whole time. Although I wouldn’t really say “NOT TRUE!” More like “that’s not applicable” or “you can just change that”.

I don’t want to shoot her down or say she is clueless, she speaks from a beginners point of view in the article, but then mixes advanced features and ‘issues’ in between. Vista is far from perfect, but I’m getting tired of people jumping onto the vista-bad-mouthing bandwagon.

Here lies Diana Huggins’ 10 points and how I feel about them:

1. No more boot.ini

Good point! Next one… (just kidding, dual booting with XP & Vista is easier for a beginner as it just works without specific setup, but more difficult for an advanced user to change advanced settings.)

2. Buried display settings

Yes, for someone changing from 16bit to 32bit display or switching resolution often this would be irritating, especially if you keep forgetting where it is. Just like how I have to try and find my computer every time. Change is good sometimes, Vista had to change something to be able to sell it as a new product. Anyway… select the correct display settings then you configure vista and don’t change it daily.

3. Control Panel Clutter

Even on XP, it’s the first thing everyone does; is change control panel to classic view. Vista’s control panel on classic view is pretty much the same as XP with just a little more icons and more features, nothing to get a headache about.

4. Shutdown Options

So the default shutdown is changed to a faster one… We all realized this with the first shutdown, we go:“aah Crap!” and make the right choice from there on. XP also has a bunch of shutdown options, those options are just well hidden. So in fact, Vista is bringing us all those options and making it more accessable. A new user should stick to the plain shutdown (as it works best) and not play around with the other 8 shutdown options like a newbie would.

5. Application Support

Yes this was bad, but the keyword here: was. Obviously this will improve over time and isn’t necessarily Vista’s fault. It also took some time for applications to work on XP, this is normal for new Windows products.

6. Aero Hardware Requrements

“remember that this feature is not available in the Home Basic edition.” Correct, so if you don’t have a PC that can run Aero, Home should be perfect for you. Aero requirements are really not that bad, you should really worry if your PC is struggling with Aero. Or just Disable Aero :-/

7. Too many flavours

For the uninformed

For the lazy

More options will widen the product target market…

8. UAC Prompts

Google is your friend

9. Budget breaker

Like everyone, Windows isn’t perfect but price drops have been happening and expect more to come.

10. Usability Issues

Because having 10 points sounds better than 9.

You can read the full 10 point article here.

If you feel that gaming on Vista is too slow, just get 4GB RAM

~ by Francois Wiid on May 23, 2008.