“Vista has proved to be a disappointment, even though Microsoft says it’s selling like hotcakes. Based on my own experience and on reports from readers, it’s clear that many Vista PCs start up more slowly than new PCs running its predecessor, Windows XP, or than even well-worn Macs. And there is still a significant compatibility problem: Too many software and hardware products still don’t run, or don’t run properly, with Vista,” Walt Mossberg writes in his annual fall PC buyer’s guide for The Wall Street Journal.
“So, if you’re shopping for a new Windows computer, one of your first decisions is whether you want to get Vista, which comes on almost all new models, or to stick with Windows XP,” Mossberg writes.
MacDailyNews Take: This is what it’s come to in Windows PC Land (aka Personal Computing Hell): Get a bloated Windows Vista that’s plagued with incompatibilities and frustrations while trying desperately (and failing) to look and act like an older version of Apple’s Mac OS X or go with an old (released on October 25, 2001 — six years ago!), upside-down and backwards Windows XP that’s still trying desperately (and failing) to look and act like Apple’s Classic Mac OS. Sheesh.
Mossberg continues, “Your other option is to shun the Windows dilemma and buy a Macintosh. I regard the Mac operating system as superior to Windows, and Apple embeds it in beautifully designed machines. Macs have been spared the plague of viruses and spyware that afflicts Windows, and have better built-in multimedia software.”
Full article here.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
A friend of mine just let me know he spent $2000 on a new high end rig. I tried to warn him, but I think he got tired of of what he perceived to be salt rubbing.
Here’s the real funny thing, he got this “biggest F-ing machine he’s even seen” so that he could edit video of his new daughter. He could’ve gotten a comparable iMac for about $500 less.
Poor stubborn bastard. The real sad part of the story, is that I probably won’t hear about the all the trouble he’s having. Guy’s not very fond of I told you sos.
childish take as usual
I was showing my iPhone to a few people at church when one friend said, “What’s a Mac?” Nuff said. I bit my tongue and said a prayer for her brain.
I didn’t realize the Amish were that powerful. Good for them.
The biggest disappointment about Vista is it’s ungodly, ridiculously slow file cut/copy/move/delete operations. Whether you’re working with files on your hard drive, on an external, or over a network, expect copying, moving and deleting to take at least 10 times longer than it would on XP. I have two vista machines and one XP. A routine network copy I have to perform every day for work takes 3 minutes on XP, and 30 on either of my Vista machines. A little googling reveals that this is a well-known, well-publicized problem that affects all machines running Vista. Yet, in the whole year that Vista has been out, Microsoft has not fixed this problem, and none of the “helpful hints” I’ve found in discussion boards have done anything to speed up file operations.
This is absolutely unforgivable. In my office, all of our storage is networked, and if we ever deployed Vista in its current state, it would be a productivity nightmare.
If you’re having trouble with Vista, give the IT guys where you work a call. In the rare event my rockin’ Dell has some problem with Vista they always straighten me out. Usually the problem is third party software. Why can’t some developers get on board with the fine folks at Microsoft and get it right? Anyway, I showed this article to the IT guys where I work and they never heard of this Mossberg guy, and more importantly they can’t help with MAC issues. You MAC lemmings are stuck with those smug ‘Geniuses’ at those snobby MAC stores. Whatever.
It doesn’t hurt to bring your IT guys donuts. I do it every Monday morning.
Your potential. Our passion.™
That “friend”, at the least, and I’m be charitable, is obviously nowhere near college age, and/or doesn’t have a child in college.
@ ballonknot
How do you edit Video and have it look Pro without Finial Cut Studio?
The POS Sony Video Editing Software or MS Movie Maker??
Got to have a Mac for Editing Video or your movies look like the PC Home Movie (in the get a Mac Ad)
Does ANYone actually CARE about Vista?
Another good recommendation from Walt!
Got a friend who’s just ungraded at the expense of ungodly time, trouble and money his Windows computer (blue fan lights are cool in a junior sort of way,I have to admit).
Has he isntalled Vista? Nooo — XP of course. He admits that Macs look great, work great etc.
But he likes tinkering with DOS he says. He also likes spending Saturdays under the hood of his auto, so I guess that’s the reason. Once a hobbyist, always a hobbyist.
Shame though, and he also echoes the (amazingly) still-current “no viruses because there are so few Macs out there” blaa.
Vista is so pretty!
Superior+Apple Macintosh=Redundant
DJ: Sounds like your addicted-to-tinkering friend belongs on Linux, not Windows.
Enough of all this Mac stuff . . . WHERE’S MY “PHUNE”? Since the good folks at Microshaft are so far ahead of Apple in all things technological, it must be in the marketplace somewhere! Was is released last June, perhaps, but nobody noticed it?
Come on, Zune Tang. Give us an answer: “Where’s our Phune?”
Lovin’ Vista: Vista is pretty if you like icons for trial ware strewn across the desktop like garbage. Vista is pretty if you like giant round analog clocks and huge calendars taking up 30% of the screen by default. Vista is pretty if you like the screen blanking out and flickering every time it pops up a “protect the user from himself” dialog box.
I guess it’s a good thing that you think Vista is pretty…it’s so damn slow you’re gonna get an awful long time to stare at it while you wait for your computer to catch up with you.
I’m running a seven and a half year old G4 400. Since installing OSX four years ago, my machine has crashed once (crash as in that grey screen comes on saying someting like “Please restart your computer”). I have to use PCs at work, and it’s not uncommon for me to crash three or so times per day.
By the way, when the new Mac Pros come out, one of them will be mine.
Jooop:
Thirty minutes for a network file copy shoudn’t be tolerated by any company that wants to stay in business.
Didn’t Gates claim that Windows Vista was perfect for mission-critical operations like hospitals?
It sounds more like a WAD, Weapon of Asset Destruction.
People who use Windows and like it deserve what they get.
You’ve bored us to tears once again. Yawn.
Endogenous: Exactly. And do you know what Microsoft’s answer to this problem is? “Use the command line!” Seriously! They’re right, when you do a copy via the command line, it happens at the same speed it would if you did it through the GUI on XP. But who the fuck should tolerate that?
Apparently the slowness has to do with Vista’s DRM implementation…it has to check every file to make sure it’s not “premium content” before it can copy it over. So if you have 1 file, the operation shouldn’t take that much longer than it does on XP, but if you’re copying over a folder of like 50 small 1MB files, then go to lunch, and Vista might still be working on that operation when you come back.
Gotta be careful or we’ll get so many people with Macs that the bad guys will start making viruses for US…
…get on board with the fine folks at Microsoft…
I prefer swimming in a sharkpool…!
Zune Tang:
You are the “Colbert” of the boards
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Keep it up!!!
@Jooop
What’s a command line?