Recently, I bought a new PC(I returned it, I'm about to tell you why) and it had great hardware for it's price. I paid about 688 USD for a system with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+(2.6 ghz PER core!), 320 GB HD, 1Gig RAM, and obviously the OS was Windows Vista Home Premium.
The problem:
Vista uses a LOT of RAM and HD space(not that filesize mattered since I had 320 gigs to blow off). It was just extremely resource inefficiant, and my particular version of the OS used over 500 megs of RAM, and about 27 gigs of HD. The OS itself is pretty slow, some of the slowness having to do with its over exaggerated "security." When you plug in external drives or pop-in CD's, sometimes(I don't know if it has to do with filesize or type of the content, I didn't bother to check cuz I was mad) Vista takes a BUTTLOAD of time opening the external storage device because it's either doing one of the two: 1.scanning for "threats" or 2. doing some wierd formatting. ( choice 2. I know for sure because I got some messege box saying that one time, choice 1. not confirmed but sounds like something dumb that MS would implement) To top it off, Vista sparked a sense of paranoia in me:
http://digg.com/security/NSA_Admits_..._Contributions
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...s_micro_1.html
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So anyways, after my first hour with Vista, I hated it. So I decided to get a different operating system. I tried different distributions of Linux(And tried Damn Small Linux for the first time, It's pretty damn good for it's size) and even some older versions of Windows, and after the first few OS installations, I noticed a lot of things weren't working, like I had no connection to the net.(Oh and BTW, Vista no longer uses "boot.ini" on prebult systems, it doesn't exists and in systems where it is implemented: Vista ignores it; instead, you have to work through some settings in the control panel.) Then I realized: DOH! I forgot to install all my drivers. So I installed SiSandra and got my full system specs, beyond what the nooby sticker tells you. So I got the model names and manufacturers for all my hardware. Next, I set off on an epic journey to find the correct drivers- only to fail. I soon learned that all my hardware that needed drivers only had Vista versions of their drivers available. So yeah, I wasted a huge chunk of my life trying to make my computer better.
Also, Vista's UI treats you like you are totally computer illiterate, especially in IE7, come on, it doesn't even give you a choice where your downloaded files are saved. (Not that I use IE anyway)
So later on(2 days after I bought the PC) I returned it. The Geek Squad guy asked me why, and I told him my story, he seemed to agree. This was the first time I ever thought a Geek Squad employee was intelligent. Every other Geek Squad person I've ever met seemed pretty much computer illiterate besides being able to install firewalls and use MS Office.
If you don't care about the Ow that will start the moment you run Vista, here's some advice, buy an extra small HD, about 40 gigs(you never know what Vista will try to install under your nose) and just run vista from that HD so you don't have to deal with it messing with your boot settings on your other drive. Then just keep your other OS on your normal drive, as Vista can't run many apps for older OS's.
NEVER buy a prebuilt system that is running Vista - It will give you hell.
All in all, I give Vista a -666/10 for being so resource inefficient, slow, outragously large, and all around the crappiest OS I have ever had the displeasure to use.
Like I said:
The Ow starts NOW
Linear Mode
