Windows Vista Shut me Down
Things over at Danifer Web Services have been ticking along nicely, so we decided to reward the office with a round of new computers. The machine I picked out for myself was a Gateway GT5405E. Things were running well on my old system, but you never can have too much computing power at your disposal.
Now I’m a pretty technical person – I operate this business and have built the last three systems I’ve owned, but Windows Vista is beyond me.
To start with, I’m not a huge fan of graphics and fade effects etc. unless they have some sort of purpose. Vista comes with all sorts of fly-in windows and whatnot that make it really cool looking for the first three hours. After that, you’ve got all your programs installed and you wonder why your brand new system is running slower than your old one!
Not to mention the fact that Vista is a really bloated operating system, here’s a list of stuff that broke or that I had a problem with:
- Adobe Distiller (which I use to print .pdf documents) is no longer supported.
- Outlook Express has been replaced with Windows Mail. Microsoft seems to have overlooked the simplicity aspect that has made Outlook Express so popular and added in lots and lots of features that I will never use.
- Since Outlook Express is discontinued, my recommended spam solution is also out of service. This means I have to rely on the Micorsoft built in spam filter which doesn’t work as well and by it’s own mass-market nature will be thwarted by spammers within weeks.
- My hobby game, Warcraft makes the video driver report an error.
- When I tried to downgrade to Windows XP from my existing copy, I find out that the XP CD doesn’t contain the drivers it needs to recognize the newer SATA hard drives. There’s a workaround to this, but I’m not going to pay $700+ for so I can stand on my head and dance in a circle and pray for a working computer.
Long story short, I took the machine back to Costco and I’m on old reliable now. Since you can’t buy a pre-loaded Windows XP machine at any major retailer (thanks again Microsoft) I’ll be combing ebay for my new box.
Windows Vista might turn out to be a fantastic operating system. Windows 98 did it, Windows XP did it, so why not? The problem is it’s going to take a while.
If you’re considering an upgrade you might want to hold off for six months. Let the rest of the computer buying public take the hit and work out the kinks for you. That said, you might not want to share this article with anyone ;)