dragonchild: ... long-winded rant ...

So, call tech support. It's obvious that you don't know how to properly set up a computer, so let someone else handle it. Maybe they can even hold your hand and show you some simple things, if you don't get too scared.

/Vista's been running like a champ on all my machines - even the 3 year old desktop I've got sitting in the corner

king_nacho: My test mac at work however prompts considerably more.

What the hell are you doing? It should only prompt if you're trying to drop something in /Applications or running a package.

/Vista's prompted me more
//The Mac SHOULD'VE prompted me for something it didn't that Vista did.
///Cupertino, start your copiers!

I'm amazed no one has mentioned the Apple Newton yet.

tweekster: Bored Horde: You don't need to tweak vista to run it as you said.

According to the poster I replied to you do. I also agree. They shouldn't have a lot of the crap turned on that they do.

My first experience with vista was a dell laptop, dual core, 2 gigs of ram, hardly a slow machine....6 minutes to boot and become actually usable.

I agree that you shouldn't have to tweak an OS to make it usable, but that is not exactly what I said. The point I was trying to make was that it is fairly simple to turn off all of the security protection and other annoyances that people spend hours complaining about. I thoroughly enjoy tweaking an operating system anyway to get maximum performance so this did not bother me the slightest bit.

Also if I may ask, did that Dell laptop come with Vista? Was it an upgrade or a clean install? There is no reason that it should take that long. When I was saying that Vista took a long time to boot it was more like a minute and a half. This was also on a laptop with similar specs.

I will say one thing though about Vista / Windows 7, they both have WAY TOO MANY services on by default. Does every machine need 3 different tablet PC services running? What percentage of the market are tablets? .5%?

i hate ME with such a passion. I was a beta tester for that POS. I wrote a letter to M.S. pleading with them not to release it.

writer is an idiot. Every single one of those products not only sold well, but it moved the tech industry forward.

If you did a "50 most influential tech ideas of the last decade" every single one of those would be on the list.

I would like to add something for you tweekster. For most users there isn't a whole lot of benefit from switching from XP to Vista, I will admit that. Personally, I enjoy learning and playing with new things. That's how I ended up with Vista, now Windows 7. I just do not feel that it deserves the awful rap it has gotten. If there is one thing to be said, it is remarkably stable.

dragonchild: Bored Horde: How can people seriously hate an OS. It blows my goddamn mind that some people are acually investing this much emotional attachment to a tool that you use. It's like hating a type of claw hammer or actually loving a brand of spark plug.

If I hate a brand of spark plug, I can always change manufacturers. When I get a computer for work, I'm stuck with whatever the company is willing to pay for, and with Microsoft's stranglehold on the OS bundling monopoly, that means it's Vista or nothing. And mind you, I came from tech support, so it's not like I'm confusing the DVD drive for a coaster. When said computer is keeping me from getting shiat done on a level comparable to Fark, I am going to get pissed. At least Fark makes me laugh.

1) It randomly re-arranges my desktop icons.
2) If it goes into sleep mode, I lose all my display settings. I have to reboot to get the dual display working again, which also triggers #1 above.
3) I tried to run an update and a prompt came up saying it could not verify the source. The source was Microsoft. It couldn't recognize itself. This OS is only a couple years old and it's already got Alzheimer's. When it asked if I trust the source, I was very tempted to click "No".
4) Half the time Explorer will not map a USB drive, even if I refresh.
5) It gives me the option but completely ignores all my pleas to use the same view settings for all folders.

I could go on. And on, and on. We're talking absolutely RETARDED bugs that have NOTHING to do with my configuration and would get the thing hammer-flunked in any sort of half-decent QA process. Some of them may be fixable, but if that's a defense then I consider it rather troubling that America actually contains people so awesomely stupid they consider it normal to have to fix a new product out of the box.

I don't care if it works fine on someone else's machine or if some fanboy loves sucking Balmer's cock, whatever. Frankly, I don't wish anyone ill will if they're lucky enough have Vista work for them, but goddammit, consider the possibility you're LUCKY instead of just going, "Well, it works for me so Vista must be great and you just suck," like some retarded asshole. (Not talkin' about you, Bored Horde, just in general.)

I have backgrounds in both engineering and programming so while I'm hardly a genius I know a farking BAD design when I see it. I'm lucky to have avoided ME but in my perspective this thing is a more disgusting pile of crap than Octomom's afterbirth.

Yes, all those Vista installs that work fine are just people who got LUCKY.

/you did get one thing right, you're hardly a genius.

t3knomanser: The Angry Hand of God: The point I was trying to make was that it is fairly simple to turn off all of the security protection and other annoyances that people spend hours complaining about.

I can't turn UAC off- it's required by group policy.

I am sure that there is a very good reason for that. Not trying to insult you, because you do seem to be quite educated in the field, but for the average PC user it does have a purpose, especially from a system administration standpoint.

DeathByGeekSquad: "It's Vista capable!*"

to be fair, that was Microsoft's fault. That was an MS initiative.

List is a failure for talking about Vista, and not mentioning this:

dragonchild:

I came from tech support, so it's not like I'm confusing the DVD drive for a coaster.

1) It randomly re-arranges my desktop icons.
2) If it goes into sleep mode, I lose all my display settings. I have to reboot to get the dual display working again, which also triggers #1 above.
3) I tried to run an update and a prompt came up saying it could not verify the source. The source was Microsoft. It couldn't recognize itself. This OS is only a couple years old and it's already got Alzheimer's. When it asked if I trust the source, I was very tempted to click "No".
4) Half the time Explorer will not map a USB drive, even if I refresh.
5) It gives me the option but completely ignores all my pleas to use the same view settings for all folders.

I could go on. And on, and on. We're talking absolutely RETARDED bugs that have NOTHING to do with my configuration and would get the thing hammer-flunked in any sort of half-decent QA process.

I don't care if it works fine on someone else's machine

I have backgrounds in both engineering and programming so while I'm hardly a genius I know a farking BAD design when I see it. I'm lucky to have avoided ME but in my perspective this thing is a more disgusting pile of crap than Octomom's afterbirth.

Sorry, but that I deal with at least 4 Vista machine on a regular basis, where not one of your issues has ever appeared, plus the fact that I've never head anyone mentioning these things ever, I have to come to the conclusion that I would never hire you to do any computer related work.

It sounds like you're doing something wrong, don't have a clue or something, and can't acknowledge it. There's very little chance for "luck" here.


_{/not meant as a flame, just a reality check}

MindStalker: 4. Vonage -- Stil has enough mindshare that if they significantly lowered their price they could do quite well. But they simply want way too much.

Certainly true but they've convinced themselves they are "just as good" as the phone company when in reality they are, as my friend Rob would say, "a shower of coonts." The customer service is atrocious and not because you can't contact anyone but that anyone you contact implements draconian policies that abuse the customer endlessly.

When you ask them to correct their mistakes they want to charge you fees. When you want to leave because their service is no longer economical for you you have to basically threaten them with civil/criminal litigation to terminate service.

And what I was once paying $55/mo for from them I am getting for about $11/mo now.

Someone will buy them for the customer base and that will be it.

dragonchild: I could go on. And on, and on. We're talking absolutely RETARDED bugs that have NOTHING to do with my configuration and would get the thing hammer-flunked in any sort of half-decent QA process. Some of them may be fixable, but if that's a defense then I consider it rather troubling that America actually contains people so awesomely stupid they consider it normal to have to fix a new product out of the box.

if this were true it would happen to everyone.

It's like saying "Toyotas are pieces of crap, they keep stopping for no reason, I shouldn't have to keep putting gas into it."

damn... Fark ate my italics...


imfallen_angel: dragonchild:

I came from tech support, so it's not like I'm confusing the DVD drive for a coaster.

1) It randomly re-arranges my desktop icons.
2) If it goes into sleep mode, I lose all my display settings. I have to reboot to get the dual display working again, which also triggers #1 above.
3) I tried to run an update and a prompt came up saying it could not verify the source. The source was Microsoft. It couldn't recognize itself. This OS is only a couple years old and it's already got Alzheimer's. When it asked if I trust the source, I was very tempted to click "No".
4) Half the time Explorer will not map a USB drive, even if I refresh.
5) It gives me the option but completely ignores all my pleas to use the same view settings for all folders.

I could go on. And on, and on. We're talking absolutely RETARDED bugs that have NOTHING to do with my configuration and would get the thing hammer-flunked in any sort of half-decent QA process.

I don't care if it works fine on someone else's machine

I have backgrounds in both engineering and programming so while I'm hardly a genius I know a farking BAD design when I see it. I'm lucky to have avoided ME but in my perspective this thing is a more disgusting pile of crap than Octomom's afterbirth.

Sorry, but that I deal with at least 4 Vista machine on a regular basis, where not one of your issues has ever appeared, plus the fact that I've never head anyone mentioning these things ever, I have to come to the conclusion that I would never hire you to do any computer related work.

It sounds like you're doing something wrong, don't have a clue or something, and can't acknowledge it. There's very little chance for "luck" here.


/not meant as a flame, just a reality check

I will humbly admit to the unnecessary redundancy of whining about Millennium Edition.

I see that it has been well covered already.

/Currently posting this from a lappy running Vista
//ME was far worse
///Vista is like a retarded cousin, ME was like an abusive uncle who would molest you when drunk

I came looking for the Itanium processor and haven't seen a mention yet. Most of the development fail might've happened in the '90s but the actual hardware hit the ground in '01, and failed. Intel and HP bet huge on this market ans spend billions on it, I'm guessing they spent more that Microsoft spent on Vista and they failed even bigger.

The Angry Hand of God: I agree that you shouldn't have to tweak an OS to make it usable, but that is not exactly what I said. The point I was trying to make was that it is fairly simple to turn off all of the security protection and other annoyances that people spend hours complaining about. I thoroughly enjoy tweaking an operating system anyway to get maximum performance so this did not bother me the slightest bit.

Also if I may ask, did that Dell laptop come with Vista? Was it an upgrade or a clean install? There is no reason that it should take that long. When I was saying that Vista took a long time to boot it was more like a minute and a half. This was also on a laptop with similar specs.

I used to be that way, now a days I just want something that doesn't cause me problems. I manage my office network of about 20 computers and XP works just fine for that.

It may very well have been an issue with the laptop itself from dell (no surprise there) but it was my first impression of vista. It was about 2 months old and came with vista.

Personally I could get away with a low power NAS, HTPC and a netbook/slightly larger notebook for my home use.

I wish windows would take a note from openbox/blackbox. I love the custom menu that is always a right click away.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller: Google would be absolutely stupid NOT to do this.

Do you really believe that? Google's brand and the trust it has developed with end-users is probably its most valuable asset. The switching costs in our core business is negligible -- just type in a different URL, and you've switched. Do you really think that if we secretly sold personal data to outside companies it would go undiscovered?

Maybe if you're working for a company that's primarily looking to meet quarterly goals it makes sense. The view here is a bit more long-term than that.

I like Vista. Sue me.

I use the Cowon A3 for my portable video needs, but I do use iPods for audio.

So what does everyone think is a proper top 10?

My two cents:

1.) AOL
2.) Zune
3.) Sony MiniDisc
4.) Nokia N-Gage
5.) Sirus XM
6.) Vista
7.) HD DVD
8.) Go.com (The GO Network)
9.) Excite.Com
10.) Every Newspaper Portal Business Model (With exceptions going to NYT.com and The WSJ)

mofomisfit: Yes, all those Vista installs that work fine are just people who got LUCKY.

Someone has never heard of failure rates.

If a failure rate is, say, 30%, you can consider yourself "lucky" in that you were NOT one of the "unlucky" ones. 7 out of 10 users report no problems whatsoever. But from an engineering perspective, 30% is on the level of embarrassing disaster.

Ad hoc numbers, but just sayin'.

imfallen_angel: It sounds like you're doing something wrong, don't have a clue or something, and can't acknowledge it.

I put the computer in Sleep mode and it farks up the desktop icon arrangement. I put a USB drive in the USB slot and it won't map the drive. Did you imagine I was reverse-engineering drivers or did something complicated to mess up the machine or something?

Your perspective is, I haven't heard of these problems before, ergo, they must not exist? Fine, don't believe me, but the feeling that you wouldn't hire me for computer work is mutual. I'm painfully familiar with "user error" on the tech support side but I'm also familiar as a user with tech support guys who blow off problems they consider inconvenient to avoid doing their jobs.

DeanMoriarty: It's like saying "Toyotas are pieces of crap, they keep stopping for no reason, I shouldn't have to keep putting gas into it."

Since when the bloody hell is refueling a car considered a repair?

Freak Flag Fly: Do you really believe that? Google's brand and the trust it has developed with end-users is probably its most valuable asset. The switching costs in our core business is negligible -- just type in a different URL, and you've switched. Do you really think that if we secretly sold personal data to outside companies it would go undiscovered?

If you think Google doesn't market its audience, you're delusional. There's nothing secret about it.

"We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Google. "

Google's terms of use - in the privacy policy.

dragonchild: Since when the bloody hell is refueling a car considered a repair?

exactly. just because you don't know how to put gas in the car doesn't mean it constantly needs "repairs."

Sultan1798: 8.) Go.com (The GO Network)
9.) Excite.Com

Hehehe, I forgot about those.

I don't hate Vista as much as some. My biggest gripe is that it forgets my folder view settings. Why can't I set it so that everything is in the "details" view?? DirectX10 was a let down, not much performance gain or noticeable difference in games. Also, I can no longer get a search option when right clicking folders.. >:(

Hibernate/stand-by always cause a BSOD. And those video desktop backgrounds cause all sorts of lockups and video-driver problems.

Bring on Windows 7

There's nothing technically wrong with the Zune, it's really just a marketing failure.

I like my Zune.

dragonchild: 1) It randomly re-arranges my desktop icons.
2) If it goes into sleep mode, I lose all my display settings. I have to reboot to get the dual display working again, which also triggers #1 above.

Dual display on Vista *is* a biatch. However, there's a tweak to fix it which I did a while back which resolves the above issues.

Damned if I can remember what it was though. Search around.

farking slideshows. Freak Flag Fly is the man.


Vista is alright. XP is alright. I just spent hours and hours fixing a laptop with XP on it. It wasn't the OS's fault, it was the users. When it comes down to it, now I prefer Vista over XP.

There is one feature I wish windows would get. A framework/package system for software updates. ALL software should use one consistent application system for updating, instead of having individual updaters always biatching there is a new release (I don't give a fark, just install the god damn thing, it isn't critical software anyways)

My wife and I just got a new PC and put 64 bit vista on it. The thing pigs memory. It uses a cache to store some operations (which is good), but we put in 6gigs of RAM and it hovers between 3-4 gigs used. It was still sluggish with a dual core 2.5 ghz proc and 6 gigs of ram. I turned off the 3d desktop, turned off the widgets on the side, and it works pretty well now. So it works fine if you TURN OFF it's default desktop features, not services, not database engines, not application servers, not things that are doing serious work. DESKTOP features that make it pretty slow it down, what a piece of crap.

karmaceutical: is the zune that bad?

No. Marketing failure != bad product. The iPod was firmly entrenched well before the first Zune's release. Also, Microsoft's initial decision not to use the built-in wifi for sync was incredibly stupid. Luckily they saw the light... eventually.

dragonchild


Did you perhaps try googling for hotfixes? Or did you just keep mashing the windows update icon and give up after that didn't solve your problems.

Use any obscure or 4 year old hardware? Crappy budget models from noname companies? Companies with poor driver support?

Reading that bizarre post, you strike me as someone who probably thought the high profile problem with the Sound Blaster cards and Vista was Microsoft's fault and not Creative being greedy in an attempt to force everyone to buy new hardware.

When a new operating system is released, hardware manufacturers sometimes try to take advantage by forcing users to buy new hardware despite the fact that the old hardware would work with minor driver updates.

Bored Horde: I call bullshiat.

He may have had one of those machines loaded up with 500 piece of crapware.

My single core celeron 1.7ghz with 2gb ram laptop boots in about 45 seconds-60 seconds including all the things I have load up at the beginning.

My quad core Vista machines run awesomely. I like Vista more than XP, but I actually use Vista, not just complain about things.

Lothar IB: It isn't that vista is worse than ME it is that vista failed to live up to the unreasonable expectations everyone had for it.

Kinda fixed that for ya... Funny thing about unreasonable expectations, they often lead to disappointment.

As for the list itself... this guy obviously has an ax to grind with Microsoft. Far from an objective opinion. Besides... This information is from "24/7 Wall St"... How is it you guys suddenly trust anybody having to do with Wall Street?

My guess... Some Wall Street idiot hoped to make crazy profits by buying Microsoft stock right before Vista hit the market. Then when Vista didn't make MS stock jump up and split, the Wall Street idiot gets pissed off and forever claims Vista is bad.

And yes... I like Vista. I like it better than XP. I was one of those people who actually went through XP's growing pains, and let me tell you from first hand experience... they were far worse than Vista's. In fact XP's release, by comparison, was ABSOLUTE crap.

Cue someone saying that my 25 years of experience using PC's means nothing and I don't know what I'm talking about.

vliam: I've seen zSuite

zSuite doesn't work with the newest Zune firmware. The Zune software isn't bad

Ant: vliam: I've seen zSuite

zSuite doesn't work with the newest Zune firmware. The Zune software isn't bad

I think one of the best mp3 players available is a blackberry. Good sound quality and a very simple interface to get music on there. Drag and drop your files, it will figure it out (which is very nice for loading it from multiple computers, or giving someone else tracks)

vliam: I already own a bunch of music that is properly tagged and sorted. I don't need software that offers a bunch of features that are all implemented poorly, like iTunes.

I think you might like the zune sw. I already had all my mp3s tagged as well, and it didn't mess with them.

My new laptop came preloaded with Vista SP1, and I was dreading it.

Love it. Not a single problem.

t3knomanser: No, ME was definitely worse than Vista. I'm on Vista right now. It's just another mediocre instance of the general Microsoft hostility to their users. ME would sneak out of your computer and ass rape you in your sleep, smelling of cheap booze and whispering, "Big boys don't cry, Jimmy. Big boys don't cry."

Just in case there was in question why I had teknomanser marked as a favorite.

atheist1295: Vista wasn't that bad, but having said that, Windows 7 is a lot better.


And Sirius-XM is great. I couldn't live without it. Both companies before the merger were having cash flow problems, and the merger was supposed to alleviate that. It hasn't yet, but there is a lot of money backing the whole thing.

With almost 19 million subscribers and growing, I think it's a little early to count the satellite radio industry as a failure....Think of it as a work in progress.

If you really want to see radio in trouble, turn your eye to the terrestrial stations. They're truly the ones having trouble competing with mp3 players and such.

SomuchTHIS

Regular Radio is dying. They cannot compete with anything; content or mobility. (Flycast, ipods, internet radio.) Siriusxm is amazing and has kept me away from listening to terrestrial radio in my car for the past 4 years.

The only way radio is going to come back is if they gave away a car and a puppy every 10 minutes for the next 10 years.

/Works at a radio station that's going down the tubes.

Ika7734: My wife and I just got a new PC and put 64 bit vista on it. The thing pigs memory. It uses a cache to store some operations (which is good), but we put in 6gigs of RAM and it hovers between 3-4 gigs used. It was still sluggish with a dual core 2.5 ghz proc and 6 gigs of ram. I turned off the 3d desktop, turned off the widgets on the side, and it works pretty well now. So it works fine if you TURN OFF it's default desktop features, not services, not database engines, not application servers, not things that are doing serious work. DESKTOP features that make it pretty slow it down, what a piece of crap.

I would uninstall the stuff you don't need.

I have a $500 Toshiba laptop with a 2 GHz dual core and 3 Gb of RAM, and Vista on that machine runs slightly faster than XP does on my old 3GHz single core 2GB RAM desktop. I didn't disable anything of the eye candy because it runs well enough for me to not care.

Chuck Wagon: Fuggin Bizzy: Chuck Wagon: palexc: Dumb question: Iridium launched satellites...are they still orbiting and what are they being used for?

Link (new window)

Very much still in use, as others pointed out. Even though Motorola lost a ton of money on it, it should not be on this list. The service launched in 98, over 10 years ago. List Fail.

??

Do you have a long enough attention span to follow your own train of thought as you type?

The list is tech failues of the last 10 years. Irridium is over 10 years old. Moran.

Maybe the list makers made an exception of a few months because of the colossal failure that Iridium was. Frankly, it was the first name that came to mind when I saw the headline. Asinine nit-picking aside, it deserves a spot on any list of recent tech failures - I'd even go so far as to say it deserves the #1 spot.