Was Windows Vista really that bad?

[qubit]

I can't believe it's already been a decade - Vista was released to business around this time in 2006 and the great unwashed in early 2007.

While it was certainly pretty bad in the beginning with its crashes, high system requirements and incompatibility, it was a whole lot better after SP2 and later patches, being nice and stable and things generally working. It was always kinda sluggish on the desktop though, even on a fast system in my experience. W7 finally fixed that and a whole lot more.

But what of gaming performance? How does it compare to XP and W10? Check out the video and find out.

IMO it was the best looking OS, with the GUI achieving that wow factor look which Microsoft intended.

 

[Kursah]

I loved it after SP2 and ran it more often than XP before SP2 and dealt with it.

What was the best was x64 SP2. Stable, smooth, good looking.

 

[Melvis]

The damage had already been done to Vista before SP2 came out and statistics proves this but after Windows 8/8.1 and 10 came out I think Vista isnt as bad anymore lol but......its still a resource hog and loves to do the whole "not responding" thing alot.

Also most of the machines ive seen with Vista are running 32bit, super rare to see a 64bit version and the system specs were appalling, 512MB to 2GB RAM? really.

 

[Slizzo]

Never had issues with my Vista install personally. Was stable, and since I had 4gb of ram at the time (wow!) I never saw any performance issues. Sure it used a lot of resources sitting idle but that was because it kept things in cache available for when you sat down to use it, thus improving responsiveness.

But then, I also liked Windows 8/8.1 as well, however, I did have a license for Start 8 which made it mostly like a Windows 7 install for me.

 

[cadaveca]

I used Vista a lot, and even advocated a bit for it because it wasn't that bad, but for sure, it was a slower than it could have been.

But then, I also liked Windows 8/8.1 as well, however, I did have a license for Start 8 which made it mostly like a Windows 7 install for me.

I did the same with 8/8.1 as well, but I did not modify it at all. I don't tend to muck about with OS installs and tend to have fewer weird issues to deal with as a result.

 

[Vario]

The big computer companies were heavily promoting vista, selling bundled Vista computers with weak processors and insufficient ram, that didn't help with the image. 512mb ram and single core P4 was not enough to run it well.

I had a Dell Vostro core 2 duo and 4 gb of ram with Vista and it worked fine. I didn't upgrade it to 7 until recently when I had a spare key.

Does anyone remember Windows Mojave?
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-looks-to-mojave-to-revive-vistas-image/

 

[Solaris17]

I remember beta testing it and it had alot of issues. but honestly it was groundbreaking. it was gorgeous. After SP2 I had no issues with it at all and never really understood all the hate. Personally I think all the bad memories about it using more resources or being more unstable were unfounded or unfair. Of course it used more resources.

It introduced Aero and other explorer effects to the likes of which we had never seen. It also had its bugs. but we were also just ironing out x64 back then. Vista was a representation of an industry change where GPUs did more than play video games, OSs could be pretty and multicore CPUs were hitting mainstream for consumers.

If it had been any other OS we would have hated that instead. Vista was not without its issues, but Vista was a victim of circumstance.

 

[AsRock]

Later in life it was much better, although never had any real issue's with it tbh, i was using it a good amount of time after Win7 came out.

 

[Vario]

Later in life it was much better, although never had any real issue's with it tbh, i was using it a good amount of time after Win7 came out.

I used it from 2008 until 2013 . Got by on just a laptop that whole time.

 

[AsRock]

Well i got my 2 copy's free of MS and as i said i used it though most of win7's life time. In fact i have had more issue's with Windows 10 than i ever did with Vista but this is due to the OS update bull.

There was just no need to update too Win7 on either system i just did to see what the fuss was.

 

[Vario]

Well i got my 2 copy's free of MS and as i said i used it though most of win7's life time. In fact i have had more issue's with Windows 10 than i ever did with Vista but this is due to the OS update bull.

I am going to delay getting windows 10 as long as I can.

Seven 4 lyfe homie

 

[Naito]

Ran it until the release of Windows 7. Was a tad buggy prior to SP1, but after that, had no major issues. Sure it liked to consume as much available resources as possible, but it definitely was a nice change from XP.

 

[fullinfusion]

I loved Vista till I bought my first SSD and needed Trim... So yeah it was bad.

I'm a creature of habit and hate change but I adapt!

 

[tacosRcool]

Never had many of the supposed problems. A few performance hiccups here and there and that was running an AMD Athlon 5600+, 3 gb DDR2 RAM, and 32 bit Vista.

 

[Divide Overflow]

I recall a nightmare of driver and chipset issues with Vista. Memory crunching, disk thrashing resource issues. USB problems, video, sound and printer problems up the wazoo. The UAC asking over and over again for approval on the tiniest change. It seemed to take forever to work many of those problems out. Yes, in my recollection it really was that bad.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I moved to Vista about a year before 7 was released. No issues for me. I know SP1 was about by this time, I don't recall if SP2 was out yet.

I recall a nightmare of driver and chipset issues with Vista. Memory crunching, disk thrashing resource issues. USB problems, video, sound and printer problems up the wazoo. The UAC asking over and over again for approval on the tiniest change. It seemed to take forever to work many of those problems out. Yes, in my recollection it really was that bad.

When Vista came out, it was a different beast. Coded very differently over XP - access to the kernel was very different. Companies that had equipment and their drivers on XP, they worked like a charm. I heard MS wasn't very lenient when it came to allowing companies to work with Vista before it released. By the time companies were able to work on writing drivers for Vista, they had to learn a whole new system and it caused many driver issues due to lack of time allowed.

For example: SoundBlaster had issues getting certain parts of their software to function correctly because of how the access to the OS kernel was very different over XP.

MS did a piss poor job with the release of Vista - probably rushed it out the doors a year too early. Oh well, water under the bridge.

 

[alucasa]

I didn't have that many issues with Vista except for the neverending HDD grinding. By time SP1 was out, I was back on XP x64 and moved to Win 7 from there, so I have really no idea.

 

[fullinfusion]

Never had many of the supposed problems. A few performance hiccups here and there and that was running an AMD Athlon 5600+, 3 gb DDR2 RAM, and 32 bit Vista.

yeah I agree, Vista was the cats ass and I hated going to W7... but then again I hated going to W10 from 7 but now I don't regret it at all

 

[fullinfusion]

I didn't have that many issues with Vista except for the neverending HDD grinding. By time SP1 was out, I was back on XP x64 and moved to Win 7 from there, so I have really no idea.

What ya mean HDD grinding?

you have a bad platter?

 

[alucasa]

Vista introduced superfeching.

Upon new installation, it'd access HDDs for hours up to few days to fetch everything so that accessing would be faster. This was an era where there was no SSD and MS probably tried to improve I/O speed with superfetch. The superfetching was very aggressive and slowed down everything.

Of course, you could disable it but normal users didn't and complaints filed up.

 

[eidairaman1]

it was really bad on resources and driver compatibility, I totally Skipped it and went right to 7

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I went from XP to W7 as well.


The closest i got to vista was living a house called Bella Vista which had stunning views across Carmarthen Bay.

 

[HammerON]

I used Vista 64bit when it came out and did not have that many difficulties (really none that I can remember). I did switch to 7 soon after it came out.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The main problem with Vista was that OEMs were selling machines with Vista on it with only 1 GiB of RAM. Vista needed at least 2 GiB or it was painfully slow.

The second problem was the radical change in start menu from XP to Vista with no option to revert it. The rush to Windows 7 occurred not because Windows 7 was really all that fantastic over Vista but because XP was too damn old to keep putting it off.

Vista introduced superfeching.

Actually, that was NT 5.2 (XP x64 and Server 2003 R2).

It caches data for frequently used programs in the RAM when the HDD was idle so it would open very fast when the user actually tried to run it. This only happens if you have excess, idle RAM. As applications require more RAM, Windows caches less.

XP x64 never cached much more than 500 GB.

 

[FYFI13]

I was early adopter of Vista x64, been using it since beta and bought full version as soon as it came out. At that time i had fairly powerful PC and it ran really smooth, didn't have any compatibility issues either. Oh, i had to buy new web camera actually. But that's a good thing, as i wanted to get a better one anyways
And i have to agree with few others here saying that Vista was best looking OS (from Windows family).

On work PC's there was different story through. It was super slow, constant issues with networking and printers. Good few BSOD's. SP1 fixed a lot of things and SP2 made it even better.