I have had a great experience Vista. The start menu is vastly superior to the bloated ever expanding crap that we have lived with for so long. Of course, with the Impulse dock I hardly have to use the start menu anymore.

I can't understand why everyone is so angry with the security prompts. What is so damn important that you can't take the extra 5 seconds to glance at the prompt and hit yes or no? I am willing to give up a few seconds to ensure that I'm not getting screwed over by malware.

I have encountered a weird glitch with IE7 in which sometimes when I middle-click on one of my homepage tabs, it starts openning that page over and over again in multiple windows, stopable only by killing the process.

Only if you don't know how to organise your menu items into folders

I will not change! I have had XP for a long time and I will not change! I have used Vista. I hate Vista. My fathers computer has 100 more gegabytes of hard drive space on his computer than I have on mine. He has Vista I have XP. My computer is faster. I have only gotten the Blue Screen of Death on XP once and that was because I fried my hard drive. Long live the XP!

Samurye.

I have been using Vista Ultimate now for almost a year.I haven't had any troubles with it.I built this system about a year ago and put Vista on it.If you have the right components then you should be able to run Vista without any trouble.

XP Was a great OS.But it was time to move on.I'm glad i did.

I'm happy I moved from XP to Vista. The ability to use over 3gigs of ram is enough to use Vista 64bit. 

I was running XP (64bit) and had good luck with it but made the move to Vista 64bit because of the lack of software and driver developement for XP 64bit.  

Me too, and not just for the extra RAM ability.  I like Vista because it has a real name, rather than (to me) an abbreviation... eXPee simply served to remind me of my first wife's annoying toilet habits.

Seriously, while I like using Vista, I really don't care what others choose to run on their PC's.  We were born with the inherrent ability to make choices/decisions as to what best suits us/what's best for us, and I have no problem with anyone exercising that ability... except when they choose/decide to condemn/criticise the personal choices of others based purely on their own preferences.

For most of us who switched to Vista, XP served us well over the years and we were happy with it, so it makes no sense to condemn/criticise somebody who makes the personal choice to revert back to XP because it is their preferred OS.  It's like the story with my ex-wife, just because I've moved on and (to me) upgraded, it doesn't mean I should be telling the bloke she's with now that he's made a mistake... he's happy with her and that's all that matters.

Maybe it's the OS, maybe it's the computer. Maybe some things are fast, maybe some things are slow. Maybe in some places they made speed/feature tradeoffs. Maybe Vista works for some people.

Agreed - 64 bit Vista has much more support than 64 bit XP ever did. 64 bit XP was used by relatively few people, but 64 bit Vista is being used more and more and is even appearing by default on some new computers. Recently got a gaming laptop my father can play a game on that he likes, and it came with 64 bit Vista installed. He'll be able to use all four gigs it has installed.

Why is Vista better than XP?  Let me list the reasons:

- Better 64-bit driver support.
- Over 3GB RAM in 64-bit.  Having 4GB of usable RAM makes for a very smooth experience both in apps and games.
- Better Start Menu.  The search feature alone is worth it... I've had no reason to use Launchy since Vista's start menu has everything I need.
- Better overall visual experience.  Sure, Aero can be slow for older computers, but proper hardware provides a better experience... it's the same reason why Apple forces you to buy a new Mac every year rather than providing individual hardware upgrades.
- Better Explorer.  The amount of sorting features, the quick search in the top right, the address bar, it all just makes finding the folder you need quickly and easily.  I loved Vista's Explorer, and it's the biggest thing I would miss if I switched to XP.
- DirectX 10.  Until you've seen Crysis with everything on Very High and in DX10 mode, you don't know what you're missing.
- A lot of the OS was rewritten from the ground up.  Microsoft is looking to the future, and a lot of things had been rewritten for Vista that provide better hardware usage, memory management, file management, etc.  Sure, we didn't get to see WinFS, but that's a minor setback.
- It's the future.  Whether you like it or not, Vista is the future.  Even if Win7 releases and Vista dies, Vista still wins, since Win7 is based entirely on Vista (see below).

Now, why is Vista seen as being "bad"?  I'll list the reasons here too:

- Apple's smear campaign.  While Microsoft is out trying to make themselves look better, Apple decides it'd work better for them by attacking the competition with unfounded claims and nonsense.  Microsoft took the high road here with their "I'm a PC" commercials by not attacking Apple directly.
- Initial driver support.  A report came out earlier in the year that showed that 60%+ of all Vista-related crashes were due to nVidia drivers.  60%!  If 3rd parties actually support their hardware then Vista's experience would have been great from the start.  But those initial driver issues left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, despite the same issues being there during XP's early days.
- The major differences in the Start Menu, Explorer, and IE7, among other things.  Vista tried to do some new things, but people hate change.  So rather than giving the new things a chance, they've instead opted to ignore Vista's (imo) superior features to XP and stick with the old.  Fair enough, but that will only last for so long.

Why will Vista be seen as a success in 5 years?  Simple:

- Windows 7 is based entirely on Vista.  They took Vista, added new features, increased performance, etc.  If Win7 becomes a success, it means Vista was a success.  There is very little that is new in Win7's architecture (except maybe touch support and their new 3D API's, but that won't affect a majority of users) that would garner it being a whole new OS.  If Win7 is successful, then the only reason Vista "failed" is because of the untrue word of mouth that is spread about it by Apple zealots and the like.
- Vista still sold millions and millions of copies.  Based on the W3C statistics, Vista is the second most-used OS (behind XP) and is gaining a percentage point every month in gains.  People are migrating to Vista, and in time they'll realize how superior it is to XP.

What is wrong with Vista (or rather, Windows in general)?  Another list:

- Legacy support.  I don't want more of it, I want none of it.  Get rid of the registry, start over, and create a whole new OS.  Mac's single .app files are awesome, I'd love something like that on Windows. 
- Aero can be slow.  It was Microsoft's first try at a 3D desktop environment, and they did a good job.  While it worked well, it could use some performance updates and polish. 
- Better driver support next time around.  Avoid the Vista mess with drivers early on and talk to developers to create good, working drivers.
- Confusion.  The marketing behind Vista wasn't that great.  We had 10 different versions, computers with "Vista support" that couldn't run it at all, and a hardware scoring system that could have used more work.  All of this led to plenty of confusion from consumers.  Better marketing = more sales, so Microsoft better step up their game in this department.  I have no doubt that Microsoft's "I'm a PC" campaign helped to drive sales of Vista.  As far as Mojave and the Seinfeld stuff... no idea.

As far as Mac vs. Windows... Personally, I hate Apple's philosophy and love Microsoft's.  Apple likes to control you, whereas Microsoft gives you the freedom to do what you want.  That is reason alone to stick with Microsoft.  I won't go into more on this, otherwise I'll just rant.  Maybe another day

And as for crashes?  I've never had a single crash on Vista that wasn't caused by old video drivers.  That's what I get for being an early adopter to nVidia's 8800 series.  Nowadays, I don't have any crashes at all.  Vista runs smooth as silk, I can play all of my games on Vista at blistering framerates (except Crysis, but that's due to the video card, not Vista or DX10), and every application I've run has had 0 issues (and I run a lot of applications, I tend to try random apps I find for the hell of it). 

Keep in mind this is all in 64-bit Vista, which is supposed to have poor software support (another misguided claim).  On top of all that, I have never had a virus or malware on Vista.  I don't even run anti-virus.  Every once in a while I do a virus scan to make sure, and I get 0 results on a full system scan.  Your Mac does the same thing?  Congratulations, that's nothing special.

Bara

On computers with video cards, Aero is actually faster due to using the GPU instead of the CPU .

It's a myth that you need a "high end" system to use Aero. Quite the contrary, I had a three year old card that ran Aero nicely. Aero capable cards can be found for $20 or less.

For $20 I can turn any computer that runs Vista into a computer that runs Vista with Aero without any performance hit.

This is the part that most people don't realize: A lot has changed underneath the new graphics. Several portions have been rewritten, and the architecture is more modular than XP's architecture. The new code does mean there were a lot of bugs to work out, yes, but in the long run it should provide great benefits that will benefit future versions of the OS.

Yup. If Windows 7 is a success, it means that Vista is a success. Microsoft is in no way reverting any code back to XP. They are continuing to modify the code that is in Vista. Yes, they may modify UAC to be less intrusive and more flexible - but UAC will still there. Yes, it will have better driver support - but that's because they are staying with Vista's driver model and not changing it again. Yes it will be faster - but that's because they're optimizing the code that already exists in Vista and not rewriting as much.

Well, looking at how much people are complaining about incompatibilities (real or perceived), I'd say the chance of that happening is zero. After everything that happened in Vista, I only see them being more conservative with code changes.

I agree - I would certainly love to get rid of the Registry. That was one of the biggest messes Microsoft created.

It was supposed to be easier than .ini files - but in all honesty navigating the registry tree finding a group of values you want is far worse than navigating the file system trying to find the .ini file you want. All of the benefits of the registry were lost pretty quickly in the vast tree of HKEYs, Classes, and the eternally frustrating CLSIDs.

Seriously, I spend a lot of time paging through hundreds of classes and thousands of CLSIDs. Is this really a lot better than INI files?

Is looking for "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{60254CA5-953B-11CF-8C96-00AA00B8708C}" really easier than looking for something like "C:\Windows\Scripts"?

Really?

Somebody, please explain that to me.

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but IMHO the registry is near the top of the list of long term mistakes Microsoft has made. I'm amazed that they still have not come up with an alternative.

You can thank Microsoft for bowing down to pressure from Intel for that. Intel wanted to slap a "Vista Capable" sticker onto a computer that wasn't up to Microsoft's standards for getting a "Vista Capable" sticker, and Microsoft let them. The result was a diasaster and probably half of the reason why Vista has the poor reputation it has.

Add on top of that the fact that the "Vista Capable" sticker only meant that Vista could run - not that it could run very well.

Not to mention they also had a "Vista Ready" sticker. Problem is, "capable" and "ready," as English words, can be confusing: Both words refer to a minimum state at which something is expected to perform. Neither one of them is comparative, making it difficult to be very clear what the differences in functionality should be between a "ready" system and a "capable" system.

Thankfully, it appears that Microsoft is only going to have one sticker for Windows 7 systems. No more confusion: Either it has the sticker or it doesn't. Hopefully they will not bow down to pressure and put it on systems that shouldn't get it this time.

Very misguided. Microsoft requires 64 bit support to use their "Works with Windows Vista" sticker. Anything with that sticker will work on a 64 bit system.

In addition, I'm using a 64 bit system myself, and the amount of driver support since Vista's release is so vastly improved that I dare say it is now nearly up to 32 bit XP's level of support, save for some very old devices.

My antivirus scans once a week while I'm asleep. No big deal. I do recommend a weekly (or daily) scan just to make sure nothing got in.

. . . and even though it might slow things down a bit, a real time scanner will detect things before they get a chance to run - the big thing you really want to avoid is running a virus. DEP also helps prevent malicious code from running without permission.

Well, I've been using Vista 64-bit for about a month now. I think your experience with Vista depends critically on a couple of things: 1) the hardware you're using to run it and 2) the software you want to run under it. In this time, as I've been rebuilding my system from the ground up, I've encountered a few unpleasant surprises but only one situation I couldn't solve by tweaking some settings (generally "Run as administrator" and XP-compatibility): my copy of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened caused a fatal crash every time I tried to run it. So I gave it up; I have a feeling it's not the last game I won't be able to run on my new machine; I was just reading the other day that a lot of people had issues with Heroes of Might and Magic V and Medieval 2: Total War and I have a lot of much older games that i have yet to try to install (and may not for months and years to come).

However, the overall experience has been a pleasant one. Aero looks much nicer than I imagined and I honestly haven't installed a single WindowBlind yet. Everything seems to run very smoothly except when I do the occasional foolish thing like Alt-Tabbing away from a modern, full-screen game and then tabbing back in (problem with Mass Effect). Part of the key, I think, is that the system is not a monster (6 Gb RAM, GeForce 9800GT, AMD Quad-Core Phenom), but it is a powerhouse compared to my old XP rig, and if I'd tried to upgrade that one (AMD Athlon 64, 2Gb RAM, Geforce 7300GS), I'm sure it would have been a miserable experience.

In the end, though, I agree with starkers: if Fuzzy's happy with XP, more power to him. The downside to being an XP-diehard (which I was until I could afford a new computer) is that, as Bara points out, Vista is the proverbial "wave of the future." On the other hand, as long as you're using your machine that runs XP great, you won't really need to upgrade to either Vista or 7.

Good move Fuzzy!  I run XP and Vista (dual-boot), might be an option for you or others here also. 

I might try Vista. I may finally change. I may become a heretic. Who am I to stand in the way of destiny? Wow now I sound Like Mendicant Bias....

Samurye.

Did the same thing, Fuz. Tried Vista twice on some pretty meaty hardware set-ups and found it had nothing that I wanted and was no-where near as responsive as XP. Two Vista discs now put to good use as coffee cup coasters.

I've been dual booting Vista and XP since the first public beta and find that it is the solution for those few older things that don't run on Vista too well.  However, since installing Vista 64 bit on my mai rig, I now run XP and Vista 32 bit in a dual boot setup on my second rig beside it... so now I have the best of 3 worlds at my fingertips.

When Windows 7 comes out, I expect that I'll dual boot between Vista x64 and a 64x version of Windows 7... and keep my spare rig as is for when visitors want to use it.

I hate hate hate Vista as it runs on my new laptop.

Before the hardware keeled over, my very old XP laptop (it orignally shipped with Windows 2000 Profesional on it) ran like a champ. The new, much more powerful laptop, with more and better everything? Ugh. Half of my games don't run at all, and some others (like Sins and GC2) only run in certain ways (full-screen, in those cases); but the biggest problem lies with the Atheros chipset drivers -- my wireless connection randomly blows itself, and any application using it, up every so often; and it only comes back from sleep mode successfully roughly 10% of the time at most. I've taken to shutting it down when I leave it alone for a little while, because otherwise it will crash or kak up, and I'll have to try (often unsuccessfully) to reboot anyway.

If I could have easily gotten an XP-based laptop, I would have; alas, when the time came, I needed a replacement more or less right away, and couldn't afford to do anything other than go to the store and buy one right then in person.