Windows Vista

I mean the ordering of the bars is address bar, tabs, menu, and finally customised toolbars, which you can't change. On the address bar the icons are in a strange order which you can't change either. The registry fix doesn't help matters either, it only half fixes the order.

Firewire and sleep working properly as they already do on other operating systems shouldn't be a reason for buying Vista over other OS, it should already be a service pack in XP. But I expect any major improvement in XP simply won't happen as a reason to push everyone on to Vista. I can't see them investing any time in finishing off Bluetooth, for example.

it's stilll better than their previous efforts, and since the previous efforts have been good enough for the majority of users for the past 10 years... sure, it's not the great leap forward we were hoping for, but it's a fairly solid OS. sufficiently solid i'm running a late beta on my main desktop.

rather than being so negative, why don't you go and buy a mac instead. you'll soon realise that whilst you think the grass is greener, that's probably because the marketing department just sprayed it green ;) if you don't fancy buying every .n update for a hundred quid, reinstalling a new OS each time, and complete platform changes every few years, you could try Ubuntu instead - but that's a different bucket of pain. in reality none of the options is perfect, such is life ;)

if you really hate the available options, you could go out and write your own...

A friend was having problems with their Internet connection on their MacBook and, despite my initial protesting that it was the first time I'd used MacOS 10, I fixed it in about 10 minutes. Having read the reviews I've not heard anything so complementary about Vista's new network configuration.

So afterwards I had a go on an iMac and went so far as to be quite impressed with it.

Meanwhile, back on XP, the power manager goes a bit strange if I log in with one user and switch to another. As does ActiveSync. As does the WIDCOMM Bluetooth stack (the XP one not having been updated in years as new profiles come out). It's like some toilet-training infant which keeps proudly holding up what its just done and you have to run round after it to tidy up the mess.

I often wonder if people expecting great things from Vista (great things meaning it works as it should) are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

How many of the complaints about Windows are really complaints that should be laid at the door of the people who wrote the non-MS software?

If someone markets software that doesn't work well with W98/XP/Vista that can hardly be MicroSoft's fault.

Even going back to W98 the only OS problems that I experienced were from poorly written non-MS software.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>Anyone else agree that it's shit?<hr></blockquote>

Apparently not everyone, but read this before you make up your mind. Long, I know, but interesting.

Omg so much text & mumbo-jumbo to me...

It's probably been answered so I'm sorry to ask but my ubergeek mate says that we are much better of staying with XP than get a laptop with Vista.

His reasons for this is that:
- XP uses approx 1/3 of a 1Gb RAM vs Vista using 1/2 of it.
- There is nothing I would need that Vista does that I can't find on XP
- It takes up more space on the computer
- Apparently it works with something (dox perhaps) that there are no laptops that support properly
- There are less of something that is supported by Vista yet.

Any thoughts?

I would definitely choose XP over Vista. Check out the resources in post #16 (e.g., Forbes.com on Vista).

If you go with ThinkPads, I think they still come with XP by default. From what I understand many companies have forbidden the installation of Vista.

Thank you.

> From what I understand many companies have forbidden the installation of Vista

Of course. Most corporates are inherently conservative - when Windows 2000 came out, I knew a couple that were still running 3.11. Was 2000 better? Hell yeah. Was it supported by the helldesk? Nope. In fact it was forbidden to install it, even if you were happy to support yourself.

Similarly there will be very few corps running Vista until SP1 - because that's the earliest possible decision point for them. They'll want time to test, time to make sure the internal apps work, time to beef up the hardware, time to train, and just time to feel safe. Making snap decisions of any kind is a good way to get fired in those environments, you rarely fire people for not making any decisions at all, so almost all corps are inertial beasts.

About the only ones who are different are either paid guinea pigs, or tech companies - even the latter can be pretty conservative at times.