Brian's Brain

EDN Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert exposes, analyzes and
opines on diverse topics in technology. Follow the Brian's Brain Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/BrianzBrain.

Advertisement

Profile

About Me

RSS Feed

Add this blog to your RSS newsreader!

By Category

Consumer Electronics Design Articles

Blog

Brian's Brain

« Thin-Air ATSC (And NTSC): Corr... | Main | Thin-Air ATSC (And NTSC): The ... »

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Windows Vista: What's With The Negative Dogmata?

Jul 30 2008 8:00PM | Permalink |Comments (79) |

This is one of those posts where I already know, even before I begin writing, that I'm going to need to don asbestos underwear as soon as it goes live on the EDN website...;-)

Two weeks ago, I told you that I'd just ordered the successor to my venerable but long-in-the-tooth Dell Inspiron 700m. A big part of the motivation was performance-driven; the Dell XPS M1330 contains a several-generation newer (Dothan->Yonah->Merom) CPU with dual-core capability, albeit one in my particular case that doesn't run at a per-core clock speed increment to its Dothan predecessor. The Intel GPU core in the XPS M1330's core logic chipset is similarly feature-advanced compared to its Inspiron 700m precursor, both in its graphics and video processing capabilities. And system performance boosts also result from the generational PATA->SATA HDD and DDR->DDR2 DRAM evolutions.

The other primary motivation for the platform upgrade, which I realize now I didn't explicitly document in my earlier coverage, was that it'd give me an opportunity to do a proper evaluation of Microsoft's Windows Vista. The particular system I bought, in fact, came with the high-end, full-featured Vista Ultimate pre-activated. For those of you who don't already realize it, all Vista-equipped systems come with the latent potential of running Ultimate (or any lesser variant in the respective Home and Business vectors, which converge at Ultimate, for that matter)...they just require purchase-and-entry of an appropriate activation code in order to 'turn on' the requisite incremental capabilities.

The system finally showed up at my doorstep last Friday, after a long and convoluted journey caused by a Dell shipping screw-up. Granted, I haven't spent a ton of time with it yet, but I have to confess that I really like what I see. Some key qualifiers before proceeding:

I'm a senior technical editor with an engineering degree and more than 20 years of engineering-plus-technology analysis experience, so as I regularly remind you all, I'm naturally going to dodge-and-solve problems (without even realizing I'm doing so at the time, in many cases) that'd bedevil most average folks
I ordered a system with Windows Vista pre-installed; I didn't attempt to upgrade an existing Windows XP-based PC to Vista. I also made sure that the system I ordered came from the factory with 2 GBytes of system memory...and in fact, I plan to bump up the memory budget to 4 GBytes in the near future, and
I haven't yet attempted to install many peripheral (printer, scanner, digital camera, etc) drivers. From the diversity of Windows Vista coverage I've monitored in the year-plus since the O/S release, a dearth of third-party driver support (which, arguably, isn't Microsoft's fault...just as poor third-party support for OS X isn't Apple's responsibility unless the company has done something egregious that makes developing support unnecessarily difficult) seems to be the biggest issue that reviewers have grappled with.

With that all said, I don't understand the vitriol that many folks are heaping on Windows Vista, except that perhaps it's just the latest example of the seeming always-trendy Microsoft-bashing phenomenon. Windows Vista runs smoothly and reliably on my hardware, which is mainstream at best (and is arguably trending towards trailing-edge at this point). Network file exchanges with Windows XP clients and my NASs were initially sub-par performance-wise, but this widely documented issue got neatly fixed by the SP1 update (admittedly, had SP1 not been available when I did this review, my opinion of Windows Vista wouldn't have been nearly as positive). The Aero 'eye candy' is attractive. The O/S is a substantial leap beyond XP from a bundled-app standpoint (built-in DVD burning...finally!). And to date I've installed a number of additional programs with nary a hitch.

Yeah, the UAC (User Account Control) nags are annoying, but given Windows XP's sub-par security track record, I can see why Microsoft went overboard 'out of the box' this go-around (and anyway, I disabled them in short order). And the built-in Media Center Edition capability is great; I've already paired the system with my two Xbox 360s (and subsequently been told by the included analysis utility that my network performance may not be sufficient for high-def video streaming...time to upgrade to an 802.11n router, I guess, since I'm assuming the HomePlug AV links aren't the culprits), and I'm looking forward to mating my just-installed antenna to a USB-based TV tuner so that I can record-and-watch some ATSC content.

So I honestly don't get what all the bashing is about. And (how timely) in light of that fact, I find Microsoft's recent 'Mojave Experiment' quite interesting and, frankly, clever. The company recently demo'd Windows Vista to a bunch of Windows (XP and pre-XP), Mac OS X and Linux users, without telling them that they were being shown Windows Vista. Instead, they were told that they were getting a preview of a new Microsoft O/S called 'Mojave'. Check out the results:

Of the 140 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 (10 highest), the average pre-rating of Vista was 4.4. After the demo it rated an average of 8.5. Many respondents would have voted higher but wanted more time to play with it.

I have a dear friend who's a passionate Apple fanboy. He trumpets to me as loudly as possible every bit of good news about Apple, along with each Microsoft stumble. Conversely, Apple setbacks (and Microsoft triumphs) predictably get 'spun' by him in a pro-Cupertino direction. I find his Apple bias amusing and charming, but in this job I can't emulate it. If I did, my hard-earned credibility would go right out the window (as others' already has).

Until the XPS M1330 showed up last Friday, I had as many Macs as PCs regularly running under my roof. There are many things that I admire about both Apple and Microsoft, and I've shared them with you in past online and print writeups. Both companies also drive me batty sometimes, and I've not hesitated to pass those opinions along, either. This, however, isn't one of those latter times. So far, I'm quite impressed with Windows Vista. I'd welcome your feedback on whether or not you agree with me, and why. And I'd also welcome any suggestions Windows Vista veterans might be willing to provide on how to further improve my experiences with Microsoft's latest O/S.

The asbestos underwear's donned. Flame (or affirm) on, folks!

Reader Comments

at 7/31/2008 1:59:27 AM, Darren Holdstock, UK said:
I took delivery of a Dell XPS 420 last week, and I was hating Vista within half an hour. It's incompatible with a lot of the old software I want to run, and is deliberately designed to be difficult to uninstall. It's going to take me at least a day out of my life to downgrade to XP, but it will be worth it as this particular machine running on XP is incredibly fast. I can't just insert an XP install disk though, as Vista rejects it; I'll have to work from a boot floppy, install all the hardware drivers manually, and totally wipe the C: drive before I can even start. I'll also lose the use of the 19-in-1 card reader, as only Vista drivers are available for this. Small price to pay, I think.

at 7/31/2008 3:30:10 AM, ian_m said:
I agree with you can't see why there is so much negativity about Vista, reminds me of the 2000 to XP days, exactly the same excuses and negativity being offered.

I have been using Vista since pre-release on Dell 520 + £30 ATI card and fast and responsive enough for me as an electronics design engineer.

I have also deployed 16 Vista PC's on mainstream Dell hardware (supplied with Vista Business installed) in our company and not had any major issues. Used the settings and transfer wizard to transfer the users settings from their old XP machines to new one no problems.

Get most support issues in our company with XP, only had one Vista issue and that was when a SATA cable fell off, hardly Vista's problem.

at 7/31/2008 6:37:22 AM, Darren Holdstock, UK said:
A small concession: I will say this for Vista - somehow on my new PC it automatically configured my modem and ISP settings so I could connect to the internet without having to install anything. That was unexpected and impressive both. It hasn't bought Vista a stay of execution though, and I'm still determined it must die.

at 7/31/2008 7:59:15 AM, kanling said:
So, finally Microsoft adds built-in DVD burning. It's about time, now that everybody has gone to USB Flash drives.

All I know is that friends of mine who have bought new PCs have made vigorous and unsolicited complaints about Vista, even without knowing that I was interested. I never got any unsolicited feedback regarding any previous operating system.

at 7/31/2008 9:26:54 AM, nwz said:
I think you're generally correct. For people experiencing Vista running on the proper software and configured properly, it's likely to be a positive one. The negative response, I think, was largely because there were so many people out there who ended up experiencing Vista on a sub-optimal setup. (I would be curious to find out what hardware MS ran their little test on).

One thing you may want to consider is that you were using the Ultimate version of Vista, wherein the extra bells and whistles likely make for a more compelling experience. Many people will be using the Home or Basic versions where the lack of perceived advantages may not be sufficient to overcome their irritation with some of Vista's new foibles, er..features.

In the end, the real lesson is that no matter how good your product is, if you botch the introduction you may doom it to failure, or at least less than optimal final sales (something Apple may be finding out right about now...) Get it right the first time!

at 7/31/2008 9:59:57 AM, Brian Dipert said:
Dear nwz, thanks for writing. Actually, I have yet to try out any of the incremental bells-and-whistles of Ultimate, so my feedback is (I think) equally applicable to Home Premium (which is what most OEMs seem to be shipping to consumers). See version comparisons here: www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx. Frankly, the biggest incremental 'bang' in my mind to Ultimate over Home Premium is Remote Desktop Connection...as with XP, where it was left out of XP Home, it's included in the 'Business' variants of Vista. Ultimate is where the Vista Home and Business feature set vectors merge

at 7/31/2008 2:18:33 PM, DW said:
The negativity is that Vista breaks so many things. That''s why our IT folks are sticking with XP until all the applications and peripheral drivers have caught up.

at 7/31/2008 2:18:44 PM, Francis said:
I am a power user and to a degree a road warrior. I like security if it doesnt stand in the way on communication capability. Even with a high end system, Vista had difficulties since it seem geared to regular users. Difficulty in connections in hotels or mobile sites. VPN connections were sometimes probamatic. FTP was interesting. Support capability was insufficent to need and repeat connection when you were at same site but need different port connectivity meant some heavy lifting. Cannt afford the new learning with out preceived benefit on a time value analysis

at 7/31/2008 2:18:46 PM, rcs said:
We've got both in our house. An annoyance is Vista's incompatibility with existing software including some online games. Some providers don't plan an update any time soon. Vista's user interface requires you to remember a whole different setup (yeah, it's all there but finding it...). Plus, the home market is such a large segment these days, that MS should have included better features.

at 7/31/2008 2:22:31 PM, Michael Shebanow said:
As a new Vista user, I really don't see what it really did for me. The user interface is "different", but not in a better way that improves my productivity. The UAC pop ups are REALLY annoying, and having to switch into the administrator account to do some installs is also very annoying (could be my inexperience w/ Vista admin work). Maybe most of the changes are visible to MSFT/IT folks?

at 7/31/2008 2:25:10 PM, Will said:
I think that in general people don''t want to change. The windows UI had been virtually identical from Windows 3.x through XP. Vista is a different UI with a different user experience. Vista is actually more efficient to use imho, but only if you take advantage of it.

at 7/31/2008 2:27:43 PM, Tom Halfhill said:
Here's why my first experience with Vista was bad: www.mdronline.com/mpr_public/editorials/edit22_30.html

at 7/31/2008 2:28:47 PM, Jim Lauffenburger said:
Quick story why I don't like Vista:
Bought a new Dell laptop for my wife (can't remember which one - but it has 2GB RAM and average - for 2008 - everything else), and it came with Vista. I thought it was fine and so did my wife. Then, while playing around with the laptop, I change a performance setting to be more "green": choosing "Longer Battery Life" setting rather than the "highest possible performance" setting. I didn't really test it much and went on a business trip. About a week later my wife was complaining non-stop about how slow the computer was, and so I started to putz with it. I honestly thought something had to be broken - it was horribly slow. I've used laptops for years and none were has "powerful" as this one, but none were near as slow in just doing normal tasks - and I always set for the max battery life. (But they were all WinXP or older.) Then, I finally remembered that I changed the performance setting to "highest performance" and the OK performance was back (along with short battery life).
So, my conclusion: Vista is a dog if it requires that much power.

at 7/31/2008 2:29:18 PM, Useless innovation said:
My son purchased a new Toshiba Satellite A205 that came installed with Vista Home Premium edition on a 32 bit processor with 1GB RAM. That PC was essentially unusable, considering the desire to get work done in a timely and uninterrupted manner. Same problems as reported before for using older SW (sorry, no desire to pay for newer and more bloated products). Took me some time, but I was able to install Windows XP SP3 over the image, even though Toshiba does not seem to be providing or advertising XP drivers for their new laptops. Ended up getting the drivers from the manufacturers websites, and is now usable. I do not understand why there are not throngs people marching over to Redmond with pitchforks and torches? No one could wish to have this ineffective product foisted on themselves, by a convicted monopolist nonetheless. And I am sure Toshiba had no say in what Windows OS they could offer their customers. Seems that innovation leads to fewer choices.

at 7/31/2008 2:31:42 PM, Brian Dipert said:
Dear Useless innovation, Toshiba should be vigorously spanked for short-changing customers by only shipping the system with 1 GByte of RAM. Any short-term profit boost that resulted from their cost-cutting move was probably more than counterbalanced by subsequent customer support and product return costs.

at 7/31/2008 2:31:46 PM, aka said:
You might want to think about us folks that run alot of Rockwell Automation Software in the automation world. It will not work period! And everyone is discontinuing XP, what are we going to do?

at 7/31/2008 2:36:56 PM, MRB said:
Vista runs much slower even on a machine with nbetter processing power. The boot up time takes 3 to 4 time longer on my new machin than it does for XP on the old. The other issues (in addirtion to 3rrd party driver support) is the incompatibility with other MS products, notably office 2003. Everytime I started ourlook I would have to manually enter the pwd b/c it would not remember it (even after install of SP1). I did stick w/ Vista but as other users have commented I don't see a significant improvement.

at 7/31/2008 2:36:58 PM, Brian Dipert said:
Dear aka, have you tried running the software on Vista in XP- (or prior O/S generation-) compatibility mode? That seems to have solved lots of folks' problems with, for example, Office 2000 (see comments at miniburb.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/outlook-2000-on-windows-vista)

at 7/31/2008 2:37:40 PM, Mike said:
I purchased a new pc early this year and it came with Vista home preinstalled. I soon began to wonder what all the Vista bashing was all about. I installed many applications and hardware devices without a hitch. There were a couple of applications which didn't function smoothly until I discovered the software compatibility wizard. Wow, that even allowed a program that I could never get XP to cooperate with to run perfectly in Vista. My Vista experience has been great.

at 7/31/2008 2:44:22 PM, SB said:
I got to say, Vista is great. I used to play a lot with Linux (Gentoo, Ubuntu, Redhat, Knoppix, Kanotix) looking for something I really liked to use. I love to use my wife's laptop with Vista any chance I get. I use XP all day at work and have a workstation at home with XP. The laptop at work is a joke and XP has the same performance issue difference whether on battery or plugged in. My XP laptop is nearly unusable when on battery. We have had no SW compatibility issues and the kids play games online all the time. I agree, I don't see where all the hate comes from. All other Microsoft products have started out in much worse shape.

at 7/31/2008 2:48:43 PM, Jim said:
You echo my sentiments about Vista pretty well. It seems the common thread in the complaints about Vista are with regard to using old games, old hardware, old systems, etc. I would never choose to go back to XP or 2000 after using Vista for a 7 months. I have both a desktop (self-built Core Duo 2 E6750) and two laptops Dell XPS 1330 and Acer AS6920 with the first two running Vista Business and the Acer running Vista Home Premium. They boot and shutdown quickly, perform well, and I have not had a single system crash to date on any of them. The tweaks to the location of certain controls can take a little effort, but nothing extraordinary. I think the most of the bashing is unjustified and largely self inflicted.

at 7/31/2008 2:51:03 PM, TNeff said:
I need all 4 GB of memory I can fit in a Precision M90 just to open my SolidWorks assemblies under XP. I don''''''''t need an OS taking up even more overhead which costs me even more performance. I''''''''d really like a stripped down OS that would run SolidWorks and the rest of my engineering software without all the prettiness even of XP.

at 7/31/2008 2:52:28 PM, WT said:
Brian,

How big is your storage? You must have a lot of toys that you have to store. Can you share a picture of your storage ...... :)

at 7/31/2008 2:53:23 PM, Mark said:
Vista updates make it forget about my tuner card. Microsoft changed the sound system so almost no 3rd party cards work. (why no backward compatibility?) Networking with xp systems is a mess - you can't seem to tell vista anything, and it's lousy at figuring them out on its own. I know where the internet is, let me specify it. If I tell it a network is private, keep it that way! Writing a half-hour recorded tv program to dvd takes overnight. It constantly hits the disk drive, even after being "idle" for hours. It is pretty, though.

at 7/31/2008 2:53:53 PM, alkemiker said:
I total agree with your assessment. However, if we all used Apple products the world would be a happier place -- birds would always be singing, except when we had to ship them back for a battery replacement

at 7/31/2008 2:56:10 PM, Brian Dipert said:
Dear WT, laptops don't take up much room ;-)

at 7/31/2008 2:57:12 PM, Ed in Silicon Valley said:
I have been using Microsoft products for years as well as various variants of Unix. In general Microsoft software has worked, occasional bugs but usually nothing too bad.

When I installed Vista on brand new hardware a year ago it ran reasonably well, but that was until Service Pack 1 got installed. Now, periodically my Vista system freezes - ALT CLT DEL doesn't work since the keyboard is locked - I have to reset using the reset button. Very annoying and with no dump I am not sure I'll ever get a fix. So much variation in hardware combined with software makes support a very challenging task.

I also run Linux - right now Fedora Core 9 from Read Hat which is rather leading edge. I have no problems with Linux, I am running it on several systems and alot of the software I run is available for Linux.

Running Office 2007 is useful, Open Office has gotten pretty good but I want to ensure I can access Office and Visio documents people send me.

So, though I have nothing against Microsoft and though visually Vista is nicer than XP, it is less reliable than XP for me.

If I could run all of my software on Linux I'd dump Windows all together. It's fine for the kids to use for games and texting friends but I don't see any advanages to it for me accept to run Office and Visio.

at 7/31/2008 3:00:18 PM, Eagle said:
Isn't Vista Ultimate supposed to be able to do much greater memory than 4GB? i.e., on the order of 2^64?

at 7/31/2008 3:03:01 PM, Brian Dipert said:
Dear Eagle, not in 32-bit O/S mode (which is what I'm running in order to maximize application and peripheral compatibility). Actually, Microsoft tech wizard Mark Russinovich published an excellent writeup on this very topic a bit over a week ago (blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx )

at 7/31/2008 3:04:08 PM, Chris PE said:
Some simple comments.
1)We do not need a new operating system to replace XP. I reinstalled Vista on my neighbor's computers when his hard drive crashed.It took 3.5 hrs. Good God! I love Microsoft , but they should have mercy on us.
2) All "service packs slow down computer considerably.
3)I have a state of an art custom built computer and Vista tester program told me
that I pretty much have to repalce everything,LOL.
4)Every second release of Windows is junk.Everyone who ever went throug all of them knows.Vista is a comuter abortion like Windows Me was.Remember those.
5) I don't want ANY operating system to decide for me, because
I want to make decisions myself and not everyone is a moron.
6) Let's hope that a new system from Microsoft can match XP. If not, I will do what I do now.Have a little Internet computer and a huge tower with all toys that has not seen Internet and never will.NO updates and no problems ( like anti-virus program) and if some program needs registration , I just call and register by phone.

at 7/31/2008 3:05:44 PM, MS said:
Brian,
I think the key is to report back to your blog after a few more weeks of Vista. I was a long running XP user and about 2.5 months ago got an Dell XPS M1530 with Ultimate on it. At first, I voiced the same comments as yourself ("this isn't so bad", "nice Aero graphics", etc). However, after a few weeks things started to really slow down. Excel 2007 would take 2 minutes to launch...etc.. I went through and shut down over 100 default startup background processes in Vista, and it's still dragging. I could get XP "re-pepped" in no time, but Vista is painful to keep it perky.

at 7/31/2008 3:39:03 PM, ltullos said:
I recently built dual boot HTPC running Ubuntu/Mythbuntu & Vista Ultimate which gave me head-to-head comparison. On a fully capable, certified compatible H/W, Vista blue-screened on first boot-up! After resolving this issue (video driver) it then crashed again within one week after new security updates were installed!!! Even now, it's not unusual to find my wireless card is not connecting. By comparison, I have never ANY problem with Ubuntu running on the same system. Lastly, after being exposed to Leopard; I found UI MUCH better the Vista and Time Machine is killer difference! BTW, for disclosure, I've been Windows user back to 3.0 through all versions except BOB and ME.

at 7/31/2008 3:57:10 PM, Policebox said:
I will try to keep this simple and objective. I find the Vista eye candy a non-starter. I find no usable functionality in Vista that I didn't have in XP. Vista takes twice as long on a computer that is four times as powerful. Vista takes more space on my new hard drive than existed on my old one. In short, I am throwing a far more powerful computer at it, and getting much less.
That is why I hate Vista.

at 7/31/2008 3:59:10 PM, Alison said:
My big issue with Vista is that I have a sense of being railroaded by MSFT (and Dell et.al.) into upgrading my hardware just to accommodate an OS that should be on the Atkins Diet. I hadn''t planned on spending additional $$ for more computing power but MSFT support for XP is going away (plz - is this really true or just a nasty rumor?). And to aka - I am totally with you there - that''s why control engineers don''t let the IT department near their critical process control systems. A bunch of my mfg clients are definitely not going to go to Vista.

at 7/31/2008 4:05:01 PM, ME said:
On my new HP, innoticed the following:
1. Vista is not compatible with software that ran on the older Windows OS.
2. It is not compatible with old drivers, and I had to buy a new scanner, ner web cam etc., because manufacturer''s would not update their drivers. Couldn''t MS offer driver-conversion program?
3. For some reason the microphone is always on.
4. "Computer" shows all the USB inputs, whether a device is connected to them or not. I am tired of trying them all to see where I connected my camera or memory stick.
5. Writing a Movie Maker movie on a DVD causes a crash
6. Changing file views, sorting, navigating throughthe folders, everything becamse too complicated.
I basically wish I stayed with XP. It has been a tiring and an expensive experience

at 7/31/2008 4:32:54 PM, Tempe Dan said:
Bought a "gamer's" Toshiba P105 (I'm not a power user, but the guy said it is an incredible computer). Vista Ultimate. During some random auto-update it got into a do-loop that even the Microsoft guy couldn't figure out. Took it to Geek Squad, $99 later still wouldn't work. 3 days later, a friend suggested I let him copy C: then format C: then ghost it back. Worked. Haven't allowed an update since then. Still hate the security restrictions Vista throws at me all the time.

at 7/31/2008 4:38:45 PM, Steven said:
The author of the article, after bragging that he is "a senior technical editor with an engineering degree and more than 20 years of engineering-plus-technology analysis experience", then admits that he has not spent much time with his new Vista system, but feels compelled to let everyone know how great Vista really is.

Give me a break! Vista is unreliable, buggy, no more seucre than XP (especially after disabling UAC, which the author admits he did immediately), incompatible with numerous application, difficult to navigate. And for what? The Aero interface? Not to mention an incident in which many people for entirely shut out of their systems for over a day (but Microsoft said it was only a "human error", and therefore didn't count).

at 7/31/2008 4:51:11 PM, BC said:
All I can say is that I work on a regular basis with both XP and Vista machines. Most of my old software will not install or run properly on Vista but that is to be expected at the other extreme, from a user perspective, Vista has some very nice features and like everything else in life it is a question of getting used to it. I have had negative feedback about Vista from people I know have never seen it run and are just happy with their XP machine! I mean that sort of says it all.

P.S. I still have a colleague that thinks moving to windows 3 from DOS was a bad idea and he'd be happy with to have stayed with DOS. What can you say?

at 7/31/2008 5:24:49 PM, dd said:
Summary: Vista works fine if you:
(1) Have 20 years experience and can "dodge-and-solve problems ... that'd bedevil most average folks"
(2) Don't attempt to install any peripheral drivers.
I wonder what percent of the computer population this represents?

at 7/31/2008 5:30:38 PM, adam mickievitch said:
Well I was very patient and tried it for almost one year, it took so long because it runs so slow but finally I got tired to wait for the service packs so I exchanged it with xp.
the main reason was the slowliness, there were other problems with software which runs with xp without issues, I need my computer for work not as a toy, I don't have the time to play with it. It could happen that vista is a great software, but bot form me.

at 7/31/2008 5:51:53 PM, Stiggle said:
The problem is that Microsoft thinks they are beyond the law and have the right to change or break any or all rules they set down for all others. Microsoft feels that they do not have to adhere to rules they want everyone else to follow. The want to sell us the same crap over and over and want us to believe it is new. They hack and patch their operating system and release patches and changes without testing them resulting in a lot of grief and wasted man-hours (every day over and over. That said, I purposely installed Vista 64-bit to gain the processing advantage but find it is no better than XP or Vista 32-bit. Although slower and more of a hog, Vista does nothing beter than XP. Lucky for the compatibility mode, I can still run DVD shrink without any problems on my dual core system under Vista 64-bit. When this program was last updated, there were no 64-bit machines and XP wasn''t so buggy. NEVER, EVER, ALLOW WINDOWS TO AUTOMICALLY FIX A PROBLEM ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS WITH A WINDOWS BOOT ISSUE, OR WHATEVER. That is like okaying a self distruct order and you''ll regret it every time. System restore points---WHAT A USELESS JOKE!

at 7/31/2008 6:30:04 PM, Dean said:
Brian, you've indicated in several cases in your post - you upgraded everything in the hardware (or need to) to run Vista. My Son's PC is running Vista (wanted to Parental controls), but the games definitely run slower, require more memory overhead and many programs that install and run fine in XP, either don't work or require an administrator account to run. My younger daughter's PC will stay on XP for as long as the PC is alive and running - and yes, I have '20 years experience' to keep it running for a few more years - as long as the hardware is available...

at 7/31/2008 6:56:41 PM, Bauerml said:
I have had to manage adding Vista computers in to a small business environment with a mixture of existing XP home and XP pro systems. Vista does NOT play well with others. It does not play well with a Server 2003 system running our shared drive resources. I have since heard that there are a number of switches that I could throw in Vista to turn off a lot of the annoying systems issues. We still have a problem with shared resources.

I find the system treats the user as an idiot child. I find that very annoying, especially as I am too busy to have to finesse its foibles.

at 7/31/2008 7:04:53 PM, Dan said:
My main problem with Vista,as compatibility with older hardware and software. I don''t believe that all of my old tools should become obsolete just because of an operating system upgrade. It is an "operating system" that is what it exists for, not for fancy graphics. I checked out Vista for my daughter''s laptop, was within seconds of pushing the "purchase" button when I decided to check out the hardware list. My HPNA network adapters- obsolete, no support. My old printer and scanner- same deal. So- I bought XP, so she could connect to everything. Why should an operating system upgrade cause you to scrap perfectly good equipment? Years ago, when I upgraded machines to XP, there were generic drivers available for many devices even if the original manufacturer didn''t make them. Based on the HCL, I cannot find any evidence of that kind of support for Vista. Since Vista appears to be based on the same core as XP, I don''t even understand why the driver''s need to be different. (I know, dumb thought...)

at 7/31/2008 8:29:13 PM, Mike Z said:
I've built a PC with an Intel Q6600 quad core, 4gb ram, Nvidia 9600 GT video card and Vista Home Premium. I'm fairly happy with it. I haven't had any problems with hardware compatibilities and only 1 software problem.

My biggest joy has been finding how quickly it boots and resumes from sleep mode. My XP machines took far too long to boot and never entered/exited sleep mode with any reliability at all.

at 7/31/2008 9:20:12 PM, Baskaran said:
Microsoft choose to mess up the Vista by integrating things thinking that ''''simple'''' integration will do good for them - without even going to the fundamentals and looking at the architectural limitations. Vista is a mega patchwork to patchwork of things. It is just a bloatware that is not fit to lead the computing industry. They will be wiped clean in long run when either Mac OS X or Linux take over them. Even now they do not have any idea of setting standards - just wait for Apple to release new stuff and simply copy it - and release ahead of Apple and claim that it is theirs.

Microsoft itself is a nasty bug to the industry and community - biggest rip of all times. It is a torn fabric. People who try to patch it up is simply wasting their time and they have a false hope.

at 8/1/2008 2:13:21 AM, vintageguy said:
I still don't understand why many people always want the latest OS, they seem to be more interrested in the OS then in running the applications they need to use... I have seen companies still using win 3.1 when win 95 was already years on the scene. Now i see the same : people running winXP in a virtual machine (vmware) hosted on a Vista, for reasons that theyr old expensive CAD programs no longer run under vista.
Upgrading to vista is an expensive thing after all, new hardware needs to be purchased when there is no driver support for it in vista, loss of man hours due to all kind of compatiblity problems etc.....

at 8/1/2008 4:32:14 AM, Mark said:
Its expensive $300 for the retail professional version, it doesn't work, Microsoft could not troubleshoot the problem and it requires hardware (video) with the drivers pre-loaded. What is there to like about it?

at 8/1/2008 7:06:56 AM, Mick from PA said:
Ah Vista, it looks great. WHen it works it''s a pleasant operating system. When it doesn''t it''s a total nightmare. I''ve reloaded it no less then 10 times. Mostly related to hardware problems. I''m a gamer and the system shipped with the Vista Home Ultimate variant with SP1 upgrade. I had bad memory chips that caused repeated lockups. I reloaded thinking it was a saftware issue because I spent days troubleshooting with manufacturer. The reinstallations are difficult. Vista creates an old Windows directory which saves old driver data. Sometimes Vista successfully loads old drivers, sometimes it doesn''t. I could go on but the biggest downfall to Vista is the apparent lack of compatibility with XP drivers for mounting imaginary harddrives which many copy programs use. Try installing Alcohol 120. Remember the old days of Windows blue screen of death. Well this program sent my Vista into a running loop of blue screen of death. Neither restarting Vista in standard or safe mode corrected the problem. The only recourse was to reinstall Vista and of course 30 other programs needed to be reinstalled also because Vista has no rebuild system that saves old registries to allow installed programs to be salvaged.

Ah Vista the future is here today but will probably be gone shortly with all of the bad publicity whether perceived or deserved.

at 8/1/2008 8:55:58 AM, Travis said:
1) I don''t care at all about "eye candy" 

2) I care a LOT about preformance. Vista makes my Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM laptop run slower than my Windoex XP based 1.2GHz Pentium-M with Centrino and 640MB RAM!!! That, and that alone is enough for me to say "VISTA SUCKS"!!! 

3) You state that the support for hardware in Vista isn''t very good, but you then go on to say that it isn''t Microsoft''s fault. The fact of the matter is:
Windows XP had EXCELLENT support for the majority of hardware when it hit the markets OUT OF THE BOX!!! So yes, in this case poor hardware support, in comparison to XP when it hit the shelves, is Microsoft''s fault. 

4) All the good things that were supposed to be in Vista, such as WinFS file system, were removed. So the "Upgrade" to Vista is nothing more than an expensive change of scenery. 

5) The blasted media center tries to load (and is slow to load) every time you I insert a thumb drive. Admittedly I haven''t taken the time to figure out how to disable it, but it''s friggin'' annoying. 

6) Someone above said Vista found and setup their internet connection automatically. Well, so did XP in most cases, so long as their NIC card was found during the install. 

7) Did I mention it''s SLOW even on FAST hardware? 

I rest my case.

at 8/1/2008 9:11:45 AM, Travis said:
I posted the last comment, and have one thing to add: One thing I DO like about Vista. This is the more advanced Power Management features combined with a system Stand-By and hibernation that actually WORKS, ALL THE TIME.

Yes it workes in XP, but is buggy and if you hibernate 5 or 6 times, you end up with a fresh boot because hibernation failed. Also in XP stand-by was finicky in several ways.

That said, Vista is finicky with wireless networks.

There are other additions/upgrades in Vista, but none of them are worth anything to me, especially in face of it's slowness. I don't care about the Media Center/Media Player: I use other apps for all of that. Don't care about all the "cool" user interface stuff they added.

My last $0.02 for this matter.

at 8/1/2008 10:16:00 AM, Eagle said:
Dear Brian Dipert ... thank you. We run big numerical simulations, and we are dying for full 64-bit memory.

at 8/1/2008 5:00:30 PM, Derek said:
I just bought a Vista laptop to replace my two year old Toshiba XP laptop. The new machine is supposed to have good performance under Vista, at least it rated fairly well but the performance is very poor. It has 67 processes running at startup and uses 800Mb of memory before running any applications. I'm going back to XP and the Toshiba.

at 8/2/2008 2:09:02 AM, Markus Unread said:
I knew Vista was bad news from the start - partly from a technical side and partly from the "ram it down your throat marketing" side.
First thing - they price and ship the consumer machines with Vista Home Premium (AKA crippleware) but, hey, for more money we''ll let you upgrade to the version of Vista that works! Sort of.
Why do I call it crippleware? Where to start... The first thing I hit was the "Send LM & NTLM responses" intentional registry botch that made it difficult or impossible to network the VistaHomePremium (VHP) machines to a network running older versions of windows. It took me DAYS of wasted time until I was able to find the hack to fix that problem. Not only did MSFT decide to change that setting, they removed that path in the control panel to change it back! Of course, if you pay for premium, that part of the control panel structure is given back to you.
Then there''s the "backup" that doesn''t allow you to backup your entire system - unless you upgrade.
Then there''s the "bad user - no system disk!" marketing mentality. On HP''s there is a restore partition, but even on dual disk machines, the partition resides on the boot drive. If that stops spinning, you are DOA.
But that''s HP! What about, oh, Sony? Not only is there no OS install/restore DVD, there is no recovery partition either. Sony and MSFT went even further and, at least on the laptop I tried this on, the BIOS seems to have been hacked to prevent the installation of anything other than Vista. Also, all of the config screens were removed, other than boot-order.

Think about it. Imagine that you are Joe Consumer who has just bought a new machine because either Windows or Norton has dragged your old hardware into the gutter. Your new one has VHP installed. If the system becomes corrupted, auto-update has trashed their config, or the disk starts getting flaky, then they are completely screwed. VHP has made it HARDER for people to make backups of their entire system when they should be making it effortless.

Then there is the memory use. I found it interesting that VHP actually used more memory idling than Ultimate.
HUH? More? 800M vs 450M!
Another nudge towards upgrading.

And of course, don''t even try to run an OS install disk from within Vista. I swear, if MSFT could get away with it, they''d force the PC manufacturers to change their BIOS so that if a user tried to install another OS, it would execute an HCF (Halt and Catch Fire).

Vista is Microsoft''s latest step towards having the user RENT their OS. They see places like Cadence and other high end SW companies doing it and they just can help but salivate.

No, you can''t have a copy of the OS you just bought. No, you can''t protect yourself from it crashing and taking everything with it... Unless you buy this upgrade that we have designed to cut out the retailers and OEM''s. Even then, if you can''t boot, you had better have backed-up recently because your options are often limited to "Format and reinstall".

Most of my customers are on XP and have avoided Vista. With these carved-out BIOS''s showing up and most of the non-business machines being shipped with Vista, I am starting to tell a lot of non-power users to just get a Mac. There''s an initial learning curve, but they would have some of that with Vista as well. In the end, their machines will be a LOT less buggy and I won''t have to keep making excuses for Vista Home Premium turning their machines into bricks.

at 8/2/2008 8:40:55 AM, Ian_rw said:
I bought a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop last christmas with Windows Vista Ultimate installed.... I can only say it''s a super OS. I have had no problems other than the lack of a driver formy old scanner. This led to my buying a new all in one printer from Canon (my old scanner was also Canon)which is so much faster as the old machine that I am not sorry I was forced into the change.

So happy am I with Vista that I have just ordered a Dell XPS M 1330 laptop with Vista Ultimate pre installed.

If you have a PC that meets the hardware requirements of Vista you should not have many problems.

Remember the hard time MS got when XP was launched!! It doesent seem to matter what Microsoft releases, it''s always lets rubbish it from the masses.

at 8/3/2008 5:35:30 AM, MSimon said:
My XP machine has built in Microsoft DVD burning support. It is a two year old Gateway bought just before Vista.

at 8/4/2008 1:17:26 AM, spir said:
Is not Windows XP broadly sufficient?

I think it is, as well as one of a linux distribution.

One of the only reason bying this software is ... to spend money again for the great pleasure of the semiconductor manufacturer...

at 8/4/2008 4:18:40 PM, Lorin said:
Because it deserves it!
My Ultimate, Quad 2.4, w/4G RAM, 2-500G SATA Fast Drives
1) Note your Media Center does not show digital tv subchannel program name information so you cannot program it to save by program name (and on PBS, the best programs move their time slots).
2) Watch out for 4G Mem!. It will probably bust some of the drivers as it did mine (two of them). Vista and drivers used the same memory space. This was in the last six months so it is not an 'old' problem. Lots of re-booting!
3) Did you notice how slow file copying is! Try a SATA fast and see how slow.
4) Try using the folders you used to use. Can't can you!.
5) Turn off Aero too, but it will only help a little.
6) Only within the last few months did the video drivers get fixed for my high end Vista certified display adapter. Lots of re-booting.
7) Still askes me if I really want to even with UAC off.
8) Tells me my pen drive needs to be scanned, so I scan it and reboot and it tells me my pen drive needs to be scanned ... and again ... This pen drive works fine in four other PC - no probs.
9) Does not know how to perform simple tasks. Disk check C and D on re-boot - hangs after C (had no errors) black screen but was really running cause it responded with sound only to the remote control. Re-boot then did D. But I started this at night and hoped (lol) that it would be completed in the A.M.
10) Think you are Admin. You are not. You need to find out how to become the Super Admin to have access to your own PC. It is my PC damn it!!!
And I could go on.
You have a case of the gee-wiz out of the box high that soon will be dashed. Make an appointment with your psychiatrist in advance.

at 8/5/2008 2:57:42 PM, Chad said:
Brian, how are those asbestos shorts holding out?

at 8/5/2008 8:42:06 PM, BlindAzabat said:
Vista has performed well for me with 2Gb of RAM. Much of the UI can be set to Win Classic style (which I prefer as a blind user). I do find the remaining UI differences a bit cumbersome, and have turned off UAC. As a developer, refusing to update my products to remain compatible is simply not a realistic option. I have an app that was developed in 1993 under DOS that has required rather minor changes to remain compatible. In fact, the only area changed for Vista re-compiling the installer with a newer version, and re-compile the help file as HTML Help format. The app still runs properly as a hybrid Windows/DOS program. OEMs selling systems with less than 2Gb are shooting themselves in the foot and leaving many users with misconceptions about Vista. With regard to performance vs. battery, Vista provides a very condifurable power/perfmance interface that is often extended further by the notebook maker (Toshiba does), to provide very detailed control of system resources. Vista's not perfect, but it's not horrible either.

at 8/8/2008 8:23:53 AM, Warren said:
If all you do is check your email, surf the web, and do home multimedia, which is all you talked about here, then Vista is great.

If however, you want to run a wide variety of software, to get actual WORK done, as opposed to toying with your computer, you will soon grow to hate the way Microsoft broke what wasn't already broken before, and failed to fix what millions of people asked them to fix.

I run Vista all day every day at work, and I'm a software developer. I do it because my software has to run on Vista, so it needs to be developed and tested on Vista. But it's like nails on a chalkboard. Sure I'm a professional Microsoft hater, too. But it was microsoft that made me that way, not Apple or their fanboys. Just because your apple friend is a total fanboy doesn't make him wrong.

Spend a few days with a mac, and if you're this easy on Vista, I'd like to see what nits you decide to pick on with the Mac.

You don't need flame proof underwear, you need to try some real work with Vista, and then report your findings.

Silly boy thinks that being a magazine editor gives him some kind of credibility.

W

at 8/24/2008 9:27:35 AM, ts1279 said:
Vista has been great for me on all me systems. The only hardware compatibility problems I've had were with a scanner and a TV tuner, both obscure and over 5 years old. Even then, it seemed to be a problem related to 4gb RAM memory mapping or unavailability of x64 drivers than anything else.

As for the fellow that complained that it was "deliberately" difficult to remove because you can't just stick in an XP disc and run through an XP setup wizard in Vista...

Are you kidding? Have you tried to take WinXP down to Win2k or Win98? You'll end up doing the same thing, booting from CD, or worse DOS boot disk, and installing from there.

at 8/29/2008 10:23:59 AM, Timbalionguy said:
Linux is the answer, what is your problem?? A few months back, I purchased a fairly nice HP laptop with Vista installed. Before converting the box to Linux (which made the salesman give me all sorts of warnings about the warranty!), I played with Vista just a little bit. The only positive thing I can say is the Aero Glass feature looked neat. But, the software was slow. It was the biggest memory hog I ever saw. It was unwilling to share much of the hard drive for a dual-boot box. Needless to say, booting into my Linux install disk was the best thing about that whole experience.

at 9/4/2008 4:52:13 AM, Darren Holdstock, UK said:
I''ve successfully wiped Vista from my life, and now my new Dell XPS 420 is fair hurtling along on XP. It wasn''t an easy install as I had to load all the drivers manually, but I did manage to get my Bluetooth card reader working, which was a bonus. On this machine, Vista would take 4 to 5 minutes to boot, and would grind away with random background tasks and irksome popups for another quarter of an hour after that. The same machine on XP boots in 45 seconds, leaving the processors nice and idle. I note that Dell are now offering their XPS PCs with the option of a dual Vista/XP OS, I''m guessing as a result of massive customer pressure. I am indebted to Markus (above) for introducing me to the term ''crippleware'' - very apt. I think Brian likes Vista as, being a natural-born engineer, he likes a challenge. Each to their own - the only satisfaction I''ve ever had from Vista was when I killed it.

at 10/26/2008 8:25:53 AM, Joe, Tucson AZ said:
I have a number of computers circling me including my laptop - a Sony PCG-5E1N brought in from Japan by Dynamism. Came with Vista preinstalled, all drivers, all docs in Kanji. I lived with it for about 18 months, but with each successive update it ran slower. Finally bit the bullet, wiped the drive, and installed xp. Vista is an example of creeping featurism.

at 11/5/2008 3:20:12 PM, g122 said:
I ordered a necessary new PC, a Dell XPS 420, core 2 Duo with 4G, and it has been 2 months of near hell. Dell completely blames it on Vista, but it took them a month to say most of their problem reports are fixed by avoiding sleep or hibernation. Now I have a barely tolerable, slow booting machine that, after man-days of lockup recovery, rebooting, re-imaging, reformatting and reloading, still refuses to accept new drivers because it says it needs new drivers. If you catch me when I am near tears trying to resolve the latest sleep depriving problem, I would say bad things about Dell and MSFT. Instead I quietly and justifiably contemplate how the next 500 thousand products we ship can be diverted away from MSFT OS's and the next 1000 servers we ship can have ZERO Dell content.

at 11/6/2008 7:08:46 AM, Darren Holdstock said:
Hi g122, I feel your pain. If you want to lose Vista on your XPS 420 I can point you in the right direction. It's not simple (Vista won't let another OS overwrite it), you'll need to load the drivers manually, and the Sideshow display will be reduced to playing Solitaire only, but it's worth doing to get the most out of a fine bit of hardware. I've never looked back.

at 12/1/2008 5:34:47 PM, Jotego said:
I do not understand people who critic Vista either. Before SP1, there were indeed some problems with files but once you install SP1 the system runs flawlessly. I wouldn't go back to XP.

at 1/15/2009 2:34:57 AM, Martin Peters said:
After using XP and Fedora Linux previously, I purchased Vista Ultimate (64-bit) last year. The biggest issues I cam accross compatibility wise were 64-bit driver issues, rather than Vista compat issues (with the exceptions of some old legacy software and games). However, although the security is annoying, you have to do similar things under Linux when it comes to installing software and system config changes. So this is nothing new, and a natural progression. And to be honest, UAC has saved my butt twice. But, the worse problem for me is the explorer, and that annoying way it wants to display folders (it looks for certain files and makes a decision on how to lay folder out), and without tweaks you cant change it. What would have been great, would be the ability to interchange the desktop (like X-windows). But we are forced to use Aero, which is ok hand has some neat effects, but I dont use them. All in all, although still undecided, it's a technical improvement, which is good enough for me.

at 4/23/2009 11:22:24 PM, endyem said:
The discussion about Vista not playing well with older hardward reminds of an vignette I saw floating around in the Windows 95 days. Unfortunately, I don''t remember the author.

You are a wooden board.
Intel is a threaded fastener.
Microsoft is a tool used to drive threaded fasteners into wooden boards.
Get the picture?

Microsoft and Intel want you to buy new hardware to run your new software because their stock price depends on it. It is in their best interest to "encourage" you to upgrade.

When will Linux be as well-supported and commonplace?

at 6/2/2009 4:45:48 PM, Mike CA said:

Did anyone mention that VISTA is Slow...snail slow? Running Vista with 2gb RAM on an AMD dual core processor and my new Intel Atom (single core) with XP and 1 gb of ram runs circles around it. Did anyone metion slow...snail slow?

at 6/3/2009 9:10:38 AM, Dave Telling said:
I have a Gateway with a quad-core Intel with 4GB RAM, and Vista MCE. So far, I have found it to be very stable, runs all my existing software (once I loaded the 32-bit O/S, which Gateway thoughtfully supplied), and certainly seems to be fast enough - I don't really have any point of comparison, except FSX - I ran it on a 2.4GHz P4 XP machine, and it was much slower, jerkier & crash prone. FSX on the Vista machine is a real pleasure. It boots pretty quickly ( 50 seconds from button push to desktop) but I don't use it for business, and that may be why I don't seem to have problems with it. I can live without the Aero stuff - it's no big deal, and I turned off the UAC. One thing I don't like is when you look in a folder and see what appears to be a shortcut to another folder and click on it, you're told that the folder isn't accessible. I'm still not sure what is going on with that.
Overall, I am not wildly impressed nor disappointed with Vista. I installed the W7 RC, just for fun, and have found that for the most part, it "feels" like Vista. I haven't noticed any obvious speed differences (although to be fair, I haven't used it much).
I think it would be worthwhile to see what common factors exist in the systems of people who seem to have a lot of problems. Are the issues fundamental O/S related, or application related?
When I bought my first XP system, I had heard a variety of horror stories about how bad it (XP) was, and almost loaded W98 on the new system, but thought I'd at least give it a try. Since making that choice, I have never even thought about going back. I had a couple orders of magnitude fewer problems with the the XP box than my W98 box, and that experience has continued to this day.
I've run systems with the Mac O/S and a couple versions of Ubuntu Linux, and so far have not found any really compelling reason to switch from the Vista O/S I already have.

at 6/17/2009 12:32:50 AM, P. Fleschler said:
I have been using Vista ever since March 2007 with a Sony Vaio laptop. When it is running it is OK, but I always have to shut it down because it will randomly stop opening Thunderbird or Firefox. My only solution is a crash and reboot because it will hang when trying to close. This happens either with wireless or direct ethernet. I never have problems like this with XP. As of now, I just live with it and assume that I will have to shut it down two to three times a day.

at 7/6/2009 12:58:00 PM, Dave Telling said:
Well... I finally had my first BSD in years... with Windows 7RC. I was running Media Center, trying to set up the tuners, when I got a BSD that flashed a lot of text very briefly, then the computer restarted with no input on part. Is this part of the random restarts that were supposed to happen only with W7 beta, or something new? Only time will tell, but so far, Vista has been run without a hitch.

at 9/21/2009 2:59:35 PM, Realistic Guy said:
"So far, I'm quite impressed with Windows Vista"

I'm not. Operation is very annoying. It's SLOW. Eats resources without any good reason (why the heck it needs so many VRAM ?), if you believe that Vista is more secure in terms of being hacked, you're a noob. The interface is so-so, firewall sucks ( I can hack it in 10 minutes, even less )

at 9/21/2009 3:07:19 PM, Don't make me laugh ! said:
The only day that I had a good feeling about Vista was when I downgrades it to XP !!!

1) This thing is SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW
2) This things uses memory like crazy
3) Security is fictional. Yes. It is, believe me.
4) Need Windows, use XP and LEARN how to use it well.
5) Don't need Windows, use a Mac or Linux

I'm an Electronic Eng. with 20 year experience in software development and a HUGE power user. Also worked for 5 years as a newtwork/system security specialist.

at 11/4/2009 4:22:09 PM, TheMobRules said:
The author said:

"I'm a senior technical editor with an engineering degree and more than 20 years of engineering-plus-technology analysis experience, so as I regularly remind you all, I'm naturally going to dodge-and-solve problems (without even realizing I'm doing so at the time, in many cases) that'd bedevil most average folks"

So am I, and ? Don't even dare to state bullshits like this. You're not talking to noobs here. Don't be arrogant. And sincerely now I have my doubts about your knowledge.

Vista is sloooow, sluggish, has a lot of security issues ( I can hack it in FIVE minutes ). Eats memory. Has a freak overhead. It's interface is extremely annoying. Windows 7 isn't much better. Why the hell the OS needs 256MB of video RAM ?

It's an OS for dummies. Also made by dummies.

at 11/4/2009 4:23:51 PM, TheMobRules said:

Hey! Realistic Guy said almost the same ! I like this guy !

at 11/26/2009 8:11:42 AM, Flavio Scaponi said:

Funny arcticle. It's like a bad taste joke.

XP, Vista and 7 can be hacked in a matter of minutes.

Don't believe ? Just bring your pc or notebook to any pwn-to-own party.

Pitty.

Brian's Brain

Profile

RSS Feed

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Most Commented On

Archives