Idea that may make more folks accept Vista

[Lyondellic]

I will preface this by saying that I use both XP Professional and Vista Business. I like Vista, mainly because it seems to be organized better and has a nice user interface. I did end up turning off UAC because I think the warning prompts are a bit over the top.

In Windows XP, Microsoft lets the user set the interface to Windows Classic. This was a handy feature for folks that were used to Windows 2000, ME, 98 and 95. It was also a good feature for businesses that didn't want all of the bells and whistles that came with the default XP interface.

I feel that Microsoft should have included an XP interface option in all versions of the Vista software. I believe that this would increase acceptance of Vista because it allow the interface to look like XP.

Some will say that Vista would still not be quite as responsive as XP, but that is quickly changing as advances in hardware are made. XP was considered a resource hog when it first came out too. Most gamers were die hard Windows 98 advocates until XP development increased performance, and hardware improved.

 

[simple_gifts]

Ford could have offered to paint the Edsel more colors....

 

[Iain]

Originally Posted By: Lyondellic
I will preface this by saying that I use both XP Professional and Vista Business. I like Vista, mainly because it seems to be organized better and has a nice user interface. I did end up turning off UAC because I think the warning prompts are a bit over the top.

Oh well, It's your machine.

Quote:

In Windows XP, Microsoft lets the user set the interface to Windows Classic. This was a handy feature for folks that were used to Windows 2000, ME, 98 and 95. It was also a good feature for businesses that didn't want all of the bells and whistles that came with the default XP interface.

I feel that Microsoft should have included an XP interface option in all versions of the Vista software. I believe that this would increase acceptance of Vista because it allow the interface to look like XP.

............



It's there at:
Control Panel -> Personalisation -> Window Colour and Appearance

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

I agree, offering all the goodies of Vista with the XP interface, namely the Royale theme would be a good start.

 

[PandaBear]

To most general public, they will eventually prefer Vista over XP when the new machine has way too much power that neither of them are too slow. I know my niece prefer Vista due to the eye candy and she has a new machine.

For me: I would still stay with Win 2000 because I am too cheap to upgrade and it is more reliable (never blue screen other than due to a bad Netgear NIC driver) than any other MS OS I have used, XP included. I know I am a minority, but hey, so are 99.9% of stick shift drivers out there.

 

[JohnBrowning]

XP-Pro is my favorite but even XP home edition is good. I can not recall the last time I had the blue screen of death with XP...I have never had file come up missing of moved with XP like many have had happen with Vista. I have never had XP suck up close to 2GB of Ram for soemthing as stupid as indexing! Well I turn indexing off on XP anyway's but you get my point. I ran XP-Pro on my Desk top from 2001- last week with just 128MB of Ram. Now I have 640MB of Ram but Vista would never run on such meger system let alone the orgianal 128MB that the system came with. Why does anyone need 2,3,4,8 GB's of ram to do most the things people do with a computer?? To me when you need 2GB to do what 128MB will do that is a step backward not forward. A preety GUI really is not worth it in my opinion. The nest thing I think that was stupid was changeing the interface so much that the average computer user on XP,2000,98 could move from one system to the next with little fuss. I find that I am clumsy as all get out trying to navigate Vista.

It is funny that when I was buying my laptop I almost opted for 2GB of ram but then I said to myself "Wait a minute I ordering mine with XP 1GB will be more then I need!"

I will say this much I would consider Vista 64Bit Ultimate but not any of the other castrated versions of the OS!

 

[TooManyWheels]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear

For me: I would still stay with Win 2000 because I am too cheap to upgrade and it is more reliable (never blue screen other than due to a bad Netgear NIC driver) than any other MS OS I have used, XP included. I know I am a minority, but hey, so are 99.9% of stick shift drivers out there.


I have Windows 2000 on two machines, and XP on one. I haven't noticed any negative impact on my life from not having Vista.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

My Firefox browser has a pretty blue border now that I am using Vista. Burned a photo CD for a client yesterday. It was very easy/intuitive in Vista. Drag and drop. No problems. I have 5 XP machines. Work great for work. Vista is doing better with photos and music. Regarding User Account Control PC World (June issue) has a nice article "Make Vista's User Account Control Less Annoying. Long story short, able to ditch all the annoying prompts without ditching it all together. Sweet!

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
Now I have 640MB of Ram but Vista would never run on such meger system let alone the orgianal 128MB that the system came with. Why does anyone need 2,3,4,8 GB's of ram to do most the things people do with a computer?? To me when you need 2GB to do what 128MB will do that is a step backward not forward.


I was thinking the same line, until all the flash advertisement that chew up all my CPU power and all the optimization that Picasa2 throw at me when viewing/editing my photos. BTW, Picasa is a nice software for free from google, highly recommended.

At work is another issue, never have enough RAM from all the poorly written software we use (AccuRev is definitely the biggest pile of dung ever exists, I would never believe people write a revision control software that is not atomic and in Java, and cannot separate the file server from the engine, and all those crazy stuff that can get any employee fired for doing so).

The point is, developers expect you to have a powerful system nowadays so they can get lazy and ship their software out the door without optimization, or use poorly written library to reduce their workload. You pay the same, they cut cost. There is no way around it unless you are using lean, old, and quality software that rarely exists nowadays.