[vox] Vista Stability

[Sameer Verma]

Bob Scofield wrote:
> Almost two years ago I had a chance to buy Windows XP for only $30 with the 
> rebate.  I put it on my business computer to replace Windows 98, and it has 
> been the first stable Microsoft OS since I was running Windowsless-DOS.  It's 
> slower and rougher than Linux, but it saves time in that it doesn't crash.
>
> A few months ago my wife got a new computer with Vista on it.  Putting aside 
> the problem of the irritating security features that require you to keep 
> clicking to get where you want, it is unbelievably unstable.  I was not 
> expecting Microsoft to actually go backward in the area of stability.  
>
> I have been looking forward to getting  Service Pack 1 in hopes that it would 
> make Vista more stable.  But they keep pushing back the release date for the 
> big fix.
>
> Fairly recently I bought a business laptop and had a choice between XP and 
> Vista.  I am really glad I chose XP.  (And the LUGOD Installfest put Kubuntu 
> on it.)
>
> Bob
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>   

Bob,

My sympathies on the Vista experience. I have Vista running under VMWare 
(a sandbox where it rightfully belongs) and it has been super stable...I 
just don't use it! That way it stays stable and secure :-)

Vista has been an absolute disaster. At first I thought that my views 
were getting distorted by my love for the free and open source process. 
However, I've seen so many people simply cringe when it comes to things 
like setting up a connection to an AP, that I wonder why people pay for 
such misery (there are those who do pay for pain, but that's another 
mailing list).

Two weeks ago, I was visiting some friends in South Bay (San Jose). 
Their neighbor dropped by with his shiny new Gateway laptop with Vista 
running on it. He couldn't get it to talk to his AP, which runs in the 
open - no WEP, no WPA etc. Its a stock DLink router.  We had four 
computer science and engineering folks in the room who work for Cisco, 
Symantec, Google, etc. It took them 1 1/2 hours and they still couldn't 
figure it out. All along, we were online on the *same* AP using my 
XO/OLPC (I have a B4 unit) laptop's browser researching the problem. The 
XO connected without a problem. (BTW, the problem might be related to a 
known bug. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233)

Imagine what options a non-technical user has to deal with, especially 
if they don't have comp sci neighbors!

As to why I have a copy of Vista...well, my students come up with 
questions related to Vista, so I need to be able to get onto a system 
and see if I can troubleshoot. Other than that, I would not go near that 
trash! Vista problems remind me of Windows ME.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/