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Are you among the 1% that are still using Windows Vista? If so, you've got to be strong now because on 11 April 2017, Vista will see its final batch of security updates. After that, Vista (like XP) will continue to work but errors a will no longer be fixed. Does this mean Vista will unceremoniously fade into oblivion? Hardly, because many of the features we've come to appreciate in Windows 7, 8, or 10 were inspired by Vista - including many old annoyances. Reason enough to remember a system that provided both technical innovation and ample cause for frustration and hyperventilating users!
Excitement was running high when Vista saw the light of day in 2006. First screenshots made the rounds on the Internet and sent XP users into a frenzy. Microsoft was drumming up interest on all channels and continued to showcase features that made XP look really old. The new Aero design, the sidebar with gadgets, it felt like the future had just arrived. Once you installed the software (or bought a new PC that came with it), things were looking a little different. Microsoft had come up with various editions and users who obtained the Starter or Basic versions weren't treated to the glass design and received only basic features. Many users felt like second-class customers and they may have been right. Those who had the Premium edition, however, were in for a different surprise - they discovered the most pretty system brake of all time.
Microsoft originally declared that Vista would run on all standard PCs and the hardware requirements sounded fair, a 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of RAM was the minimum. What Microsoft failed to mention was that using Vista on such a device was like breast-stroke swimming through jelly, a slow and sluggish affair. You also needed a DirectX 9 compatible graphics card to experience Vista in all its visual glory. After the installation, many laptops bogged down and could only be revived by reinstalling Windows XP. Other former XP users who used to enjoy a speedy workflow on their machines could now be left with a fairly slow computer. The new Aero glass mode, 2006's holy grail of visual design, could barely ease the pain with drop shadows, semi-transparent borders and somewhat smooth animations.
Once users managed to stomach the performance drop, the new security concept gave rise to more headaches. Born out of the idea to provide extended user account control for better security, Vista put a tight rein on its users. Where XP followed an open-door policy with all windows and doors constantly unlocked, Vista enforced a total lockdown - you couldn't even get from the hallway into the bathroom without authorization so to speak. Cursing and swearing directed towards Microsoft took on an epic scale in our QA team. User rights were restricted by default and elevations required manual intervention - many considered this an outright scandal. After all, they were supposed to be the masters of their PCs! Instead, they were constantly required to confirm action after action, a dilemma best depicted by the joke "Please click here to click there afterwards." Many users were begging for some peace and quiet and reluctantly lowered the security settings. It took Microsoft quite a while to fix this pesky issue with Service Pack 1.
There was also a lot of marketing hoopla about the sidebar that featured gadgets (comparable to what we'd call apps today). Users could quickly get information on system performance or the weather, translate words or view the latest news - there was some initial excitement. It quickly turned out that the sidebar was simply too narrow to provide anything more than a few phrases or a couple of headlines and many users would rather have had their plain desktop back without visual distractions. Besides, deeply integrating third-party gadgets into the system was a potential security risk which is why Microsoft dismissed both the sidebar and gadgets entirely in 2012. A computer simply isn't the same as a cellphone - maybe they could have learned this lesson with Vista and spared us the controversial tile-based design in Windows 8.
Many of the changes under the hood first introduced in Vista are still with us today (with slight modifications). Superfetch, a memory management approach to preload frequently accessed files into memory, is still present in Windows 10. User Account Control (UAC), the technology that enables users to work with restricted rights and only elevates them on a case-by-case basis, is also still a part of Windows (but has been redesigned to be less obtrusive) and so is hotplugging for external devices like beamers or instant Bluetooth connections. Much of Vista's code was reintroduced in Windows 7, albeit in optimized form, which is why many consider Vista a necessary interim product. Yet, Vista is also considered a failure in terms of popularity and never enjoyed the same level of success as Windows XP or Windows 7. To this day, t here are still more people using Windows XP than Windows Vista (roughly 5% XP world-wide) despite Vista now running quite stable thanks to numerous updates. It's hard to get rid of a bad reputation.
What I would like to know: how do you remember Vista? Do you know someone who still uses Vista today?
Picture 1 and 2: Microsoft TechNet
I am using Vista, but have not been doing much with it. using Webmail as my email at the same email address, and find my computer isn't what I would expect for speed and features. Not compatable with ASHAMPOO programs that I purchased. Only Ashampoo Burning Studio 15 is usable on my computer. Tried to upgrade and install other Ashampoo programs and can't do anything with them on this computer. Don't know if I can upgrade to Windows 10, or may have to buy a new computer. Anyway, Vista is m,y problem until I can afford something better.
Vista's built in "Voice Recognition" software, coupled with Google Docs loaded through Chrome gives me the best "free and easy" dictation set-up.
I hope that the Terrier electronic central heating radiator remote control system will remain on my Vista laptop ; I need to visit each room in my house to reset the valves when changing batteries !
Hello to the Microsoft os end users today here at ash....blog .
There's everything to applaud & little if nothing to complain for
ashampoo as well as Vista OS make the grade in my estimation.
Please allow me to take this opportunity to augment as well as reiterate how much my internet presence was supported up to the present point in time. If you want to you can say what pleases or displeases anyone and it means the more interesting will be the conversations.
My first computer was a Dell Laptop that came with Vista. Still have it and still works great. If I want it to work at it's best, I crank it up about 5 minutes before I really want to use it. Never could understand why people hated Vista. I don't do office type stuff. Music, pictures, videos, email.All the Ashampoo and other programs I installed were designed to work on Vista so I didn't have any problems with XP programs that wouldn't work right on Vista. Just about every annoyance I had, Woody Leonhard's 2 Vista for Dummies books showed me how to change settings to make it work decently. My family got me a new Windows 10 laptop because my old one "was ready to die" they thought. The new one is great but the Vista windows mail sure beats the mail program on Win 10. I am very sorry support for Vista is ending.
I actually have Windows Vista installed on the computer I'm typing on right now. I have to say that other than the slow start up issue which plagued Vista for a long time I have never run into any of the issues other people complain so loudly about. For me Vista has proven to be very stable, reliable and once booted fast.
Now that Microsoft has fixed the slow boot times I love it more than ever and I find myself disappointed that its EOL is rapidly approaching. I'm at a loss as to what to do about it as well. The hardware is too old to justify spending a $100 or so on a Windows 10 license and while I have great admiration for Linux, I've already got it installed on enough systems.
I think my only major disappointment with Vista has been how fast 3rd parties had abandoned the OS. For example AMD stopped producing drivers for VIsta back in late 2013 and Firefox just delivered the last version that'll support Vista and at the same time it's the last version that'll support Windows XP. They've all abandoned Vista without giving it anywhere near the same amount of love that they continued to give XP for so many years after it's EOL, despite the fact that under the hood Vista bears a striking resemblance to 7 and XP has almost nothing in common with any modern OS.
Also how am I supposed to play Fallout 3 now?
Hello everyone. I tested Vista in all its forms, without service packs, with the sp1 then the sp2 and indeed, the last updates have stabilized this OS. One must also take into account one thing, the evolution of the power of computers. Because installing a Windows 10 on a PC from the Vista era, I think it would not perform very well.
No BOO HOO or crying here, one of the worst OS's from the Microsoft School of Apprentices ever allowed to escape.
Whoever agreed to the name Vista, it was never 'a pleasing view', nor 'a mental view of a succession of remembered or anticipated events'. (dictionary meanings)
I know a car maker who wanted to name their model Vista. I suppose they’re happy they didn’t. :)
A friend of mine got from a internet+phone abonment a free Windows-Vista laptop... When problems arised, could not start up reasonably, then went to protected mode startup to check some settings, slowed down again till ultimatelly had to recover data via a rescue disk and after installing XP the same laptop was running soooo fast...
Another friend's brother still has a latop lingering in their parents home, it is slower than a snail. And like no free upgrade to Win10 was available, I consider in my next visit to install a dual boot with some leightweight Linux to make everybody happy again.
I rarely upgrade quickly to new OS's, but as a 3D developer I couldn't very well stay with XP when Vista had DX10. Initially I used dual boot, keeping both XP and Vista. It took me a while to get used to Vista after XP. Many things were different, with some functionality removed or replaced by less convenient stuff. Of course after I moved it was hard to go back to XP, because there were also new and convenient things (such as the search).
I stayed with Vista long after 7 came out, even though I had a Windows 7 license (thanks to being a beta tester). It worked well enough and I didn't feel like moving. In general I found that Vista SP2 was pretty stable and performed well on a PC with 8GB of RAM (also in my experience Vista x64 was faster and more stable than the x86 version even with 4GB). When I did upgrade to 7 I felt it was a much more minor upgrade than the XP to Vista one. It was a nice tweaking of Vista though, certainly a good version and a worthwhile upgrade on low RAM PC's.
I'm no longer using Vista in any PC, but I'm going to downgrade the old Inspiron 1720 back to it, because it's no longer in use and I want to give the Windows 7 license to my sister, who's still on XP. I thought of upgrading her to Vista (I have no shortage of licenses of that), but 7 would be much better, given that Vista is 'that version that nobody uses and therefore nobody supports'.
I have to admit I only used Vista for the games. It offered a lot more in the graphics department.
Heard of Vista, and the recurring problems. Never used it. Used XP and migrated to 7 a few years ago. Sounds like I, and others bypassing Vista, missed all the excitement.
I had a reasonably powerful system which Vista turned into a dog, performance wise. Lengthy startup, and, once you got tot the desktop, another 60-120 seconds to be able to start working.
Windows XP and Windows 7 are the best. Windows 10 ranks ahead of XP and behind Windows 7.
Well ..... I have a friend (yes, I have friends!) who still uses Vista, but then he makes little use of his computer.
Personally, I'm with Doug Dingle (below) with 8.1 on one computer pretending it's Win 7. My latest bells-&-whistles PC (about 4 months ago) was purchased, new to order, with 7 installed.
Windows 7 is indeed a nice system. I’m glad you have friends. :)
at the moment I'm 1 of those 5% still running Windows XP but will soon be updating 2 Windows 7 Home Premium
Cheers
I thought using Vista was a pretty terrible experience. Then came Windows 8 and Vista suddenly wasn't so bad.
Actually, if you threw enough hardware at it (like at least 4 gigs of RAM), Vista was okay. The UAC stuff really got old quick, though.
I still remember the shock I felt when Windows 8 was released...
ciao
Roger Mew: I thought I was the only one who still used Office 2003. Works like a charm on my Win 10 Machines.
That’s what I did last year. Then, I received an offer I couldn’t refuse. :)
I'm reading this article on a Vista PC
i will keep win vista if software WanDrv (Easy DriverPacks) 6.2 support all driver for win vista because set up win for one laptop or pc no network i use WanDrv (Easy DriverPacks) 6.2 setup driver net work
Bypassed Vista entirely. I never install a Micro$oft OS before SP1 comes out, and by that time, its reputation as a useless painful OS was sealed.
Went straight from XP SP3 to 7 SP1. Very happy with Win 7. Skipped Win8 (except for a tablet which came with 8.1, and which I run in "Win7 mode" - no tiles), and REALLY skipped the Win10 spyware, having to repeatedly remove the 6GB of files they endlessly downloaded to my machine to 'get it ready'.
If the next Windows isn't any better than 10, I'm seriously considering moving to OSX.
According to official statements, there won’t be any further consumer-oriented operating systems after WIndows 10. We’ll see if they’ll stick to that!
I'm astonished that Vista didn't die of shame, several years ago. I regarded it as the worst version of Windows ever, for all the reasons that you have outlined, Sven
Microsoft seem to make a habit of alternating good and bad iterations of Windows. Vista was a dog, 7 was good, 8 was mediocre and 10 is good (in my experience).
However - what comes next? When 10 was launched there was speculation that it would be the last version of Windows as we know it (Jim). Do you have a crystal ball, Sven?
No, I don’t own a crystal ball. :) But I do know the market quite well. I strongly believe, once the reputation suffers or sales start to plummet, a successor will likely appear (or an alternative).
Vista was fine, but I waited until SP2 to install it. XP
after it was "fixed" was a tough act to follow.
Smart move. :)
Hi ,my Dell runs on Vista its an Inspirion 530s . Will I still be able to use it after April . I only use it for Ebay ,reading the papers , downloading films and watching the sport. I know firefox like chrome are stopping updates but I can still use Opera. Have got a laptop which runs Winndows 7 but still prefer to use the Dell if I can
Yes, you may continue to use Vista. There will simply be no new security updates. If you spend a lot of time online, you may want to switch to a more recent operating system though.
I’m honestly surprised by how many Vista PCs are still in use!
Hi, I kept using Vista as it was the most stable platform yet IF you did a build it and use a OEM copy yourself. Companies like HP not only added slower downers, also you had to go through them for updates. I have now just upgraded to 7 as the machine whilst it will run 10 i need a fairly stable platform to sort out 10 problems. I must admit that 10 has been very good lately, was I a guinea pig? probably. The other thing is that expensive programs purchased in the last few years will not run on 10, although XP Office 2003 does thank quite nicely. So the only machine I now have running vista is the TV machine that uses a VPN to get "other channels"