Vista Still Sucks, Pirillo Pissed
- July 16th, 2007
- Read 2383 times
- 23 Comments
It’s been six months since Chris Pirillo installed Windows Vista. Six months of hell. Chris is like a lot of us who got initially excited about Vista, only to find that half of our software and hardware didn’t work with it. In Pirillo’s case, it was a fax/printer combo machine that he used for everyday work. After months of struggle and even using VMWare at one point, he decided he’d had enough. He switched back to Windows XP.
The move is a wise one, considering how flawed and broken Vista truly is. A lot of Windows users have switched back to XP, including a slew of iPod owners who were taken aghast when they discovered that iTunes didn’t work on Vista for months. Now that the OS has been out for over half a year, it’s time to get things rolling Microsoft. Let’s see some real patches and service packs with fixes that’ll make Vista feel more like XP.
Let me make sure I’ve got this straight:
1) Because a fax/printer combo doesn’t work in Vista, thanks to its manufacturer not writing a new driver, and
2) Because Apple didn’t update iTunes despite the (large amount of) time with the beta
it’s therefore completely Microsoft’s fault, and no one should use Vista?
That’s a pretty large leap of logic, Vince!
I have been running Vista since day 1. Apart from having to find video drivers, I am totally happy with my setup - no problems at all. I have USB hubs, and a Canon MF Printer, Canon digital camera, PSP, Zune and other random devices that all work.
I used to read Chris’ Lockergnome back int he day, I liked the kid and respected him. Now, I am tired of people blaming MS for crappy hardware and crappy drivers. the manufacturers make the drivers. Chris should boycott the printer product so that the manuf. makes proper drivers.
Folloow-up:
Great quote from the article:
“Still, it’s an uphill battle: Vista interacts differently with programs and peripherals than previous versions of Windows, and some companies have chosen not to spend time and money updating older products. Printer makers, Wascha noted, draw profits from ink cartridges and services, and have little motivation to invest in updating drivers for old hardware.”
Chris should have read a lot more before he “upgraded” to Vista. If he had read the blogs and the online journals, he would have stuck with XP like the rest of us did.
Come on Vince, you’re making us Philadelphian’s look naïve.
If you read your own post, you said iTunes hasn’t worked for months. Should Microsoft re-write Apple’s software? Believe me, it was no secret we were releasing a new operating system and the guidance has been out there for a long time on what ISV’s needed to change in their software.
We’ve been working with software and hardware vendors over the past two to three years – some took the new platform serious and others didn’t. Those that did, have had no problems and enjoy better performance, security, and customer satisfaction. Those that didn’t had product returns – which is a very bad experience for Microsoft, the vendor, and of course the customer.
Ive been using Vista for about 4 months, and maybe I’m lucky, but the only problem Ive had was getting annoyed with UAC, and that took a while before it really started annoying me.
It took me about an hour to get my XP machine to interface with my Vista machine on my home network but other than that, my printer, mouse, every other usb device I own, and every piece of software Ive used (except for skype) has worked just like it did in XP. I believe there are bugs in Vista (and I blogged about this myself months ago) but a lot of people are blaming Vista for problems that are being caused because other software developers and hardware manufacturers haven’t sufficiently updated their software or drivers to work well in Vista.
What people need to do is stop letting those people off the hook and complain to them. No disrespect to Chris Pirillo, but if his printer doesn’t work, maybe he should get on the manufacturer to make drivers that will enable it to work.
In all reality, Vista was in beta for a loooong time, it didn’t sneak up on any of those software makers and hardware manufacturers. They had ample time to make preparations. it makes no sense that after that long beta cycle and 6 months or so after Vista’s release that these companies still haven’t made their product compatible.
“The move is a wise one, considering how flawed and broken Vista truly is.”
I don’t know if this post is supposed to be news, opinion, commentary, or all/any of the above. But even if it’s just the author’s personal opinion, it’s still pretty weak to toss out that unqualified, blanket condemnation of Vista. I don’t know the adoption numbers, but I’d guess millions of users of Vista haven’t had the problems Pirillo did. And a few million more have had similar issues but are still happy with their upgrade - myself included. I’ve had some driver issues here and there, but have actually been pleased to find that Vista recognizes messages from my printer in spite of the fact that Lexmark hasn’t updated the drivers in a couple years. Are we, the happy Vista users, all blindly using a “broken” OS? Or do we just not care what you think?
the relevant points have all been made in other comments above. simply put, this post sucks.
What I find amazing about the suckiness of Vista, is that everyone that I know who actually has Vista freaking loves it. And, that includes my wife, who begged me for a Mac.
It’s also amazing that regular, real-life users have no problems with Vista, but “power users” can’t seem to come to grips with it. Kind of a switch in roles there, huh?
Did anyone actually watch Pirillo’s video. He talks about the scanner part of the multi-function not working. He also talks about is online faxing software not working. He needs both of these in order to work. When those aren’t working, it is time to make a change, and that change was to go back to XP.
For the average user, I’m sure Vista works just fine. I want to use it, but as a developer moving to a new platform is a scary thing that could completely change the way things work.
The lack of support for Vista kind of boggles my mind. It’s now been out for 6 months - 8 if you go back to the business version launch, and that was preceeded by a beta release of over a year. So developers have now had 18-24 months to get their software to work right with Vista - which makes it kind of shocking just how many haven’t.
What’s frustrating isn’t the software that won’t install on Vista. It’s the software that installs but won’t run. Runs, but unexpectedly crashes. Runs, doesn’t crash, but doesn’t work as expected, or can’t perform some function. And there’s no way to know how a given piece of software will behave on Vista before trying it.
The OS itself is a modest improvement over XP, but the third party support just sucks. IMHO, Microsoft screwed up by trying to accommodate backwards compatibility when it’s pretty obvious a clean break was called for. Apple managed this twice in the last 10 years - I don’t see why Microsoft couldn’t have pulled off the same feat. If Vista only ran software that was designed for Vista, it’d end up being a much better user experience.
I agree with the split from third party. But, you’ve got to know that they’d be reamed even more than they are now by the press if they made that decision.
I’ve been using Vista from Day 1, and I’ve never had a problem with it. I never even had any problems with iTunes (except for 7.3, where it couldn’t save the library). Oh, and Logitech’s SetPoint is a little messed up.
But, none of those problems are Vista’s fault. It’s the manufacturer’s responsibility to make drivers and software that work properly on Vista.
Vince, you are truly reaching a new low, with posts like this.
As a Network Engineer for an internet company it seemed important for me to dogfood the Vista OS before pushing it out on the general employee populace. Ouch, has it been a painful experience. While I am sure that Vista could be great for grandma/grandpa who don’t want to do much, the way those frustrating permissions work has been utterfly frustrating. You can’t install a printer unless User Access Controls are turned on. Wait, I thought turning UAC offer was the way to get more control? Okay, so reboot your computer to turn UAC on, then install printer, then turn UAC off and reboot again.
I am hoping Microsoft will make the needed decision that sometimes something can be too secure.
I’ve got to admit, I went the cartoons path and switched from Vista to Mac OSX. At some point you’ve got to say enough is enough is Vista was the last chance I’ll ever give Microsoft again.
Duncan, you do realize if Apple’s OS (or any other for that matter) ever gained critical mass they’d face the same challenges of hardware and software compatiblity, right?
That is pure speculation.
I used to read Chris’ Lockergnome back int he day, I liked the kid and respected him. Now, I am tired of people blaming MS for crappy hardware and crappy drivers. the manufacturers make the drivers. Chris should boycott the printer product so that the manuf. makes proper drivers.
Who says it “crappy hardware” simply because it won’t work under vista?
Why the fuck shouldn’t stuff that works under xp work under vista and why the fuck should I “upgrade” to this shit simply because poor microsoft needs money?
You know what is more pathetic? That the majority of ‘opinions’ left in this blog are actually from either Microsoft employees or Microsoft-paid bloggers.. That is sad
Chris Pirillo is a moron! How much I enjoy his uneducated rants about products he knows nothing about. He acts like he helped invent microsoft what a major fud fluffed hype clown.
Vista still sucks. Random browser lock ups due to quicktime,wmv, flash, really any media that catches it offguard. Also, add into the fact that it uses way to much idle memory even without anything loaded. I figured by now most of the little bugs would be worked out (the random crashes, freezing progs, ect…), but boy was I wrong.
One thing that gets me though, most of the problems seem random at best, sometimes stuff works, sometimes it doesn’t. Only one I can reproduce is updating while burning a DVD with the included burn program is an instant crash.
Vista wasn’t, isn’t, and IMHO, will NEVER be a viable solution for me. I wasn’t really tempted until my MCP/MCE buddy gave me a free copy, and talked it up so much I had to try it. Now I have even more ammo to Vista bash. It’s sad that XP/OSX/Linux are WAAAAY better than this 5 year in the making hunk of unfinished crap. They didn’t even leave in all the cool stuff.
Ubuntu is going back in it’s place, and XP will still be my music making program of choice *until I get a mac that is*
“Why the fuck shouldn’t stuff that works under xp work under vista and why the fuck should I “upgrade” to this shit simply because poor microsoft needs money?”
Best line in the whole blog. Yes, there are too many Microsuck groupies in the house. Whats the first main function of an OS… to perform basic functions as copy and paste and allow other applications to run properly on the hardware.
This bloated sack of crap has a beautiful ‘aero’ finish but under the hood she’s a pinto. I’ve seen Vista comps stall trying to copy a gig of info from one folder to another. COPYING shouldn’t halt your OS. I dont need it to compute how much time it will take, just do the fucking copy! And yes, if you own something and it worked under XP, then by all rights it SHOULD work under Vista. Otherwise dont bother selling the fucking piece of crap to people telling them it will enhance productivity. If you have to replace all you peripherals for a damed OS upgrade to get a pretty looking calculator and constant annoying warning from your retarded computer, i dont think its productive at all.
Damn M$ money sieve. Ill stick with XP and love watching everyone with Vista cry as their harddrives burn themselves into the ground from constant process abuse.