Windows Vista Is Dead

[Karamjit]

Windows Vista received the very last updates in its history earlier today as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday, and this means that the operating system is officially discontinued as of April 11 and no other patches are planned.

Windows Vista first saw daylight in November 2006, and it quickly turned out to be Microsoft’s biggest flop in the operating system market, with users hitting crashes, issues, BSODs, and many other problems at a time when the software giant invested aggressively to upgrade its userbase from Windows XP.

Getting rid of Windows Vista is nothing more than a relief for Microsoft, especially given all these problems, but at the same time, the company is also making one major step towards its goal of focusing exclusively on Windows 10.

While discontinuing Windows Vista is not at all a difficult task, as less than 1 percent of the world’s desktop PCs are still running this OS version, Microsoft is likely to have a harder job upgrading users from Windows 7 when support comes to an end in January 2020.

Next step, Windows 7

Windows 7 is currently the number one desktop operating system worldwide and it is running on nearly 50 percent of the computers out there. Furthermore, Windows 7 has resisted Microsoft’s aggressive push for Windows 10 and the free upgrade promo, so there’s no doubt that many users would continue sticking with it despite the approaching end of support.

As far as Windows Vista is concerned, the only thing that needs to be done right now is to upgrade. Sticking with an operating system that no longer receives updates and security patches means you are exposing to unnecessary risks of being hacked, as flaws discovered by cybercriminals no longer get fixes from the company.

In most of the cases, the same vulnerabilities affect all Windows versions, so even if Windows Vista might not be necessarily targeted in future attacks, the lack of updates leaves users vulnerable and exposes their data.

Without a doubt, Windows Vista is not going to be missed, and this is probably the first time when an operating system is retired and Microsoft is more than happy with it. Hasta la Vista, baby!

From: http://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-vista-is-dead-514808.shtml

[luisam]

Window Vista currently has a quiet low share in the OS area but Microsoft's stoppin support for it won't mean it simply will die after April 11. Those who didn't like it from the beginning, most probably downgraded to Windows XP long time ago and later upgraded to Windows 7, because all those computers sold for Vista are basically Windows 7 compatible! As for the diminishing number of current users, those who has been using it on their computer since they bought it as "built for Vista" are happy with it and will use it until their computer continues working.

Probably they don't have the option to upgrade to Windows 10 because of hardware limitations but anyone who has been using Vista since about 10 years, will not be discouraged. Finally, considering that some popular apps are not supporting it anymore, they always have the resourse to mount Windows 7 .

[LeeSmithG]

Vista I beleive is no more than a one point two percent (1.2%) share of all usable Microsoft operating systems.

 

Windows seven (7) I beleive is the top kiddy.

 

2020 will be the demise of Windows seven (7) for extended support.

 

Microsoft should offer support for everyone of their creations.

 

From one (1) to a thousand (1,000) if thats the case.

 

 

[steven36]

On undefined at 9:14 AM, luisam said:

Window Vista currently has a quiet low share in the OS area but Microsoft's stoppin support for it won't mean it simply will die after April 11. Those who didn't like it from the beginning, most probably downgraded to Windows XP long time ago and later upgraded to Windows 7, because all those computers sold for Vista are basically Windows 7 compatible!

Windows Vista had 400 Million users once  so it had more users than Windows 8x ever had in it's day . Most XP machines  back when it came out  were not even compatible with Vista so of course many went back to XP  and many of us were never dumb enough to even try too run it  on old hardware  Many old XP boxes came with  256 MB and 512 MB of ram and slow processors  .. You could add more RAM to them  as long as you had extra slots but still this would not make a slow processor run fast .

 

Vista really needed 2 GB of ram to run good. Just like Windows 7 does . If you use just 1gb its very slow. Times are very different now from then most all PCs come with 4 or 8 GB  of ram now .I never used Vista  tell after SP2 came out it was OK  but why would you keep it when Windows 7 ran OK on Vista machines? When I 1st installed windows 7 is was not  as stable as XP  yet  it was not tel SP 1 came out that it became very stable.

[luisam]

20 minutes ago, steven36 said:

  Many old XP boxes came 256 MB and 512 mb of ram and slow processors 

 

Computers were SOLD with 256 Mb or 512 Mb with Windows XP, to keep them cheap as a bait for buyers, but soon users discovered that they needed at least 1 gb to run it comfortably.  With the evolution of new software, current minimum to run Windows XP SP3 is 2 Gb. 

I have currently a laptop with 512 Mb and can't even install a decent antivirus because it gets too slow.  Not worth update memory because additionally battery is almost dead, it has some problems with the keyboard too, I find the screen size too small, doesn't even have HDMI  or bluetooth and ultimately it has a too slow Intel Centronics  processor.

[virge]

If anyone is still using Windows 1.x, 3.x, 9.x, ME  or Vista,.. i feel sorry for you.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, luisam said:

Computers were SOLD with 256 Mb or 512 Mb with Windows XP, to keep them cheap as a bait for buyers, but soon users discovered that they needed at least 1 gb to run it comfortably.  With the evolution of new software, current minimum to run Windows XP SP3 is 2 Gb. 

Cheap ?  In 2001  i paid  $1200 for a Dell  with a P4 Processor   and 512 MB  of ram . I bought right  from Dell . Computers were not Cheap back then   Extra RAM  and a  DVD Burner  and all that I  had too pay for extra and I installed it myself still i never was dumb enough to try too run Vista  on a P4 processor  . Even 1st generation  atoms  that came out with 2 GB Ram with XP in  like 2010  were very slow with Vista or Windows 7 . I had one so I know also  I bought a Vista Machine  back in 2010  it came with 4 cores and  4 GB of Ram it ran good with Vista  and still runs good with windows 7 today. You know how many boxes were sold with P4 processors?  Still if you visit Linux Forums many are using them with Linux today  . 

 

The 1st cheap PCs were like e machines they had crappy AMD Athlon XP microprocessors in them and if you try too install Linux on these if you are lucky enough to find some Linux that will  install on them they will be so slow  that you will have too put XP back in  .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMachines

But how much ram was is them had nothing too with pricing back then when XP came out  the 1st 1 GB PCs were ever made was just made they was called Time Computers.

 

Quote

 

Time claims 1GB RAM PC breakthrough 2 Oct 2001

Time Computers is marketing its latest desktop PC with the slogan "I am the Greatest", and to justify the claim it's packed it with 1GB RAM..

The slogan is reminiscent of boasts surrounding great boxing matches involving Prince Naseem Hamed or Lennox Lewis (surely Mohammed Ali - Ed). And Time's boast for the machine is that this is the first desktop PC to be launched in the UK with 1GB RAM.

This rings some alarm bells. 'I am the Greatest' can handle 1GB RAM because it's running Windows XP, allowing proper utilisation of the system memory above 1GB for the first time on a desktop PC - Windows XP supports up to 2GB RAM.

However, Windows 2000 Professional was capable of supporting more than 1GB of memory. Time has since qualified its claim and said it was referring to consumer OSes (Windows '98 and ME), which were unable to support this amount of RAM.

The machine is retailing for £1799 (incl. VAT and delivery.) Time is aiming it at graphic designers and those working with digital photography. It comes bundled with a scanner, Epson printer and digital camera. The machine specs are as follows:

•  
• 2GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor
• 2 x 80GB hard disk drives
• 64MB GeForce 2
• DVD-ROM & CD-RW drive
• 17-inch monitor

   

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/02/time_claims_1gb_ram_pc/

 

Quote

 

Why Windows Vista (SP1+) is Better Than Windows 7 January 6, 2012

 

You’ve been brainwashed. Brainwashed by clever marketing and the classic underpromise-and-overdeliver strategy employed by Microsoft to fix the mistakes they made with Vista.

 

I know, I know, everyone told you Vista was bad. You maybe even used Vista pre-SP1, on a “Vista Capable” machine way back when it launched and concluded that it was horrible. Or, maybe you heard all the bad press and skipped on it altogether? Stuck with XP, then switched straight to 7. Is that what you did?

 

Well, regardless, I am convinced that Vista is the superior operating system. So vastly superior, that I am going out of my way to ensure that it replaces all the systems that I have been tricked into installing Windows 7 on. At work, at home, and for my clients. I am going to make an argument in this article as to why I believe that Vista remains superior.

 

I challenge someone to list 7 reasons why Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista. Actual reasons. “Features” like Aero Snap, Jump Lists, and the new taskbar do not necessitate an entirely new operating system, so they don’t really count. Those could easily be implemented into Vista, if it were not abandoned in the wake of Windows 7 by the new CEO, Steve Ballmer. So, we begin with a mini history lesson:

 

 

Windows Vista was a major disaster. Microsoft suffered from heavily over promising on features (remember WinFS?) and failing to live up to their own hype; and they really hyped it up. Naturally, normal people don’t care or know when a new Microsoft operating system is launched, but the tech community does. So, to over-promise and under deliver, and miss your self-imposed deadlines again and again, the disappointment becomes palpable.

 

At the time, 64-bit processors were becoming more ubiquitous, and Windows XP 64-bit Edition had a plethora of issues with drivers and was not widely adopted — so they were under immense pressure to release the OS.

 

Vista Beta 2 came out in 2006, and it was an absolute disaster. If you looked at it funny, or moved the mouse too quickly, it would crash. It was completely unusable, but Microsoft insisted that it was intentional, and that they were planning to fix all of the bugs at once, at the end, prior to RTM. They did, although there was still the issues of heavy disk I/O in the final RTM as well as a large number of driver issues in the final versions.

 

Much of the problems with Vista stemmed from an overzealous Search Indexer, incomplete drivers from third party manufacturers, UAC, and underpowered systems. RAM was still moderately expensive at the time, and Vista did not work very well with only 1GB, which was common on low-end systems.

 

After Beta 2, Microsoft shipped release candidate versions and finally the RTM. They continued to fix all of the issues rapidly, releasing patch after patch. All the while, Vista was hammered in the press, blogs and forums repeatedly for problems stemming from the aforementioned.

 

This negative press was not without merit. Vista was truly very slow, and despite the improvements, they felt minor in the face of a computer that was so severely hampered. Especially when the computer was branded as: Vista Capable.

 

Finally, with Vista Service Pack 1 (2/2008), the operating system became relatively stable, and performance was drastically improved. However, plagued by the hasty launch, not enough enticing features over XP, and an insipid ad campaign (“the wow starts now“), there were very few who gave it a second review.

 

After the release of Service Pack 2 (4/2008) and subsequent updates, performance continued to improve and was on par, or superior to that of Windows 7. None of this ever made it to the press because Windows 7 was under-hyped, under-promised and over-delivered by releasing early, since Microsoft learned their lessons with Vista. Moreover, Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” ad-campaign for 7 was well executed.

So, what’s wrong with Windows 7? Why have I become so negative about it? Here’s 7 reasons why I think Windows 7 is a downgrade from Windows Vista (asterisks denote a subjective comment):

 

1. Windows 7 removes features

What’s missing? Well, where’d the QuickLaunch go? Oh, right, it got consumed into the massive start menu. Where’d the Show Desktop icon go? Moved, to the right hand side (this drives a lot of people batty, believe it or not). Windows Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, DreamScene, just to name a few, no longer come with the OS, they have to be downloaded manually with “Windows Live Essentials” (except for DreamScene, which is totally gone…why?!) — this is not an improvement by any means, just gives the illusion of “less bloat.” But don’t worry, you can put the QuickLaunch and Show Desktop button back — it’s just not exactly all that easy to do.

2. All system tray icons are hidden by default

Is this a problem? I think it is. Microsoft’s attempt to unclutter the taskbar by hiding all third party systemtray icons is a nuisance. How many times have you had to try to explain to someone to “click the little arrow to the left” over the phone to a client, family member, or friend? Hiding all systemtray icons does little in the way of solving the “problem” of the systemtray. As a result, I often find myself just showing all icons on the systems I administer and repair.

3. Libraries

After much annoyance, I finally get libraries. I understand why they exist. I even think it’s a semi-cool idea … but it doesn’t work. Try and copy the path of a file you’re looking at within a Windows 7 Library into another Explorer dialog box. Go ahead. I’ll wait. What’s that? You can’t?

 

Well that’s aggravating because everytime you click a shortcut like Music on your start menu, it takes you to the music Library, even if you just have one Music folder! Can you replace the shortcut on the Start menu to go directly to your Music folder? No. You cannot. I won’t add a separate section, but HomeGroups annoy me in a similar fashion. I’m sure they’re great for some people — but in general, I just get a lot of “what’s homegroup?!” from people trying to do very basic filesharing across their networks.

4. Windows Media Player 12

Have you used Windows Media Player 11? It’s pretty simple to use. Yes, the defaults are still annoying, but the interface is vastly superior. Try it yourself. Use WMP 11 and then switch over to v.12 which comes with 7 and see which makes more sense to you. The illogical layout of the software is mind boggling to me. This isn’t exactly a Windows 7 issue per se, but since Microsoft made a specific decision to remove WMP 11, I find it worth mentioning. Also, it looks like you can fix it here.

5. Search

This, for me, is the real trouble with Windows 7. In Windows XP, you can download the optional search indexer from Windows Update. Its heyday was really with the search add-on version 2.0, which was an extremely precise search indexer that you could control with a decent amount of precision. In Vista, Microsoft took it to the next level by deeply integrating the indexer and the UI throughout the operating system. Vista’s search solution, once the Indexer was optimized with SP1+, is very powerful and incredibly easy to fine tune. Observe the control you can exert over your search in Vista:

 

Now, let’s juxtapose this with Windows 7’s search “improvements”:

 

So, here is what I can’t do with Windows 7’s search:

– Force a search in a non-indexed, or partially indexed location. So, let’s say you just added a folder and want to do a quick search in Windows 7… you can’t, because the indexer hasn’t caught up, and you cannot force the indexer to start on command. So you’re screwed. This is a constant problem that I run into all the damn time.

 

– Change the search path without first performing a search, and then scrolling to the very bottom of the search results. Who was the genius who designed this?

 

– Perform complex filters quickly. In 7, I have to use that awkward drop-down menu to manually select each filter, and then scroll back to the left to change my search parameters. This is incredibly cumbersome and unintuitive. Totally fails the grandma test. In Vista, if I want to find a song, I just type one word of the song and then click the “Music” button and bam — it appears immediately.

 

– Inconsistent search-related glitches (see also Bugs, #6, below) which for whatever reason cause known search results not to materialize. Video evidence of this that I documented is here, on a fully patched, legally licensed, MSDN version of Windows 7 Ultimate. I’m not the only one complaining, either. This is a real problem that simply didn’t exist before 7.

 

– Oh, and see how the text becomes blue in the search box once I type the word “in”? Well that’s because Windows 7 thinks that I am using a search “operator,” and thus it is not returning any results. If I type the exact same search query into Vista’s search box, it would return results. In order for me to make 7 search for the word “in” I have to put it in quotes in order to “tell” 7 to search it, and not to use it as an operator. Do you think your clients are going to figure that out? I doubt it.

 

6. Bugs that never get fixed

Microsoft has the capability to fix problems. They proved that with Vista. In my years with Vista, I observed Microsoft fix the operating system relatively quickly. Each problem slowly disappeared, and by the time SP2 hit, nearly everything that was a concern vanished. Yet somehow, that isn’t happening with Windows 7. My biggest #1 problem with Windows 7 is the Explorer refreshing bug.

 

Have a look at that link. You’ll find that this is a bug that has persisted throughout every single version of Windows 7, and despite innumerable complaints, it isn’t fixed. Windows 7 launched in 2009, and it is now 2012 — it remains unfixed, and inconsistent. I have lost track of how many times I have had to explain to clients that the reason why the file that they saved to the desktop/folder isn’t appearing is because it sometimes won’t refresh automatically and that they have to right click and hit refresh or press F5. Of course, F5 won’t work on Microsoft keyboards because you have to first press F-Lock to enable standard keyboard behavior. This is aggravating, and Microsoft appears unable or unwilling to fix bugs of this magnitude, despite their brilliant engineers on staff.

 

Other bugs are equally frustrating. For example, after installing a completely legal MSDN version of Windows 7 Ultimate, with keys from Microsoft, activated and operating for a few months, Microsoft released an optional hotfix to determine if your specific instance of Windows had been illegally activated. Since mine were not, I installed the patch on a couple systems that I had running at the time. After restarting, they were flagged as counterfeit copies. After calling, Microsoft double checked the keys and could not determine why they were being flagged as counterfeit. So, I had to manually remove the hotfix to get my legal copies of Windows 7 working normally again. Moreover, I then had to set all the computers to not automatically download updates because with Windows 7, you are forced to install downloaded updates when shutting down. You cannot bypass it as you could in Vista. This “problem” resulted in my having to unplug the systems that had downloaded the updates so that they wouldn’t install the broken hotfix.

There are of course many more, but those two are what come to mind.

 

7. Taskbar & Explorer changes

The Windows 7 taskbar is subjective. Some people like it just fine, and some detest it. I fall in the middle. I find the auto-grouping to look nice, but irritating as it slows me down. I find the missing quicklaunch, and the auto-hidden systemtray icons problematic, but we’ve already discussed that.

The “Lock” button on the start menu is missing in 7. It is now located under the “>” arrow to the right of Shut down. There’s no particular reason for this change that I can see. The “change view” button is unintuitively* located on the right side of the Explorer window, rather than on the left as in Vista. No reason I can think of as to why this was changed, and there’s no ability to customize it.

 

The Windows Calendar is gone from Windows 7. It came with Vista, but they removed it — but you can go out of your way and download it with Windows Live Essentials.

AeroShake. Arguably, AeroPeek and AeroSnap are useful, but AeroShake simply hides all background windows when you “shake” a foreground window. This often happens to me by mistake, and I find it irritating. It can be disabled, but it’s too technical for your average user. Moreover, why are these features OS specific? They could easily be appended to Vista, but Microsoft chooses to make them 7-only, as if they are a reason to “upgrade” your operating system (kinda like Siri on the 4S).

More importantly, sortable column headings only appear in Details view, now. There is no way to change this back.

 

The bottom line is: where’s the upgrade? All I am seeing here are minor changes, missing features, screwed up search, bugs that never get fixed, and other annoyances. Why on earth is this operating system still being priased so much over Vista?

I’d like to see 7 reasons why Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista (SP2).

 

http://variableghz.com/2012/01/why-windows-vista-sp1-is-better-than-windows-7/

[luisam]

2 hours ago, steven36 said:

Why Windows Vista (SP1+) is Better Than Windows 7 January 6, 2012

 

Your long and really interesting apology of Vista just proves the point: those who are still using Vista and are really happy about it, will continue using Vista till they'll need to change computer.  For all the rest of humanity, at this moment, after Microsoft ceased support for Vista, looks somewhat too late trying to prove that actually it is (was?) better than Windows 7. 

[steven36]

2 hours ago, luisam said:

 

Your long apology of Vista just proves the point: those who are still using Vista and are really happy about it, will continue using Vista till they'll need to change computer.  For all the rest of humanity, at this moment, after Microsoft ceased support for Vista, looks somewhat too late trying to prove that actually it is (was?) better than Windows 7. 

It was better than windows 7 when i 1st installed  windows 7 i was riddled with bugs tell sp1 came out I ran xp for 10 years  I did not run Vista very long because i listen to the hype in the News and all my friends were  all installing Windows 7 so i done as they done. But I only used Windows 7 for like 2 or 3 years and switch too windows 8.1 witch was very stable witch i only  used  2 years and some change and now  I use Windows 10  witch every time it gets a little stable they come out with major upgrade  and i install it again !  Stable never sold PCs  Hardware becoming compatible with windows and Microsoft marketing did again witch fizzled out once they made Windows 8  witch was stable but hated by more than Vista ever was.

 

I still have PCs with windows 7 but i hardly even use them .I'm glad i put  Windows 7 on them now but that will run out of updates in 2 years and 8 mths . And they still will run  because i hardly turn them on but i have one rolled back from windows 10  so it will be OK . I guess Ill try too put Linux on my x86 laptop once it runs out of updates . If they even make x86 Linux anymore in 2020 . I stop doing what masses were doing after i stop uploading and testing for the public in 2011 . I do what i want now and still do lots of testing for myself .  And I dont like testing on old OS it reminds me of when I switch too Windows 7 and many were on XP  testing and were of no value to us on a new OS besides i already did some years of testing on each OS. 

 

The ones i  did not use very long were Windows ME and Vista/ Windows ME i used it long enough too know it was crap and by the time  I tired Windows Vista Microsoft  gave me  free Windows 7 for buying a PC with Vista 

 

I remember  when Vista was new before Windows 7 very well and things were very different then,  we did not make fun of people who used Vista who could afford   nice new PCs to run it on . People who ran XP had 14 years of updates Microsoft never tried too run us off it . Most of us grew board of it was all, expect for the XP diehards . all the hating stared in 2014 with Windows 7 users over Windows 8 and with  XP diehards who lost  updates and it boiled over  into Windows 10.

 

Windows 10 was the 1st OS that was a free upgrade .Before only people who had Money to buy  keys and new PCs , Or access to free keys or they pirated Windows . So when people tried the upgrade to Vista on old hardware it was no ones fault but there own . I never  tired to install Windows on incompatible  hardware but in 2016 Linux stared becoming incompatible on the machine I'm on now . So I just use Linux Mint 17.3 on it,  but  on my main drive Windows 10 RS2 works OK still . If you're hardware becomes incompatible you have no choice but too stick to what works. or buy new hardware or a new PC and I'm not going too buy nothing right now  i have 4 PCs that run OK.

 

There are many that use Windows 10 and many on Windows 7  who still call Windows 8.1 dog shit  And there many on Windows 7 and the very few that ever joined Windows 8.1 that dont like Windows 10.  A lot of Windows 10 users skipped Windows 8.1 and as the months turn to years that list will keep growing unless Microsoft makes Windows 11 or 12 or what ever . Many dont think Windows 10 will be the last Windows .  And the people who yap about Vista today are the same XP Diehards who refused to give up XP or they skipped Vista altogether. 

 

Look at  the archives here witch go back too 2005 they very much prove Microsoft hate became very high in recent years before you would have too go too some Linux forum too see much of it. But today most Linux  users dont hate Microsoft  anymore it's mostly Microsoft users who hate Microsoft  now days.  I seen so much news post about Windows 10 positive and negative that i dont read them very much unless it's time for me too upgrade . As soon as they get what bugs that are in redstone 2 out i will stop keeping up with most of  it again.   Back in the old days people who pirate were more concerned about Microsoft killing there activation than the politics of Microsoft. I sure miss the good old days.