Windows Vista - an unripe fruit?

OK, let's start from the end and write down the bottom line:

I'm sure it is.
But, please read the next anyway. It's a nice story:




The Vitruvian Man: Old GUI masterpiece.


Genesis

My story with Windows Vista starts somewhere in the mid. of 2006. During one of Microsoft's conventions we received a green DVD copy of the Windows Vista, labled "Windows Vista Beta 2 x64". "Terrific!" I thought. "No I'll have the chance to examing the new 64Bit based HP laptop I just bought!". After all, as many people said, the 64Bit world is much more faster and enjoyable. I want to enjoy!

So I installed the DVD in my computer. The installation was fast like the speed of light and easy like eating hamburger after a fast. Really, I think I took maybe 20 seconds from the point I turned on the computer to the desktop to appear. And it wasn't "such" desktop. It was a super desktop - shining, glass-like, bright. The dream of every user. Yes, even linux users mumbled some words in praise of the exciting new UI.

Looking at the device manager, I've noticed that most of the devices wasn't installed and wasn't recognized as the manufacturers didn't create any driver that supports Vista. Legitimate. It's only a Beta version and nobody knows how to program drivers to the rich world of computer devices.

Satisfied from the what I saw, with due respect I formatted the computer again and installed the well-known Windows XP.

The Vista Age

January 30, 2007. The worldwide public release of Windows Vista. There you go! Microsoft has finally finished the grandiose and well-spoken development of the new exciting operating system in the neighborhood. Time to see this in live. In a golden opportunity I had the chance to buy the Ultimate version on a very comfortable price.

Jubilantly I installed it on my computer and was very pleased to find that it recognized and installed almost all the devices. Except of several sepcific drivers which I found in HP's website - it was just ok. One problem I've encountered was that it could not installed the Lexmark P6250 printer (which I bought only half a year before), exited with a weird error message. Lexmark's support asked me to donwload and install some thin driver they developed for the P6250 to work with Vista, but it didn't do the job. The same error message appeared and I was still printerless.


Lex-shit

Three denounces for the Lexmark company:

1. Your support asnwers are too robotic. It is so clear that you try to satisfy the clients with pre-defined answer - for questions he didn't ask at all! You repeat several "solution" suggestions without even know your chasing after the tail of an empty help. If you can't solve a problem - just say it immediatley. But please, don't exhaust your customers with redundant email ping-pong. I don't need a psychologist, I need an technical person.


2. You have a too short forward compatibility for your printers. In private with the P6250 model which was bought only half a year beofre launching Vista! You also created an unworking driver for Vista while declaring it is working. I'm pretty sure you didn't check it at all.


3. Althogh it is a Windows Vista article, I would like to say that the fact you don't have driver support for linux is just a shame. While other printer companies does support linux - you just ignore this like it was an air. And no, answers like "try to search for a third party solutions" is not a professional answer.

Next time I won't buy Lexmark!

Lexmark P6250: Not supported in Windows Vista!

First marks

And continuing the story. After several days of usage, I start to notice that the Vista acts strangely.

Sometimes it was unable to complete a simple operation of copying files from folder to folder, it was stuck without noticeable reason - then jumping the "Would you like to find a solution for the problem?" form.
In other occasions I was unable to "kill" processes!
And no, it is not a virus nor spyware. A little respect please... I have a maintained computer with all the latest windows updates and such reason is even somethig you don't say loudly...

After it was just unbearable, I downgraded to XP. Home sweet home.


The last straw

Two weeks ago, after discovering that my HD is too small for doing cool things, I decided to buy an external HD. Searching here and there I found the "Western Digital My Book Pro 500GB" as a suitable accessory. To mark this happy event I thought about something special:
Re-install Windows Vista.

In fact there were two "real" reasons to do so:

• The first is that a long time passed since my last bad experience with Vista and I thoght that maybe Microsoft stabilized it meanwhile.
  
• The second is that I started programming with Microsoft's new WPF and WCF .NET technology and I wanted to maximize the user experience. After all, Vista is native for that technology.

And so, backuping all the important data in a safe placec, I said goodbye to XP once again and took the Windows Vista adventure. Indeed, it is always exciting to return to this wonderful GUI! And wow! even all the drivers are automatically recognized and installed! "Maybe Microsoft didn't disappoint after all" I thought.
The Lexmark P6250 printer still wasn't working. "Leave it" I said to myself. "I will anyway buy a new one shortly. Not from Lexmark".

Then I connected the external HD...

I will make a long story short: The HD did A LOT of problems. Starting from freezing after a short period (which cause the entire system to freeze) to be unrecognized by several applications.
After contacting with all possible Western Digital support centers in the world, and almost reaching the president of WD, blaming that the HD is sucks and doesn't work properly and I want my money back, a little thought raised in my mind: "Could it be Vista? Naaaa, I can't blame Vista for everything. But, who knows... lets check it out.".

Western Digital My Book Pro 500GB:
Not fully supported in Windows Vista!

So once again I downgraded to XP.
Surprisingly, the external HD was working like new (well, IT IS new!). Doing all the required job perfectly. Didn't hang, didn't freeze. Worked around the clock without any problem!


Conclusion

What can I say. I truely wanted to support Vista, to be the guy that say to everyone "Hey, you're just prejudicing Vista and the true is that it's a great operating system!"

But I can't. Vista is an unripe fruit.
Smart man he was, the one who said before: "lets wait for the Service Pack 2 of Vista. Only after it will be released it'll be safe enough to be used.".
And I would say: "let's wait for SP3 of Vista. After all, Windows XP, wihout any Service Pack installed, was much proper than Vista in it's parallel stage".

Wait and see, but don't install Vista!