Windows Vista SP2 Not Ready for Prime Time
Time to break out the tinfoil hats, Windows Vista SP 2 beta has been available since December 4th 2008. It doesn’t seem to add anything exciting to this universally acknowledged lame duck of an operating system, so I guess that explains the lack of interest I’m seeing around the web. While Microsoft touts the inclusion of Windows Connect Now for easier configuration of Wi-Fi networks and support for burning Blu-ray discs, these features have been available by automatic updates since July of this year. Take note that if you’ve recently purchased a system with Windows Vista’s Feature Pack for Wireless, it will already have WCN and Bluetooth 2.1 support included.
Vista SP 2 beta has been available for quite some time to system manufacturers, but there were reported issues burning the image to disk, which lead to installation problems.
The public beta seems to have no such problems and comes with a stand-alone installer for those who want to download an ISO image and burn a DVD. It’s a simple matter of creating a system restore point, a single reboot, and allowing about an hour for an unattended installation.
If this service pack includes anything worth having it seems to be associated with software compatibility. Microsoft is reporting fixes for ZoneAlarm and Spy Sweeper as well and improved support for DirectX.
It’s important to note at this point that if you are taking advantage of Automatic Updates with your Vista system, you have been getting non-security updates almost every quarter. These updates included several application comparability fixes and explain why your Vista system might be operating a little smoother than it did initially.
Problems
I found several reports that Windows had trouble finding wireless adapters after the installation of Vista SP2 beta. Because my only Vista install is my laptop, which uses a wireless connection, I decided against giving it a try. Normally I would take one for the team but I know firsthand how hard it is to get a good working installation of Vista.
Should you try it? No, not yet. Wait till it’s out of beta. The predicted release date of April of 2009 is not that far away and most will already have the improvements installed through Automatic Updates. All SP2 offers is some added glitches and besides, who wants to spend half a day fixing Somethin for Nothin?
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To be honest, am getting rather sick of the “lame duck” type comments myself – half the complaints I run into come about iether because the user has blindly absorbed the negative press without question, or simply through a lack of IT education…. or both!
So Vista won’t run so well on that 5-10yo PC some people are still clinging to…. surprise surprise. Considering said legacy hardware was developed in a time where much of what even the common user now expects from their PC or notebook was barely concieved of 5-10 yrs ago, little wonder!!
Vista (esp when rolled out) had to major achilies heels:
* In many ways, such as all the new hardware accellerations introduced with Vista, it was in many was a 1st gen OS…. name me a single 1st gen app that was completely bug free on first rollout.
* Vista was almost ready for the trial rollouts almost two and a half yrs earlier than what it end up doing. So much of the business community (MS’s really bread winner) complained of a lack of backwards compatibity to run those often poorly encoded legacy app, or legacy hardware that in many cases was out-of-support by the manufacturer. MS basically had to go back and re-write much of Vista, turning back to old architectures. I think we can all agree it didn’t turn out so well…. thus the reason MS has drawn a line in the sand with Win7, turning those same individuals to a virtualised environ of XP, freeing up Win7 to actually move forward.
“…so I guess that explains the lack of interest I’m seeing around the web.”
Well no. Most ppl who would be praying with a beta release are making the transition to Win7, rather than trying out a beta release of a Vista service pack!!
@ Mike – the reason for the imaging size difference is this. In XP, images usually only backed up core files, and if selected, your personal files. In Vista, you get a complete image, meaning any restores are much less problematic…. images created for XP suffered serious issues if to many system changes had been made since the image creation. As to the cost of DVDs – most of us an external HDD for image storage, as it makes things much less problematic on rollout/restore anyhow
I recently purchased an HP Pavillion 64-bit Intel CPU notebook designed for Vista 64-bit. After a few weeks I downgraded to XP Home 32-bit. Last year I purchased two Acer pc’s with Vista 32-bit installed but downgraded both to XP. I am satisfied with Vista performance. My primary complaint is Vista installation files take two to four times the disk space of XP. Also, I can’t do any more with Vista than XP. I regularly image my hard drive using Terabyte’s Image For Windows and with XP I can make a copy of my C: drive with one dvd. With Vista I need two to four dvd’s, depending on installed software and options. Not only does it take two to four times longer to image Vista, it also takes more money for dvd’s. Based on my experiences with XP and Vista, Vista is resource inefficient and redundant. Rather than creating a dud dubbed Vista, Microsoft could have taken XP and improved performance.
IV,E wasted over an hour here reading a bunch of mumbo jumbo i have 3 h.p,s all
amd athlon X2 AND 4 gigs of ram in all of them* and 1 new m8300f with vita premium*
I THINK IF SOMEBODY wanted to REALLY HELP people out here they could have POSTED a link on the basic processes that need to run on VISTA because i have found that vista is not a very user friendly OS system* admitted above by a microsoft exec! I FIND that stupid things like right clicking and pin to start menu don,t work! and getting my pictures to display was a nightmare! eventually you figure things out BUT vista has some serious flaws in it for the average p.c user that is use to 98,me,2000,XP it ask you for permission for every little thing you do on it! ok it’s suppose to be more secure! i get that* but the average person that isn’t a p.c wizard tech like some of the people above are gonna find it to be very frustrating! and it is!
so my new m8300f 6000 media center 3.0gb 640gig HDD 4GB RAM is just sitting collecting dust cause i find that both of my h.p a1314n,s with X.P service pack 2 ie 6 amd X2 2.4GB 4GIGS RAM runs faster* AND BTW i have fire fox 3 with faster fox and no script on all 3 p.c,s run faster and are easier to work with than struggling with vista if i could down grade it to X.P I SURELY WOULD ! however i,m gonna look into going to 64 bit with vista* I DO BELIEVE SOMEBODY should post a link for newbies that would help them discover ways to stop tasks that run needlessly in vista! insteas of brag how smart they are and so on!^^^^^^^
go here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00899280&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3644702#
My comment is so far to the bottom of this conversation that probably nobody will read it, but here goes my 2 cents. Like so many previous commentors, I have used all of MS operating systems (though not all versions), plus Unix and a variety that few might not even recognize. My disappointment with Vista is that I have a lot of good functional hardware (scanners and such) that I cannot get to load and run properly on Vista.
One commenter said that some complainers probably didn’t have the hardware to run Vista properly. Sure not their fault. When it came out many machines did not even have 1G of memory. I told many vendors I wouldn’t buy an XP without at least 1G, but they sold thousands and thus many unhappy users. Even today many machines are being sold that only handle 2G, so if you want to run many applications (besides email and shopping) you still are pushing the limits of the machine. I love my W98 with 384M. Works great, no problems.
Vista is a turkey. Yes it has gotten better. Drivers are important. Software compatibility is important. I had to buy new software. The printer drivers I got initially with Vista worked though the print quality was clearly deficient. There was an upgrade. I could still see a difference. One more thing. The basic functionality of the basic operating system utilities is still not there. File manager still does not have the basic capabilities that it had under XP. It took me a while to convince Microsoft, that there was a problem. They still have not corrected the problem or should I say problems. I bought a new computer thinking it would be better. It would be faster and more capable. The new machine had Vista. It is not better. It is not more capable. I wanted to get rid of my old machine. I cannot. It provides me with capabilities that the new machine with Vista cannot match. Vista is a failure. It is a failure because it has not satisfied its users. Buyers of new machines expected more and they got less.
Help! I, too, have the Vista Home Premium and no problems until I installed the SP2. It did not install completely!!!! Therefore, I cannot install or uninstall anything else! Yes, I have had a Microsoft Techie try to uninstall the Beta and reinstall it, but the security update is “stuck” in installation!!!! He has tried to remove it or complete the installation of the security update by (I agreed) taking over my desktop and he would try to do it himself. Well, I just received a telephone call from a Techie at Micro. and he said they are working on the problem and will get back to me in 72 hours! Does anyone know how to uninstall the entire SP2 “thing”? My SP1 was just fine until I decided to try the Beta Beast! Does anyone have any idea how to totally uninstall the SP2 beta thing? Thanks!
i have used just about every O/S the microsoft has issued.
the vista 32 that i now have on a gateway laptop was not bad until i tried to install SP1. since then, i cannot turn my laptop off…it “goes to sleep” and restarts in 10 minutes…this cycle continues on and on.
gateways response? tough stuff!!! m/s did try to help for weeks on end and finally said hey had no idea what to do now short of a dump and re-install!!
other than i can’t shut down, the updates made my laptop incompatible with all of my audio and video programs. not gateways’ issue, sure not the programmers issue…microsoft is whom changed the O/S and they still haven’t been able to correct my issues.
“jump on the wagon” hype??? i think not!!! check out yahoo answers, rip-off reports and soooooo many others. not that many consumers can be that wrong to warrant such an outrage with a corporation that no longer cares about the consumer long term but the bottom line short term.
I have windows Vista on a laptop and a desktop both came pre installed the laptop is great never crashes the desktop is a complete pain even solitare crashes it the display driver is forever failing and recovering two systems the same but vastly different why? I have no idea.
I agree with all who have positive replys about Vista. Been using it since it came out. And not one of my programs or games, have failed. And I mean old old old games and programs dating back to Windows 95. All loaded and run fine. I agree all the negatives are hype and most likly from hackers who like to change programs illegally.
So far Vista has been a good experience for me. I have now 3 machines running on vista, all on SP3, two are 64 bit. I cannot recall having that few problems wenn transproting software to a new revision of MS-Operating systems before. Like form ME to XP, or from Windos 98 to ME. Yes, it needs lots of memory, but look out what there is. Technology is getting better and memory is cheap. In my experience the main problem seems not to be vista, but the 3rd party companies not beeing ready. They mostly lack in supporting VISTA. When Vista was first introduced, I tried also the promisses of Apple OS/X – Well, that failed. The promisses were empty ones.
Another problem I experience with Vista is that is is quite different than XP and it takes some effort to get used to it.
In Summary: Vista is great.
I have been using Vista Home Premuim for a while and haven’t had any issues with it. Those who insist who can run vista may want to upgrade componments ex. video, etc. Plus they would want to be sure they aren’t using 64 bit on a 32 bit system. The other thing is make sure you keep your system up to par. I have heard many people try to run vista on a system with only 512 megs of ram. Also when is SP 2 for vista supposed to be distrib to all?
Hello MH. Thanks for the input. Many people do infact try the beta versions of service pack releases and yes they are certainly not for everyone. We have a large audience here and sharing that information is helpful to many including Microsoft.
Your impression that users are experiencing no more problems with Vista than with previous operating systems is incorrect. The lack of acceptance for Vista is well known. It’s good that you are experiencing no particular problems but unfortunately that is not the case for many users.
Microsoft has made many corrections as a result of user reports and they are working hard for an early release of Windows 7 partly because of the problems with Vista.
Acceptance of all things Microsoft does not equate to “sane unbiased writing” but I do appreciate your opinion.
This article is quite useless. The general public, average joe computer user shouldn’t be installing BETA stuff in the first place. That is why it’s labeled as beta, to let everyone know it is a work in progress.
The ridiculous “vista danger” logo and the author’s off-hand, editorial comments about “lame duck operating system” reveal an unhealthy bias. The amount of vista hate out there is nearing cult level and quite absurd. The vast majority of computer users do not experience any more problems with vista than with previous operating systems.
A less sensationalistic and more sane approach to vista would be prudent and appreciated by everyone who prefers honest, unbiased writing.