Windows Vista – Feels Like Windows 98

Windows Vista - Feels Like Windows 98

It all happened on 16th August 2008 where my Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 died on me while I was doing my usual torture tests for some Gainward 9800GT graphic cards. I decided to take this opportunity to have a massive upgrade, making a new unit and have both units upgraded to Windows Vista, a much newer operating system (OS) compared to Windows XP which was first released in 2001.

The following day, gleefully I came home with 2 units of Windows Vista Home Basic (32bit), I heard many good words about how stable and secure is Vista, furthermore the ones I bought came with Service Pack 1 (SP1) – so yeah, what could go wrong with Windows Vista Home Basic with SP1?

Never more have I had more headache in my life when it comes to Plug and Play. I remember those days with Windows 98 where every USB device needed a driver, it was really a pain in the ass – especially when the optical drives fail.

Windows XP on the other hand was great when it comes to USB. I could plug in my USB hub, USB Card Reader and USB flash drives and it all worked really well, unfortunately the same can’t be said for Windows Vista.

I Can’t Read

Being a photographer and web designer by profession, I rely a lot on USB devices. I need a USB Hub to cater for multiple USB connections while USB devices such as Flash Drives to transfer data and Card Readers to read off CF Cards for pictures taken.

Windows Vista - Feels Like Windows 98

Windows Vista refused to recognize my USB hub. Ok fine, it was a brandless USB hub so I can’t find any drivers for it. So fair enough, I decided to plug my USB Card Reader directly to the USB port. Nope, that didn’t work despite it being a branded USB Card Reader, the Apacer Mega Steno AP450. I took a gamble and downloaded the windows driver to see if I could fix it but it didn’t as the driver wasn’t one for Windows Vista.

So fine, it was back to either my Macbook or my other Windows XP machine – I decided to go for the Macbook since Windows can’t do shit when it comes to generating thumbnail for RAW files without installing 3rd party software while Mac OS X provides you RAW thumbnails without complaining.

Driven Up The Wall

Now after sorting my stuff over on my Macbook while having my instant noodle breakfast (Maggi noodle if you want to know, chicken flavored!) , I had all the files I wanted transferred to a few USB Flash Drives as I’m sure Windows Vista would play nice with them – so much for my assumption, I plugged my USB Flash Drives and to my horror, Windows Vista just refused to recognize all of them!

There’s no driver for both Imation and Apacer flash drives. Darn it……… I’m stuck.

Windows Vista - Feels Like Windows 98

Yes, I was literally driven up the wall. I felt like I’m now back with a beautiful version of Windows 98, and without drivers! So technically speaking, I’ve upgraded to an OS that is more advanced than Windows XP but worked worse than Windows 98.

Even my Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger, released in 2005) and Windows XP (released in 2001) had been serving me very well when it comes to USB devices, just plug them in and you’re ready to go!

To make it even more interesting, I can’t even connect from my PC to Macbook without having to do some changes to the Windows registry! I didn’t have to do that in Windows XP. πŸ™

Just a few days before publishing this article, I just found out that my USB Flash Drives and USB Card Reader worked flawlessly on my other machine that’s running the same version of Windows Vista! It was really odd, the driver location were both at the same location, one Windows saw it and used it immediately while the other refuses to recognize it.

BE WARNED

Yes, heed those words – be warned. If you’re looking for an upgrade, do consider the stupid nature of the Windows Vista OS. This article would’ve been MUCH longer should I decide to other stupid things that I encountered, such as Vista requesting drivers for my SATA and IDE disk drives. I lost at least 5 hours of productivity just to the stupid operating system alone.

I would’ve stayed back with Windows XP but being a reviewer, Windows Vista is the way to go since I can’t get DirectX 10 with Windows XP.

For those of you who are using Windows Vista – do you have any thoughts or experience to share for would-be users?

24 thoughts on “Windows Vista – Feels Like Windows 98

  1. y not trying vista ultimate πŸ˜€

    so far no problem with me.
    sp1 ofcoz :p

    but like u say, i got some trouble with ‘cap ayam’ brand that dun have any vista driver hu hu hu ….

  2. The only problem I had with my Vista Ultimate was transferring pictures from my CF card using an unbranded card reader. XP transfered 2GB of pictures in about 5-10 minutes. Vista, 40 minutes.

    I’ve formatted that machine a few times and nothing seems to improve, however, my Vista Ultimate machine at home was able to transfer the files using the same card reader in about 8 minutes.

    I don’t know what is wrong with it. Both are legitimate versions of Ultimate (got it for free from Microsoft, the perks of being in the media :)), furthermore, the machine in my house is only a P41.8GHz i built a few years back.

    I’ve never had any problems with driver though…

  3. Windows Vista Ultimate is expensive laaaaa. πŸ™‚

    The thing is mine my devices aren’t “cap ayam” (brandless) except for the USB Hub, and non-“cap ayam” brands also don’t have drivers ler cos it’s suppose to plug and play.

    btw like what i mentioned – it worked on one machine and not the other. πŸ˜› I’m not going to do clean install already. Just work around la. 1 machine as reader, the other as storage. ho hum.

  4. i can’t believe it, a bad os like this, ms is still pushing it so hard.
    luckily i haven’t upgraded yet.
    i heard my frens complaining about the driver issue long ago, i thought it have been solved.

  5. Hmm…Vista is that bad already??will Windows7 be like that since it is just a minor upgrade of Vista??

  6. well, pratically vista still have it’s own weakness compared to win xp. As in term of speed and security. It’s undeniable that vista is slow while transferring folder and having problem sharing the folder in the network. Vista is good in visual looking, good looking with “slightly ok” features seems to be waste. It’s easier to connect to a network easily in windows xp, but in vista it takes time to identified the network and connect properly. Vista does have better security compared to win xp. Still Most office prefer to use win xp over win vista it .

  7. Hey,

    I have an original full copy of Vista Business Edition. The whole Aeroglass and the stuff are cool…

    … but it’s just making my PC crawl! Worst thing is, the drivers are pretty freaky and currently, I have troubles getting the drivers (like my wirelsss LAN adapters and some handphone software) to work properly on Vista.

    In the end, I have to revert back to XP without a proper choice. I’ll wait when Vista have optimized everything first. πŸ™‚

  8. it take winxp forever to perfect, same goes to vista la..hahahaa…well the immature of vista driver really gave negative effect. well we all have to wait n patient my young padawan :p

  9. owh, u can try disable ur sidebar. for me after disable it much smoother…both in game n work :d

    haiya sorry for double post!

  10. @iostream – i thought i would’ve been fixed by now, since it’s already 2008 and nearly 1 year from it’s release, furthermore the one i bought comes with SP1!!

    @RJ – MS’s new OS is always buggy. I didn’t expect it to be buggy to the extent I’m having problem with USB stuff, and having different experience on different machine despite same OS.

    @riku2replica- i find Vista is nice in general. Not as slow as I thought it would be. The driver issues aside, it’s generally a better OS.

    @The_YongGrand – Good for you! I can’t. We’re at an age of DX10 gaming and to keep reviewing hardware and games on XP wouldn’t look good on me. As for my office unit, no point going XP as MS is going to stop supporting it next year i think.

    @albuah – we’ll go the Fruit Side – MAC OS X! ok well Apple is a fruit but their OS are code-named after big cats. πŸ˜€

    @albuah – The_YongGrand, I agree with what you said. Disable sidebar. In fact, try disabling as many things as you can. For me, I didn’t disable much on this installation, it’s Home BASIC anyway.

  11. Things I don’t like about Vista is not even about the OS itself but more on to other developers like those printers and scanners. Rather than releasing a driver for products prior to Vista, they just simply releasing ‘brand new’ printer/scanner with ‘brand new’ names with additional number on it for it to able to be used on Vista while the performance is still the same as before.

    Grrr…

  12. wah, suddenly remember the good old creative audigy 2 zs Vs Vista driver hahahahaha….when awal2 vista out! …omg..sooooo much pain!

  13. @goldfries: Yes – for practical reasons, if you are rushing and dealing with important work without wasting too much time for now, continue using XP. Like the saying goes, “if it ain’t break, don’t fix it” ! πŸ˜€

    My bro’s final year works almost ruined because of using Vista as he is not too familiar (like me, I fumbled too much). I have to revert back all the PCs to XP for the sake of safety.

    It’s not that Vista is no good. I admire the new stuff they dished in, but sometimes those things can get intrusive (like the User Permissions) and the freaky new driver system (poor backwards compatibility).

    Too bad, new games like Crysis are having DX10 in their systems as well. We’ll only move to Vista once again, if everything has been patched up and raring to go.

    As for this time, my EEEPc and my old Vaio notebook are using XP. Even the other computers too. But if I need DX10 gaming and backward compatibility has been improved, I’ll migrate to Vista – without hesitation. πŸ˜€

  14. @maskawaih – hrmm. i haven’t install my printer yet so i might rant it here later.

    @albuah – awal awal everything also pain wan la. it’s MS already.

    @The_YongGrand – yeah in my case, i can’t afford to unintall and reinstall XP. then i have to reinstall all my software, reconfigure my web and database server and re-setup all my E-mails. no way man.

    Anyway, here’s the funny thing guys – despite all my USB device issues, the Nokia N81 8GB was plugged in, recognized and with drivers searched, found and installed flawlessly! sheeesh……..

  15. For me the one and only reason to upgrade for vista is DX10. But then DX9 is still playable and the difference between DX10 and DX 9 ain’t that big as hyped. So i guess i’ll still play the waiting game… XD

  16. Some games can see the difference la, like CoH and WIC but then ah, when you’re in the heat of the game you won’t be noticing it anyway. πŸ˜€

    Nevertheless, doing review i have to go DX10 la or else people say reviews are still in dinosaur age.

  17. i have a copy of Vista, but, i think it would be “wise” for me to leave it alone collecting dusts. sigh…

  18. i think it should be OEM, i got it from my campus launch event.
    the DVD looks sux, the case is no difference from a pirated DVD case, and even the license key is hand written. haha!

  19. my copy of vista (licensed) takes too much time to search for contents everytime i open a window, plus, moving copying files are a hassle, even if they are less than a hundred mb. i still like the way XP works.

    and i find the display setting is not consistent as well, jumping from ‘large icon’ to list etc when i go back and forth while navigating thru. its annoying. cant vista remember each folder’s display settings?

    another many annoyances is the display themes. i have switched of the fancy themes and used the most basic win-98 alike display theme. saves me hell lot of memories and hassle. all the fancy vista animation and stuff are just interesting during the first week.

    perhaps i do not know how to utilize my vista but then again, i’m not that basic to not to be able to figure it out.

    one thing i would like windows to incorporate is the “pause” function when moving and copying files.

  20. haha, it should be original, as the event was launched by MS ppl in my campus.
    however, there were cases in which the license key was invalid. /swt
    not sure about mine, no reason for me to dump XP yet, haha!

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