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I hate Windows Vista
Dec. 1st, 2007 07:55 amMy old computer finally bit the dust last night. It had been having issues for awhile, and it finally toasted itself by harddrive suicide. I had other hard drives, but considering that what I do with my computer overloads the system capacity on a regular basis, it was time for a new one.
Sadly, the only immediate computers I could buy came with Windows Vista pre-installed on it. I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was slapping in my second hard drive and turning it into an Ubuntu box. As it turned out, it did matter. I couldn't get it to boot from my Ubuntu drive without first running the Vista setup bullshit. I figured, since I had it booted, I'd play with Vista and see how I liked it. I ran XP for years and had come to terms with it, so I figured - how bad could Vista be?
Answer: VERY.
1) It tried to run me through the "sign up for internet! No! Do it! Do not cancel! Are you sure you want to cancel? You really don't want to cancel, do you? YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE INTERNET IF YOU CANCEL!!!" screens before it finished installing. Eat my lovely DSL connection and die, you dirty little software whore!
2) It's ugly. Whoa, is it ugly. The themes that come with it? Ugly. The user account icons? Ugly and terrifying. Supposedly Aero is pretty but I am not turning on that fucking resource hog for pretty. The 'transparency' on the file windows makes it fucking impossible to read the name of the window with their default white font on /any/ of the backgrounds. Everything's all bubbly and there's no easy way to change this. I can't change back to 'classic' mode. Even when I found the ticky box that supposedly let me do this? Not so much. One of the backgrounds is supposedly a knot on a tree and it looks like a giant, scary, herpes-outbreak vagina. Or asshole. I can't tell - it made me gag and scroll right past it quickly.
3) I have to restart after any change. Dear Microsoft: Get with the fucking program. Linux and Mac allow system changes without restart. Why the fuck can't you?
4) The way files have been displayed for.. oh.. twenty plus years? Not available until you go into the control panel, search out the 'Allow classic file display' ticky box and tick it.
5) The right click -> Properties box that used to allow you to change how things were displayed? Gone.
6) User Account Controls. I hate this feature with every fibre of my being. What it does.. Any time anything tries to access your drive, you get a popup and everything locks down until you answer the popup with 'allow' or 'deny'. If you're not in an administrator account, you have to type the password. To turn this off, you have to search for it because they don't give you happy little file paths anymore in the popup 'help', and then restart. Basically, they've dumbed it down to the point where anyone with a clue will go quickly batshit trying to do anything. Also, it took a cue from WinZip and alternates where the 'allow' and 'cancel' buttons are, so you actually have to pay some attention when you click. Fuckers!
7) Automatic Updates only has 'on' or 'off', not 'on but notify me and let me pick and choose' anymore. Or if it does, it's hiding in some other place I haven't found yet. This pisses me off. I don't want all their stupid bullshit updates that don't apply to me. I don't use Outlook at home. Yet I can't choose not to anymore. Yes or no. Ok, fucker, NO! Since I don't intend to use you anyway, Vista, you can bite me and go begging for your updates.
8) Start->All Programs doesn't tile to the right, it tiles in the main folder. This bugs me so very, very much. [Edit: it took a few hours of going through all the stupid, illogical control panel links to find the one I needed to fix this - would have done it sooner but I kept being distracted by TV episodes]
9) Icons, icons everywhere and not a goddamn list to be seen. No way to make things all view in lists, even when I tell it to.
10) Lock and Sleep get huge buttons, Quit gets a tiny little arrow with a drop down menu with items that are hard to click. There's no way to change this to remove the two I don't want and make the one I do bigger. Also, icons and not words. Dear Microsoft: I am not illiterate. I understand you're pandering to the lowest common denominator here, but for the love of little green apples, GIVE ME THE OPTION TO HAVE WORDS INSTEAD OF ICONS! That whole bar is words until the off button options and then they're icons. [edit: The fix for the start menu fixed this as well]
11) All the pre-loaded crap I had to search out and destroy. I'm used to that with Windows, but now there was a lot more of it.
12) Downloads - it auto splits the bandwidth instead of letting me choose which to have as priority. THIS IS NOT USEFUL! I want whatever I start downloading first to have priority, and the rest to be queued. There's no way to change this. I'm talking standard IE/Firefox downloads of programs, here.Because my bittorrent client lets me choose so neeners, Vista!
13) Windows Media Center. Hate it. HATE it. Want it to die in a fire. Want a way to turn it off so it doesn't auto-grab my media and add to it's library. Want a way to shut off the default on this or uninstall it completely. Dear Windows: I don't trust your programs not to report any 'suspicious' content, so I'll keep using my regular media players that don't treat me like a criminal when I rip my OWN dvds/cds kthx.
14) Windows Media Player - buhbye, scary system spy. Hellooooo VLC. I've missed you, my little user-friendly and superiorly capable program. YOU don't tell me that .avi is evil and bad like WMP does. No, you just play what I tell you to play, like a good little program should.
15) Did I mention the icons are ugly? Because the icons? They're ugly.
16) HOLY FUCK IT TALKS TO ME! GAAH! I opened 'Ease of Use Center' and there's this robot voice.. ugh!
17) After several hours of monkeying, I've finally found how to switch things ala carte to the classic view. Ah, my happy little shutdown button, how I've missed you!
I'm going to be so happy when my Ubuntu AMD distro finishes downloading and burning so I can install it. I don't trust Windows. I don't like using a completely non-secure system with more bugs than a roach farm. I really dislike how it panders to the lowest common denominator as the default without even asking 'Is it can be clue time nowz?' first.
Sadly, the only immediate computers I could buy came with Windows Vista pre-installed on it. I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was slapping in my second hard drive and turning it into an Ubuntu box. As it turned out, it did matter. I couldn't get it to boot from my Ubuntu drive without first running the Vista setup bullshit. I figured, since I had it booted, I'd play with Vista and see how I liked it. I ran XP for years and had come to terms with it, so I figured - how bad could Vista be?
Answer: VERY.
1) It tried to run me through the "sign up for internet! No! Do it! Do not cancel! Are you sure you want to cancel? You really don't want to cancel, do you? YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE INTERNET IF YOU CANCEL!!!" screens before it finished installing. Eat my lovely DSL connection and die, you dirty little software whore!
2) It's ugly. Whoa, is it ugly. The themes that come with it? Ugly. The user account icons? Ugly and terrifying. Supposedly Aero is pretty but I am not turning on that fucking resource hog for pretty. The 'transparency' on the file windows makes it fucking impossible to read the name of the window with their default white font on /any/ of the backgrounds. Everything's all bubbly and there's no easy way to change this. I can't change back to 'classic' mode. Even when I found the ticky box that supposedly let me do this? Not so much. One of the backgrounds is supposedly a knot on a tree and it looks like a giant, scary, herpes-outbreak vagina. Or asshole. I can't tell - it made me gag and scroll right past it quickly.
3) I have to restart after any change. Dear Microsoft: Get with the fucking program. Linux and Mac allow system changes without restart. Why the fuck can't you?
4) The way files have been displayed for.. oh.. twenty plus years? Not available until you go into the control panel, search out the 'Allow classic file display' ticky box and tick it.
5) The right click -> Properties box that used to allow you to change how things were displayed? Gone.
6) User Account Controls. I hate this feature with every fibre of my being. What it does.. Any time anything tries to access your drive, you get a popup and everything locks down until you answer the popup with 'allow' or 'deny'. If you're not in an administrator account, you have to type the password. To turn this off, you have to search for it because they don't give you happy little file paths anymore in the popup 'help', and then restart. Basically, they've dumbed it down to the point where anyone with a clue will go quickly batshit trying to do anything. Also, it took a cue from WinZip and alternates where the 'allow' and 'cancel' buttons are, so you actually have to pay some attention when you click. Fuckers!
7) Automatic Updates only has 'on' or 'off', not 'on but notify me and let me pick and choose' anymore. Or if it does, it's hiding in some other place I haven't found yet. This pisses me off. I don't want all their stupid bullshit updates that don't apply to me. I don't use Outlook at home. Yet I can't choose not to anymore. Yes or no. Ok, fucker, NO! Since I don't intend to use you anyway, Vista, you can bite me and go begging for your updates.
8) Start->All Programs doesn't tile to the right, it tiles in the main folder. This bugs me so very, very much. [Edit: it took a few hours of going through all the stupid, illogical control panel links to find the one I needed to fix this - would have done it sooner but I kept being distracted by TV episodes]
9) Icons, icons everywhere and not a goddamn list to be seen. No way to make things all view in lists, even when I tell it to.
10) Lock and Sleep get huge buttons, Quit gets a tiny little arrow with a drop down menu with items that are hard to click. There's no way to change this to remove the two I don't want and make the one I do bigger. Also, icons and not words. Dear Microsoft: I am not illiterate. I understand you're pandering to the lowest common denominator here, but for the love of little green apples, GIVE ME THE OPTION TO HAVE WORDS INSTEAD OF ICONS! That whole bar is words until the off button options and then they're icons. [edit: The fix for the start menu fixed this as well]
11) All the pre-loaded crap I had to search out and destroy. I'm used to that with Windows, but now there was a lot more of it.
12) Downloads - it auto splits the bandwidth instead of letting me choose which to have as priority. THIS IS NOT USEFUL! I want whatever I start downloading first to have priority, and the rest to be queued. There's no way to change this. I'm talking standard IE/Firefox downloads of programs, here.
13) Windows Media Center. Hate it. HATE it. Want it to die in a fire. Want a way to turn it off so it doesn't auto-grab my media and add to it's library. Want a way to shut off the default on this or uninstall it completely. Dear Windows: I don't trust your programs not to report any 'suspicious' content, so I'll keep using my regular media players that don't treat me like a criminal when I rip my OWN dvds/cds kthx.
14) Windows Media Player - buhbye, scary system spy. Hellooooo VLC. I've missed you, my little user-friendly and superiorly capable program. YOU don't tell me that .avi is evil and bad like WMP does. No, you just play what I tell you to play, like a good little program should.
15) Did I mention the icons are ugly? Because the icons? They're ugly.
16) HOLY FUCK IT TALKS TO ME! GAAH! I opened 'Ease of Use Center' and there's this robot voice.. ugh!
17) After several hours of monkeying, I've finally found how to switch things ala carte to the classic view. Ah, my happy little shutdown button, how I've missed you!
I'm going to be so happy when my Ubuntu AMD distro finishes downloading and burning so I can install it. I don't trust Windows. I don't like using a completely non-secure system with more bugs than a roach farm. I really dislike how it panders to the lowest common denominator as the default without even asking 'Is it can be clue time nowz?' first.