About a couple of months now I’ve decided I was going to make my transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista (A bit too late, I know) So I got my Windows Vista upgradable version to the Vista Business Edition. Since the ultimate edition looked a bit too fancy for me.
If you don’t already know, I’m a Software developer. which means I’ll be torturing my OS.. My (now ex) XP never complained and always found it’s way around. Which is why I loved it ever since I started using it, back in 2002.
Back to the flow of events, I installed Windows Vista and at first it was hideous. Until I reinstalled all the software I had and you can imagine how long it took me. To be honest Windows XP could have never provided the user experience I’m loving in Windows Vista. And neither could Ubuntu.
The design, the way things look on the desktop, the OS interactions are all just great. Until I heard about Windows 7 and started reading about the UI improvements in it.
At the end of hours honeymoon (Me and Vista) I started noticing the bad habits and the things wrong in Vista. The main issue with Windows Vista is not the bugs it has, it’s the way people are going to remember it since Microsoft has already rushed into Windows 7 so soon without considering Vista’s feelings.
One of the major problems I’m having with Windows Vista is it’s all new Address bar, the stupid navigational one. I mean I like the idea, ever since I’ve seen it in Ubuntu. But come on Microsoft you could have done it… Even I could have done it better for god’s sake. But no it had to be buggy. Most of the times I try using it when saving files (mainly images) from my all dear Firefox, it just can’t help me navigate past 2-3 sub-items so, it’s Computer==>C:==>Nothing, apparently Windows Vista thinks I have nothing on my drive C:. which is flat out stupid and I hate Microsoft for doing this to Vista.
The other issue that I’m still trying to figure out, or trying to figure out how the heck did they miss that up. to be more clear, it concerns my Wireless card driver. Yes, I use a wireless card (CWC-854) to be clearer (CNet hardware) and it was working fine when I’m using my home wireless network, Where I have a WPA2 secure network.
Recently I tried connecting to the wireless router at work, using WEP key. Again this thing worked on Windows XP like a charm, also on Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10, But not Vista, I had no idea why Vista was throwing the “No response” error in my face. So I tried installing the latest driver software from CNet and guess what, the version I had installed (on my Windows XP, before upgrading) but I decided if it’s not really working why not give it a shot. And yes you guessed right, the older version worked fine and I can connect to both networks (home and office) with no problems what so ever.
But you see, the thing I’ve always hated about open source operating systems, such as Ubuntu Linux was the time wasted on trying to get your hardware to run right. But After this Vista incident I realized, it only took about 10 minutes to get all my hardware to run smoothly on Ubuntu 8.10
Hmmm, so on one hand we have Windows, a great OS becoming worse. On the other hand, we have Ubuntu a starting OS becoming better. Doesn’t seem like rough decision logically, but I choose Windows, I’ll always do.