Thanks for commenting.

When did these average Joe’s buy these hardware devices/software etc?
Certainly not in the last year or if they did and it doesn’t work with Vista then again, back to my argument that it is the hardware/software makers fault.

I know that XP just works (mostly) and maybe doesn’t look as good as Vista.
(The looking good part is not hugely high on my agenda and I do think that too much is made of it. Just look at the Apple interface for instance or Apple hardware. These people are zealots because ‘Apple looks so good and never crashes’. Bollocks, it crashes all the time like any human made computer system and as for looks, that is personal opinion. Have you ever had to do any work on the inside of an Apple machine? It doesn’t look so good then I can tell you!)

I have problems with Vista like eveyone else however, I stick to my assertion that all this discussion is too much like what happened when XP came along. A few years later and everyone used it, possible now even love it (especially compared to Vista) and all the pains were forgotten about.

Dave

Whilst I do not agree with you about Vista being a POS especially with the examples you have given (Symantec, as you say, it is an ancient engine you are using; Aero, personal opinion), there are things that may ‘evolve’ with time and Service Packs.

Elevating to Root or Admin silently is a good idea but what if it does that on the authority of some rogue process.

We are talking about most average joe users as Paul suggets.
If they ignore UAC now and or just click willy nilly to get rid of that damned pop up, then what help will silently elevating to Root do?

In short, Vist is a POS! I am not some “standard user” (read dumb as dirt) but have spent half a career administering PCs at work as well as at home, and I have never seen anything as bad as Vista in terms of defaulting to limit functionality and annoy people with “do you really want to do your job?” questions, especially if they run UAC and buy the “standard user” setting. Anyone who has run a UNIX box knows that there are only two classes of user, “God (root)” and “Dirt (user)”, but there at least you can let users do something by correctly configuring “silent” “SU root” access. The bigest Vista UAC mistake is that it prompts for everything rather than silently doin what it has been told to do by elevating to “root” level and then returning without user intervention (or knowledge for that mater).

I quite believe that in several years time when everyone’s using Vista and the next OS release comes out we’ll replay the whole scenario all over again!

To use your analogy It’s like buying that new shiny car only to discover your Sat Nav doesn’t work (wrong size of connector), your MP3 player doesn’t plug in anywhere (it only works with iPods) and your old familiar petrol only clogs up the engine and stops it working.

At the end of the day it’s not the car manufacturer that is to blame, however it worked with the old model so who would you immediately look to blame?

Your comparison of Vista as a shiny new ‘reliable’ car I hope, with the smiley, was a joke. Vista is far from perfect. XP is far from perfect. But to again use your analogy of cars again, Vista is the Aston Marton. It’s a beautiful looking car, luxurious, has all the bells and whistles and very powerful. It does however have a very bad reputation for reliability. XP on the other hand is that old mini that sits in the garage looking dirty. You get in and it’s not a pleasure to drive. It’s old, has no bells and whistles (as you haven’t added any from the many many available ) but it starts every time and has never failed you yet. When you need to pop out at 3am on a life or death trip, do you use Aston Martin and do it in style or the Mini because you know it will get you there and back.

I’ll be using XP for some time to come as that’s my choice. Rather than hark on about those people who moan about Vista and how bad it is, try and get to the real root of the problem and resolve it that way. In doing that you may help people move over a little easier.