I’m getting ready for a series of posts on Windows 7, and one area I plan to look at closely is how Microsoft has responded to annoyances in Windows Vista.
You can help me out by leaving a comment with some of the annoyances you’re hoping will be fixed. Please be specific; simply saying “It’s too slow” or “I don’t like Explorer” aren’t useful.
Here are a couple of entries from my list to get the conversation started:
- The system sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason and then doesn’t go back to sleep.
- The file-based backup program is too inflexible and doesn’t allow me enough control over the types of files or locations I want to back up.
- Showing or hiding the Preview pane in Windows Explorer takes too many clicks.
OK, your turn.
Ed Bott 
The RAM caching algorithm sucks, it takes up half of my RAM and never releases it when I actually need it.
here are a few of mine, though the mail related ones now belong to a new team.
used to be able to right click a shortcut to search the location it pointed to. now it has to be opened first.
why do i have to start search to bring up the advanced search window?
Why store all of the emails, posts and contacts in separate files?
Why move address autocomplete to the registry and then only save 29 entries? Encrypted in the registry, no less.
can’t right click network icon in the tray or network places icon on the desktop and get status or repair options.
can’t create a new toolbar and drag it to the desktop so i can dock it on the side.
with the taskbar hidden, can’t drag a shortcut to it unless you drag over where the orb resides. used to be able to just drag it down where the taskbar resides.
1) file copy is still slow (I have a SATAII HDD)
2) built-in DVD-RW burning is slow (I only get 500K-700KB/s)
3) built-in ZIP support is slow to expand complex files. Sometimes it fails with a crash!
4) there’s too many prompts when you copy files in a protected location. 1 prompt is enough.
@gary
press F3 when you’re in the desktop to lanch the advanced search, or use the advanced syntax query languange in the start search box
I tried Vista for several months when it came out, hated it, and went back to XP. I just got a new x64 computer for Christmas, so I’m stuck with Vista again. I’m sure I could come up with a ton of annoyances, but for now I’ll just pick two:
MS took away the status bar in the Recycle Bin, so now you have no idea how much space the junkl waiting to be deleted it taking up. Is it 100MB or 100GB? Who knows!
Also, MS, in general, seemed to add a bunch of steps and clicks to tasks that used to take only a couple in XP. For example, changing your IP address in XP was easy. In Vista it seems to take 50 mouse clicks just to get to the Network applet (although once you get there, the actual window is almost identical to XP).
Lastly, a giant pox on Microsoft for their idiotic marketing schemes for Vista. Is there really a need for SIX VERSIONS of Windows Vista? Why should I have to pay $159 to upgrade to Vista Ultimate just to join my SBS domain here at home? Any why can’t I use my x86 Vista Ultimate CD key (obtained at an MS event) to install a retail copy of x64 Ultimate on this computer?
Not being able to customize the Windows Explorer toolbar. I had grown used to being able to add a delete button on the toolbar, allowing me to easily select one or more files and click the “x.” I know, I can use the delete key now, but then I have to wait for the dialog to click for OK.
It’s more difficult to copy something to a folder, because the right click where “paste” is, selects folder or file. I hope, that you understood 🙂
5) sometimes the icons in the recycle-bin are not all updated when you empty it.
Setting in Network and Sharing center can effect Previous Version from displaying the shadow copies or Administrative Shares must be turned on in order for Previous Version to work properly.
Vista, Previous Versions issue
http://logicearth.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vista-previous-versions/
Vista Shadow copy problem
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=551707&st=45&p=589015026&#entry589015026
I map two drives upon logon with GPOs. A personal drive and a shared drive. It loves to tell me that they weren’t connected but when I click on the bubble they are there.
Sometimes as a subset of the above problem, the drives are actually red X’d out so I have to double click on them them to get them to show up.
Not every update but I’m guessing on ones that hit certain services require two reboots vs just one.
You already listed one of mine: Showing or hiding the Preview pane in Windows Explorer takes too many clicks.
Windows don’t remember the location or size when you close and reopen the window (not Vista specific, but still annoying).
I want to use previous versions, but they don’t include it in Home Premium. Why even have a home premium? I can understand a business not wanting Media Center, but there’s really no reason to take valuable, productive features away from home users. I’m not about to spend $160 to upgrade to Ultimate for a few more features. There should be a Business edition and Ultimate edition (and Enterprise, if necessary of course). No home editions.
Accessing files and printers through a wireless network is extremely slow.
My biggest complaint though… the people who don’t appreciate a good OS when they see it. Lets have only legitimate complaints about Windows 7 when it comes out, unlike when Vista came out 😉
This is more of an issue when managing Server 2008 machines than using a Vista box all day, but it applies to both. I hate how deep “Log Off” is buried. In XP and Server 2003, I just hit Winkey then “l”. I don’t understand why it’s easier to get to the shut down button than log off on a server.
Andy, Windows key+L works the same under Vista as it did under XP. It locks the screen, without logging you out.
OK, the biggest by far for me is the File Explorer having mind of its own and changing the view (Icon, Large Icon, Detail etc.) on its own. You start browsing through folders are view keeps changing. It’s killing me. Its criminal.
I tried to disable saving of this (registry hacks), it stuck for about month and damn thing is now back to its usual criminal ways… Sigh.
Another thing is rebooting in middle of night, closing all open applications and then not going back to sleep…
[Edited to fix a tyo. – EB]
I’ve just reinstalled Vista w\SP1 after first installing it back in Mar. 07.
So far the only quirk that I find annoying is why did they do away with ‘stretch to fit’ or similar in screensaver for use in when I select to use ‘My Photos’?
Found a program designed to increase the size according to my screen but really, why remove it in the first place
1) Copying files seems to take longer than in XP – especially when copying a lot of files (why do we need all of the graphics?)
2) It would be nice if the controls for indexing were more precise – I know what is being indexed, but more details about the status (% complete) would be nice. It seems that with little changing on my systems (docs & contacts) my email never seems to be fully indexed.
Eric, for a great Vista gadget that shows you the status of your index (and allows you to speed it up), see this:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=466&page=2
Two interface bugs in Vista (x86) + (x64), one going back all the way to Windows 95 SP2 and the other, now present in Wxp SP3 but not evident in pre-SP3:
My Vista Taskbar is vertically arrayed, set to Autohide and Always on Top. I have 70 icons in the Quick Launch area, set to View Small. Problem is, after an unpredictable number of starts, Vista will loose the order of the icons. PITA. Struggled with Microsoft’s Tech Support Level 2 for a couple of weeks to see if the Taskbar’s QL settings can be backed up from the Registry. No dice. Have resorted to 3rd party utility — True Launch Bar — that replaces Vista’s Quick Launch. Wonderful! But Microsoft should build a stable interface . . .
Second: Up to SP2 in Wxp, optical drive icons on the desktop were reliably dynamic. Showed appropriate autorun icon with a disc loaded, immediately reverted to default icon for the drive when the draw opened. In Vista these icons always get stuck and then require a 3rd party utility to rebuild the icon cache so that the default icon can be restored. A minor irritation, nonetheless . . . Microsoft needs to get the basic stuff straight too.
P.S. If Comment 14 had not already been made I would added that issue instead of my niggling points. I have been lucky so far: the Reg hack to remember folder settings I found is working after months, also on Vista (x64). This is not a minor complaint!
I dislike how the UA prompt isn’t always in the center of the screen. It seems to follow the location of the shortcut that caused the prompt in the first place.
This probably won’t be an issue with 7 as the sidebar is gone, but I hate it when my gadgets get rearranged.
I really wish it was easier to create a new folder anywhere. A button in the explorer window that creates a new folder would be a nice enhancement. Not sure if that qualifies.
The above, for the most part, is a pretty good list. To be sure, for me most of these are genuinely minor annoyances. Mine is a bit more hypertechnical (and also mostly minor). Here we are, almost two years after Microsoft released Vista, and still I get the dreaded “Sorry, we have no further information at this time” response to too many Administrative Events that I view in Event Viewer. It should be possible to explain administrative events in plain English so that we the users can determine exactly what the problem is and whether it is worth spending the time and energy researching solutions to it.
I have run into a problem several times where attempting to share a single folder (e.g. C:\Users\Scott\Documents\share) from Explorer results in the entire Users folder being shared, usually with Full Control for Everyone since that is how I wanted to share the single folder.
You can verify this easily by sharing a folder underneath the Users folder from Explorer by right clicking on it and using the Sharing tab, then typing in “\machinename\” into a command prompt and looking at the available shares. You will see a “Users” share if the problem has occurred.
This doesn’t happen if I share the folder from the Computer Manager console (right click on M Computer > Manage > Shares).
The Batteries-icon in the Device Manager is an old fashion Windows 95 style icon. Not fixed in Windows 7 either.
With four Vista boxes in this house, and a WHS I would say sleep issues are the major annoyance for me. I get completely different behaviour on each different machine, making the brilliant backup of WHS, not quite as good as it could be.
UAC still has issues, that renaming/deleting directories sometimes doesn’t work even after correct elevation.
The fact that you can’t use the built-in backup feature in a Time Machine-esque manner, viz. having a fresh backup be initiated by re-connecting the drive.
This would be useful for external HDD backups, especially for the computer illiterate. Rather than saying either “Plug the drive in every Friday” or “Leave it plugged in all the time”, I could tell them, “Plug it in once a week, whenever is convenient.”
Not being able to Add/Remove buttons to Explorer.
The fact the Explorer, underneath a drive icon, tells you how much free space you have LEFT and then, directly above it, gives you a colored-bar showing how much you have USED UP. Confusing, unless you’re careful.
Why does vista let me routinely delete the recycle bin. It takes ages to recover it and make it work.
Why did Vista have to break Outlook 2000. Vista Mail is just awful. I am now a convert to gmail.
UAC is over cautious.
To hard to copy files to local XP computers except via shared documents thingie.
The network discovery centre is too weird to be of use.
Wireless networking is awful.
I use vista on my htpc. Sometimes my wireless connection turns to a “Private” network which means I can’t access it from the network. I have to reset the adapter to get it to work. Never faced any such issues with XP.
Most of the annoyances I found with Vista in the early days were mainly issues with how the GUI was changed. While XP felt like an evolution in GUI design from Win98, Vista felt like a bunch of designers from HGTV came in and redid my house. I was constantly trying to relocate things that used to be second nature to click through.
That being said, Vista in many ways culled through the Power Users, and forced people to adapt to the new GUI or evolve beyond to the command line and memorization of control panel applet names. I understand the argument of changing things for new users and expecting Power Users to use search/run to launch specific applets, unfortunately it irritated most of the Power Users to the point of where they howled about Vista to the general public.
Right now, I have two main complaints with Vista, but they are not enough to make me go back to XP.
The first complaint is when copying or saving to a flash drive, if I remove the drive, and then try to save another file, because Vista expects to save it in the last location it throws an error and defaults the explorer to system 32.
My second complaint is about having to expand the CD-burning dialog box and select mastered or wait several minutes while the CD is formatted to use the live file system. This issue could easily be handled by being more transparent in the dialog box by having a check box to use live file system and having mastered as default.
@Ed I think what Andy was referring to was the accessibility trick with the old start menu. Instead of win+L, I believe what he was referring to was pressing win key to pull up the menu, then pressing L which is the accessibility shortcut to logoff. I used to hit win then u then r to restart a computer when I was in a hurry.
@Andy I am not sure how deep you dug to get your logoff solution, but I have been using a desktop shortcut to recreate the functionality. I create a shortcut with the properties of “ %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe –l “ and choose an icon that resembles the lock key and name it Logoff. Not as pretty a solution as the old system, but gets the job done. The –l switch is what forces a logoff instead of a shutdown.
One tip for everyone that hates plowing through network and sharing center to get to the Network Connections: Use ncpa.cpl in the run/search box. It will take you right where you need to go.
I’m reasonably happy with Vista now that I have a quad-core machine (5.9 performance rating) to run it on. My main complaint is the price. I hope we Vista owners get a good upgrade deal to Windows 7.
Vista’s Windows Explorer move is poorly implemented. When I move a folder to another location that has an identically named folder the original, now-empty folder is left in place. Move should mean move everything, not some things.
The Start search bar needs to be improved. It is sort of like Mac OS X’s Spotlight but not as good.
Context menus in Windows Explorer often take a long time to appear. This should be instantaneous.
UAC pop-ups can kill a CrossLoop session. This shouldn’t happen.
The Start – All Programs menu sorts with items at the top and folders below. I prefer the XP sort with folders above items.
All menus (WMP, Windows Explorer, IE7/8) should be shown by default. Most casual users cannot figure out how to turn them on, and they need them.
Copy and move dialogs should be better planned. The “repeat this” check box lurking at the right bottom of a giant dialog is an example of poor UI design. It would be better for the user if MS added appropriate buttons next to OK and Cancel
@Richard
the menus have been replaced with the new toolbar. No need to activate the menu.
Vista goes into sleep mode while downloading files. Only way to fix this is to disable sleep. I would like to sleep when downloading is finished, not while downloading. This applies to Firefox specifically where I’ve been cut off halfway through downloading because Vista went to sleep.
Ed:
See Comment No. 23 on an earlier blog post:
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1962
Thank you again for corresponding directly with me on the issue. You suggested using Allway Sync or Robocopy. Workable solutions, of course, but does Windows Explorer really need to make it that hard to Just Say Yes?
— Tim
This almost falls into your “It’s slow” bucket. I work at a school with 400+ teenage girls and 100+ faculty with over 50% carrying Vista tablets now. The biggest annoyance is reboot time. I have seen it literally take 5-10 minutes from clicking logoff to being logged in again with a functioning machine. I have played with Win7 and this seems greatly improved if maybe even back to xp speed. That is the big problem when you have student one with xp and student two with vista and watching the machine reboot is painful.
Search 4.0 limited by Start menu interface — not as flexible as XP.
Unsticky folder view defaults (if there is a single picture in a folder it tends to revert to picture preview mode).
May not sound like much of pain but it was enough to make me downgrade to XP Pro until Windows 7 or XP EOL in 2010…
One of my complaints has been mentioned by others, but it is enough of an annoyance I want to mention it too in the hopes that frequency draws attention. File Explorer doesn’t always maintain selected folder views. It seems to me that this happens more frequently the deeper the folder is. I don’t recall my top level view ever changing from my preference of Large Icons, but below the top level the view is changed at seemingly random times.
My second complaint is UAC. I installed Tweak UAC and eliminated the annouyance factor, but TweakUAC’s “quiet mode” ought to be an option on UAC itself in Windows 7.
That’s about it. Since my final driver issues were resolved months ago, I have had no serious issues with Vista (the items above I call annoyances, not issues).
clicking the clock in the notification area brings up a clock/calendar but it goes away when it loses focus.
inability to sync (iTunes/iPhone/Windows Mobile) with Windows Calendar.
inability to sync Windows Mobile with Windows Contacts.
Double-clicking the network icon in the notification area should open network connections / “network and sharing center.”
Why is the Windows Snipping Tool considered a TabletPC feature? I don’t want the tablet features installed but that also uninstalls the Snipping Tool. Did someone really decide that Tablet PC users needed that but Desktop users didn’t?
No variations possible on the “Vista Basic” appearance. I would assume most people use (or should use) Vista Basic because…
Aero is too slow for my computer, apparently. My pc has a Windows Experience Index 5.3 machine, a 2.xGHz Quad-Core processor and 4GB of RAM but when I had Windows choose my performance settings, it chose Vista Basic instead of Aero.
The Windows Explorer bug that shows random details (mostly music related) in folders… Even though I tried setting “do not remember each folder’s settings” and tried to apply a common template to all my folders, I still get random detail columns, showing star ratings, bit rate and album info in folders such as C:\NVidia !
XP had this right, it absolutely needs to be taken care of.
@sirshannon
I still use Vista on a P4 1.7 with 768MB RAM and a Geofrce 6200. Aero is amazing fast!
I’d like to know the pricing of “7.” I bought two copies of “Ultimate. I am disappointed in the appearance this release for all intense purposes is simply a “Plus Pack” for Vista. If MS is thriving to be more “Apple-ish” in the release of newer revisions, will the pricing be aligned with Mac? Say, a flat $129.00 upgrade for Edition to Edition? e.g. Ultimate to similar, Premium to similar?
The “improvements” I have seen from beta reports online (shout out to the Supersite) seem to me to be corrections for issues lacking in Vista.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Vista but many of us were left in the cold regarding the boasted features of the Ulitimate Extras. Poker? Tinker? Are they serious? We haven’t even seen any good Powertoys for vista.
1) Search is broken, even if the indexing process is over, I often cannot find a file even if I search for the filename, not even the content. It has fooled me so many times into thinking a file was gone, or nothing existed that matched by search criteria. The worst thing is that I get better search results if I disable the index service.
2) Previously mentioned random view selection in explorer.
3) Constant high disk IO and high RAM usage.
4) Lack of spellchecking (it may be reflected by this post)
5) Lack of Aero custimization
6) Poor sleep/wake-up process performance (slow and lost of functionality such as wireless connetion)
…
Consistency in how folder respond would be a nice fix. I find it ridiculous that these settings are not sticky. I find myself resetting folder views almost each time I use Windows. Very frustrating.
I hope you’re still accepting these:
Forced to install middleware (IE, Mail, etc) that I don’t want.
No ability to specify where a user’s home directory will be located.
The annoying blue line on the bottom and right sides of all windows.
Installer should ask if I want to enable Windows Search (I don’t).
Too many versions of Windows; there should be 2: Server And User.
Eliminate artificial limitations on the client (i.e; TCP/IP connections)
Regular users can create files outside of their home directory. They shouldn’t be able to do that without permission of the administrator.
A small, dedicated utility for creating unattended installation scripts. I shouldn’t need to download 1GB of stuff in order to write one.
Driver installer issues:
1. The infamous “Not enough memory to complete this operation” error when installing Vista.
( http://blog.wisefaq.com/2008/09/25/not-enough-memory-to-complete-this-operation-adding-a-printer-with-vista/ )
Can’t get my scanner to work. Not even using the advice in the link I’ve provided below. It’s not a Vista issue as such,. Lexmark have not provided a workable Vista driver.
( http://forums.techarena.in/vista-print-fax/745674.htm#post3190655)
UAC issue:
Not a Vista per se., but if I want to get the Eraser shell extension to work, I need to disable UAC
( http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ )
Education:
Microsoft failed to adequate sell Vista, and allowed FUD to enter the market place. If you look at some of your other comments, you can see that Vista CAN do what people are asking, but they don’t know how. Sure, “The Mojave Experiment” was a start.
On UAC FUD. I’ve seen plenty of people say
“Firefox is more secure than IE & I run Vista without UAC”
WTF? IE + UAC is more secure than Firefox, but there is a bit of brainwashing going on here.
As an aside, I see Window Snyder has left Mozilla.
It would be nice, if UAC will remember a selected user and their entered password for a changeable period of time, when I work under the user account (the account in the Users group). Otherwise, the password must be typed constantly, which is annoying. To avoid such annoyance, I start cmd.exe as administrator and do admin jobs there…
As with any OS there are several minor problems. The one that annoys me the most is that when I want to delete a folder, Vista wont let me unless its empty – ie having to go into the folder and delete files/subfolders first in order to make it work. Related to this is that even after having done that sometimes Vista still wont let me delete some folders!? (even with administrative rights)
Annoying – and I really hope this is fixed in 7.
2AboKevin:
I have never seen smth like that in any MS OSes. As for “wont let me delete” – the folder/file can be opened by some process. Use Process Explorer to figure out, who is responsible for that…
Forgot one thing. I really like to see “sudo” feature. They almost did it: in Task Schedule you can set a task to run under local account without entering a password (but it must be autorized first). Unfortunately, at the moment it’s not connected to the active session
Alex:
But we shouldn’t have to use Process Explorer to figure it out. If a file is locked by a process, the OS should tell you what process has the file locked and give you options regarding that lock (with the appropriate warning).
A “Cannot Delete File” or “File is in use” warning just does not cut it on an administrator level account in a modern OS.
Second try, with the ad filter off. Your spam checker seems to not be working very well.
Sorry, there was an error. Please enable JavaScript and Cookies in your browser and try again.
Status:
This message was generated by WP-SpamFree.
If you feel you have received this message in error (for example if both statuses above indicate that JavaScript and Cookies are in fact enabled and you have tried to post several times), please alert the author of this blog, and let them know they need to view the Technical Support information.
I think people have it all the issues that I have found in my limited use of Vista.
I guess my complaints are mostly in the “too slow” category, though not just the CPU usage, but in the sense of zip files taking forever to open, particularly over a network.
Way more clicks to get to the network stuff – I’ll try to remember the ncpa.cpl workaround.
I’d love to have a “hide all UAC prompts for 5 minutes” option – that would remove all my annoyance of the UAC. It is a good thing, but too much of a good thing is bad.
ipconfig now returns a lot of information. I don’t know if there is a way to hide the stuff that people don’t want to see. On XP, I could have someone run ipconfig or even ipconfig /all and quickly figure out what was wrong with their networking over the phone. On Vista, it takes a lot longer for a person to read all of the information, with the majority of it being irrelevant.
I just read the “run” shortcut post, and that will help my efficiency.
Probably one foundational difficulty I have is that when I use Vista, I am on other people’s machines, so I can’t (or at least, shouldn’t) change the defaults. It is possible that some of the minor annoyances I have could be set if I were using it on my own machine.
It seems a number of the answers to the bugs in Vista are, download some third party app. I guess as long as Microsoft thinks that is a good answer, than that is okay, and they should market the third party apps, so more people know about them.
@Alex #44
you’re asking to add a flaw in the system. Not possible!
My gripe is that Windows Vista will fail to render High Definition video in “pure” High Definition on most older monitors, even those that support HD.
Oooh, where to begin…
1) no drag-and-drop into CMD windows. The excuses from Microsoft about this being to “improve security” just don’t cut it. Quick googleage shows many, many people complaining about this one.
2) http://FTP.exe transfers now cache differently. Let me explain. On XP, a command-line FTP transfer would be written immediately to the target directory, with the filesize increasing as the FTP transfer proceeded. This is very useful when downloading certain filetypes – .WAV or MP3 audio, for example – start playing the file as soon as a small amount has downloaded, then let it continue playing as it downloads (pseudo-streaming, I suppose). Under Vista, as I’ve just discovered, the file appears to be invisible until the xfer has finished. I’m guessing that it’s cached somewhere, in the same way that IE works..?
3) Don’t get me started on the filesystem. I am logged in as Administrator, I have disabled UAC, yet still there are huge swathes of the filesystem to which I am denied access. Going to Properties->Security->Advanced->Owner and changing the owner from System to Administrator is slow and tedious. Yes, I know most of you will scream that I shouldn’t be doing this, it’s for my own good, etc etc, but my view is: leave the protection in place for those that need it. If I’m confident enough with my use of the system, give me full control, not a semi-coddled kid-safe version. Root should mean root. Damn kids, get off my lawn 🙂
4) Still on the filesystem.. open a command prompt. CD to \Users\Local Settings. Now CD to “Application Data” and get a directory listing. See what happened there? Endless fun can be had CD’ing repeatedly to “Application Data” and watching the current directory grow.. “C:\users\username\application data\application data\application data\application data\” and so on. Yes, I know it’s an NTFS junction. Still seems dumb, unless I’m missing something obvious.
5) Hear, Hear to the comments above about everything taking more clicks than in XP. Changing network settings is my particular pet hate. The NCPA.CPL hint given earlier helps but smacks of kludge.
6) constant nagging at me to reboot to install patches. Using the Group Policy editor to turn off unattended restarts and increase the nag delay helps, BTW.
7) Echoing a comment made by someone else above.. auto-detection of filetypes in Explorer windows tries to be too clever. Show it a directory full of music files and Explorer gives me for every file the album name, track number, year, artist’s shoe-size and favourite vegetable. That’s lovely guys, but how about stuff I might want to know.. like, say, “date added” or “date modified”?
Sorry to burden you all with my petty rants, but I feel better for getting all that off my chest. I have to admit that after struggling with Vista, I gave up on my home PC early last year and bought an iMac, and haven’t looked back. Yes, OSX has many faults of its own, and I’m no Apple fanboy, but at least I feel it’s trying to be on my side rather than working to hinder me. My gripes above are from my use of Vista at work, before anyone says “oh, you last used Vista last year? SP1 makes it much better” 🙂
Re my above comment: I have no idea where the http bit in my point (2) came from, as I didn’t type it. Auto-inserted by this site’s blogging software upon seeing ftp dot exe and mistaking it for a URL, maybe?
Apologies for any confusion.
I have Vista running bare bones on the fastest hardware that I have ever owned and it is slower than XP.
The index service grinds away and away.
It crashes intermittently without explanation or third party products that worked fine on XP, but has certainly improved with SP1.
Honestly, it seems like Windows 98 or Windows ME at best. I was lulled into thinking Microsoft had “matured” after the success of W2K and XP. I’m now using OS X because I can’t wait until Windows 7… I do hope they get W7 right or I expect there will be a deluge of people shift to alternative OSes like Linux, OS X.
It is very annoying when you want to remove a USB drive but the “Safely Remove Hardware” program fails because it is “in use”. If you do a handle search using Process Explorer you might see the System process has something in use (it seems like it might be NTFS related).
It seems like Windows should be able to control its own system processes so that they can be told to release a resource.
Windows Vista Ultimate doesn’t seem to have good control over the system when the CPU is heavily loaded. I had many problems on my HP/AMD laptop with virtual machines shooting up to 100% utilization, especially when I wanted to something useful, even after googling and trying many dozens of things (e.g. over 50 hours of effort). One thing that struck me was how Windows seems to ignore that the system is running at 100% and has an ultraslow UI and giving the user help and options to bring the system under control. When the system was like this it could take 5+ minutes just to start up a diagnostic program like Process Explorer.
Windows needs MUCH better internal control (e.g. perhaps kernel redesign so a nucleus can run reliably and responsively) and better tools to help the user diagnose and fix a heavily loaded system.
They really need to change how time is allocated to processes/kernel so the user can try to diagnose the system without the UI being ultra-slow. (e.g. changing the time slice allocation to bring the diagnostics in at the highest priority, including some new diagnostics they create that specifically to deal with high CPU problems).
My Windows Vista Ultimate laptop (HP AMD tablet PC new July 2008) for the last few months has sometimes been hibernating spontaneously. The event logs aren’t very informative about what the problem is and even though I recently tried to disable hibernation in all circumstances, it has still done it a few times after that.
There might be more stuff built in to log in detail what is happening with hibernation and to configure hibernation (e.g. so that it only actually goes into hibernation after I approve it with a dialog box), but if so I haven’t found it very easy to find. If this kind of support doesn’t currently exist, they should put it in.