Running Vista; I think not!
I’ve made my decision, I’m rolling back to Windows XP.
I’ve been using Vista on my laptop on which I perform my daily work. Some problems I’ve come across:
- Visual Studio 2005 doesn’t behave as I want it to, for example extreme slow startups
- It’s very hard to debug IIS examples from internet as they’re all IIS6 and Vista uses IIS7
- All kinds of program lock up randomly, blocking other applications
- Windows Explorer shows random behavior (like multi-selection of files doesn’t work anymore)
- Multiple applications that don’t seem to work anymore. Most have though.
- The sidebar I’ve never ever used. It’s useless up until now. Especially because going to the desktop means the sidebar will hide as well.
There were some things I liked, like
- Search inside start menu. I’ll have to replace it by Slickrun or so.
- The address bar in Windows Explorer where folders have been split up and clickable.
- The new graphics. I loved it in the beginning, now I don’t notice it anymore.
- The new system-tray icons. Connecting to a VPN connection, setting up sound and power plan was very handy.
- IIS7 and WAS. It’s a shame I can’t do WCF WAS demos in WinXP! 🙂
I have no idea when I’ll install Windows XP, but I’m sure going back. Can’t live with the shortcomings of Vista.
Dennis is an independent consultant and software architect who loves building distributed systems and the challenges they bring. What he learns he tries to share via numerous articles, blogposts, presentations and workshops.
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The sidebar I’ve never ever used. It’s useless up until now. Especially because going to the desktop means the sidebar will hide as well.
<Properties->check “Sidebar is always on top of other windows”
(particularly useful on wide screen monitors)
Also drag your gadgets on the desktop and set their opacity to 20% (again, via contextmenu)
“Especially because going to the desktop means the sidebar will hide as well.”
Not, if you press Win+M to minimize all applications.
@Daniel : I know, but I don’t want it on top of the other windows, I want it on top of my desktop.
@Thomas : I know, but dialog windows aren’t always minimizable which means I won’t see the desktop, but the dialog windows. And depending on the order of the app with the dialog, other apps won’t minimize as well. Therefor I’ve grown used to Win+D which is the only thing that works.
Man, chickening out of this as well.
Well, anyway, if switching between different options is so easy for you, I wonder why it takes you so long to switch to VS2005 unit testing. 😛
@Alex : HAHAHAHAHA! Don’t kid me! It is EXACTLY like Vista. I was using NUnit and wanted to try the great and famous VS2005 unit testing. After a few tries, I switches back a.s.a.p!