The REAL reason not to use Vista (yet, at least)

You know, I need to blog on why I too now think that Vista sucks, because it’s for totally different reasons than most others.

I don’t have major beef with the interface, the DRM didn’t prevent me from doing anything I wanted, I loved the media center, and in general most of what they added I was fine with.

Where it falls apart is with…. basic file and networking I/O!!!

Now, come on… I’m one of those folks who sees the good and bad on both sides of the fence. I do PHP, Java, and .NET, I administer MSSQL and MySQL as well as IIS and Apache, and I’m familiar enough with Microsoft’s desktop and server operating systems and various Linux distros to speak knowledgeably on a fundamental level. I’ve always been reluctant to demonize anything from either side, because doing so almost always involves oversimplification and polemical blabber… which I get enough of on slashdot, thanks…

But seriously… file I/O? Network I/O? These are things that should just be invisible to end users, but my experience with Vista makes them front and center - I’ve routinely encountered file transfers that inexplicably stopped or slowed down to almost nothing and - worse - could not be canceled. I mean it. It says “Copying file”, it’s not doing anything, I finally give up and click cancel, it says “Canceling”, and that dialog just sits there… forever. I think there’s a way of killing the specific svchost.exe process responsible for the dialog, but… should I really HAVE to do that?

By the way, it’s not just me:

• http://www.theregister.com/2007/03/2…a_copying_bug/
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07…rity_analysis/

The second link there talks about my other huge issue, unpredictable and degrading network I/O - it’ll simply stop responding to file sharing requests of any kind, for no apparent reason. Oddly, RDP will still function normally, but mapping any of the drives on that Vista machine will be impossible. I’ve cleared this issue up ONCE by repairing the connection, but even that doesn’t work all the time, and again… this is basic, it worked in XP, it’s broken now… what could be the excuse?

I’m sure after a service pack… or two… these very fundamental issues will be worked out. But as a frequent advocate of the good things that Microsoft does manage to accomplish and the innovation it does manage to produce, amidst blunders or derivative works, this is simply… embarrassing.

I can’t defend this operating system, or the company that decided to release it, if I can’t copy large files or move them back and forth over my network.

I’ve already rebuilt one machine back to XP SP2 after trying Vista (Ultimate x86 and x64, btw), and now I’m going to do the other.

Quite simply: inexcusable. Forget the FUD, forget the DRM paranoia, forget the resource consumption issues and the silly DX10 debates… if you can’t work with files, those are all tertiary concerns.

Stay away until these issues are conclusively resolved.