Windows Vista support is officially dead–how to stay protected?

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

That's not even a valid reason to hate it lmao

Isn't it? If there are better systems out why would you use it? It was terrible when it launched and when it got better it was too late because something better was out. Why would I ever want to install vista now?

[noc]

Good riddance. Vista was a piece of shit when it was launched, and today its still a piece of shit.

[flibberdipper]

44 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Isn't it? If there are better systems out why would you use it? It was terrible when it launched and when it got better it was too late because something better was out. Why would I ever want to install vista now?

The gist of your last post is that you hate Vista because 7 can do the same shit... It's like saying iOS 9 is shit because iOS 10 has 3 new apps that aren't available on 9.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Isn't it? If there are better systems out why would you use it? It was terrible when it launched and when it got better it was too late because something better was out. Why would I ever want to install vista now?

If Vista meets my needs and Windows 7 doesn't offer anything compelling, then there's no reason to upgrade despite there being "better" features.

 

It's like why authors like to write their manuscripts with WordStar instead of something more modern like Word or LO Writer.

[VerticalDiscussions]

I remember when i got my laptop for the 1st time, Windows Vista was wrecking me and i didnt even had access to the web!

 

My laptop was pretty weak though and im thankful and very grateful for the success, stability and progress Windows XP allowed to occur.

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If Vista meets my needs and Windows 7 doesn't offer anything compelling, then there's no reason to upgrade despite there being "better" features.

 

It's like why authors like to write their manuscripts with WordStar instead of something more modern like Word or LO Writer.

I agree with your general argument, except for Security Updates.

 

The moment Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Vista, was the moment you should start to choose Windows 7 over it.

 

With that in mind, if we are comparing them while both were still under support? Both were totally fine to use, since Vista SP2 is fundamentally very similar to Windows 7. The UI is different (more refined, most would argue) and there are a few feature upgrades, but largely it's just tweaks between the two.

 

Some people even prefer the UI and general aesthetics of Vista over 7 and other OS's.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

I agree with your general argument, except for Security Updates.

 

The moment Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Vista, was the moment you should start to choose Windows 7 over it.

 

With that in mind, if we are comparing them while both were still under support? Both were totally fine to use, since Vista SP2 is fundamentally very similar to Windows 7. The UI is different (more refined, most would argue) and there are a few feature upgrades, but largely it's just tweaks between the two.

 

Some people even prefer the UI and general aesthetics of Vista over 7 and other OS's.

If security is a concern and the computer in question doesn't need to be on the internet, it can be air gapped. And there's also the risk factor involved. Most of these security updates are to fix vulnerabilities sure, but it's also a good idea to understand where those vulnerabilities are and how they work. If a vulnerability on Vista that goes unpatched involves the XPS writer and that's something I don't use, then I don't care. I just check it off the box in installed features and call it a day.

 

There are plenty of computers at where I work that run XP (but are barred from the outside world) simply because it just works for what we need them to do and that's much better than trying to get IT to install new computers and making sure our test tools and software work. Lack of Microsoft support be damned.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If security is a concern and the computer in question doesn't need to be on the internet, it can be air gapped. And there's also the risk factor involved. Most of these security updates are to fix vulnerabilities sure, but it's also a good idea to understand where those vulnerabilities are and how they work. If a vulnerability on Vista that goes unpatched involves the XPS writer and that's something I don't use, then I don't care. I just check it off the box in installed features and call it a day.

 

There are plenty of computers at where I work that run XP (but are barred from the outside world) simply because it just works for what we need them to do and that's much better than trying to get IT to install new computers and making sure our test tools and software work. Lack of Microsoft support be damned.

For a disconnected computer, and a person who knows how to remove features that may be related to a vulnerability? Sure, no problem. But general use? Hells no. Grandma needs to upgrade.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

For a disconnected computer, and a person who knows how to remove features that may be related to a vulnerability? Sure, no problem. But general use? Hells no. Grandma needs to upgrade.

Well if you put it that way, sure.

[Dabombinable]

9 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I genuinely don't see why people still hate on Vista. So long as you have all the service packs and at least a Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 with 2GB of RAM, it'll run perfectly fine...

Or at least dual CPU+2GB of RAM. I had it running better on 2x Pentium III 1000EB@1.13GHz/SDRAM @ 150MHz than it did on a Pentium 4 HT 3.2GHz/DDR 330. Despite the Pentium 4 benchmarking as approximately twice as fast multithreaded. Then again, I was running 2GB of RAM as well (the Apolo Pro 133A is a really good chipset).

[Sauron]

36 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

The gist of your last post is that you hate Vista because 7 can do the same shit... It's like saying iOS 9 is shit because iOS 10 has 3 new apps that aren't available on 9.

 

32 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If Vista meets my needs and Windows 7 doesn't offer anything compelling, then there's no reason to upgrade despite there being "better" features.

 

It's like why authors like to write their manuscripts with WordStar instead of something more modern like Word or LO Writer.

I dislike vista because of how bad it was at launch.  It was so bad that installing xp over it was a better choice even when it was preinstalled. Even if it got better it doesn't matter, it did so way too late. By the time it got fixed you either ran your system with a sub par os for years, or you used something else, which at this point was either substituted by windows 10 (because of windows xp end of support) or was and remains 7.

 

Being "ok" after years isn't enough and won't change my mind on it being a bad operating system that was rushed to the market in a moneygrab attempt.

[Dabombinable]

BTW, those saying Vista and Windows ME are unstable are either lying, or they used it on machines right at the edge of the recommended specs. I still haven't been able to kill Windows ME with a failed driver install unlike 98SE, and when a program screws up I can simply use system restore. Also the system doesn't become any where near as unstable if a program crashes as it does with 98SE. As for Vista, with SP2 its perfectly fine, kind of like how Windows XP without at least SP2 is atrocious.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

 

I dislike vista because of how bad it was at launch.  It was so bad that installing xp over it was a better choice even when it was preinstalled. Even if it got better it doesn't matter, it did so way too late. By the time it got fixed you either ran your system with a sub par os for years, or you used something else, which at this point was either substituted by windows 10 (because of windows xp end of support) or was and remains 7.

 

Being "ok" after years isn't enough and won't change my mind on it being a bad operating system that was rushed to the market in a moneygrab attempt.

You realize that Windows XP was literally exactly the same? Worse, even?

 

Upon release, XP was a buggy absolute pile of garbage. I did some work at a Computer Shop during that time frame, and the owner would pre-load computers with Windows 98 SE instead of XP (unless a buyer went in and specifically asked for XP) because of the much better stability on 98 SE.

 

While it did get better w/ SP1 and SP2, it wasn't really the "awesome" OS we all remember until SP3... which, of course, was released 2 years AFTER Vista came out.

 

So one could literally use the exact same argument you used, against XP.

 

Vista wasn't just "ok" after patches. Vista SP2 was a VERY SOLID OS, with stability that matches Windows 7. The hardware requirements for a good experience were definitely high, and Microsoft should have been more strict, but hardware caught up. Manufacturers caught up with Drivers. And things became pretty good.

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

And it sucked because people expected it work on hardware that was no where near capable of doing so. You had systems with 512Mb of RAM shipped with Vista. Even that was barely enough to get Windows XP working smoothly.

It wasn't if you wanted to use Antivirus. My Mum's old laptop which had 512MB of RAM used all of that up with XP Home SP1a+antivirus+firewall, even with the Ati 9000igp set to use 32MB of RAM.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

BTW, those saying Vista and Windows ME are unstable are either lying, or they used it on machines right at the edge of the recommended specs. I still haven't been able to kill Windows ME with a failed driver install unlike 98SE, and when a program screws up I can simply use system restore. Also the system doesn't become any where near as unstable if a program crashes as it does with 98SE. As for Vista, with SP2 its perfectly fine, kind of like how Windows XP without at least SP2 is atrocious.

ME - at least in my experience, never killed any systems. But it did have a Memory Leak (though not everyone would have experienced it under all circumstances), and it was pretty buggy in comparison to running the same system on 98 SE. That's my personal experience.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

It wasn't if you wanted to use Antivirus. My Mum's old laptop which had 512MB of RAM used all of that up with XP Home SP1a+antivirus+firewall, even with the Ati 9000igp set to use 32MB of RAM.

Oh man anti-virus programs back then. Hogs all of your available memory and CPU utilization.

 

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

ME - at least in my experience, never killed any systems. But it did have a Memory Leak (though not everyone would have experienced it under all circumstances), and it was pretty buggy in comparison to running the same system on 98 SE. That's my personal experience.

I wasn't even in Elementary school back when I had Windows 98 and ME. So that Celeron system literally had the worse case scenario since I was as clueless as you can get. Don't recall any major issues that people claimed. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

ME - at least in my experience, never killed any systems. But it did have a Memory Leak (though not everyone would have experienced it under all circumstances), and it was pretty buggy in comparison to running the same system on 98 SE. That's my personal experience.

Buggy in what way? The only problem that I've seen with it - and one that only cropped up when I was recovering data off a 420MB HDD recently - was it not being capable of running games in Real DOS mode. Also, I haven't seen any memory leaks using it on my Abit VP6, Jetway 994AN-L and Intel SE440BX-2.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Oh man anti-virus programs back then. Hogs all of your available memory and CPU utilization.

 

I wasn't even in Elementary school back when I had Windows 98 and ME. So that Celeron system literally had the worse case scenario since I was as clueless as you can get. Don't recall any major issues that people claimed. 

Windows ME on a Celeron 433..it worked very well, and even XP is kind of useable on it as well, especially when I set the memory to Host clock+33MHz (aka, running it at 100MHz instead of 66)

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

Buggy in what way? The only problem that I've seen with it - and one that only cropped up when I was recovering data off a 420MB HDD recently - was it not being capable of running games in Real DOS mode. Also, I haven't seen any memory leaks using it on my Abit VP6, Jetway 994AN-L and Intel SE440BX-2.

The computer I ran w/ ME had a memory leak issue, and it wasn't a hardware issue, since the issue did not exist when running 98 SE. It was buggy in general, with lots of lock ups, freezing, BSODS, etc.

 

I can't really give you anything more specific then that, since it was 17 years ago and I simply don't recall lol

[Dabombinable]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

The computer I ran w/ ME had a memory leak issue, and it wasn't a hardware issue, since the issue did not exist when running 98 SE. It was buggy in general, with lots of lock ups, freezing, BSODS, etc.

 

I can't really give you anything more specific then that, since it was 17 years ago and I simply don't recall lol

It was probably just the board or drivers at fault-remember that back then, unstable motherboards and bad drivers were a bit too common back then.

[Mira Yurizaki]

11 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

BTW, those saying Vista and Windows ME are unstable are either lying, or they used it on machines right at the edge of the recommended specs. I still haven't been able to kill Windows ME with a failed driver install unlike 98SE, and when a program screws up I can simply use system restore. Also the system doesn't become any where near as unstable if a program crashes as it does with 98SE. As for Vista, with SP2 its perfectly fine, kind of like how Windows XP without at least SP2 is atrocious.

Apparently much of Me's woes were due to mixing VxD and NT drivers. So I've heard.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

It was probably just the board or drivers at fault-remember that back then, unstable motherboards and bad drivers were a bit too common back then.

Possible, but then again, it worked flawlessly under 98SE.

 

Poor driver support for ME is a given though, given it's relatively short run, and how similar it was to 98.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Apparently much of Me's woes were due to mixing VxD and NT drivers. So I've heard.

Oh, well I never did that.
 

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Possible, but then again, it worked flawlessly under 98SE.

 

Poor driver support for ME is a given though, given it's relatively short run, and how similar it was to 98.

Windows ME uses the exact same drivers as 98SE...

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Oh, well I never did that.

I mean I don't doubt you anecdote. I had two friends who used Me on their computers with no problem. Their only catch though was their computers weren't connected to the internet.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Windows ME on a Celeron 433..it worked very well, and even XP is kind of useable on it as well, especially when I set the memory to Host clock+33MHz (aka, running it at 100MHz instead of 66)

I think XP was installed on it at one point. But was just too slow to be able to do anything properly even with 466 Celeron. Only started using XP when I got a Pentium 4 HT.