Now, as much as I'd like to include pictures of this one, most of my gripes have nothing to do with anything you can take a picture of. 1. User Account Control is VERY annoying. It pops up everywhere. I think the simple rule is it pops up everywhere, all the time, any time, even while you are using the computer normally. I'm not sure if a normal user would find it annoying or not, but me, being a power user (even if it is diluted across several OSes now) cannot stand the bloody annoyance that is User Account Control. Every damn little thing - and the bloody annoying window pops up and tells you. The worst? A Windows Firewall popup entails another UAC dialog. So every time, Windows Firewall feels like it should protect you, two dialogs pop up.
2. Drivers for Vista suck at this point. This is obviously not Microsoft's fault, but in my opinion, Microsoft should have tried to arrange for at least a few basic Creative drivers to be included in Vista. At least in Malaysia, the Creative customer base is rather of the majority, and lack of built-in support is rather weak - although I'd have to say neither Microsoft nor Creative are to be blamed absolutely. The changes in DirectX 10 and Windows Vista are rather drastic to the driver model. However, drivers unrelated to graphics and sound mostly work anyway without modification (which is REALLY convenient).
3. Vista feels safer, but overall more annoying. The biggest problem I have is probably having to deal with permissions. I'm used to dealing with the simple UNIX form of permissions. Somehow, the overwhelming options in Vista feel a little like overkill. After all, most of us simple users will just use several presets (mostly although we'll be using this thing called Full Control).
4. Alt+Tab still beats WinKey+Tab. Most people would have seen it as obvious - but I'm going to state it here anyway. Unlike Expose which is functional and practical, Flip3D is just something that looks nice. The new Alt+Tab is faster, more convenient, and of course way ahead of WinKey+Tab. That being said, it was probably included because they could include it with the new window management model.
5. Updates come REALLY often. Most people will tout this as a plus point, but it came too many times too often, in my opinion. What were the updates for? Malicious software removal and Windows Defender. I don't mind these getting updated often, but if you've seen how naggy Windows Update can be, you'd know what I mean. And speaking of that, I heard Service Pack 1 is due in the second half of the year. I hope that means we'll have many Service Packs, not one early one, and then it is unheard of for 3 years, and then another 3 years after that. However, I hate updating too often, especially since the most secure version of Windows yet has its Windows Defender getting updates which I have no clue as to the purpose, especially since if you accidentally click one that needs you to restart and stuff, Windows Update nags you to hell about it.
6. Explorer crashes really strangely. And doesn't restart properly either. Thankfully, in Windows Vista, there appears to be some degree of separation between Explorer windows and other windows (including the Start Menu), so you don't get the my file transfer to my flash drive hung, and now I can't do anything except in my web browser and instant messaging client. However, it does crash - and when it does, it crashes in the weirdest of ways for reasons I am completely oblivious too. All I know is that at the end of it, restarting Explorer.EXE doesn't help. Why? The restarted Explorer behaves just as strange, then it begins to act weird, eventually forcing it to crash.
7. Infinite Internet Explorer Tabs/Windows bug. I don't know if anyone else has experienced it, but I experience it like 3 times in 2 weeks. Someone without similar know-how would've already been cursing. I have no idea what causes the bug, but it doesn't happen in Windows XP. It takes specifically Windows Vista to do it. Somehow, Windows Live Messenger fails to open Windows Live Mail in Internet Explorer 7 (or you close Windows Live Mail in IE7). Then, instead of trying again and waiting, there will be some moment of silence - about a few minutes or so. Regardless of whether Live Messenger is open or not, Internet Explorer will suddenly pop up, and start opening an arbitrary number of tabs. Any attempt to close the window will result in IE7 opening yet ANOTHER window - and continue the infinite tabbing process. While this is happening, all access to Ctrl+Shift+Esc (Task Manager shortcut for Windows Vista Ultimate) is blocked off, nothing else will run, including the Run command dialog. The only way I know of that works (and it doesn't always work) is attempt to close it off at the Taskbar. If you are too late, your computer would have gone into a state of irrecoverable infinite tabbing in IE7. All this just by a combination of Internet Explorer 7, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Vista. It doesn't take a genius to tell you Microsoft screwed this up big time. 4 integral parts of Microsoft, put together, will fail horribly.
8. Why haven't I made an error report? Because I have no idea how. Now do you see the problems with Vista?
Then, we have the system tray at the bottom. Notice the small gap between the DAEMON Tools icon and the network icon. Now, the network icon and sound icon stay there without being hidden - permanently. Some of you may find this convenient, and some of you may find them cluttering up space. I'm with the former - I use them pretty often, and having them in the same place all the time is kinda nice.
