Is Microsoft Vista Really Worse than XP? Yes. How Much Worse? Windows 3.0 Would Be a Step Up.

Gary North

December 24, 2007

I have a Gateway 140x. It's a tablet PC. I really like it.

It comes with Vista. I really hate it.

Vista has a feature I like: a built-in speech recognition program. It also has OneNote 2007. It's just not clear if this is a demo or a full version.

It doesn't list all of its own programs in the All Programs list. This is just plain stupid. The voice-reconition program is not there. Search for "voice," and the searvch engine finds nothing. Why? Because it's listed under "speech."

Microsoft has completely redesigned the Windows interface. You must now climb a steep learning curve. For what? For this:

http://www.pcmech.com/article/why-i-downgraded-to-windows-xp-from-vista

XP was not too bad. Vista is confusing for no reason at all. In trying to improve the operating system, the designers spent five years making it worse.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Microsoft broke this rule.

I searched the Dell site to buy laptop for my wife. Every model I found offered only Vista. There was no mention of XP. So, I bought a 4-year-old Lenovo with XP. I made the right decision. Dell lost the sale.

It turns out that Dell does sell a line of laptops that offers XP. But I did not find this out until after I had bought the Lenovo.

The Lenovo seems to offer the same benefits as a new Dell in the same price range. So, I have no regrets.

I will buy no computer, other than a replacement tablet (some day), that has Vista installed.

I might accept Vista 3.0. We'll see.