I know that there are some who actually like it - And to tell the truth, there were quite a few things I DID like.
1) Dreamscene 2) Gadgets 3) The Aero Transparency.
What sucked and still sucks? UAC. It should never have been put in.
Vista was designed, as I said, for a specific Intel 32-but Core Duo Processor - And it worked WELL within that environment - Provided you had at least 2 GB of Ram, 4 GB was better, and it was also what they suggested.
But what did the OEMS do? They did not stick to that format, they started installing it to Celerons and Athlons and Durons and later Semprons, and even eventually Atoms. To make the system CHEAPER, they would only install 512 MB!!
512 MB on a CELERON! The last system I worked on, which had a Celery and 512 - I finally put more RAM in there and installed Windows 7! What is the excuse for this E-Machines eTower - When it had VISTA - IT WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
It took 5 minutes to boot - going from one program to the other, which is instantaneous in Windows 7 and 8 - feels like you are swimming in MOLASSES. The little CPU/MEMORY gadget - Showed CPU and Memory PEGGED - ALL the time. The moment it booted to Windows 7, the CPU/RAM gadget went back down to normal.
So, despite what COOL things Vista had - The OS was SO BAD that nobody could enjoy those things unless they were rich and could by an Alienware machine.
Vista SUCKS and Microsoft even understood this - But I say again - they were railroaded in to developing it by INTEL! Intel Promised MS a dual HT 64-bit processor, handed them a 64 processor all right - But as DUAL 32!
So from within the framework of a System running a Core Duo of any speed - Then and ONLY then, will Vista act more like Windows 7 does - On ALL Processors.
Anybody who wants can run whatever OS they want - But Vista SUCKS. And if it were "Just Like Windows 7" or even SIMILAR - Then my 3.3 GHz, 2 GHz Ram Celeron system should run it as well as it runs Windows 7. BUT IT DIDN'T. Anyone running Vista where it seems to be running fast and smooth, is running that OS in the environment intended for it - 32 bit Core Duo, 4 GB Ram, 500 GB Hard drive, 3/4 full so that there is a huge Pagefile.
The other thing that Vista was made fore was Vanderpool (Hyper V as it was originally called, aka Virtualization) - You had to have 4 GB of Ram, if you had Vanderpool turned ON on the BIOS, it would take 1 GB of that ram off the top and assign it for Virtualization - That was the ONLY way to run it and have the Hosted OS act like it was supposed to act. But it never really worked until Windows 7 came out and introduced "Windows XP Mode" which worked even with 2 GB of Ram.
Not to mention, as Jimbo says - for the first 9 months, it was VERY hard to find drivers for your hardware - Even for systems "Designed for Vist-sh'iite"
I remmeber finding the drivers for a Toshiba Satellite one item at a time, on the net - For XP Drivers - Once I got XP in there and found the drivers - It ran great. It CAME with Vistcrap in it, it was a totally unusable notebook. When 7 came out, in it went and its been running great for the last 4 years. 5 years? When DID Vistapoodoo come out, Winter of 2005 right? When did 7 come out... Ya know, I cant remember cos the era of Vista was deep in the era of Bush, and it was kinda like The Dark Ages. When 7 came out, it was like a Ray of Hope.
Windows 8 is in NO way as bad a Vista was, I;ve updated SO many machines to Windows 7, I really havent seen one single working install of Vistphart out in the field, for 5 years... And then I got this Tower - Guess what, it was a Celeron, 512mb Ram. 100 gb Hard Drive, with Vista on it.
Well, I could not allow that puter to suffer so as fast as I could, I updated it to 7. It only took, 6 hours to do it... Windows 7 to 8? Takes 1 hr 45 min max... I'm talking about Upgrading a system, keeping all of your files and settings. Vista to 7 took 6 hours... An In-Place Windows 7 install, has never taken me longer than 2 hours. Those are facts, and they say something. They say Vista is wholly inadequate for how pretty it is. Widows XP and 7 are workhorses, like Windows 8 can be with a little tweeking- it can be a great OS.