Are the horror stories of VISTA exagerrated?

[BonosSaint]

A friend of mine is getting a new PC--which she needs pronto, but all of the computers we're seeing have VISTA installed and all I am hearing are nightmares, including a thread here. So if you're going to use the computer for your basics--Internet, DVD, iTunes,
Word/Office applications, email, yada yada yada, is it the horror tale I'm hearing or is it workable? (She doesn't need additional stress in her life right now, but needs the computer).

From the research we've been doing, VISTA is not really happy about accepting installation of XP?

 

[Canadiens1131]

Ask Queen Bee

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

I use vista. If you´re a basic user (internet, office, dvd´s and music) it works just fine. I actually love vista.

 

[BonosSaint]

Thanks. She got the new computer with VISTA and so far things seem to be working OK.

 

[gman]

I think the majority of the issues are not with new machines pre installed with Vista, but more with the Upgrade from XP versions...which i can certainly vouch for. Thankfully am back on XP and will not be upgrading again until well into next year

 

[digitize]

I tested the last few testing builds of it and it wasn't that buggy (granted I always did a clean install, no upgrades here), just horribly slow. Since then, I've switched to Ubuntu GNU/Linux completely and have no desire to shell out the money to test the final version.

 

[BonosSaint]

Thanks for all your comments. They've been helpful.

 

[Liesje]

Now that I received a driver disc from HP for my computer model, I think I'm going to upgrade to Vista. However, I'm going to try the business edition I get through MSDN rather than the home edition (or whatever it's called) I got from HP. The only external devices I use are a portable USB hard drive and my digital camera. I'm hoping the freeware I use will work with Vista.

 

[*browneyedgirl*]

I got Vista about 2 weeks ago (already had XP but lost the disc) and have had trouble with it like my computer seems to run slower, boots up slower and more.
Maybe I need to configure it with my computer better. I guess I'll have to spend more time getting to know it.

 

[DrTeeth]

I still don't understand why anybody would want to 'upgrade' to Vista. Apart from the couple of years you'll have to wait until Microsoft has figured out how to actually secure and run the damn thing, it's insanely expensive and most people probably need to upgrade their hardware or buy a completely new computer to be able to run it. And what do you get in return? A couple of new features and a snazzy interface, or am I completely mistaken here?

 

[Liesje]

I still don't understand why anybody would want to 'upgrade' to Vista. Apart from the couple of years you'll have to wait until Microsoft has figured out how to actually secure and run the damn thing, it's insanely expensive and most people probably need to upgrade their hardware or buy a completely new computer to be able to run it. And what do you get in return? A couple of new features and a snazzy interface, or am I completely mistaken here?

Well, I got two different version for free, a Vista driver disc from my laptop's manufacturer, and my hardware specs are comparable if not double of some comps already running (and being sold NEW) with Vista. I save data externally or on a network, so it's not really that much work to install and play around with. If it sucks, I can roll back.