Comments on: James needs Vista but he likes OS X http://www.mobilitysite.com/2008/05/james-needs-vista-but-he-likes-os-x/ Mobile News, Reviews, and Views. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:18:46 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: doogald http://www.mobilitysite.com/2008/05/james-needs-vista-but-he-likes-os-x/comment-page-1/#comment-5275 doogald Thu, 22 May 2008 20:19:14 +0000 http://mobilitysite.com/2008/05/james-needs-vista-but-he-likes-os-x/#comment-5275 My mother-in-law, who is a non-technical user who just switched from XP to Vista after 4 years of XP use, is ready to throw her Vista laptop out the window (pun intended.) She tried to install a Dell AIO printer that she had (which was long available by the time Vista arrived) and Vista chose the wrong driver to install. But to a novice user, it is not obvious that this is what happened - the printer was called by the name she thought she was installing and did not make it clear that it was installing a driver for a completely different printer. But. worse than that, she recently had a boot error with unbelievable technical error messages suggesting that she do a destructive system restore. It actually only took a simple reboot for the computer to start up fine, but the error message did not suggest that she try this. And this is my major issue with Vista - it is needlessly technical and very difficult for novice users to understand what is happening when there are problems. The Windows Defender updates do not do a resume when downloading updates if connectivity is lost - not good for a dial-up user like her, and just jaw-droppingly stupid design. She used Win95 for almost 10 years before switching to XP 4 years ago and had a much easier time going from 95 to XP than she has had going from XP to Vista - and that makes absolutely no sense. OSX is not perfect, no matter what anybody says, and I suggested against a MacBook for her for the very reason that OSX was so foreign (and there is no built-in modem). But at this point I am wondering if I should have chosen OSX over Vista, if that was my only choice. My mother-in-law, who is a non-technical user who just switched from XP to Vista after 4 years of XP use, is ready to throw her Vista laptop out the window (pun intended.) She tried to install a Dell AIO printer that she had (which was long available by the time Vista arrived) and Vista chose the wrong driver to install. But to a novice user, it is not obvious that this is what happened – the printer was called by the name she thought she was installing and did not make it clear that it was installing a driver for a completely different printer.

But. worse than that, she recently had a boot error with unbelievable technical error messages suggesting that she do a destructive system restore. It actually only took a simple reboot for the computer to start up fine, but the error message did not suggest that she try this.

And this is my major issue with Vista – it is needlessly technical and very difficult for novice users to understand what is happening when there are problems. The Windows Defender updates do not do a resume when downloading updates if connectivity is lost – not good for a dial-up user like her, and just jaw-droppingly stupid design.

She used Win95 for almost 10 years before switching to XP 4 years ago and had a much easier time going from 95 to XP than she has had going from XP to Vista – and that makes absolutely no sense.

OSX is not perfect, no matter what anybody says, and I suggested against a MacBook for her for the very reason that OSX was so foreign (and there is no built-in modem). But at this point I am wondering if I should have chosen OSX over Vista, if that was my only choice.

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