5 ms·

Can you interpret this comment for those of us that haven't used windows? All i can recall from "vista" is that it looked good

ianbutler 9mo ago
MetroUI in Windows 8 was pretty universally panned. I thought it was pretty good on tablets and such, but it left a lot to be desired on desktops and hid a lot of functionality, it went too mobile for a lot of people's tastes. Disclaimer: I was one of the dozens who used a windows phone. The Nokia Lumia 920 was great, you can fight me.
- stevage 9mo ago
  I think a lot of people liked the Windows mobile experience. Shame it didn't quite get enough market share.
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    Resetting the app ecosystem 3 fucking times by breaking app compatibility didn't help. Windows Phone 7 - Windows Phone 8 -> Windows (Phone?) 10.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ulbu 9mo ago
      i guess they needed to release all that pent up backwards incompatibility
      - SuperNinKenDo 9mo ago
        You joke, but I honestly wonder if this period and projects didn't involve a bunch of Microsoft employees who got a little overexcited when they were told that they didn't need to maintain the insane, sometimes bug-for-bug, compatibility layers with 20-40 year old software that they had had to deal with their entire career there. Must have felt incredibly liberating, and maybe they got a little too into the whole idea of "fresh start"(s). See also Windows RT.
    - hyperrail 9mo ago
      Wrong. There was full app compat of WP7 apps in WP8 and Win10 Mobile, and for WP8 apps in W10M. The only full backward app compat break was from WM6.5/WP6.5 to WP7. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're thinking of the lack of device OS upgrades: from WP6.5 to WP7, from WP7 to WP8, and from older WP8 devices to W10M. So no forward compat, but absolutely yes to backward compat.
      - sirwhinesalot 9mo ago
        That's not what they mean. As a developer, the API you used to develop your app was now deprecated with no migration path. That meant your app was deprecated, with no migration path. For an app platform already a distant third place and struggling to attract developers, pissing off the few devs you do have TWICE was not a smart move.
        hyperrail 9mo ago
        Even then, that happened at most twice as you say, not three times as the other poster said. And I disagree with your implicit claim that the WP7 & WP8 Silverlight -> Win10 UWP transition had no migration path. There was >= 90% source code similarity, bolstered if you had already adopted the Win8.1/WP8.1 "universal" project templates. And Microsoft provided tooling to ease the transition. Sometimes it was literally just s/Microsoft.Phone/Windows.UI/g. Games were a different matter, I'll admit. XNA as an app platform had no direct replacement that was binary compatible with Win10 desktop, but even then, not only was DirectX already available from WP8.0, but Microsoft invested in MonoGame as an XNA replacement precisely because they knew the end of XNA would hit hard. (In fact it was the Windows Phone division that had essentially kept XNA on life support in its final years so that WP7 games would not break.)
        vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
        "the API you used to develop your app was now deprecated with no migration path." Seems that's the standard now for .NET desktop dev. Every 2 or 3 years MS crank out a new XAML based framework that's not compatible with the previous and never gets completed before a new framework comes out.
its-summertime 9mo ago
Windows 8 featured a notable paradigm shift from a menuing launcher (click start, programs, then the program you want, as an example), to a full screen launcher (Think Android and iOS). And also switched from floating windows (The default for most Linux distros and for Mac AFAIK) to rudimentary tiling windows (Think Android and iOS) https://youtu.be/RuuqEZnvEoU?t=30 https://youtu.be/RuuqEZnvEoU?t=30
airstrike 9mo ago
from my own personal experience, Vista was very slow and buggy at launch, but it did get better over time
nntwozz 9mo ago
Apple had one of the most successful and known ad campaigns "I'm a mac and I'm a PC" ridiculing Windows Vista, they pretty much summed it up in those. Getting to Windows 11 today, they have ads in the Start menu. Not exactly appealing to the Apple crowd…
- Gigachad 9mo ago
  They also ridiculed the permissions popups. But now when I plug my AirPods to charge on my MacBook it opens a permissions popup.
  - locusofself 9mo ago
    yet there is no way to get my iPhone to stop auto-switching bluetooth audio between my devices. Any time I get in my car, my headphones connect to the car and I have to switch it back. So annoying
    - nntwozz 9mo ago
      This was added in iOS 26. https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/08/ios-26-new-airpods-setting-can-solve-common-bluetooth-issue/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/08/ios-26-new-airpods-setting-ca... In iOS 26, you can keep audio playing with your headphones by enabling the new "Keep Audio with Headphones" setting, found in Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity, which stops audio from automatically switching to nearby devices like car stereos or Bluetooth speakers when you're already connected to your headphones. This setting, which is off by default, ensures your music, calls, or podcasts stay with your AirPods or wireless headphones, preventing frustrating interruptions when you start your car or enter a room with another speaker.
      - allarm 9mo ago
        Thanks! Though the funny thing - it's not possible to search for this option using the search bar in settings - it doesn't show any results for "keep audio" ) I'm on 26.1
      - 9mo ago
dlivingston 9mo ago
Microsoft's Copilot AI software has been integrated in every corner of the operating system, from the start menu to the notepad to settings. Beyond the intrusiveness of it, it also does not work very well. Other AI mishaps include Recall, which takes screenshots of your desktop every so often, and the original version of Recall stored these in an unencrypted, insecure database. On top of that, the OS feels more bloated and disorganized than ever, with something like six different UI frameworks all present in various spots on the OS; system settings are scattered across the Settings app (new) and various legacy panels like Control Panel and Network Connections. What else... Microsoft now requires an online connection and Microsoft account to sign in to your PC; no more local-only accounts allowed. I'm sure there's more I'm missing. It's not a pleasant operating system.
- Wistar 9mo ago
  I added a local-only account to a Win 11 Pro box just two days ago. Nothing seems different to me—the usual horsing around with the no online account stuff but it let me create the account.
  - esseph 9mo ago
    Pro will allow it. Home which is what comes with most computers, does not now.
- timpera 9mo ago
  I find that it is quite a pleasant operating system! Recall is turned off by default and Copilot never nags you to use it (like Gemini on Chromebooks/Google Search/Google Docs does). I completely agree with the UI frameworks thing though. They really need to remove the Control Panel.
  - _carbyau_ 9mo ago
    > They really need to remove the Control Panel. ... they really need to provide 100% coverage to all the same settings, THEN remove the control panel.
  - 9mo ago
Novosell 9mo ago
Windows 8 was when Microsoft tried to cater more towards Windows-on-tablet use cases. Which lead to everyone, including desktop users, having a fullscreen phone-style app menu take the place of the old start menu. This, for desktop use, is obviously quite disruptive and was hated by everyone. They addressed most issues in the 8.1 update, like a year later I think.
- doubled112 9mo ago
  You know what was worse than desktop users? Server users via RDP. There was no start button. There are no screen edges to swipe in from. Hot corners are really hard to hit. I still can't believe somebody said "yes, good idea" to using that UI for Server 2012.
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    I RDP'd into a Windows Server VM a year or so ago and got a full-screen popup for Edge or some shit like that. If that wasn't bad enough, the popup was a web view, meaning none of RDP's acceleration/client-side compositing was in play and I was greeted with a ~1fps slideshow.
einr 9mo ago
Off the top of my head: Windows Vista was slow and unstable on a lot of hardware of the time due to significantly higher system requirements than XP and a new display driver model that worked poorly at first, had a very polarizing look, and had quite overbearing UAC -- where XP would just let you do the thing, Vista would ask you three times if you're really really sure you wanted to authorize it. It had decent bones though -- arguably a lot of its bad reputation was due to hardware/third party driver issues and people trying to run it on old hardware that just couldn't hack it. Windows 7 was well received and is basically the same thing with small improvements and some of the UX issues smoothed over (i.e. less annoying UAC)
- overfeed 9mo ago
  Windows Vista was also notorious for going overboard with translucency effects in the default "Aero" style
  - xmddmx 9mo ago
    My memory is that it was named "Aero Glass" which heightens the irony of "Liquid Glass" sucking. But I see many references to it being called just "Aero", but some call it "Aero Glass" [1] Does anyone know the truth? [1] https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-aero-glass-windows-8-sticks-a-fork-in-familiar-ui-298095 https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-aero-glass-windows-8-stick...
    - overfeed 9mo ago
      Microsoft marketing maybhave had a specific preference, but "Aero" and "Aero Glass" are interchangeable. From the same article you linked: > "Rest in peace, Aero. I liked you, a lot. Still do. And I'll miss you," Thurrott writes
Nextgrid 9mo ago
The Vista comparison is unfair. I think a lot of the bad rap Vista got was from trying to run it on underpowered hardware thanks to marketing XP-era machines as "Windows Vista Capable". I actually ran it on good HW (the kind that could run Crysis) and I didn't have anything bad to say. Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but it's no different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines and we seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd move on past that because it is damn annoying and offers no security benefit). Comparing Vista to modern macOS is insulting. Vista didn't have that level of jank and the UIs were actually quite good, consistent and with reasonable information density, unlike "System Settings" or shitty Catalyst apps.
- ziml77 9mo ago
  > Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but it's no different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines and we seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd move on past that because it is damn annoying and offers no security benefit). It was wild to me when I was testing out if I wanted to move over to Linux as my full-time desktop OS how much it was asking for my password. And it didn't even have a mechanism to make it a little less painful such as requesting a short PIN (which I think is a fine option as long as a few incorrect PIN entries forces full password input).
  - smrq 9mo ago
    Give your user NOPASSWD if it's really that bothersome. You can also potentially set it up to use a fingerprint reader if you have that hardware.
    - Nextgrid 9mo ago
      Yep on the terminal that would work... though I still think it should be the default. On the other hand I'm not sure NOPASSWD would affect desktop environments - any desktop stuff goes via PolicyKit or whatever the latest systemd iteration is and I doubt it's smart enough to read Sudo's config (and there's an argument it shouldn't - if anything it should be the other way around, a system-wide generic "this is single-user machine, the only user is effectively root anyway" flag that both Sudo and Polkit should obey). In both cases yes it's solvable, but I wish it became the default if there are no other interactive user accounts, or at least be easy to configure - if anything, by a simple "don't ask me again" on the permissions popup.
lunar_rover 9mo ago
Vista had the right direction, Windows 7 merely continued on it and it became one of the best operating systems ever. Windows 8 design wasn't bad per se, but they shipped the start screen when it lacks even the most basic features, so you'll return to legacy desktop the moment you want to do anything. I don't think any of them are like Tahoe TBH.

ianbutler 9mo ago

MetroUI in Windows 8 was pretty universally panned. I thought it was pretty good on tablets and such, but it left a lot to be desired on desktops and hid a lot of functionality, it went too mobile for a lot of people's tastes. Disclaimer: I was one of the dozens who used a windows phone. The Nokia Lumia 920 was great, you can fight me.

stevage 9mo ago
I think a lot of people liked the Windows mobile experience. Shame it didn't quite get enough market share.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  Resetting the app ecosystem 3 fucking times by breaking app compatibility didn't help. Windows Phone 7 - Windows Phone 8 -> Windows (Phone?) 10.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ulbu 9mo ago
    i guess they needed to release all that pent up backwards incompatibility
    - SuperNinKenDo 9mo ago
      You joke, but I honestly wonder if this period and projects didn't involve a bunch of Microsoft employees who got a little overexcited when they were told that they didn't need to maintain the insane, sometimes bug-for-bug, compatibility layers with 20-40 year old software that they had had to deal with their entire career there. Must have felt incredibly liberating, and maybe they got a little too into the whole idea of "fresh start"(s). See also Windows RT.
  - hyperrail 9mo ago
    Wrong. There was full app compat of WP7 apps in WP8 and Win10 Mobile, and for WP8 apps in W10M. The only full backward app compat break was from WM6.5/WP6.5 to WP7. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're thinking of the lack of device OS upgrades: from WP6.5 to WP7, from WP7 to WP8, and from older WP8 devices to W10M. So no forward compat, but absolutely yes to backward compat.
    - sirwhinesalot 9mo ago
      That's not what they mean. As a developer, the API you used to develop your app was now deprecated with no migration path. That meant your app was deprecated, with no migration path. For an app platform already a distant third place and struggling to attract developers, pissing off the few devs you do have TWICE was not a smart move.
      - hyperrail 9mo ago
        Even then, that happened at most twice as you say, not three times as the other poster said. And I disagree with your implicit claim that the WP7 & WP8 Silverlight -> Win10 UWP transition had no migration path. There was >= 90% source code similarity, bolstered if you had already adopted the Win8.1/WP8.1 "universal" project templates. And Microsoft provided tooling to ease the transition. Sometimes it was literally just s/Microsoft.Phone/Windows.UI/g. Games were a different matter, I'll admit. XNA as an app platform had no direct replacement that was binary compatible with Win10 desktop, but even then, not only was DirectX already available from WP8.0, but Microsoft invested in MonoGame as an XNA replacement precisely because they knew the end of XNA would hit hard. (In fact it was the Windows Phone division that had essentially kept XNA on life support in its final years so that WP7 games would not break.)
      - vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
        "the API you used to develop your app was now deprecated with no migration path." Seems that's the standard now for .NET desktop dev. Every 2 or 3 years MS crank out a new XAML based framework that's not compatible with the previous and never gets completed before a new framework comes out.

its-summertime 9mo ago

Windows 8 featured a notable paradigm shift from a menuing launcher (click start, programs, then the program you want, as an example), to a full screen launcher (Think Android and iOS). And also switched from floating windows (The default for most Linux distros and for Mac AFAIK) to rudimentary tiling windows (Think Android and iOS) https://youtu.be/RuuqEZnvEoU?t=30 https://youtu.be/RuuqEZnvEoU?t=30

airstrike 9mo ago

from my own personal experience, Vista was very slow and buggy at launch, but it did get better over time

nntwozz 9mo ago

Apple had one of the most successful and known ad campaigns "I'm a mac and I'm a PC" ridiculing Windows Vista, they pretty much summed it up in those. Getting to Windows 11 today, they have ads in the Start menu. Not exactly appealing to the Apple crowd…

Gigachad 9mo ago
They also ridiculed the permissions popups. But now when I plug my AirPods to charge on my MacBook it opens a permissions popup.
- locusofself 9mo ago
  yet there is no way to get my iPhone to stop auto-switching bluetooth audio between my devices. Any time I get in my car, my headphones connect to the car and I have to switch it back. So annoying
  - nntwozz 9mo ago
    This was added in iOS 26. https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/08/ios-26-new-airpods-setting-can-solve-common-bluetooth-issue/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/08/ios-26-new-airpods-setting-ca... In iOS 26, you can keep audio playing with your headphones by enabling the new "Keep Audio with Headphones" setting, found in Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity, which stops audio from automatically switching to nearby devices like car stereos or Bluetooth speakers when you're already connected to your headphones. This setting, which is off by default, ensures your music, calls, or podcasts stay with your AirPods or wireless headphones, preventing frustrating interruptions when you start your car or enter a room with another speaker.
    - allarm 9mo ago
      Thanks! Though the funny thing - it's not possible to search for this option using the search bar in settings - it doesn't show any results for "keep audio" ) I'm on 26.1
    - 9mo ago

dlivingston 9mo ago

Microsoft's Copilot AI software has been integrated in every corner of the operating system, from the start menu to the notepad to settings. Beyond the intrusiveness of it, it also does not work very well. Other AI mishaps include Recall, which takes screenshots of your desktop every so often, and the original version of Recall stored these in an unencrypted, insecure database. On top of that, the OS feels more bloated and disorganized than ever, with something like six different UI frameworks all present in various spots on the OS; system settings are scattered across the Settings app (new) and various legacy panels like Control Panel and Network Connections. What else... Microsoft now requires an online connection and Microsoft account to sign in to your PC; no more local-only accounts allowed. I'm sure there's more I'm missing. It's not a pleasant operating system.

Wistar 9mo ago
I added a local-only account to a Win 11 Pro box just two days ago. Nothing seems different to me—the usual horsing around with the no online account stuff but it let me create the account.
- esseph 9mo ago
  Pro will allow it. Home which is what comes with most computers, does not now.
timpera 9mo ago
I find that it is quite a pleasant operating system! Recall is turned off by default and Copilot never nags you to use it (like Gemini on Chromebooks/Google Search/Google Docs does). I completely agree with the UI frameworks thing though. They really need to remove the Control Panel.
- _carbyau_ 9mo ago
  > They really need to remove the Control Panel. ... they really need to provide 100% coverage to all the same settings, THEN remove the control panel.
- 9mo ago

Novosell 9mo ago

Windows 8 was when Microsoft tried to cater more towards Windows-on-tablet use cases. Which lead to everyone, including desktop users, having a fullscreen phone-style app menu take the place of the old start menu. This, for desktop use, is obviously quite disruptive and was hated by everyone. They addressed most issues in the 8.1 update, like a year later I think.

doubled112 9mo ago
You know what was worse than desktop users? Server users via RDP. There was no start button. There are no screen edges to swipe in from. Hot corners are really hard to hit. I still can't believe somebody said "yes, good idea" to using that UI for Server 2012.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  I RDP'd into a Windows Server VM a year or so ago and got a full-screen popup for Edge or some shit like that. If that wasn't bad enough, the popup was a web view, meaning none of RDP's acceleration/client-side compositing was in play and I was greeted with a ~1fps slideshow.

einr 9mo ago

Off the top of my head: Windows Vista was slow and unstable on a lot of hardware of the time due to significantly higher system requirements than XP and a new display driver model that worked poorly at first, had a very polarizing look, and had quite overbearing UAC -- where XP would just let you do the thing, Vista would ask you three times if you're really really sure you wanted to authorize it. It had decent bones though -- arguably a lot of its bad reputation was due to hardware/third party driver issues and people trying to run it on old hardware that just couldn't hack it. Windows 7 was well received and is basically the same thing with small improvements and some of the UX issues smoothed over (i.e. less annoying UAC)

overfeed 9mo ago
Windows Vista was also notorious for going overboard with translucency effects in the default "Aero" style
- xmddmx 9mo ago
  My memory is that it was named "Aero Glass" which heightens the irony of "Liquid Glass" sucking. But I see many references to it being called just "Aero", but some call it "Aero Glass" [1] Does anyone know the truth? [1] https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-aero-glass-windows-8-sticks-a-fork-in-familiar-ui-298095 https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-aero-glass-windows-8-stick...
  - overfeed 9mo ago
    Microsoft marketing maybhave had a specific preference, but "Aero" and "Aero Glass" are interchangeable. From the same article you linked: > "Rest in peace, Aero. I liked you, a lot. Still do. And I'll miss you," Thurrott writes

Nextgrid 9mo ago

The Vista comparison is unfair. I think a lot of the bad rap Vista got was from trying to run it on underpowered hardware thanks to marketing XP-era machines as "Windows Vista Capable". I actually ran it on good HW (the kind that could run Crysis) and I didn't have anything bad to say. Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but it's no different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines and we seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd move on past that because it is damn annoying and offers no security benefit). Comparing Vista to modern macOS is insulting. Vista didn't have that level of jank and the UIs were actually quite good, consistent and with reasonable information density, unlike "System Settings" or shitty Catalyst apps.

ziml77 9mo ago
> Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but it's no different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines and we seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd move on past that because it is damn annoying and offers no security benefit). It was wild to me when I was testing out if I wanted to move over to Linux as my full-time desktop OS how much it was asking for my password. And it didn't even have a mechanism to make it a little less painful such as requesting a short PIN (which I think is a fine option as long as a few incorrect PIN entries forces full password input).
- smrq 9mo ago
  Give your user NOPASSWD if it's really that bothersome. You can also potentially set it up to use a fingerprint reader if you have that hardware.
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    Yep on the terminal that would work... though I still think it should be the default. On the other hand I'm not sure NOPASSWD would affect desktop environments - any desktop stuff goes via PolicyKit or whatever the latest systemd iteration is and I doubt it's smart enough to read Sudo's config (and there's an argument it shouldn't - if anything it should be the other way around, a system-wide generic "this is single-user machine, the only user is effectively root anyway" flag that both Sudo and Polkit should obey). In both cases yes it's solvable, but I wish it became the default if there are no other interactive user accounts, or at least be easy to configure - if anything, by a simple "don't ask me again" on the permissions popup.

lunar_rover 9mo ago

Vista had the right direction, Windows 7 merely continued on it and it became one of the best operating systems ever. Windows 8 design wasn't bad per se, but they shipped the start screen when it lacks even the most basic features, so you'll return to legacy desktop the moment you want to do anything. I don't think any of them are like Tahoe TBH.