How did Vista get such a bad rep?
It was different than XP. It was too many years in development, and
release was delayed several times, which both annoyed people and raised
their expectations. Its initial release was rather buggy. Its hardware
requirements (RAM, disk space, processor) were unreasonably high,
compared to XP. It introduced User Account Control, intended to protect
the user from malware and from himself. Most Windows users had never
encountered that kind of thing and didn't know how to deal with it. The
feature was hard to use and rather too draconian.
I've been using Vista for about three years now and have had far less
trouble with it than my wife has had with her Windows 7. Was it that
so many people Had XP, many still do, and it was so dependable?
I didn't have any particular problem with Vista, either, after the
service packs fixed the most annoying things. I'd still be using it on
my laptop if it had not died a few months ago. That said, I think
Windows 7 is better in all respects. It has mostly the same feature set
as Vista but more refined, its hardware needs are a bit less, and it's
more stable. Your wife's experience isn't typical.
