Being a CS/EE major, I'm often asked to look at the computers of various friends and classmates, and yesterday was no exception. So tonight I stopped by to check out my friend's friend's computer, and lo and behold, it's got Vista. So I was inadvertently plunged into my first Vista experience.
And, unsurprisingly, I wasn't Wowed. Or even pleased. First of all, it is slow. It's an HP Pavilion dv6000, as I read it off the label, with Vista Home Premium (whatever that means). At any rate, it's dual-core something or other. I would look up the details, but I'm currently uninstalling the trial of Norton (in favor of AVG) and running a virus scan, so it's really sluggish (as in frequently can't keep up with what I'm typing). I suppose that's acceptable, but definitely not Wowing.
Anyway, to the beginning. As the computer logged on, I was bombarded by Norton and Windows Security Center (or whatever they call it now), screaming at me to "fix" it, meaning buy Norton Internet Security. Little did it know, I was planning on fixing it in other ways. About a dozen security popups (probably an underestimation if anything) and pretty-bordered windows later, I had succesfully determined that a) Windows Updates needed to be installed and b) Norton wanted me to buy it.
So I promptly found my way to the Control Panel to uninstall Norton. I instinctively moused over to the Add and Remove Programs item, which I quickly discovered was no longer there. After some searching, I found something about programs and uninstalling, and another half-dozen security prompts later, managed to start Norton uninstalling. I say start, because it was taking a long time. Really long. In fact, it just finished, and I started typing this post well past the halfway mark. In the meantime, I downloaded and installed AVG, updated, and started a virus scan. Jolly good.
Well, AVG is installed and scanning happily, and Norton is waiting for a restart to give up the ghost. My work here is done. And my first experience with Vista?
Quite negative. It's kind of pretty, but not really. And it's slower than I think it should be for the computer it's on, as well as being generally obnoxious and unneccesary. Overall, pretty much what I had expected. Pardon me while I go and hug my Ubuntu.
You can kill the background for speed, if you wish.[x]