Windows Vista is one of the most infamous versions of the OS, living alongside Windows ME and Windows 8 as the ones people love to hate. And while Vista certainly had its problems, it wasn’t a complete disaster either.

Arguably, Vista’s problems came down to it being ahead of its time, rather than fundamentally flawed at its core. There are a lot of successes that Vista teed up Windows 7 for, and if it had launched under different circumstances, we might remember it differently.

Windows Vista’s biggest issues

Whether you consider Windows Vista’s launch or its final state makes a big difference in how you evaluate it. A lot of Vista’s biggest problems were tied to its release, which you can’t properly appreciate when trying the OS today with both service packs applied.

Even though some of the worst issues were fixed later, its early days were so bad that the damage was done. But not all the issues were inherently Vista’s fault.

Hardware requirement woes

Windows Vista required higher-end hardware than XP, largely because of its new fancy (yet polarizing) feature of “Aero” visuals. Given that Vista came out more than five years after XP, a leap in requirements is understandable.

However, manufacturers weren’t clear about Vista’s system requirements, which led to so many of its issues. Stickers proclaiming “Windows Vista Capable” appeared on PCs that could technically run Vista (the stripped-down Home Basic edition), but only at the bare minimum of performance.

These, along with people upgrading old XP machines to Vista that were barely capable of running it, led to much of the distaste for the newer OS. You would hate any OS if your computer just scraped by the requirements for it; many early Vista users had that exact experience.

For people who didn’t upgrade right away, there was little reason to after hearing about the issues others had. Also, Microsoft continued to support Windows XP after Vista’s launch in January 2007, with XP Service Pack 3 releasing in April 2008.

This is why the increased hardware requirements for Windows 11 were a smart move. It prevented another Vista situation after more than a decade of Windows system requirements being nearly the same.

Windows 7 had similar requirements to Vista. But by the time it launched in 2009, computer hardware had caught up, so it wasn’t as much of a problem for your computer to work with Windows 7.

User Account Control annoyances

This huge pain wasn’t resolved with time or patches. The User Account Control (UAC) feature, which asks you to provide administrator approval for certain actions, was introduced in Vista.

Compared to today, its first iteration was obnoxious and asked you to confirm every little action, like opening advanced menus in the Control Panel. While it makes sense that standard users shouldn’t be able to change advanced settings without permission, an admin having to say “yes, it’s me” for a basic action you just clicked got annoying fast.

UAC was overhauled in Windows 7. There, it didn’t prompt for authentication when changing Windows settings, but still protected you during app installs or when opening system tools like the registry editor. It’s still a core part of Windows 11 security.

Revamped driver model problems

Windows Vista introduced a revised driver model designed to support the new fancy visual effects, plus add stability (so driver crashes wouldn’t crash the entire OS). And while this was a good change for the future, it caused problems when Vista was new.

Many manufacturers didn’t bother to update their products with new drivers for Vista. That meant many peripherals and components like flash drives, printers, mice, and graphics cards would refuse to work, with no help from the developer. The tweaked setup also had growing pains, with many drivers being buggy, causing slowdowns and the like.

A new OS is supposed to be shiny and better than your old one, so it was frustrating when devices that worked perfectly in XP were incompatible with Vista. Though its driver model is still used today—open the Device Manager and you’ll see the generic Microsoft drivers are all dated June 21, 2006 (when Vista was released to manufacturing).

What Windows Vista got right

While it was easier to focus on the negatives of Vista than the positives at the time, good parts were certainly there. Vista made more improvements than you might realize.

Much better search

Today’s modern search functionality of hitting Win and instantly typing to search your PC started in Vista. In Windows XP, search was a separate panel that required you to choose what you wanted to search for, then slowly returned results from across your PC.

Vista’s upgrades meant that you didn’t have to trawl through the All Programs menu to find the app you wanted to use. Quick, system-wide searches were faster than ever, and this is a feature we still appreciate today.

Built-in Windows Defender and Windows Update

Windows XP didn’t have any anti-malware tools built in, which became an issue as more people got online and threats grew in complexity and number. Third-party antivirus solutions like Norton and AVG were the main option for staying safe.

Windows Vista included Windows Defender, which was initially an anti-malware tool rather than a full antivirus. While you had to install Microsoft Security Essentials for complete protection, something being included was better than nothing. It was also timely, since crapware being bundled with free apps (including infamous junk like the Ask Toolbar) was on the rise.

Windows Update having its own spot in the Control Panel was a solid upgrade, too. In Windows XP, opening the Windows Update entry in the Start menu launched a website where you would choose what updates to download. Having this built into Windows was more convenient and gave you more options for controlling when updates ran.

A sleek look and under-the-hood improvements

Windows Vista’s Aero theme felt fresh and new, and ended up being the primary look for Windows for years to come. The same theming was used in Windows 7, and even Windows 8’s desktop mode retained some of the same visuals (on the Taskbar, for instance).

Vista also introduced the SuperFetch feature, which loads components of apps you frequently use into RAM before they’re needed. This made it look like more RAM was in use, but it was a way of utilizing unused memory.

Many Windows features we now accept as standard also started in Vista, like BitLocker for system-wide encryption. Vista’s backup functionality was a big improvement over XP, as it added the option to take a full system image and had better automation.

Windows Vista came at the wrong time

A lot of Vista’s problems came from it being ahead of its time. If it had been launched a few years later, hardware would have had a chance to catch up to the increased requirements, which would have solved many of the problems.

Windows 7 launched in October 2009, less than three years after Vista debuted. In essence, it acted a lot like a third Service Pack for Vista, as it retained the core of what worked while fixing a lot of the issues (toning down UAC and improving stability, for example).

Vista’s launch was a disaster, and it never recovered from those early issues. But when looking back, or when using a powerful system (for the time), Vista has a lot to appreciate. It just took a while for its improvements to be perfected.