Criticism of Windows Vista Criticism of Windows Vista Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft for consumers on January 30, 2007, has been widely criticized by reviewers and users. Due to issues with new security features, performance, driver support and product activation, Windows Vista has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups. For security reasons, 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (and of Windows 7 as well) allow only signed drivers to be installed in kernel mode. Because code executing in kernel mode enjoys wide privileges on the system, the signing requirement aims to ensure that only code with
Microsoft Windows version history of Windows. Windows ME was conceived as a quick one-year project that served as a stopgap release between Windows 98 and Windows XP. Many of the new features were available from the Windows Update site as updates for older Windows versions ("System Restore" and "Windows Movie Maker" were exceptions). Windows ME was criticized for stability issues, as well as for lacking real mode DOS support, to the point of being referred to as the "Mistake Edition" or "Many Errors." Windows ME was the last operating system to be based on the Windows 9x (monolithic) kernel and MS-DOS. On October 25,