The Vista Death Watch

[mats.hogberg]

Vista was a failure from the beginning, to buggy.

How can billions of dollars in sales in the first 12 months possibly be a failure?

If all you count is money, no it can't. On the same note: How can crack be a failure?

Lessons learned from Vista will serve them well.

And they get people to pay for making their lesson!

training all 200 some odd people in the company I work for on linux and throwing our programs away is astronomical.

That's just we've become so Microsofted, anytingh else is hard. Let's say you can have a car for free - only problem is the accelerator is to the left of the brake! For you, it's a problem. For those who have never sat in the driver seat of a car before - they couldn't care less!
An article today in Computer Sweden says:

84% use XP today. (67% 1 year ago). 32% will start rolling out Vista this year, 17% 2009 or 2010. Still > 50% not using Vista in 2011, 4 years after the release.
In 2006, before the Vista release, 40% believed they'd "upgrade" to Vista within the first year after release.
Cons are high hardware requirements, low backwards software compatibility.

These figures are for companies, not consumers.

But then - here I sit at work with my XP box, developing stuff for Windows servers...

/Mats

[JohnnyMalaria]

and I dislike very much being forced into things I consider against my interests (eg the audio/video checking

Like it or not, it's called intellectual property. If you object to Vista having the DRM required to meet the content owners' licensing contracts then don't use it. Buy another product that lets you bypass them. Good luck finding one that provides the same versatility and cost-effectiveness.

Your comment about checking the audio/video paths and how much faster Vista could be is misguided. How many CPU cycles does it take to decode one frame of MPEG2 video? Millions and millions. How many CPU cycles does it take to check that the frame is encrypted or not? A few thousand at most. What does Vista do if the content is unencrypted/protected - NOTHING. What does it do if the content is encryted/protected - implement the DRM requirements dictated to MS by the content owners. Do you really think that only Microsoft do this? Regretfully, most of the public knowledge on these matters comes from that FUD from the "research" at the University of Auckland. He has been discredited time and time again.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Making Billions of dollars doesn't constitute for failure. If we feed every poor person in the world will not change their status but fill their belly. Microsoft is in for pure money, they don't care about fixes unless it stops them from making the marginal quarters. If you do it right the first time around, you won't need fixes and etc. Ms is a big fat man trying to put on a thong in the shower...

If you do it right first time round, it will take much longer to get it to market in the first place. And with a product such as an open platform operating system you can't possibly get it right first time. Even closed platform operating systems have problems for years.

Nearly every industry doesn't get it right first time expect, possibly, for the military and avionics. Even then there are occasional catastrophic failures.

If you want MS to launch an OS that is right first time, prepare to pay much more for it.

[mats.hogberg]

If you want MS to launch an OS that is right first time, prepare to pay much more for it.

So, we're getting MS OSes at a discount, just to be guinea pigs? I didn't see that clause in the license...

/Mats

[Marvingj]

Most paradoxes stem from some kind of self-reference. I'm a ticking Time Bomb.......

[oldandinthe way]

I think your information is out-dated. After all, how come a high-end system from Dell ships for $50 less when installed with Linux? Clearly, Dell can save on the costs by not including Windows, ergo it isn't a case of a Windows license for every computer, irrespective of the OS.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070525-windows-tax-is-50-according-to-dell-linu...c-pricing.html

Its hard for me to attribute anything to Dell pricing. They are the only PC vendor still using 80gb drives in systems, to appear price competitive and then they bait and switch customers to higher priced systems.

Even if they offer Linux systems for a lower price, they do not do anything to actually encourage the purchase. The few Linix systems are buried on their websaite, just as the systems with XP are.

And as for the "average joe", the "average joe" does not visit Videohelp. The "average joe" has little in common with the folks who visit videohelp.

The "average joe" has a factory built computer, runs the O/S that came with it. Doesn't even know who built his DVDwriter. Uses only the software which came with his hardware, unless a friend has installed a favorite application for him. Buys the CD and DVD media which are on sale at a big box store, the cheaper the better. Not the videohelp profile.

[TBoneit]

Strangely enough on the topic of Dell pricing. The other day they had a advert on the www.msn.com site. $429 for a system. Clicking on the link took you to Dell and a $399 system.

XP home, Dual Core intel, 19" Flat panel. I remember it also had Cd burner/DVD reader etc.

Makes me wonder what they pay for the XP license and what they pay for a 19" FP and of course if they make any money on that system?

[TBoneit]

I hate to admit it,I'm MS Hater, So I don't mine using Bogus articles. It just makes me feel good.....

So it makes you feel good to reduce any credibility you may have?

[Marvingj]

Just kidding.....

[SCDVD]

Makes me wonder if they make any money on that system?

One of the ways system manufacturers make money on the systems they sell is through installing bloatware on their systems. AOL, Norton and a long list of other software manufacturers pay to have their trial software installed on these systems. Even though these trial software packages slow down these systems, the quest for money by the system manufacturers overrides the negative impact on system performance.

Another stunt system manufacturers pull is to under equip the systems they sell. One of the most common stunts is to not install sufficient memory. NO Vista system should be sold with less than a Gigabyte of RAM. Another stunt is to use a pathetic on board video setup that is just a chip on the motherboard that also uses system RAM for video RAM. This really hammers system performance to have the video competing with the OS and applications for memory.

The overall substantialness of the systems sold today is flimsy at best. I have a seven year old HP system that I use as a third computer. It's a first generation P4 system but it's built very well. When I compare it to HP system sold today, it's like night and day. The cost cutting really shows. Any day I'm waiting for a system maker to announce a system made of cardboard!

[oldandinthe way]

For the most part, consumer systems are not under-equiped. The big box store bundles each week have enough memory, more hard disk and DVDwriters.

Onboard video and shared memory is adequate for most uses.

The bloatware and free printers exist for the same reasons, future sales for their manufacturer and a payment to the computer manufacturer which helps them make a profit while selling a low price.

One can buy a bundled system at Bestbuy or Circuit City for a couple of hundred bucks less than configuring your own at Dell, Gateway or HP/Compaq's websites.

The configurations are determined by price-point for various types of consumers.

Yes, keyboards are flimsier, & chassis are flimsier. But hard disks are substantialy cheaper, memory is substantially cheaper, CPUs are substantially cheaper, and more integration on the motherboards has reduced costs. Systems also are pulling less power, PC board manufacturing pollutes less and uses fewer toxic chemicals and prices are a lot LOWER. And these lighter and flimsier systems are using less energy to transport.

I'd call this progress.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Any day I'm waiting for a system maker to announce a system made of cardboard!

If it were possible, it would be a very good thing!

[SCDVD]

For the most part, consumer systems are not under-equiped. The big box store bundles each week have enough memory, more hard disk and DVDwriters.

Onboard video and shared memory is adequate for most uses.

The bloatware and free printers exist for the same reasons, future sales for their manufacturer and a payment to the computer manufacturer which helps them make a profit while selling a low price.

One can buy a bundled system at Bestbuy or Circuit City for a couple of hundred bucks less than configuring your own at Dell, Gateway or HP/Compaq's websites.

The configurations are determined by price-point for various types of consumers.

Yes, keyboards are flimsier, & chassis are flimsier. But hard disks are substantialy cheaper, memory is substantially cheaper, CPUs are substantially cheaper, and more integration on the motherboards has reduced costs. Systems also are pulling less power, PC board manufacturing pollutes less and uses fewer toxic chemicals and prices are a lot LOWER. And these lighter and flimsier systems are using less energy to transport.

I'd call this progress.

You can call it whatever you want but my point remains. An example - A friend of mine bought a Compaq (Read HP) for his wife to help with their business accounting etc. It had 512K MB of memory with Vista Home Basic and the usual slug of bloatware. It couldn't even play a DVD without stuttering because of the wheezy on board video and a TOTALLY under configured system porked down even more by bloatware! I'm sorry but that is NOT "adequate for most users". I find it extremely irritating when someone in the name of "green" uses it as an excuse for flimsy, cheap merchandise. I find it astonishing when someone buys this "pitch". When you mix a corporation boardroom with a politician's caucus room you get some amazing stuff. It's called "green" crap! I am all for responsible care of the environment. But when a corporation uses it as an excuse for selling cheap crap, I find it outrageous.

I "fixed" my friend's system by simply removing the bloatware and installing an additional 512K of memory for a total of one GByte. The difference in the system performance was HUGE after I did this. And amazingly they could even play a DVD on it after I did this. How in the hell did this simple and true observation result in a didactic lecture about toxic chemicals and transportation costs!?

One bright part of all of this is disc drives. They cost less; they are faster and store more and are much more reliable than they were a few years ago.

[RLT69]

Vista can quite easily be called a failure for several reasons:

1. It does not have the new features that were a part of longhorn. That is the biggest reason. Longhorn was suppose to be a new OS with new features and Microsoft stripped them out. Vista provides little improvement over XP.

2. Microsoft extended support for XP and oems continue to offer systems with XP. This did not happen when XP rolled out. Support for 2000 was not extended and oems stopped offering systems with 2000 after XP was released.

3. Many organizations have adopted policies prohibiting the use of Vista. This did not happen with 2000. Many companies took a wait approach - basically with their next upgrade cycle - but companies are passing on Vista even in their next upgrade cycle. We purchased a brand new laptop - it came with XP not Vista. Many companies are doing this.

4. Retail vista sales are lower than XP. The primary reason people use Vista today is if they bought a new computer and did not ask for XP.

http://www.news.com/Running-the-numbers-on-Vista/2100-1016_3-6207375.html

Even Apple's Leopard is doing as well or better than Vista:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/53450-first-weekend-leopard-sales-on-par-with-initial-...s?source=yahoo

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/11/14/leopardjapan/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

5. Microsoft is already publicizing Windows 7, the next version of Windows.

Vista took too long to create, had little improvement over XP and came in too many flavors. So a success story, Vista is not. Microsoft will make money simply because machines come preloaded with Vista. Thus overtime Vista sales will increase. Unless of course people continue to go to OEMs that sell XP

We could very well see a leap over Vista to Windows 7 much like the leap from '98 to 2000.

[SCDVD]

We could very well see a leap over Vista to Windows 7 much like the leap from '98 to 2000.

Excellent point but even 2000 had several service packs before the job was done. I doubt we will see a new OS from Microsoft that bypasses Vista. I suspect (maybe I should say hope) that we will see some large scale service packs that substantially improve Vista. Microsoft could virtually replace Vista with the mother of all service packs and still call it Vista. Their corporate ego could be spared because it would still be called Vista but it could still be so drastically changed with major service packs that it could be functionally new.

I think Microsoft got too carried away with the cutie-pie stuff when Vista was being developed at the expense of the core robustness and "meat" of the OS. A few months ago I saw a program about the "inside" story at Microsoft when Vista was being developed. The main part of the program was an interview with some dweeb who droned on and on about Aero's development as if that was the only thing on the face of the earth that mattered. The irony about Aero's transparent functionality is that Apple had a similar look in a previous OS that they got rid of because people didn't like it. I understand that Apple brought this back with Leopard (probably as a reaction to Vista). In any case, I thought the TV program I saw was insightful because it gave me a look at misplaced priorities at Microsoft. There were many more significant things to be describing as noteworthy in Vista's development program than Aero.

[RLT69]

The irony about Aero's transparent functionality is that Apple had a similar look in a previous OS that they got rid of because people didn't like it. I understand that Apple brought this back with Leopard (probably as a reaction to Vista). In any case, I thought the TV program I saw was insightful because it gave me a look at misplaced priorities at Microsoft. There were many more significant things to be describing as noteworthy in Vista's development program than Aero.

Very interesting. Leopard has something like that not sure if it is it exactly, but it doesn't get in the way of things and it's not a resource hog. Though I know some people changing the UI back to Tiger's look and feel.

I think you are absolutely right, misplaced priorities. They were working on some very interesting technologies - new file system - scary but if it worked, it would have been quite an advancement.

My biggest gripe is not pushing the 64 thing. Even Windows 7 will be 32 bit. Does anybody still sell a computer with 32 bit processors in them!

The smart move for Microsoft would be to have gone from XP to XP-64 - push that out to retail - support it and get driver support. Then bring out Longhorn in 64 bit only.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The smart move for Microsoft would be to have gone from XP to XP-64 - push that out to retail - support it and get driver support. Then bring out Longhorn in 64 bit only.

You can't look at the success or otherwise of a single product and project it to the business model of the whole corporation.

Would it have been a smart move to push XP Pro x64 instead of XP Pro at the expense of, say, developing their other more lucrative sectors?

Most PC users don't even know what 32-bit and 64-bit mean let alone give a crap.

It's amazing what people call a failure. A true failure of a flagship product would lead to major structural reorganization to prevent it from happening again - involving significant numbers of redundancies to pay for the failure.

The blinkeredness and inability to see the larger picture of for-profit business is remarkable.

How many of us have first hand experience of the product development cycle of a multibillion dollar corporation and have been on the receiving end of the somewhat perplexing decisions of the commercial part of the organization? Sure, a disgruntled ex-employee will seek their 15 minutes of fame and bad-mouth the decisions and management of the company. But only the CEO and board of directors know what is going on and why. Everyone else only sees a part of it. And those outside know almost nothing.

Still, let the bitchfest continue.

[Dv8ted2]

Vista can quite easily be called a failure for several reasons:

Vista provides little improvement over XP.

Lets consider this for a moment.

1. Simplified networking - Faster way of seeing the machines around you
2. Moved the graphics processing out of the kernel space
3. junk mail folder for the renamed outlook express ( windows mail)
4. more difficult to use unsigned drivers
5. built in calender
6. more games
7. Two way firewall - improved concept and better than the XP firewall
8. built in synchronization
9. protected mode for internet exploder
10. more focus on security

I could go on an on......

It seems like Vista improved quite a bit over XP.

[halsboss]

Like it or not, it's called intellectual property. If you object to Vista having the DRM required to meet the content owners' licensing contracts then don't use it.

What absolute rot and spin, mate. Are you a marketing type or, just above that on the pond-dwelling scale, a polly ? "Intellectual property" (rot) against it's own customers who didn't ask for it and don't want it if you explain it to them. I didn't ask for the performance-sucking crippleware in it when processing my abundance of home movies, but it's forced on me since it's effectively a monopoly.

comment about checking the audio/video paths and how much faster Vista could be is misguided. How many CPU cycles does it take to decode one frame of MPEG2 video? Millions and millions. How many CPU cycles does it take to check that the frame is encrypted or not? A few thousand at most.

Bah. A few thousand PER FRAME (@ 25 frames/sec !!!!) nicked from MS' customers is a reasonable view since I didn't ask for them to be taken away from me to do something I don't want and someone else does. An then, if it is, how much is lost from marginal but should-be-ok-without-bloatware boxes ...

What does Vista do if the content is unencrypted/protected - NOTHING.

Now you're talking anti-FUD... great ! ... unless you're spinning it like the other... is it for real, or are there other things omitted from mention ?

What does it do if the content is encryted/protected - implement the DRM requirements dictated to MS by the content owners.

That is one of the funniest statements of all time. Cr*p Cr*p Cr*p, mate. Windows is essentially and should have been just an operating system... the "others" "insisting" could be nicked off readily enough as MS would - and should - have done nothing wrong by ignoring them if indeed it was them that made the approach/deal (as an o/s windows has other primary purposes than to do with DVDs etc).

Do you really think that only Microsoft do this?

Don't care... irrelevant.

Regretfully, most of the public knowledge on these matters comes from that FUD from the "research" at the University of Auckland. He has been discredited time and time again.

Be good if you could provide a few links to the "discredit" info for people to catch up to you.

As good a person as you might be, the washing-machine like spin cycle isn't all that convincing so far ... "only a few cycles" "go elsewhere" "play the man (auckland)" "mommy, a bully made us do it" "they're lying"

[halsboss]

see below

1. Simplified networking - Faster way of seeing the machines around you fluff to most people (non-corporates)
2. Moved the graphics processing out of the kernel space no effective change from the customer perspective, no improvement
3. junk mail folder for the renamed outlook express ( windows mail) granted, a minor improvement if you use that product ... is it REALLY an operating system feature ?
4. more difficult to use unsigned drivers no effective change from the customer perspective, no improvement ... in fact a dis-improvement
5. built in calender whoopy do, like 1001 available freeware off the web
6. more games whoopy do, real functionality... like 1001 available freeware off the web ...
7. Two way firewall - improved concept and better than the XP firewall granted an improvement... if you trust it after MS last efforts
8. built in synchronization maybe, an unknown improvement value to customers
9. protected mode for internet exploder "exploder" - a freudian ? ... sounds good, I guess... an operating system feature ? Firefox, anyone ? EU happy ?
10. more focus on security you mean anti-consumer DRM and things like performance-sucking checking 30 times/sec?

I could go on an on...... please do, I and others really want to know (really !)

It seems like Vista improved quite a bit over XP.

... to an insider caught up in it, maybe. Many at my workplace (a few thousand people), techos too (even the IT strategy people), can't point to a killer improvement "over XP" or a real "incentive-to-buy" when asked... and I do ask around to actually find out. Some point to increased h/w cost to buy just to run the underlying o/s on top of which real applications sit.

[Cyrax9]

I'll be honest, I used to be a Windows user, emphasis on used to be a Windows user. I had a PC running Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS, I bought a machine with Windows 95, upgraded it to 98SE, bought another machine with Windows 98, and then bought and built machines running Windows ME + 2000 and Windows ME + Ubuntu Linux respectively. That was the end of me paying for Windows for personal use. (Oh and no, I'm not pirating Windows either.)

I supported Microsoft when their software was functional, or at least relatively functional; even Windows ME could be patched with Windows 98 files with relative ease. Should I have to do this? HELL NO! Do I have to do this? On occasion, yes. Windows 2000 worked well, but it was slow on my machine, and while Windows 98SE was excellent, 98's original release had a few bugs that should have been fixed before release and 95 was a joke -- I held out on that one as long as possible hoping for an improvement. (Ironically I caved in 1997 just before Windows 98 came out.) I dealt with Windows 95 because it was good for gaming, I bought Windows 98 pre-loaded because of a little thing called DVD and the fact that my Windows 95 machine couldn't handle it and I needed another PC anyway, I upgraded to 98SE because it was just time to do so. I bought ME, regretted it, but before XP was patched, I didn't want to touch it and 2K crawled on my machine.

In spite of everything listed above, plus billions of malware programs floating around causing me to pay through the nose for McAffee Virus Scan and ZoneAlarm Pro, I still tolerated the OS as a whole even when I didn't really like it, however by the time XP came out I'd had enough when it came to constant fear of virii ruining my machine and bloatware being installed on a "stock" model. I knew people running XP, I "test drove" XP at stores and on friends machines, and I hated it. The candy-interface with a lack of transparency coupled with the laughable load times made me want to move away from Windows entirely.

I love Linux, but it's not suitable for consumers who aren't code-oriented to some degree, and if offered a PC with a "Win/Lin" option, I'd take Linux, but for the average person, it's not user-friendly enough... and neither is Windows anymore thanks to Vista. (I'll get back to that in a moment.)

In 2003 my family bought our first Mac, two months later we bought my brother a G4 Desktop, and when my Alienware PC stopped functioning in December 2006 I bought a Mac Mini that was refurbished as a stop-gap until I can buy my new Desktop/NLE/Wannabe M-5 multitronics computer. When my brother left for college he bought a Macbook Pro, and I'll probably be purchasing a Macbook pro soon so that I'll have my own laptop, and I'm buying a $12-13,000 dollar Mac Pro soon as well now that 10.5 Leopard is out.

Macs aren't perfect and there's still virii and other malware that can attack them floating around, but they're far better than anything running Vista and the malware attacks are less frequent. I'm still running 10.2.8 "Jaguar" on my first Mac and that's only because I haven't put my Leopard upgrade CD in yet. In fact, I've never been attacked by virii on my Mac and I still bought a firewall and Virus detection software, but it's not as much of a requirement for Mac users as it is for PC users. (Although anyone who doesn't have a firewall or virus scan on any machine is a fool burrying his or her head in the sand regardless of OS.)

Another thing I've noticed with my Macs is that they're faster than my Windows machines -- MUCH FASTER, and faster than comparable Windows XP machines. After Effects for example took 40 minutes to render out a file that took about five minutes on a comparable Mac, and the Mac only had 512MB RAM -- the Windows box had 1GB. That's saying something about how Windows is coded, and it's sad -- especially when Windows was (again, note past tense,) a very good operating system in the past.

And now we have Vista. I cannot find a single redeeming quality to this OS! Is it fast? NO! Is it more resistant to malware than other forms of Windows? NO! Is it better than XP? If you buy an obscenely priced Premium Edition copy, than you might find some extra perks, but most people are running Vista home, which is really XP with a Vista interface. Does it improve a gaming experience? Not if the game is more than two years old in most cases where it actually ruins said experience. And what about video editing? Most software won't even run with Vista.

I know three people who have Vista, and NOT ONE OF THEM has had anything positive to say about Vista whatsoever. In fact, the closest thing to a "positive" comment I've heard is "I successfully REMOVED Vista from my PC." Now that's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the OS, and even my die-hard Microsoft friends are still running XP. My girlfriend's mother bought a Vista pre-loaded laptop and is in the process of purchasing another copy of XP and taking Vista off of her machine. A college student I know wound up downgrading to XP since Vista took too long to load to take notes during classes. A professor I know bought a laptop with Vista and returned it because it wouldn't run any of his Adobe Programs. What's more, this professor was going to replace the six-year old PCs in our editing labs at the college with new Dells this semester, but once the administration told him he'd have to buy Vista-based machines he told them that he'd rather use the six-year old XP machines and that's exactly what he's doing. This is a die-hard Microsoft fan who won't go near a Mac, and even he won't upgrade to Vista -- it's user-unfriendly and bloated. XP on a modern machine with bloatware installed around it is laughably slow, but not as bad as bloatware and Vista which has lead to hour-long load times on some machines I've seen in their "stock configuration."

While I'm now an Apple user, I still use Windows on occasion, Macs can run Windows and sometimes it's good to have a copy of XP around, but after seeing how Vista handles I don't want to touch it. It suffers from tab-abuse, an obnoxious "START" button, and an interface that wants to be Mac OS X's early "Aqua" interface. In fact, as someone noted, Apple dropped the transparency idea because some people didn't like it, and then they reintroduced it in Leopard via "Illuminous" because everybody was droning on about Aero. The difference between Aero and Illuminous is that Illuminous doesn't slow the machine down to the speed of a mentally retarded turtle! "Aqua" loads right up on every Mac with OS X and the longest I've sat on a load screen was 15 minutes after installing a ridiculous amount of updates I'd procrastinated on, and that was a rare event. I spend 10 minutes on a PC load screen on average if it's an older machine, and the oldest ones literally take half an hour to boot.

Also, OS X doesn't bog me down with useless code the way Vista does, (and all Windows OSes to a far lesser extent,) and it doesn't run on the "Christmas Lights" system of "One light goes out, they all go out," or in this case, "one program crashes, the whole system crashes." Instead if one program crashes, that's all that happens -- nothing else gets screwed up. To Microsoft's credit though, they did improve this in XP.

The truth is that most consumers would benefit from running OS X rather than Windows. The problem is that they're so familiar with XP-era Windows and earlier that they have trouble with the sharp learning curve for OS X. My mother could never run Windows, I stuck her on a Mac and after a month she stopped asking me how to use AOL and was able to figure out how to access FireFox -- something I couldn't get her to do with Windows. (Copy and pasting was a challenge for her.) My mother sat through the month long learning curve, so did my girlfriend although she picked up on it much faster. Most people are too impatient to wait for the long-term benefit of getting used to OS X or Linux (when the UI is user-friendly,) and stick with Windows rather than exploring their options.

I've never met a Mac user whose switched from Windows who has wanted to go back to using Windows unless they absolutely had too. In fact, I'm convinced that if you took someone who never used Windows or OS X and gave them OS X, they'd learn it just as quickly as they'd learn Windows. The same is true of Linux if the UI is functional. (Some distros are really lousy and others are amazing such as Ubuntu.)

Is Vista a flop? Yes. Is Apple stupid for not exploiting this? Yes, they should've been converting disgruntled PC users to Macs, although they apparently did a good job raking in cash with the iPhone, despite delaying Leopard to do so. The difference between Leopard and Vista? Leopard works out of the box and the only patches I'm seeing are for companies that aren't coding 64-bit software which is expected on any platform. Does Microsoft consider Vista a flop? While I doubt their public relations people will come out and say it, nobody releases a new product and then says they're going to release a newer version of the one it was supposed to replace unless there's a problem. Sega did this when the Saturn bombed, Nintendo did it when the N64, and the rumor mill is churning full-speed that Sony might do it with the PS3 by releasing another variation on the PS2. Microsoft's doing the same thing with their OS by releasing XP SP3. What's more if I were Microsoft, I wouldnt' want to promote Windows 7 after just releasing Vista unless I thought Vista was a black hole sucking up company profit and contributing virtually nothing. In truth, Vista seems like a cost center for Microsoft, not a moneymaker -- they're making more on the XBox 360 than on Vista and it's getting a warmer reception, albeit a delayed one.

Microsoft isn't in danger by any means, and I'm not saying that Apple can do no wrong (just look at the 90s for an example of idiotic blunders that nearly killed the company,) but what I am saying is that Microsoft needs to get their act together. Corporations don't want Vista, consumers don't want Vista, and even Bill Gates didn't want to run Vista, claiming that it needed more R&D. That alone should have been a red flag to the folks in Redmond.

Will I run Vista? Maybe in ten years when people decide it's not even worth targeting kind of the way some blackhat hackers don't bother to attack Windows ME directly since it's not going to cause enough chaos.

Why do I run a Mac? Simple -- video editing is much easier and faster on a Mac. Windows XP is fine for e-mail and average tasks, and is perfectly capable of handling spreadsheets, but everybody I know who works with video, audio, CG imaging, photography, scientific experiments and/or studies, and processor-intensive programs runs Macs. In fact, a few people who I never thought I'd see in front of a Mac have bought them and decided to dual-boot WinXP simply because they're sick of the constant threat of viruses and Vista's problems. I know a few oddballs who are exceptions to this rule and run Windows for these applications, but they aren't at the studio/hollywood level if their in video, or their working with Legacy DOS-based code on Windows that they've redesigned and patched for Windows since the 90s and don't want to phase out their current software.

Would I switch back to Windows? If Microsoft was to produce an OS that was more stable than the current version of Mac OS, had fewer virii on it, and the same level of product activation (read: none,) and big-brother restrictions as OS X, I'd definitely consider it and probably would switch. But until Microsoft can prove to me that their next OS won't be a repeat of the current one, I'm sticking with OS X barring the same type of malware attacks that Windows exposed me too.

I think Microsoft should scrap Vista. Yes it'd look bad initially, yes it'd be a corporate blunder, but as it stands, that might be the best way to stop the bleeding, build up hype for Windows 7 which they'll need to actually deliver on, and efforts could be focused on patching XP and keeping it functional in the meantime. Why keep throwing money down the drain on an OS that's under-delivering on its promises and alienating its entire user base to varying degrees? Microsoft isn't my favorite company by any means, but I'm not totally against them, nor am I totally in favor of Apple's methods either, but at least I know that Apple isn't going to alienate consumers and get away with it, you need only look at the iPhone price drop earlier this year for proof of that. Microsoft should be trying to figure out how to appease Windows users who feel shafted the way Apple appeased iPhone users. Vista really is Windows ME 2.0, and what's worse is that it's actually alienating more people than ME did. Yes Vista is turning a profit now, but it's still new, and with such harsh resistance to initial sales, gaining support later on isn't going to be easy.

[JohnnyMalaria]

10. more focus on security you mean anti-consumer DRM and things like performance-sucking checking 30 times/sec?

Can't you get the idiocy of this perpetual FUD myth?

A check 30 times a second on a computer that can process more than 6,000,000,000 instructions per second (conservative estimate for modern CPUs)..... "Performance sucking" is hyperbolic (or perhaps a hyperbollock).

If Vista had no DVD playback capability, you'd be complaining. If Microsoft didn't implement DRM per content owners, they'd have their arses sued.

I suspect the antipodean pre-summer sun has frazzled your brain - mad dingoes and all that (tongue in cheek, of course).

BTW, since you appear to have been taken in by Gutmann's disingenuous bullshit, you should take the time to read the series of articles posted by Ed Bott - starting here:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299

Of course, you'll dismiss it as pro-MS spin.

And, busting the Vista = overpriced myth:

3. If you’re such a fanatic that you install Windows more than five times a year, get a TechNet Plus subscription. For $299, you get a one-year subscription that includes perpetual licenses for every version of Windows Vista (including Ultimate), Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Office, and a slew of server software and tools. The licenses aren’t valid for business use, but you can install and use each product on up to 10 separate machines for evaluation purposes, and the licenses don’t expire even if you choose not to renew your subscription after the first year.

[Dv8ted2]

Lets take your points one at a time.

see below

1. Simplified networking - Faster way of seeing the machines around you fluff to most people (non-corporates)

I see it as a bonus. It sucks to double click My network places, entire network, microsoft windows network, just to see the machines. In vista, you double click network, or single click ( depending on how your machine is configured) and you immediately see the computers around you. It makes it quicker to do the administrative share into the computers, when they are a mouse click away.

Moved the graphics processing out of the kernel space no effective change from the customer perspective, no improvement

It is less overhead for the operating system. It passes this task off to the video card. This is more of a benefit than you might realize because the OS does not have to work as hard.

3. junk mail folder for the renamed outlook express ( windows mail) granted, a minor improvement if you use that product ... is it REALLY an operating system feature ?

Yes, it is built into the OS.


I use Outlook at work and Windows Mail at home. I like the junk mail folder. It is a added bonus.

4. more difficult to use unsigned drivers no effective change from the customer perspective, no improvement ... in fact a dis-improvement

Malware writers often take advantage of unsigned drivers. This is a security bonus, because it makes it a little more difficult for the Malware writers.

5. built in calender whoopy do, like 1001 available freeware off the web

It gives you the feature of Outlook without using Outlook.

. more games whoopy do, real functionality... like 1001 available freeware off the web ...

Chess Titans and Purple Place were never offered in previous versions of Windows. Don't knock it.

7. Two way firewall - improved concept and better than the XP firewall granted an improvement... if you trust it after MS last efforts

It is a nice complement to my router packet filtering firewall. Microsoft did not really start to take security seriously until XP SP2. I give them credit for including two way functionality. I trust other firewalls less and I am a security specialist.

}8. built in synchronization maybe, an unknown improvement value to customers

It comes in handy when synchronizing cell phones to computers.

. protected mode for internet exploder "exploder" - a freudian ? ... sounds good, I guess... an operating system feature ? Firefox, anyone ? EU happy ?

It was no freudian slip. I use firefox more than IE. Firefox does not use Active X, which is a security risk. IE 7 is a start in the right direction but has a ways to go.

10. more focus on security you mean anti-consumer DRM and things like performance-sucking checking 30 times/sec?

No, by adding User account control (slightly misguided offshoot of linux), a two way firewall and other features designed to fight off malware, they are starting to take security seriously. The DRM issue is nothing but FUD, and is getting old when people continually beat a dead horse. There are companies that allow consumers to sidestep the DRM, so it is not an issue.

I could go on an on...... please do, I and others really want to know (really !)

It seems like Vista improved quite a bit over XP.

... to an insider caught up in it, maybe. Many at my workplace (a few thousand people), techos too (even the IT strategy people), can't point to a killer improvement "over XP" or a real "incentive-to-buy" when asked... and I do ask around to actually find out. Some point to increased h/w cost to buy just to run the underlying o/s on top of which real applications sit.

I am an IT strategy person who applauds the effort Microsoft is putting forth to consider security. As a information security major, I have more of an appreciation than some people who are ABM'ers, like you.

[halsboss]

Lets take your points one at a time.

Thanks. Nice responses, don't agree with all of it as benefits though or what is and isn't an o/s function.

I am an IT strategy person who applauds the effort Microsoft is putting forth to consider security. As a information security major, I have more of an appreciation than some people who are ABM'ers, like you.

Boing, wrong assumption about me. (forums are essentially anonymous, so who knows what another really does even with what they say!)

[halsboss]

Can't you get the idiocy of this perpetual FUD myth?

Yes I get it ... idiocy only if you know better for sure or it isn't your viewpoint hence spinning it.

A check 30 times a second on a computer that can process more than 6,000,000,000 instructions per second (conservative estimate for modern CPUs)..... "Performance sucking" is hyperbolic (or perhaps a hyperbollock).

OK Bollocks allusion granted as funny... was the checking true or false though ? True you say and it wasn't wanted by users either ? Hmmm, "big brother knows best, and do what I order" ... you do live in the mighty US where weapons of mass destruction officially abounded in dry desert places ? That was officially true too, wasn't it ? Who really knows what is true nowadays with the rich and powerful and marketing types and pollies.

If Vista had no DVD playback capability, you'd be complaining.

Absolute Rubbish. Doubled. Quadrupled. Go find a nice freeware player or even purchase one. Needed in the o/s ... come in out of the sun.

If Microsoft didn't implement DRM per content owners, they'd have their arses sued.

Rubbish, it's just an operating system, however much the bottom dweller marketing types want to hype it up as a sooper dooper tool in and of itself. "Arses" is for english-speaking nations... "asses" please.

I suspect the antipodean pre-summer sun has frazzled your brain - mad dingoes and all that (tongue in cheek, of course).

Is a tad warmish at the moment. Air-con works fine. Tongue in cheek, hope you haven't just come back from Iraq disposing of the WMD's and been knocked around in the head by radiation from the depleted uranium shells lying around Nah, we're both fine, just having a hypothetical stoush on big business "activities".

since you appear to have been taken in by Gutmann's disingenuous bullshit, you should take the time to read the series of articles posted by Ed Bott - starting here:

Thanks I'll have a look.

Of course, you'll dismiss it as pro-MS spin.

No, not if it makes sense, you know the kind sort of like asking "where are those WMD's, again ?" ...

[JohnnyMalaria]

Tongue in cheek, hope you haven't just come back from Iraq disposing of the WMD's and been knocked around in the head by radiation from the depleted uranium shells lying around

Thankfully, no. But it sure does feel like it at times (can't expand - forum policies and all).

[halsboss]

know how you feel. Could change the comparison to instead reference one of our lot's equivalents - "Children Overboard" ... google it if you feel inclined, but you get the drift - what's said by the heavies is sometimes what you are supposed to hear and believe because things work out better for the "proposer" if you do.

I hope the bloatware reports are rubbish too ... the usual initial question is to ask who benefits.

[RLT69]

You can't look at the success or otherwise of a single product and project it to the business model of the whole corporation.

I wasn't comparing the success or failure of a single product, i.e, Vista to Microsoft's overall business model. I don't think anyone was. You are reading way too much into the criticisms of Vista. As SCDVD pointed out Microsoft had some misguided priorities in Vista's development. Had they redirected their efforts they might have developed a better product.

Would it have been a smart move to push XP Pro x64 instead of XP Pro at the expense of, say, developing their other more lucrative sectors?

Who says they would need to do that. Microsoft has several different business areas. One is responsible OS development.

Most PC users don't even know what 32-bit and 64-bit mean let alone give a crap.

Tell that to gamers. I think gamers would like to run a 64 bit OS, like a friend of mine, especially when you are limited to 3 GB of ram in a 32 bit OS.

You can't have it both ways. You can't sit there and say Vista has these neat new features that PC users want and then down play the advantages PC users would have in running Vista 64.

It's amazing what people call a failure. A true failure of a flagship product would lead to major structural reorganization to prevent it from happening again - involving significant numbers of redundancies to pay for the failure.

Wow, you really don't know what you are talking about do you. MICROSOFT HAS REORGANIZED ITSELF STRUCTURALLY. The change was brought about because of Longhorn. Longhorn was having problems, it lead to some major changes at Microsoft, including one Bill Gates stepping down as CEO and going back to software development.

The failures of Longhorn/Vista are well documented. Most PC users realize Vista is not worth the upgrade. Certainly not worth buying a new computer just to run Vista. We'll be waiting for the next release of Windows.

[guns1inger]

I have been looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows for our users, and it is woefully unusable. It is a great for hobbiests, and people who are willing to work within a very narrow frame of software reference, but for people who have to interact with the real world and use off the shelf applications, it is just not a real option. The hidden cost of Linux in the corporate environment is not just in the training, but in replacing all the applications that you live an die by because they simply aren't supported, or you have to jump through hoops to use them. We just don't have the time. Perhaps, in another 5 years, when all applications are Web 3.5 or later, it might work.

As for OS X - I have recently had this thrust upon me, and I find it as underwhelming as I find Vista. And frankly, much more frustrating. I have been working on C2D laptops with 1 GB ram and OS 10.4, and the performance of the OS and the applications is more sluggish than on my three year old Toshiba running a P4 1.7gHz mobile processor, 1.5 GB ram, and Vista Business.

Most of what I have read here (and elsewhere) regarding all of Vista's short-comings and 'failures' seems to come from people with little or no practical experience with it, people with an anti-Vista view point going in, and a lot of pointless perpetuating of poorly researched on-line articles.

For me, Vista is a failure for one reason only - it isn't what it set out to be. That is a simple fact. It doesn't have most of the features that were the real selling points. Vista really is XP Service Pack 3. XP SP2 was a major change to the OS, and had Vista been bundles as SP3, it would not have been lambasted in the way it has. They could have taken the taken the Apple approach to service packs, which is to throw in some un-necessary eye candy changes, a few little gagdets and toys, and then charge for it.

That companies like HP and Dell sell woefully under-powered machines should come as no surprise. They did it when XP first came out, and when 2000 came out, and when 98 came out. The base model is always just enough to load the OS and do nothing else. The difference is that XP has been around for four years and the hardware has improved 10 fold in that time. Like I said earlier, I am running a 3 year old laptop and all it needed to run Vista more than adequately was extra ram. It boots much faster than a 3 month old C2D iBook, and is far more responsive.

If you want to measure anything as a failure, all you have to do is find a set of criteria to match your particular prejudice. Vista's biggest failing it that it over-reached. When they realised it wouldn't be what they promised, MS should have rebundled it as an upgrade/service pack for XP, and no-one would be having this conversation.

[halsboss]

you should take the time to read the series of articles posted by Ed Bott - starting here:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299

Good link. It and it's successor articles put to rest most (but not all) of the touted "technical issues".
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=284
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=304
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=309
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Do consider reading some of the talkback replies...

guns1inger's last post also has merit, I think.