[...] come from the company’s earinngs report later this week. Also lifting shares is a report that one technology analyst thinks that MSFT could be soon distancing itself from the failed Vista experi…. If you think that the stock won’t fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a [...]

[...] Related post: GigaOM. [...]

Microsoft Predicted to Back Away from Vista | nerdd.net…

rn"When it comes to technology debacles, every major company has a few (remember the Newton?…

[...] “When it comes to technology debacles, every major company has a few (remember the Newton?), but right now one of the top spots has to go to Windows Vista, Microsoft’s clunky operating system that has IT shops and consumers desperately clutching at XP for as long as they can.”http://gigaom.com/2008/04/21/microsoft-predicted-to-back-away-from-vista/” rel=”dc:sourc… [...]

[...] is reporting that Microsoft is Predicted to back away from Vista.  I can only hope that much is true.  While many people have jumped on the Vista bandwagon, I [...]

[...] system that has IT shops and consumers desperately clutching at XP for as long as they can.”read more | digg story addthis_url = [...]

[...] Source: Gigaom [...]

Without a doubt, this here Windows XP shop was fat and happy, until we ordered 3 new Lenovo laptops with Vista. A uniformly negative experience was had by all, and it lasted for months until Vista was removed and replaced with XP and a few experimental iMacs (a very good experience).

I was so distraught over the lost productivity and several near data corruption disasters on the Vista machines, that I was near to flying to Redmond with a lead pipe, waiting in the parking lot, and hitting anyone I could find and identify as Vista related.

Ok, what exactly is wrong with Vista? I’ve heard Mac fanatics (mainly the annoying commercials) spreading lies about it, but not a single accusation has been true in my experience. I’ve had Vista at home for months now and it’s works great. All the same software and hardware I used on XP works perfectly on Vista with 1GB RAM. I had to download a Vista driver for a few things (took all of 30 seconds each), but that’s expected when changing to a new OS regardless of how good or bad it supposedly is. I did the same thing when I went from 2000 to XP.

Now I’m sure some people have had problems and certainly not everyone uses the same hardware/software that I do, but I’ve seen no justification for the widespread criticism.. other than Mac jealousy perhaps.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by MS Vista as well. I’m using the business version and like the built in ghosting/backup tool. With the exception of Quickbooks, all of my software works on Vista.

I think most of the horror stories have to do with the early launch. Most of the wrinkles have been worked out now.

I spent a lot of money for Vista. I purchased top dollar PC and laptop because of necessary Graphics cards. What’s wrong with Vista?…

What does Vista do that XP can’t do, except for some fancy graphics that cost more than it’s worth. I spent countless hours on drivers for wireless cards and graphic cards. My fans sound like a freaking west Texas dust storm and makes me shut the machines down, then I just hope they wake up correctly (many times have to reboot). Responsiveness in both Vista and Microsoft apps are pathetically slow due to Aero graphics.

So I turned off most of my Aero graphics settings the other day. Wow! nice piece of software. And I paid for it.

Biggest problem is under the hood. It’s a big bloated bunch of spaghetti code. Inefficient and error-prone.

Glad they’re upgrading but will cost me more.

Windows 2008, ahem, Workstation is fantastic!

Hopefully they ditch the dozen or so different versions/platforms/combinations of vista available. The average user hasn’t a clue whether they need (or want) Ultimate, Premium, Home, School/Education, 64bit, 32bit, upgrade, full distributions of the OS. I can’t imagine that the money spent keeping all these multiple versions in different boxes and managing the marketing etc of each is made up in sales more so than if just one version were available. That’s it.. put it on one single DVD and sell it for one price. MS just likes to model the physical experience of purchasing their software as frustrating as using it.

I’ve had nothing but good things to say about my experiences with Vista PCs. I must admit I do have the external USB HD issues since installing SP1 however.

I must agree, I can’t complain about Vista very much. While I don’t think its a huge step up from XP, there are some very business friendly advancements, including better sleep/hibernate performance, better OS file security, better profile management, and better offline files operation. And I’ve had no problems on computers ranging from a simple Dell 630 laptop (business class, nothing fancy) to a home build SLI workstation with dual 8800s.
People complained endlessly when XP was released. It was the worst thing ever. MS screwed up, I’ll keep 2000. Rawr rawr rawr.
There’s only a few compelling reasons to switch to Vista, but the FUD spreading “Skip Vista” crowd is way off base. There’s no good reason to avoid it like the plague so many people seem to think it is.

An interesting set of experiences!!

Carmelo Lisciotto

There is nothing wrong with Vista … it is not different than your experience on XP.

I really like my VISTA Ultimate and have no problems at all.
Microsoft has got to come up with something really good ( and nothing less ) for me to upgrade from VISTA.

I do however have a potential cure for those that have VISTA issues
Just get a real computer and not one of those COSCO specials…

I agree with Carmelo Lisciotto

A very interesting set of experiences

I think this article is nonsense. We heard it all when XP was launched (probably from the same guys). Vista runs without flaws here; yup it surprised me too.

If Jason Hiner really believes in the “improvements” he suggested in that article, he’s a populist fool. I don’t like making such in-your-face pronouncements, but this one is deserved.

He believes that most important improvement MS could make would be to remove UAC … which also happens to be the most important security improvement Vista has to offer. It may need more work, but to remove it would be folly, resulting in another five years of hearing how bad Windows security is and how many zombie PCs run Windows.

The Vista backlash found in comment threads attached to blogs, news posts, forums, and such is a result of basically two relatively small and vocal groups of people: 1) the MS-hating Linux crowd going on the offensive with a smear campaign, and 2) young 20-something geeks who’ve been made uncomfortable by their first real operating system change. The (2) crowd are uncomfortable having to learn new things (they had gotten good at XP), and especially don’t like hunting around and looking less knowledgeable (having to actually read dialogs or, gasp!, use the ‘Help & Support’ system) when trying to configure their mom’s new Vista machine. UAC ticks them off because they had gotten to the point where they could click through seven dialogs in 3 seconds flat, without any thought. YOU could play Windows like a game of PAC-MAN, and now that the levels have all changed, they’re getting low scores.

Neither of these crowds represents the mainstream business or home user; both of whom want a stable system that JustWorks(TM) when they need to get their email, surf the web, or write their weekly report. This class of user is getting a much more stable and secure system in Vista.

That title was a bait, this story isn’t about Microsoft backing away from vista. This potential win7 is a different product for a different market and both products will be successful, I imagine.

from anecdotal evidence (my experiences and those of people i know) vista is flawed in many ways. imo those who would most notice the problems with vista aren’t peoplw running middle of the road systems but rather people on the extremes with older hardware, budget systems and the advanced users that have complex and often custom systems. The complaints aren’t hype, in fact if you’ve paid attention to the “vista capable” suit the documents released during discovery show that microsoft was well aware of SOME (not all) of the problems that customers wood encounter with vista and complained themselves about the short comings of O.S.
here’s a link for some of the internal docs and emails from microsoft released during discovery
blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/vistaexhibitsone.pdf

Most people use their powerful computers for little more than email ( outlook express) , browsing occasionally and most proudly as “solitaire machines”
For them they will tell you that “I love Vista” or “Vista is fine ” or “Vista is OK” or “Not too bad”
I guess some gamers need vista for high end new games that require the latest versions of direct X
Most would be better off with an x box or an x box 360
XP was perfectly fine for almost all
Lots of people who would never of considered a Mac have bought Macs instead of Vista
An upgrade to Vista is a downgrade
Yet again my idiot friend Perry advised me “that everyone is going Vista “

I’ve had Vista for about 4 months now and I must say I’ve very few problems at all. I’ve NEVER had a crash since I’ve installed Vista, which happened with my old XP machine fairly regularly (force restart a few times a week).

I must admit that the pre-set Vista settings leave a bit to be desired (I turned UAC off), and it took a while to learn where a few things had moved to, but after a bit of configuring, it is just the way I want it to be. And I did need to install a virtual XP machine to run a piece of specialized stats software that they have yet to release a Vista compatible version of (it’s coming though).

I like the gooey graphics (my computer can handle them), the sidebar, and having a half-decent search feature. And being able to use a full 4GB of RAM is cool too.

I take people’s argument about the labeling of “Vista-capable” machines, but that is something that will be settled in the courts (MS were deceptive and stupid there).

maybe i,m just lucky but ive experienced no problems with vista whatsoever i find it faster , pleasing on the eye, and ease of use is brilliant i remember all the whiners who when switching to xp from windows 98 were saying xp stands foe xtra problems but we just gritted our teeth and got on with it. I THINK PEOPLE JUST LIKE TO MOAN FOR THE SAKE OF MOANING!!..

If anyone here is saying there’s nothing wrong with vista he’s either an employee or an idiot.
“better sleep/hibernate” - are you kidding me? on xp it took 1/2 minutes for a complete shutdown if my 1 gig of memory is full, on vista 15 minutes if i’m lucky!
“what did you expect with all the extra graphics” - again, ubuntu beryl has superior graphics, and absolutely no penalty on performance on the same hardware!
i was on vista for 8 months before downgrading, it was a pain!
multiple versions that allow me to do less then i previously could, after downgrading i discovered i can send faxes again.
it’s very not smart of them to add the reliability graph showing system hangs and restarts, the graph just spiked at 20+ restarts a week.

Have Vista Ultimate, and really like it. But, just yesterday went back to XP, because of plenty really small niggles, such as:
* Vista SP1 with NO apps running takes 65-70% of memory (2GB)
* Every reboot, my logmon stops working
* Takes 20-30 seconds to open IE, about 45-60 seconds for FireFox
* Surf a couple of pages in FireFox, and get “close FF, takes too much memory” warnings. On XP I can have 30-40 tabs open, all with photos, vids, etc.
* STUUUPID UAC. Can’t get Winrar to run from context menu. Have to do 3 or 4 clicks for every “un-verified” app started.
* Slow reboot, slow wake from hybernation

In the end, I enjoy working with Vista. But after having it for a year, I just want to get back and WORK. Not wait. Not confirm. No pamper. Just switch on, get it done, go on with my life…

Pity…

Well this is true bout all OS. I myself just orders Vista and cant wait to install it:) Wish me luck yall:)

Yawn. Getting very tired of the mindless Vista bashing going on.

It works great for me and for the people I know who have it (it did get much better with SP1).

What does it have that XP doesn’t? Lets see: (1) It is far more secure (2) Much improved audio subsystem (3) Better driver model allowing driver installations without reboots (4) Beautiful modern interface (5) Nicer fonts (5) More productive start menu (6) Integrated search (7)great suspend and resume (8) A totally kick-ass media center

Seriously people if you haven’t tried Vista on modern hardware with SP1 please stop with all the negative comments. In my experience its the most productive OS I’ve used and I’ve used a few: linux in many variants, MacOSX Win3K, XP, etc…

W

To quote Bryan ” 2) young 20-something geeks who’ve been made uncomfortable by their first real operating system change. The (2) crowd are uncomfortable having to learn new things (they had gotten good at XP), and especially don’t like hunting around and looking less knowledgeable (having to actually read dialogs or, gasp!, use the ‘Help & Support’ system) when trying to configure their mom’s new Vista machine.”

From your esteemed old age time may seem to flow slowly compared to a ‘young buck’, however I can assure you that a “young 20-something geek” has probably already done several Operating System changes. They probably started on Windows 95, upgraded to 98. Hopefully they didn’t upgrade to Windows ME (you did say geek so they should know better). Then the would have upgraded to Windows XP, probably changed straight back to good ole 98 for stability that was lacking in XP at release. Around Service pack 1 they would have reinstalled XP and used it ever since.

If they were actual ‘geeks’ they probably had MSDOS also, not to mention the various distro’s of Linux also. Oh and lets not count the Windows 2000 they have a copy of somewhere ‘just to see whats different’. Likely they stayed away from Macs.

Apart from the first OS, they probably installed/upgraded all by themselves, this job probably delegated to them after Dad asked which side is up on the CD?

I know this because I am a ‘20 something geek’ (actually 19 but assuming rounding to 2SF :P)

Your comment regarding a 2nd strike is a bit off. I’d consider XP to be a home run. Now I don’t understand baseball, as I’m not an American or fan of the sport, but if you get one strike, then a home run, the second strike wouldn’t count?

Basically, XP is a solid platform in my experience. Vista isn’t too shabby either (just a bit of a resource hog).

There are a lot of people that say that all these thing said here are from people who use apple and are jealus, also that vista work on their computers with no problem etc.
I have never used a mac so i am not a fanboy or anything..

the thing is that VISTA dont work in business environment, its not about home use its about companies and that is the main problem. For example i work at shipping and we have major problems with programs used for our job. also my father owns a medical center and he has great problems with connections between vista and xp laptops in different departments. Also think about the amount of money needed to change laptops and buy vista that dont work! Even for middle sized companies it is a fair amount…

When Win ME came out I almost bought a Mac.
Then XP came out and I fell in love with windows again.

Now there’s Vista. I’m buying a Mac and I’m putting XP on it.

HAHAHAHA win people back for the Mac….

Once you go Mac you never go back!

Vista blows. I bought a Gateway laptop with Vista installed. The mouse sticks constantly, drivers won’t install, it takes forever to boot up, and I can’t get my wireless connection going. I’m a programmer. This OS is shit.

The Newton was not a bad Product. In fact I still use my newton 2000 to this Day!! Steve Jobs didn’t like the Newton that why its gone. All the handwriting stuff was fixed during the 2nd generation.

If you want to talk about bad products… How about Microsoft Bob!!! Gate had to marry the lead project leader to bury that product!

Vista=Windows ME!
Big and Sluggish! and no real value.

I would beg to differ with the writer of the article indicating that the Apple Newton was a failure, contrary to that fact the Newton was the only successful product that apple held in its arson el at a time when all of their other product lines were hemorrhaging apples coffers.

The apple newton at the time was spun off into its own division called Newton Inc. and this was the ONLY profitable division of Apple. Sure when jobs came back he forced the cancellation of development on the device but there were several reasons for this not the least of which was that this was John Scullys baby.

There is no product out today which can match the usability and usefulness of the Newton 2000, 2100 units that are still widely spread throughout the world and used by thousands of people every day.

The newton has also kept up with the times: created in a time when bluetooth or wifi did not exist, the apple Newton now has these capabilities as well. This goes to show how well thought out and designed the initial product was and shows some justification of the original costs of the device.

These devices are still sold on ebay for hundreds of dollars…whats the first revision of the palm pilot selling for now-a-days?

My company just killed the vista project - too many issues with 3rd party apps, drivers for older hardware, etc. It was a 12,000 PC project - now we’re sticking with XP till 7 comes out.

Vista-your mileage may vary. I have tried to like Vista but I can’t. I’ve installed it on a dual boot on an dual AMD x64 machine twice now. Each time the system completely locks up after using for a few hours. The only way to unfreeze the computer is to reset it. After reset the boot manager becomes corrupted and must be repaired. After repairing a few times, the partition table no longer exists and XP has become trashed too. Vista doesn’t like my video card (Nvidia 8500GT) and my DVI monitor. Just shows a black “out of range” screen until I switch back to a VGA to VGA connection. My bios is the latest offered by Gigabyte.

I think Vista may be fine if that is what came on your computer. I don’t buy “prebuilt” configurations and that may be part of the problem I have with Vista. I also have a Mac but I can’t be a Mac fangirl here, it freezes with a spinning ball of death sometimes too.

I once went to a meeting at Microsoft’s headquarters in London. At the end of the meeting I stood up to walk out and was told that I had to be escorted out of the building. I rolled my eyes and said “typical Microsoft”. One of the other guys at the meeting joked” That’s not the worst of it, you can’t leave through the entrance for legal reasons, and you can’t leave through exist for competitive reasons. And if you can find anyone who can explain in plain English how to get out of here, you’ll find that you’re in a completely different city all together.” We all laughed and the Microsoft staff looked embarrassed.

That’s why I switched from Vista to UBUNTU and I’m lovin it.

I was dreading the day I got Vista - a day which turned up 2 months ago, along with a new PC. The UI was a difficult adjustment but, you know what? Except for that, i’m happy. It’s solid, works well, has never crashed so far. I can’t say the same for my last few years of XP. Don’t get me wrong, I like XP a lot, but all this bad mouthing of vista… I don’t get it.

I’m having to switch over to my Vista machine but thankfully have a copy of Vista Ultimate to goto. I’m sort of not looking forward to the experience, especially after comparing TextMate with NetBeans but going to try and give it another go. I think for me the stumbling block is the lack of Windows support or Windows alternatives for many open-source projects, Linux is good but it doesn’t have the same homey feel of the GUI as the Windows & Mac environments do.

With luck the transition shouldn’t be too painful, fingers crossed.

I’ve had very negative experiences with Vista and find Windows XP to be much more user friendly. It’s a tough act trying to balance security and ease of use and I don’t they got it right with Vista. I bought a new laptop a very high spec dual core laptop last year that came with Vista and I just hated the user experience. Particularly on small things like deleting or copying files which seemed to take forever. I don’t know if this was down to DRM checks or what but deleting a 1kb shortcut sometimes took several seconds. Also I use the keyboard a lot for navigating around Windows Explorer. I found with Vista that the tab key no longer moved the focus from the highlighted folder (in the treeview) to the file list pane.

Perhaps with the Service Pack 1 these things have been fixed. But now I just Windows XP at work. I bought a new iMac for home use and it just works which is the way it should be.

John

I think it’s erroneous to say that both consumer and IT shops are “clutching” to hold onto windows XP. Windows Vista is bloated in several regards and I doubt anyone in the industry will argue with that, but there are a huge amount of things Vista got right, especially when you view it from the context it should be paired with.

When Vista is paired with Server 2008, the possibilities are truly inspiring. The granularity and increased functionality will take IT to the next level.

To be honest, after using Server 2008 and Vista paired in a lab for the past 3 months, I’d be happy to roll our entire company to Vista. The added GPO’s in server 2008 make it all worthwhile. No more login scripts, no more manual/3rd party automatic Wireless network assignment.

If you doubt me try it, set up two 2008 servers and ten Vista computers and see what you get.

@Bryan,
I’m neither a Mac fan or a Linux fan, though I’ve used both and occasionally install Linux to play around. I use XP at work and home. When Vista was released, I got a version to test on my travel laptop. The machine barely met the minimum hardware specs. It took at least 5 mins to boot, and maybe another 3 mins before becoming responsive after logging in, on a brand new fresh install. OK, I didn’t expect too much running some aged hardware. I gave it a month to let the performance optimize, but it didn’t help. Later in the year I bought my girlfriend a brand spanking new laptop for Christmas; dual core processor, 2GB RAM, etc. OK, it still ran like molasses. Still had to wait at least 3 mins for a boot, and another minute after logging in before it became responsive and I could start some applications. Then, 30secs to start apps, it takes 2 or 3 seconds before what I’m typing shows up on the screen, every once in a while, switching between apps takes 30 seconds. Screw that, I can’t get work done. I wiped that brand new computer clean and installed XP. Boots in less than a minute, I can start apps as soon as I log in, I can run 10 apps at a time and switch between them instantly, typing shows up on the screen immediately. SO, Bryan, it has nothing to do with people being Linux or Mac fanboys; Vista is a bloated hog. Got it? Good, I thought so. It will be another year before hardware catches up and I can run Vista with the same responsiveness that I get from XP on my current hardware. Vista was nice, I liked the UI improvements and features, but I can’t use it if I can’t get work done. If you think Vista is great, good, but how does it perform compared to XP on your same hardware? I wouldn’t doubt it sucks and you’ve been running Vista so long you forgot what it was like to run XP. Back up your data and switch back for a week. You’ll see what your missing.

Stacey Higginbotham,
Your title is misleading. Streamlining Vista is not ‘backing away from’. It’s what they do to any OS (or program for that matter) over time. It’s what happened to XP and look at how well it’s doing. Remember XP when it first came out? I do, everyone hated it.

Microsoft haven’t just shot themselves in the foot with Vista, they’ve blown their legs clean off! There is now no point whatsoever to own a Windows box - it’s simple - GET A MAC!

I do agree the title of this article is a little mis-leading as it just seems to be a re-wording of the recet Gartner comments about Microsoft making a mess of Vista.

I think personally fall into a group somewhere in the middle of the 2 Brian listed. I am a 25 year old Linux user. I grew up with XP and became quite familiar with it. I had always dabbled with Linux since I started out with Windows ME but didn’t change over until Ubuntu 6.10 came out.

My current laptop came with Vista Ultimate on it, a nice surprise as it wasn’t advertised very well on the POS at the store. The first day I got it I used the disk management feature to resize the partition, cutting the disk in half, and installed Ubuntu so it now dual boots. The only time I use Vista is if I want to use the TV-Out to watch video’s on the TV as during my normal usage Ubuntu does what I need a damn sight quicker then Vista, even after my recent ram upgrade (1->2Gb) Vista can still use half of it! Considering this is just when running Thunderbird and VLC I think this is rather high and never see ram usage that high under Ubuntu unless I’m using VM’s! Vista to me seems rather clunky and bloated, and I really can’t understand why MS seems to insist on ramping up system requirements with each sucecssive release of it’s OS’s - I know we get more powerful PC’s as time progresses but it would be nice to get to use some of that extra power to run the applications rather then the underlying OS! If this makes me sound like a linux fanboy then so beit, I just quite like being able to check my e-mails within a minute or two of pressing the power button on my computer, rather then still waiting on dozens of background services to finish loading!

HAHA Very interesting, but one thing you have to remember is that us mac and linux users dont bother with such forums! there is no need for us to defend our OS we know it runs solid!

and as for Vista users saying its just as good as XP, was XP really that great?

Will users of current Vista machines be able to upgrade those machines to Windows 7? I don’t fancy the idea of buying a new computer every year.

I think the main problem that most people, myself included, have had with Vista is that it doesn’t improve on XP very much and in most cases lowers the performance on most machines. The Vista operating system is more resource intensive without any drastic improvements for most users. The idea that the average consumer should pay way too much money to buy Vista when XP runs faster and with all the features they will use is the problem. Most consumers will go with product that works better and saves them money. In this case that is XP.

As far as the comments about “jealous” mac users hating Vista, I don’t think this makes much sense. Vista has done wonders for Mac sales - a lot of people are switching to mac os as it is a far less stressful/error prone experience than Vista. Keep it up, Microsoft - I am sure Apple appreciates your efforts.

I’ve got a machine at the office with Vista…that was the last straw for me. So clunky and unpredictable, file searching interfaces don’t seem to be consistent from one application to another (just one example). I bought a MacBook a month ago…what a refreshing way to work. Extremely sophisticated, yet intuitive at the same time. I hope Microsoft can bring up they’re products to the level of Apple in a hope that competition will benefit all of us.

I loathe Vista. I am in the process of switching to Ubuntu until I can get my hands on a new copy of XP.

Vista is the beginning of the end of Microsoft.

Can you imagine a world without Microsoft? Read the apocalyptical prediction below

(link)

I will not elaborate the details as to why I returned three high powered Vista computers and as a life long PC user who never thought he would buy a Mac, finally has a MacBookPro with XP. I will say this, about 50% of the people who use it have no problems and the rest do-nothing more needs to be said. I like Microsoft and it has done me well over the years and I want the company to do well. In m view the company rolled out so many versions, it is completely confusing. A good example is Vista Enterprise and Ultimate -does anyone know what the difference is-What is Enterprise? What is the difference between XP media center and either one? Another issue is with its Vista Business. Frankly I don’t see any advantage that package has over XP pro. Other that using more resources of your brand new hardware you normally use for applications, what reason would a company or person have to upgrade? It’s identical and slower. It also seems insane for encryption not to be standard on any business OS in this day and age.

With respect to Vista Ultimate, basic issues I see is the Media Center platforms are still not developed 1 year after it was released. This is the basis of graphics and sound and drivers still are only about 80% developed for it and nobody knows if the rest is possible-certainly the original functionality will not be there. Regardless, the bottom line is, everything works fine on a Apple and the strength is the extra feature that is suppose to separate Vista Ultimate from the rest of the Vista versions for which MS is charging an arm and a leg for.

Even looking at a best case scenario for MS, if someone had Vista Business and was thinking about later upgrading to Vista Ultimate, that is having serious problems with the Media center, why wouldn’t that person instead purchase a Mac and install Vista Business to work side by side with Leopard. You know MS needs to have that as a stable platform, if you include to software saving in busing a Mac and additional functionality and aesthetic appeal, lightness, Matte Screen that doesn’t produce glare ease of use; I can see MS has made some huge marketing mistakes.

If you top that off with the fact Open office is coming out with office suites that are becoming more competitive with MS Office and Students are beginning to use it more and Linux slowly beginning to get drivers and improve the quality of its OS, there is a lot of danger and challenges for MS ahead.

The big thing I see it, MS had a great user base with probably the best OS in the world and because it rolled out Vista too soon because an executive didn’t want to lose his job after wall street criticized him, I see some percentage like me (dedicated life long PC users) leaving the OS for a Mac of something else.

MS gets no additional money from me for either XP pro or Vista Business as I got them free from school. Essentially for $20, I have XP and Office 200 Enterprise on my Mac. The OS actually run better on Macs.

It is amazing that all this was not planned into MS strategy. Granted the company has done a good job at being transparent, but if they don’t say or do certain things now, even if the OS eventually gets right sided, the OS reputation would have been so stained after 2 years, nobody will believe them.

I really like MS and have no idea what they were thinking. I will say this, it does appear the software is a lot more stable and it has a lot fewer error messages and a ton of more drivers that work a lot better. I ‘m happy for that for sure. If that ever gets normal, I will load my Vista for sure

Vista is certainly an odd beast. The first half of 2007 was filled with amazing articles about how Vista would make things so much better. What I find confusing is most of what was promised has yet to be delivered.

WPF - Windows Presentation Framework. The new superior GUI offering speedy device graphics. How many applications are shipping with this? Anything shipped with Vista? Nope. Office 2007? Nope. Odd that such a promising technology isn’t used by MS itself. As far as I know only 1 MS app uses WPF and that is MS Expression.

GDI - The graphics routines actually used by Office 2007 are hardware accelerated under XP. Are they in Vista? Nope. No wonder Vista office benchmarks are slower than XP.

DX10 - DirectX 10. A revolutionary new graphics engine to deliver spectacular graphics faster than ever before. Many initial DX10 games ran MUCH slower (up to 50% normal speed) with rare ones running about the same speed as DX9 using the latest video drivers. But the improved graphics! Um, are barely noticeable in most cases. In fact Crysis had to hide the “Very High” graphics settings in DX9 in order to make DX10 look better. When put to the same maximum settings the graphics are nearly identical.

Security - The UAC is a sloppy lazy answer to security. I installed a 5 CD application under Vista. The UAC asked me NINE TIMES if I wanted to install this application. Once would be acceptable but it asked me two times on each disk swap!

Stability - I have two new computer systems. One with XP which is a few months older than my one with Vista (Gateway FX7020). With all the latest drivers and patches installed on both systems, I have had MANY more BSOD and system lockups with Vista than with XP. I’ve run diagnostics and I’m convinced it isn’t a hardware problem. After Vista crashes and restarts it displays a window with a link to find more information about the crash. I click on the link and sadly nothing happens other than the window closes. Waiting for a response from that window make me wonder how long I’ll have to wait for MS to fix Vista.

I WANT to like Vista. If it actually delivered on its promises I think it could be a great OS. The question is how long we’ll have to wait.

Nick, you hit the nail on the head. For the average consumer the perks of vista aren’t evident. They will notice a pretty interface and then check their email. Its hard to explain to someone why their old machine with XP runs faster than their brand new laptop. I’m not bashing Vista, people expect something new to work better, and it simply doesn’t. No, drivers aren’t microsofts responsibility but it has a negative effect on the os regardless of whos fault it is. It just looks bad. Mac really has been pushing this fact in their ads and more power to them. The main difference is Mac controls the hardware and can guarantee a specific “experience”. If Windows did the same thing I would imagine Vista would gain more praise than what it currently is. Even if the problems you have with vista are due to poor hardware your average consumer will point the finger of blame at microsoft, not nvidia (even though they cause most of the issues). My personal opinion, Microsoft failed to create, and enforce, a consistent set of requirements for the os. In doing so pc manufacturers created sub par low end machines that did not have the capability to deliver a solid vista experience. That being said your value oriented customers have a poor experience and a negative reaction while your more high end users may have got what they paid for. Microsofts fault? maybe not, but it just doesn’t look good.

I actually like Vista. I am sure they will fix the issues it has in the near future.

i’ll buy windows 7 only if it doesn’t collect any personal information, and doesn’t have nsa backdoors built in, but we all know this is not gonna happen, so, goodbye Microsoft,

I really have to wonder about Microsoft’s priorities. Their OS users don’t seem to be particularly high on the list. When MS recognized that there weren’t enough quality drivers available for Vista did they delay the launch? No. Did they provide help to write the drivers? No. Did change the OS breaking existing drivers and then wait for manufacturers to catch up? Yes. See how well that worked out.

Microsoft saw that most OS crashes are caused by either video or audio drivers. Their fix was to change the driver model breaking all previous drivers while providing significantly slower performance. Oh, and we’ll drop support for the EAX the most popular sound format too. Perhaps the manufacturer will figure some way to clean up Microsoft’s mess.

Got a buggy driver? Fix it! Don’t make the rest of the system run more slowly!

Okay, okay the driver changes were supposed to offer more functionality in exchange for breaking everything. But will it be worth it?

What the future was supposed to be:
(link)

And how long does Microsoft expect people to wait for this vision to be delivered?

Honestly I don’t know know why some many people have an issue with vista. To be honest I have now been using it almost since its release. The machine I have works fine and has since the day I bought it. I do high end 3D Animation and Lots of Gaming. Not one piece of software I use has ever had a problem installing or functioning correctly. Not one piece of hardware I have, has ever hiccupped or failed. I have never had to restore the system by any means ghost or not. I really wish that the people who are pro XP Sp3 could show me some real evidence. Let’s be clear, I am not windows fanboy, I actively work on and develop an opensource distribution of Linux. I have worked across Mac, Windows, Solaris, Linux, and even DOS platforms. I still can’t seem to find a good reason for Microsoft to back off of its new product. Alot of the feature additions effect user interaction in a way that user don’t like, but when has almost anyone ever liked change to begin with. Alot of the changes have occurred under the hood and not were most people tend to look.

It’s not that Vista is a bad product, it’s just not a lot better than XP. When you are paying a premium for new hardware and time in managing the UAC, it gets hard to justify the move if you are not getting a lot more. I agree with an earlier comment, MS will not abandon Vista. They will move to a new model. Base OS, with extentions and a subscription service. Users will recived updates once or twice a year. Basically the Ubuntu model only at a cost.

Actually the Newton and Vista comparison is quite apt. Newton was new technology that wasn’t able to deliver on all it’s promises. Vista is EXACTLY the same type of thing. At first it promised the stars but by the time it got delivered we got little more than mud.

The big question is if Microsoft will deliver “mud-lite” in Windows 7 or if it will fulfill many of the original goals of Vista. (True scalable graphics and GUI, database file system, secure, fast performance, easy-to-use…)

Bryan:

I fail to see how his opinion on UAC has anything to do with populism. This is probably because it doesn’t and you’re just tagging it with what you perceive to be a big word to inflate your appearance of authority. Furthermore, the exact sentence used in the article is, “Strip out or minimize some of Windows Vista’s clunkiest features”(emphasis added). Just one example he offered was UAC which he considers most critical. As you noted it requires more work and Hiner didn’t call straight out for it to be removed, one could also minimize the intrusiveness of that feature on the user experience. I would point out that it is generally not a good idea to misrepresent what someone is saying when trying to refute them.

It is also a bad idea to slander entire groups based on vague, oversimplified generalizations. I am one of those 20-something geeks you would like to paint as somehow being naive and inexperienced with changes in technology. One should point out that in the last 10 years of my life (~half) I have experienced more technological change than someone in their 40s or 50s would have ever dreamed of seeing in their entire lives. It is something that I, and my generation, have become quite accustomed to. In fact I tend to revel in being able to witness technological progress at such a fast pace. My generation is not like my mother who wants a system that “JustWorks(TM)”, as you put it. We are much more savvy with technology than you would like to believe, and I suspect you are quite out of touch.

Just to describe my personal experience, my first encounter with personal computing was on one of the old Apple computers in my preschool. We bought a Packard Bell IBM clone not that many years after and as an elementary school student knew but DOS and Windows 3.1 rather intimately. We skipped Windows 95 and went straight to Windows 98, which was great. Windows 2000 was probably my favorite version and, like Windows 95, skipped out on Windows ME. When Windows XP was released it had problems and I continued to use Windows 2000 on my home computer until after service pack 2 was rolled out, at which time I made the transition. Now, with Windows Vista, I find myself in a similar position. The only question is will this turn out like Windows 95 or Windows ME where I skip it altogether, or will Microsoft clean up Vista enough that I will switch at some point in the not so distant future?

It is more to do with so many changes to the system, from new driver requirements to UAC protection and a whole lot more.

With the Office 2007 UI team being on board for Windows 7 things should get a lot more easier especially if they do integrate ribbons of some sort or add tabs to more things, not to mention expand upon the better things in built into vista.

If i had to choose between xp and vista it would be vista. i am more than happy with xp, especially now with sp3. however, even though vista is superior in many ways and we prefer it in general, its unpolished completeness and driver problems leave us all feeling that it just isn’t as good as it could be (driver problems not being entirely microsofts problem - a significant change like vista had to make sacrifices and if it is paving the way for a better, securer OS then i am all for it).

With windows 7 there wont be any driver problems (as they wont be changing the driver model yet again) and the vista flaws will either be remedied or we will just be used to them by then.

Vista is CRAPWARE!

Every person I’ve ever talked to that likes it are Simple Surfers.

I bought it because I wanted Media Center in my A/V package… MS website told me my computer was rated 5.4 out of 5.9… a monster graphics machine.

I purposely waited until last Christmas for all the bugs to shake out and then spent FOUR MONTHS waiting for bios, chipset and hardware drivers to update from my machine from a $2500 e-mail server to a 90% functional graphics workstation.

Creative drivers spontaneously UNINSTALL and the ATI drivers still stop working for 30 seconds before the display driver resets. Half of the graphics software I use requires running in XP mode.

I have joined the Class Action Suit against MS and can only hope that when they FINALLY produce a working OS I can trade this tired DOGWARE for free. I doubt there will be any cash settlement from these idiots, and I’m sure I won’t get reimbursed for the hundreds of hours I lost waiting for this turd to stink better!

I’m running Vista on a two-year-old Compaq laptop. It wasn’t the best when I bought it. The graphics card is really crappy with bad composite and alpha blending support and was plain weak. With Vista Home Premium installed, I have to say that it runs faster and better than Windows XP. It even has all my old programs installed and has Norton 2008 installed as well. No problems, faster than XP, a little driver problem but was fixed in 5 minutes. Overall, I think they Vista is a step up from XP.

Windows 7 better be an addon to Vista, kind of like the Ubuntu upgrades. It should also be FREE! If Microsoft makes us subscribe to update then I’m ditching Windows. I’ll probably buy a Mac or I’ll just reinstall Ubuntu. If Micrsoft does this, they’re completely dead to me. They screwed up on their console and I hope they don’t screw up here.

When an individual in a professional capacity admits Vista did not work at his place of employment, the Microsofties call foul.

When multi-qualified people (A+,N+,MSCE etc) point out obvious flaws in Vista’s design philosophy, the Microsofties accuse them of not knowing what they are talking about.

When the average man in the street complains about Vista’s sluggish behaviour (witnessed on MS forums, MSN, IRC and others) and that XP did it faster on an eight year old machine, they get pilloried by the Microsofties.

The same old excuse of throwing more money (hardware and software) at Vista so that it works as advertised.

All new OS’s have some problems by their own complex nature. A perfect OS is akin to rocking horse s**t. But the Microsofties seem to think that quadcore cpu’s, eight gigabytes of ram and twin 512mb graphics cards in sli formation are common place. Worse still they insult others for not having this specification to run their beloved OS.

And I laugh myself silly when they say Vista is the best OS ever conceived, then go to an IRC channel with half a dozen problems they cannot fix.

If Vista works for you, great, glad you got your monies worth. But don’t dismiss educated and experienced users that feel Vista did not deliver just because it demolishes you MS centric world view…!

Dual booted Vista and xp for a year. Have up to date hardware. Do a lot of 2k film footage editing and vista handles it well. In the same projects and situations xp would lock and be unable to recover. I read all of these comments , but will only trust what works best for me.

I have a hp a6260a with the 22inch hp screen that came with it with a core 2 quad processor and 2g of ram and it works real good with vista ultimate so i wonder wat all the fuss is about.

That’s a silly thing to defend Vista. It takes a lot more resources than XP and give very few in return. 10 Gb to install any OS is insane. XP and 2k3 does better with as low as 2 Gb. And the same goes for Windows 2008. To say it’s best thing to came out from Redmond is nonsense. It’s bad like Windows Vista Business (or good like that, if you’re a Vista advocate). C’mon, guys! You are all paying for the damn thing, you gotta get the best bang for the buck. It’s not like Windows Vista is the plague, it’s just cynical from Microsoft to release it (Ultimate Extras, remember?) in this sorry state and try to pull it down to the throat of the consumer in the way they’re doing it.

Why the sorry state? Let’s face it: it’s slower, a lot changed for no reason (why so many damn clicks to change the freakin’ resolution?) and too much resource intesive (400 mb was the best I could get on memory use, but 10 Gb? C’mon!). Microsoft would do a lot better if they released XP Sp2 with the Aero interface (with a fancy name, like Windows Glass or Fluff) back in 2004. Nobody would complain. And for those who thinks about Vista being a secure system, just try Server 2003. Vista was written above it. But Server 2003 is way faster and much less resource intensive. I’m not a Mac fan, but they’re doing it right. I’m no XP fan either, but Microsoft did it right back there. They just lost track of what is important for a computer user: performance. Not gimmicks. When the gimmicks novelty wear off, the user will see how bad the performance is.

Those who don’t complain about Windows Vista have a far better computer than the average user. Asking for a behemot system like Quad-core, SLI GTX8800, 4 Gb Ram and a 1 kilowatt font for playing FSX just like in XP with a much more modest machine is ridiculous at the best.

And even if it was working just like XP, the amount of things installed with Vista is ridiculous. What happened to the Windows 98 like setup? That was amazingly good and simple and natural to choose to install what was necessary only.

Anyway, I could go on and on in this rant. Sorry for those who like Vista. It’s your money anyway. But I’m angry with Microsoft. I didn’t liked XP (and I still don’t like it), waited this much for get a pos OS and now what? I’ll have to stick around with XP for a little longer than I thought. Maybe until 2010 if they don’t screw around at Redmond this time. Argh…

i have old pc about 3 years old with 1gb of ram , i installed vista ultimate and to be brutally honest i,m glad i did although it did take a few days to settle down,,, i turned off the indexing and supervisor control and it runs like a dream now… i feel sorry for others who have had problems but to be honest all i really do is surf the net and run a few cleaning progs… maybe if i was using ram heavy progs i would be saying something different,,although burning cd,s or dvd,s has slowed down,, from 5 mins to about 8 mins ,, hope this info is of help to someone,,

I am just going to cross my fingers and hope that this entry is true as I am having nightmares not being able to download drivers for XP on my laptop