What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

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re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

Phugger — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:06:46 GMT

Thanks Paul, as usual you are the one steady voice in a sea of fanboys!

I've thought about the perception of Vista a lot. I blame Microsoft for marketing it poorly. They should have simply chosen to promote it as a completely new thing. Out with the old and in with the new and better - and there is so much that is better. Their approach has allowed software vendors to be so lazy. The software vendors can sit around doing nothing and Microsoft takes the blame.

The less I listen to fanboys (Digg & Stumble filters) the happier I become with my Vista experience. Apple sells 100 million iPods since forever while Microsoft sells 100 million Vistas almost by accident and with huge negative press in one year. We worship the mighty blue apple and express our disappoint with Microsoft - Doh!

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

daveinla — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:25:03 GMT

Indeed, Microsoft makes great software for the Mac. And the student price for Office is quite right.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

DRWAM — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:39:01 GMT

One other thing, the Office student version [at least 2004] allowed installing in up to 3 of your home computers, for only$129! Again, many thanks.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

DRWAM — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:36:15 GMT

Here’s the latest official word – Office 2008 for Mac has Released to Manufacturing (RTM)!

Thank you Redmond, my drive awaits the launch!

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

clindhartsen — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:28:51 GMT

In some respects, taking a page from a possible "fringe conspiracy" brain set, the whole idea of Apple charging people for "service pack"-like updates is possibly the idea of keeping money flowing into the smaller environment. While MS has a giant backbone and overall has money flowing from other directions (Office, XBox, Zune), not to mention OS licenses, and can afford giving you stuff for free after paying for a PC or a boxed license, Apple's kinda needed an extra hand so they charge for that same stuff MS gives us.

Just a thought, though I'm no expert by a long shot.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

DRWAM — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:13:17 GMT

bsieker, I have not had one problem with Leopard and I use it daily. I am an average user, but to say we have blinders on is absurd, as your experience will differ from any one else. Sorry that I am taking your comment personally, but it was made after mine. I have no experience with Vista, but my friend got to level 3 MS support, and still cannot get his dual monitors to work correctly with his $4400 custom PC and Vista. If he uses two different models, it seems to work with n nVidia 880GTX, but two of the same models does not [otherwise he loves his new speed demon]. BTW, the Mac handles two identical monitors well. None of my 7 friends using Leopard have had a single problem. One reported that her network works faster with Airport than Linksys, but all is fast on the network side things too. They all love their new Macs. Personally, I think that an iMac is kinda girly. I have a Pro Tower and built my own PC [XP] that I love and show off to my friends. But, we have zero problems with Leopard. We are radiologists, so we are not blind.

Peace.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

cesjr — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:06:39 GMT

"So what really did go wrong with Windows Vista?"

How about this - Paul: "After all, people will get Windows regardless."

When people will buy your product no matter what, really, what incentive is there to do a very good job?

this is the downfall of Windows, and it's amazing more people can see this very simple thing. Competition causes companies and people to work hard. If you're going to do the same no matter how you perform, people and companies get lazy. Or they take your business for granted, while focusing their efforts on other businesses.

MS makes almost all of their $$$ from enterprise sales, and right now very few enterprises would even consider it possible to move to something besides windows and office. How good will those products be in this situation. NOT VERY. this is very, very simple, people. WAKE the F**K UP.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

abantos — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:04:34 GMT

Hi Paul,

Great post like always. There are a couple of things I would like to comment about.

For some reason, people believe that a new OS shows up and everyone can jump the next day to it. This might be true if you are buying a new machine, have some spare machine were you can try things, or just need the latest of the latest.

But in the corporate world, things do not work that way. You cannot just take servers down to upgrade the OS just because it is the next best thing. You cannot change your applications infrastructure from one day to the other just because you want your users to have the newest thing in town.

In my company, all new PCs come with XP, and we are a top technology company, not because we don't like Vista, and not because we don't like to play with new toys. The reason is simple. Certain software has not been thoroughly tested in Vista yet (yes, a year is not enough), and you cannot risk upgrading critical organization services without proper testing. From the 250 million PCs sold last year, how many were sold to companies like mine? I got the feeling the number is very high.

My other point is about the necessary hardware, and the compatibility issues with Vista. After hearing all the bad things I've been hearing about Vista, I decided to try it for my self in a spare laptop I had at home. I am running Vista Ultimate on a four year old laptop, with a single processor, and so far, the only compatibility issue I've found is my graphics card because nvidia does not have a Vista driver for it. I don't think this is Microsoft's problem, it is actually nvidia who is not supporting their customers. Even without a driver installed, I can run Aero; and even though it is not the fastest machine in the world, it is very usable. As a matter of fact, it is the machine I am using to write this comment.

I think Vista is a very good OS and is receiving worst publicity than it deserves. Unfortunately, we are living a moment in time where you can say anything bad about Microsoft and get away with it.

BTW, if anyone is interested on the experiment I am conducting in this old Vista running PC, where I am also trying some of the newest Windows Live applications, you can visit my blog. And Paul, do not take it like I am competing with you, I don't have a 10th of the knowledge about Windows or any of the apps I'm usisng that you do. My experiment is just for fun.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

bsieker — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:55:57 GMT

Why does Paul write what he does "fivepoint"? How about:

5. He believes what he's saying. Maybe what he values highly in a OS is different than how you rank value.

Window Vista's failure is that it's not Windows XP. Now that computers are "mainstream", the general public is using them. And they cannot competently handle change.

I support a 480 workstation Windows based computers at work, where we are finally phasing out legacy versions of Windows. I have users that complain about Windows XP - they want Windows 98 back! That is what is wrong with Vista. That's why it's not selling bettter. They want to use software written in 1997! For that reason they're not all moving to OSX either. Or Ubuntu. Or (insert other here).

Obviously, there are bugs in Vista, and in many ways it still lacks some fit and finish. How can they have an OS present a user a black screen during boot, by deciding at the end not to include a logo? Everyone thinks that their computer is crashing! Ugh. And the poor networking performance can make you want to tear your hair out. And don't even get me started over the idiocy of the msconfig notices presented upon rebooting being blocked by itself! Moronic.

I use Leopard also, and have upgraded two machines to Leopard, one from Tiger and one from Panther. Leopard does have bugs. Anyone who says otherwise has their blinders on, because you could find stories about Leopard flaws with a few clicks in Google. A very big bug presently is an issue with wireless speeds. Look it up. Overall, Leopard is a great OS but it does feel a bit limited compared to the wide-open spaces of Windows or even the apt-get of Linux.

The point is using the computer right? Windows is more flexible, not necessarily better, but more flexible. That's why people started using it. And they're not likely to change in any drastic way any time soon.

Please give up the religious crusades on all sides. They're both pretty good, and will continue to improve incrementally.

re: What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?

weedmonk — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:21:01 GMT

daveinla the vaccus mactard and his legion of macboi's to the rescue. Jeez man, don't you have some iStroking you could be doing?