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Survey Finds Few Intend to Upgrade to Vista
thefickler writes "A recent Harris Poll has found that while most online computers users are aware of Microsoft's Windows Vista, few are intending to switch over to the new operating system anytime soon. The Harris Poll of 2223 US online adults in early March found that 87% were aware of Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months."
On the other hand, I happen to need to buy a new computer for my son going off to college and being a mere consumer (i.e. powerless to get an OEM to sell me an XP system instead of Vista), I will be buying a stand alone copy of XP from a website to replace the copy of Vista that will come with the machine. My copy of Vista will end up sitting on the shelf. Yes, I know I'm paying Microsoft twice but what can one do? My son needs a Windows based computer and the university doesn't support (and doesn't want to support) Vista.
Truthfully, I don't want Vista on the computer. However, I wonder how many other people find themselves in this predicament of basically being forced to pay Microsoft twice?
-Aero is a joke. The ~5 mm glassy effect (which does not improve productivity at all) comes at a way too hefty performance-cost.
-Vista dumbs the user way too down.
Example of an everyday-task gone wrong: When using a laptop and traveling much, my ip-adress will often fluctuate. To show my IP-adress under XP, i doubleclick on the connection-icon in the systray and change to the second tab. Under Vista, i doubleclick the connection-icon and end up in the Connection-Center. From there, i have to choose the common Task to manage connections. There i have to rightclick on the connection and click on properties. THERE i have to click on the advanced-button.
- The driver-situation is embarassing.
-SSH dynamic port forwarding does not work under Vista (used putty and plink; neither did work)
What i really liked in Vista was the combined search/run-field in the startmenu. But i can live happily without it when the rest of my system behaves.
Seriously... probably a more appropriate question would have been "How many of you intend to buy a new computer in the next 12 months?"
That's how Microsoft pushes out the vast majority of licenses. Not through the retail channel.
This is nothing new, except for the constant "Vista is teh sux" drumbeat.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
There will be a few bells and whistles, but the security aspect tells me they know less about writing operating systems than their predecessors of 30 years ago.
Not too realistic when you are comparing the security of software from 30 years ago (in a much different environment) to a global commercialized network with millions of computers being used by your Mother, Father, Grandparents, Etc..
After all these years Windows is still a big mysterious black box, wherein things happen of which we know little and therefore
have little say in behaviour of or control over.
Besides, I've always been a fan of having the actual code at my finger tips.
Most people could care less about having code at their fingertips or what operates inside of the big black box, as long as they are able to complete their task.
Maybe I'm showing my increasingly distressing age, but did we not hear effectively the same thing when Windows XP came out? "Few users are planning to upgrade from Windows 98!" "My Windows 2000 works just fine!" "They can have my Windows 95 when they pry the drivers from my cold, dead peripherals!" Don't get me wrong -- I have no plans to upgrade either.
...from Win2k to ReactOS.
And this likely does not matter to MS. From some estimates I have seen, MS makes 80% of it's money from license only deals, and most growth comes from OEM sales. Therefore, MS seems to be most concerned with keeping the OEM in line, doing whatever is necessary to keep the desktop monopoly.
In any case,here are the facts as I see them. MS sold millions of copies of MS Vista even before the product was publicly released. Many were already sold through the commercial licensing program. I seem to recall that every one of those contracts were an implicit sale for MS Vista, which is why MS had to get out the OS, at least to corporate, by december. In addition, many machines that have been shipping since December are also an implicit sale of MS Vista, not to mention most machines that are now shipping.
I suspect that the retail software channels are kept awake at night figuring out how to convince the unwitting MS consumer that MS Vista "slim" edition is superior to MS Windows XP, but I doubt seriously many higher ups at MS are.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I just switched my Desktop and my Laptop back to 98. XP did not offer much good to me, and there were several annoying UI-things:
-Those ugly Theme things hog way too much CPU.
-XP dumbs the user way too down.
- The driver-situation is embarassing.
What i really liked in Vista was the smart icon arrangement in the startmenu. But i can live happily without it when the rest of my system behaves.
Fixed. It's just like Windows XP all over again.
Another 5 years and everyone will be bitching about the switch to Windows Panorama and asking why anybody would ever want to leave Vista. LOL
QUOTE "It's because of people like you that we have WGA and other such anti-piracy features. I'm still puzzled as to why people who are too damn cheap to pay companies their dues think that they're superior than us honest consumers."
There isn't much of a need to pay for XP if you've bought vista. Consider if a trade. Buy Vista (which is Windows tax with the new laptop) -- chuck it -- download XP and use that. Vista probably costs more than XP, so in fact Microsoft profited.
It's not like he's going to buy the vista/laptop, THEN download XP and use it on a 2nd computer.
I use to pirate Windows, but then I started using Linux primarily. Now I am legit I suppose. Although I did purchase a laptop loaded with XP, and I haven't bothered installing Linux on it.
It's all about the spin baby...
"In other news, a recent survey says that over 10% of all adult computer users are intending to switch to the new Microsoft 'Vista' operating system. This is great news for the software giant, as it indicates that Vista is being embraced by more than the 'early adopter' crowd.
Amazing how different that sounds, eh?
Err, forgot where I was, sorry. I mean "M$ sucks. Boo. Boo-urns..."
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
What it is: A stable OS which is an incremental improvement over Windows XP, doesn't sacrifice performance for said eye candy, despite popular belief, and hasn't hit me with a single DRM or activation rule yet. Oh, and, if you were going to play Halo 2 on a console, you'd have done it by now. I played it, and then started waiting for the PC version. Some of us just happen to not be able to stomach FPS games on consoles, myself included, and those are the people who care about the PC release of Halo 2.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I wonder if you are still using wood #2 pencils since there is no "real benefit" to those new fangled plastic and metal mechanical pencils.
The only thing that eats into "performance" is that it actually want you to have a 3d video card, which can be had for the princely sum of $50 to run the extra eyecandy. If that is too rich for your blood then you can run it in standard 2d mode and it looks alot like XP.
The other is the "bloatware" that eats up practically all the RAM. Well that bloatware is Vista pre-caching your favorite programs so that they instant start when you click on them. Just because the RAM is showing 98% utilization doesn't mean all that info is blocking programs from working, unlike previous versions of Windows, it just dumps it as it's needed and things continue to hum along as if the RAM wasn't even full. Personally I like it and I'm going to go out and get more RAM to bring up my total to 4gb since the process works so well. In the month I've been using it, it has already spoiled me badly, so the normal 30 second wait for most programs on my machine at work to start is driving me completely batshit.
Downgrading - by using a downloaded cracked copy of XP? Really??
Does the EULA define what a downgrade is? Just wondering.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
I would rather pay for Linux, than use Windows for free. But since the Debian Linux distribution I am using is available for free, I can contribute to the distribution in any way I feel it appropriate. cash donation (tax deductible), equipment, etc...
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Give it a shake. If you hear movement, you have another stick of lead left. If you get silence, buy more. But you should buy lots when you buy the pencil, anyway.
A lot of mechanical pencils do indeed break their lead too easily. They're poorly designed; if the tip tube is long enough and narrow enough, and the space between the feed and the start of the tip tube short enough, the lead doesn't flex enough to snap. Also, don't press so hard. I wish more were better designed but I've used well-built pencils where breakage is not a big problem.
Given the above, I think good mechanical pencils suck a lot less than wooden pencils, which need sharpened, get unwieldly short and waste trees.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Microsoft depends on piracy to increase the number of computers their products are on. People using torrents are just helping them out.
Question everything
Vista has been out 3 months, and you've already had to reinstall enough times to know it only takes 30 minutes? And you're okay with that?
That's simply not true. A "cheapo" machine of today has twice the power of a decent machine back when XP came out, and should run XP great. The only reason it doesn't is because Windows sucks.
So Dell is willing to call such a machine 'Vista-capable', and Microsoft was willing to certify it as such. What the hell do I want with an os that does nothing but boot? Dell and Microsoft conspired to screw us both: Dell wanted to unload low-end overstock hardware, MS wanted to limit the availability of pre-installed XP to boost Vista's numbers. Not everyone wants a gamer machine -- if I buy a low-end box that is 'Vista capable', I shouldn't end up feeling like a fraud victim.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
Right. So aside from maintaining a separate frame buffer for each window, providing a toolkit that allows resolution independant user interfaces, forcing developers to stop assuming that only one user is logged on at a time and that that user is an administrator, moving most of the device drivers out into user space where they can't crash the rest of the system, improved scheduling on multiple cores, improved memory management, non-destructive re-partitioning, a version of DirectX where vendors can't claim their hardware is compliant when it really isn't, full disk encryption, 3rd party credential providers that don't replace system libraries, Media Center, and a desktop that doesn't look like ass, what does Vista actually offer?
Maybe it doesn't offer you anything. That's fine. Don't assume that's the case for everyone else.
The same thing that the lack of interest in Vista means for the average Joe; Average Joe will continue to run whatever OS is shipped on the PC they use.
Period.
Average Joe shops at BestBuy, Walmart, or Circuit City. Average Joe will, 90% of the time, purchase a Windows Vista computer, unless he happens to live near an Apple Store or choose to shop online. And most likely (85+% of the time) Average Joe will purchase a Windows Vista computer online.
Now, having said that, I find that if you evaluate "power users" or "IT Professionals", you have a different situation. There is a *great* deal of interest in Linux solutions. Now, does that mean people always choose Linux? No. But Linux has a substantial server/workstation market share, and is the majority in some market spaces.
Linux has no chance, ever, in the "Average Joe" market until Linux can be competitive in the retail space. By this, I mean either having "Linux Stores", or a significant number of Linux offerings at electronics stores, especially on the software side (games too).
One of the reasons Microsoft is stagnating is that it can. Microsoft, through years and years of delays with Vista, has determined that it really doesn't have to do *anything* to own the market. Should Apple or a Linux begin to see significant sales in the Average Joe space, MS Vista+1 will see serious improvement.
It's always arrogant to believe we have reached a pinnacle of technology; and when you "found" a market that isn't seeing much improvement year to year, you're seeing technological stagnation.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The amount of unsubstantiated negative hype going around about vista is apalling.
Let's look at the facts:
1. For all intents and purposes it's a Windows XP + stuff. aka a glorified service pack.
2. Quite obviously it will displace XP in corporations, educational institutions and home with time.
3. Unless you're using domain logons, It is MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE SECURE than XP because UAC is on by default, palatable to power users (I've been working with it for several weeks now, it's ok) and teachable to non-tech users. Overall, it's worked out much better than you could have done on XP. It is not OpenBSD and shouldn't be compared to it, it is probably less secure than Gentoo with KDE. Nevertheless, compared with XP's work-as-root model, it's worlds apart. I'm not suggesting it's either bulletproof, bugless, unexploitable or mature. But A security model, ANY security model, is better than XP's *NO* security model.
4. Laugh at UI all you like, but a good UI is something everyone can use to get more done. Both joe averages and powerusers alike. Vista's UI serves as a welcome improvement over XP IMHO. I'm talking about useability improvements ala sidebar, "open containing folder" stuff etc, not eye-candy a-la aero which I frankly couldn't less.
5. It guzzles 700MB RAM on neutral right after loading. Who gives a flying fuck? My kde desktop at work eats 200MB. the number is *meaningless* unless it indicates, say, an excessive overpricing of the machine. is 200MB a lot? 10 years ago, we'd have all said it was. Does that make my gentoo/KDE desktop bloated crap today? no. On the same coin, when 1GB of RAM is next to free, 700MB is just another meaningless number.
1GB of DDR2 lappie ram costs 70US$ on ebay. Sure, if you have a P3, run XP. But if you run any form of hardware bought anywhere in the last 5 years, plug some RAM and you're good to go.
6. Microsoft will stop selling and supporting XP at some point anyway. So it's not like Vista will be some doomed stop-gap measure until something significantly better comes along, like Windows ME was. Vista is here to stay for the next 5 or so years until another "service pack" along the same lines appears.
7. If whatever DRM is built into the system prevents you from doing what you're used to do with a computer, use Linux.
Case in point:
If you're screaming "Vista's shit!" and have an old computer with XP you don't want to spend more money on, you're likely making the right call, but are an idiot for screaming out the shit bit. I have a 2005 Toyota echo and screaming how the 2007 model is shit because I don't need it (having the 2005 one) would make me the same kind of idiot.
If you're screaming "Vista's shit!" and you're using Linux/MacOS, you're either a clueless fanboy or someone who's tested both ends and can draw up pros and cons of each and stake a legitimate fact-based preference.
If you're screaming "Vista's shit!" and thinking you'd rather be getting XP with a new computer, you're a total clueless idiot. Especially if your spiel contains the word "security" in it.
Vista is a welcome improvement on XP. Give it some time to mature, give IT departments time to evaluate and learn to work it, it'll be ok.
Is it worth upgrading from XP? depends. Depends if you value a better security model (and eye candy). I've serviced many people with many malware computer problems who paid me lots of good money to fix said problems. Wild guess says a security model for them will pay for itself, from the money it costs them to periodically fix their shit. Locks tend to be cheaper than periodically re-outfitting a robbed house, and people tend to be able to do math when it's their money.
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Everybody who badly wants those features already has them, either from OS X or Linux. The fact of the matter is that most people don't know that dragging windows can be smooth, they don't realize that it is possible to have large fonts and buttons without pixelization, they don't have multiple user accounts set up, they do own and administer their computer, they don't manually install or update any drivers, they can't multitask with the windows GUI (and neither can their programs), they don't run memory-bound programs, they don't know what a partition is, they don't care how old their graphics chip is, they can't be bothered with encryption, or any other security measures not pre-installed, they use a TV for their movie-watching, and they don't care how the desktop looks, so long as the colors are not distracting, and so long as they don't have to form new usage habits.
So, to summarize, No, vista has nothing worthwhile to offer to the majority of Windows users. And in fact, for the majority of customers, the transition to Vista will be a nuisance. The market of people who actually want to upgrade to Vista will have been depleted a few months from now, and MS will be falling back on OEM sales and other products.
You looked after 3 servers, and didnt know that since Exch 5.0 you could back up the mailboxes WHILE IN USE?
You also compare Exchange against (what exactly?) I assume Exim/Postfix/Qmail etc? Not quite the same. Why isnt everyone using Notes? Its been around as long. Is it better? Its a better comparison anyway.
Im dreadfully glad you are not an admin anywhere near my systems.
XP offered many REAL improvements for the user over windows98, not the least of which being real user logins and security.
granted most of thses "improvements" have been in unix since the 70's but still, at least they exist.
vista is no more than windowblinds+truecrypt except not as good as either
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Just stop. Seriously. There have been articles about Vista's poor prospects almost twice weekly. It's hard to imagine that many readers still care. We don't need a new post every time another pundit decides to chime in with the same information.
I too recently bought a PC without any operating system installed, it took me around 5 mins to find somewhere on the web where I could do this.
I think that if people don't care that they are being forced to buy Vista and if they can't be bothered to seek out alternatives then there is no problem with all the places where they are likely to shop taking advantage of that. So long as the rest of us can excercise our own choices to not have any particular operating system thrust upon us, which we can, then all is well.
So, what you're saying is that you're tied to Windows, yet unhappy with it, you'd rather have Linux just work with all your stuff but you don't want to do the work to actually switch? So, you want Windows, but you want it for free like Linux is? Not everything is the same in Linux. It's a different system. Many, many things DO switch, though, the rest, well, you'll just have to deal with it and maybe do some lifting yourself if you want the benefits that Linux provides over Windows.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.