Microsoft Should Abandon Vista?

mr_mischief writes "An editorial written by Don Reisinger over at CNet's News.com takes Microsoft to task for the outright failure of Vista. He suggests that Vista may be the downfall of the company as, despite years in development, Vista was delivered to market too early. His suggestion? Support those who are running it, but otherwise ditch Vista and move on. 'Never before have I seen such an abysmal start to an operating system release. For almost a year, people have been adopting Vista and becoming incensed by how poorly it operates. Not only does it cost too much, it requires more to run than XP, there is still poor driver support ... With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around. If Microsoft continues down this path, it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees--not Bill Gates' departure.'"

Comments

leave it alone!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Vista after all it has been through?

Its sales are flagging. Leopard made Steve Ballmer mad. He threw two fucking chairs.

Mr. Mischief turned out to be a blogger, and now he's posting stories to slashdot. All you people care about is quality and usability.

It's a version of Windows! What you don't realize is that Vista is just being Windows and all you do is write a bunch of crap about it.

Microsoft hasn't made a good OS in years. It prefixes everything with "Win" because all you people care about is WINNING! WINNING! WINNING!

LEAVE IT ALONE! You are lucky it even boots you bastards! LEAVE VISTA ALONE!

Please!

Don Reisinger talked about professionalism and said if Steve Ballmer was a professional he would've shouted "developers" a few more times.

Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash an operating system who is going through a hard time?

Leave Vista alone, please.

LEAVE VISTA ALONE RIGHT NOW. I MEAN IT.

Anyone that has a problem with it you deal with me, because it is not well right now.

LEAVE IT ALONE!

Re:leave it alone!!

[commonchaos]

For those of you that don't get the joke, check out the video that this is based on.

Re:leave it alone!!

[Anonymous Coward]

the video

That's easily the most fucked up thing I've seen in the entire month of September ... and I've had a pretty fucked up month.

Re:leave it alone!!

[QRDeNameland]

That is indeed a powerful argument for living under a rock.

Re:leave it alone!!

[gardyloo]

That's the most inane, annoying thing I've ever seen. I couldn't watch the whole thing.

How the hell did that get so many views? I think you just answered your own question. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't quantify things in terms of "watched 100% of the video".

Re:leave it alone!!

[glwtta]

How the hell did that get so many views?

This is what we do now. This is our culture.

Re:leave it alone!!

[Miamicanes]

There's a good reason why driver support and bugfixes for Vista are taking forever. In the past, programmers and L337 users lived on the razor's bleeding edge, had the latest version of Windows installed MONTHS before it hit the stores, and were STILL there at midnight to buy it the moment it was officially available.

With Vista, that hasn't happened. To a large extent, it's been shunned even worse by the computer elite than by any other single group. There's peer pressure to NOT run Vista, widespread sentiment that it's rotten to the core thanks to Microsoft's deal with the DRM Devil, and general disinterest. That's a big problem for Microsoft, because the bugs people who bought a new laptop with Vista from Dell experience aren't part of the daily lives of the programming priesthood. Vista has become the "other" OS, shunned, scorned, and psychologically written off as irrelevant to their daily lives. The bugs don't annoy the very people in a position to fix them, so they remain and fester. Ditto, for drivers. If programmers aren't personally affected by whether or not some device works under Vista, they're not going to feel the same sense of urgency. Of course, there's always the business motivation... but when you get down to that special something that really drives programmers to spend their weekend fixing something, even though they aren't getting paid overtime... it's just not there.

If Microsoft REALLY wants to save Vista, they need to introduce one more editon: Vista LE ("Liberty Edition") -- $199, bootable from CD, freely installable on any 2 computers owned by the individual, installable and runnable on an unlimited number of virtual machines, as long as the host machine is running Vista as well, and an unlimited number of "floating" installations that can be activated for up to 30 hours at a time, with the catch that if you activate machine #3 for 30 hours and don't de-activate it, you can't activate machine 3b until the original 30 hours have elapsed. Oh, and every last bit of kernel-level DRM including protected audio and video paths COMPILED OUT. Of course, this means you won't be able to run WinDVD or view premium protected content... but nobody who buys VistaLE will really care, because we'd never buy DRM'ed content anyway.

Huh? worst start?

[nanowired]

Windows ME anyone?

Re:Huh? worst start?

[HungSoLow]

But was ME in development for 5 years?

Re:Huh? worst start?

[Thyrteen]

Yeah, I must admit as well, I don't know what that was about :) ME was absolutely awful, and any computer I've ever serviced running it has mostly just called for XP. I run linux on a server, a desktop, and a personal laptop, and I really hate to admit it, but XP has grown to be a nice OS of sorts. I'd almost rather see them further development on XP instead of ditching the nice foundation they have. I think linux kind of thrives in that although their are major releases, people have constant input into the minor changes that get made to make a major release, as well as govern the major changes all throughout its development. This ensures that the OS helps to fulfill the interests of the users, not just the company producing it. Since there's not as much monetary pressure as a publicly owned company has, Linux can live its destined life. If it doesn't fulfill the needs of the users at any point, it would become abandoned. At least the linux community has the chance for slow path traversal, versus just releasing one product to the public and having it be done with.

Re:Huh? worst start?

[zackeller]

I think they threw it together in about 6 months. Even so, it took a *lot* of drugs.

Re:Huh? worst start?

[leroybrown]

A friend of mine is a computer repair technician who spent a number of years in jail for armed robbery and didn't get out til 2002. He's really cleaned up his act since then and was lamenting the other night that he missed out when computers really started to make inroads into homes. He said, "I really missed out on the beginning years, with Windows 95, 98, ME, and 2000". I told him, "Well, I don't know about 95, 98, and 2000, but for Windows ME you were probably better off in jail."

Re:Huh? worst start?

[fermion]

I think there is a bit of hyperbole in the article, but here is my take on Vista, and why MS should be ashamed of it.

For most of the life of MS Windows, the product has been a hack. It was intended to provide added functionality to MS DOS. As MS evolved Windows, MS bolted on more bloat to compete, for instance MS Windows for Networking. Therefore MS Windows worked not unlike those old jalopies with an air intake clamped on the hood, bad bondo job, and, in modern terms, a rear wing made from an old hockey stick.

All this was true until NT. This is the first time I was impressed with MS, and considered it more than a toy or cheap workhorse. The improvements continued through 2000, and I gave XP a lot of slack. MS did a good job producing a real OS, and the fact that it ran on cheap commodity kit made it a valuable product.

The product with MS Vista is that, as far as I can tell, it returns to the bad old day of hacking together a toy OS. I give it no slack. After the experience with XP, there is no reason why MS Vista should be of pre XP quality. To quote the parent, there is no excuse to produce an OS of the poor quality not seen in 10 years. The problem is not that MS broke every promise that would have made MS Vista a superior product. The problem is that MS has not even been able reach the level of respectable inferior product that made MS Windows 3.11 to 95 at least tolerable.

Re:Huh? worst start?

[trolltalk.com]

Next you'll be claiming that emacs isn't an OS ... philistine!

Re:Huh? worst start?

[tknd]

I disagree. The problem with Vista has always been scope. It was doomed from the start because they had too many things they were trying to do at the same time. Anytime you revamp everything AND add billion new features you're going to have some really horrendous integration issues, and your scheduling estimates will be very unreliable. The trick in software engineering has always been small incremental improvements.

Freaking flamebait articles.

[SatanicPuppy]

Hello inflamatory headline.

On the one hand, I'm not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole until service pack one at the earliest. On the other hand, any self-professed Ubuntu/Mac guy is not who I look to for advice about Windows.

Yea, it sucks. Yea, included DRM sucks. Yea, their goddamn "Allow or Deny?" stuff is flat awful. Slow file copy, etc, etc. Hell, I'm not even sure if I like anything about it.

But I'm not going to run out and buy a Mac! I don't like the fricking hardware, frankly, and since you have to buy the hardware to use the OS, screw it, I'm not using the OS. And even if I did, the software is still not there, and don't say "bootcamp" like it means something. We've been able to dual boot in linux forever.

And as for Linux, I already USE Linux. If I could use it to run all the software I need to run, I'd toss my Windows machine. So far, that's not happening. I don't see it happening any time soon; WINE is never going to take up the slack, so it's all down to the software manufacturers. Unfortunately for me, one of the software manufacturers I need to start doing Linux versions of software is Microsoft, and that's about as likely as Bush raising taxes.

So no, I'm not happy about the situation. I don't think ANYONE is happy about the situation except irrational fanboys who think that this is going to be the end of Microsoft, completely missing the point that the alternatives are no more attractive today than they were five years ago because the goddamn software is still not available!

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[xs650]

"On the one hand, I'm not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole until service pack one at the earliest. On the other hand, any self-professed Ubuntu/Mac guy is not who I look to for advice about Windows."

MS has learned from Vista. The Vista follow on (7?) will be released simultaneously with it's SP1 so people don't have to wait.

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[nine-times]

Well the headline (and summary, and article? Didn't RTFA yet) doesn't suggest that Microsoft should abandon Windows totally, only Vista. They could realistically retreat back to XP, backport any Vista features/improvements that are actually good, and start from there.

Honestly, I don't think the failure of Vista will come anywhere close to breaking Vista, but hopefully it will make hardware and software vendors question their strategy of only supporting Windows. If the future dominance of Windows is called into question, the developers may look to support other platforms instead. Then, hopefully, theoretically, you could have all the software you need running on Linux. In that case, Microsoft can still compete in the OS market, but they just won't be able to use vendor lock-in as such a huge barrier to switching to another OS.

Personally, I'd love to see vendors generally developing cross-platform solutions. Ideally, people should be able to choose their operating system on the strengths or weaknesses of that operating system, and not on the basis of what software it can run.

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[tholomyes]

Funny, just before I read your comment I was thinking almost the same thing: After how many comments I've seen about people who have sworn to wait to adopt Vista until an SP1, MS should just push out *something* -- unicode support in the calculator!-- and call it SP1.

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[Kazoo the Clown]

Linux is FREE, you don't have to shell out your life savings in order to get it and use it effectively.

This is a really tired and lame argument in favor of Linux (FREE as in BEER). Only a moron would choose an operating system because it's free (as in beer). If Linux cost as much as Vista did and Vista was free, I'd still use Linux. For a lot of reasons, but for one thing, it runs on EVERYTHING-- a 15 year old PC, Mac hardware, the Power PC chip in my networked drive (Kurobox). When I need to automate on one I can write a script that will run everywhere-- write once run everwhere works for me and I don't even need Java. Then again, I like the command line as it allows me to do a lot of stuff in parallel. And for another thing, it's pretty darn reliable and I can easily make it conform to my workflow rather than me having to work around bogus assumptions (as is often true on the Mac), or buggy & inconsistent design (as is often true on Windows).

Choose Linux when it's BETTER, not because it's FREE (as in beer)...

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[nine-times]

Even if it's not any worse than other Windows releases, it does seem to have gotten a bigger backlash than previous releases.

I've been working in IT and support Windows machines since WFW 3.11. I've gone through pretty much every version of Windows between then and now, and I agree, each transition has caused problems (well... except for 2000->XP and 95->98, neither of which hurt too much). However, I've never seen so many IT people generally pissed off about a Windows release, and so few that are enthusiastic about it.

It's not necessarily because it's worse or more buggy than previous Windows releases, but I get the sense that people are fed up. It's like, "Oh no. Not this shit again." After so many years and so many upgrades, having the same problems with each upgrade, people would like to see Microsoft learning from its mistakes and doing a better job anticipating the problems they're going to cause with the updates. Also, it seems like a lot of people are genuinely having problems with Microsoft products, but they've been having the same problems for over 10 years and none of the upgrades actually solve the problems.

I think people are just getting tired of it all, thinking that there should be better solutions by now. It was excusable when desktop PC were still considered novel and new. Now people want to be able to take the technology for granted, and Microsoft isn't doing a good job of filling that desire.

Re:Freaking flamebait articles.

[nine-times]

Microsoft is not NEARLY at that point yet, and there are few indicators that they will be. Hardware manufacturers are certainly not giving up driver development for XP, but that doesn't translate into them launching new development for OSX or Linux, because they still don't necessarily see a return on investment.

I think they are there. I'm not saying Microsoft's OS dominance is threatened yet, but I think that the Vista problems have contributed to vendors/developers questioning whether Microsoft's dominance will continue in the long-term view. Dell has started selling desktops and laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed. AMD is opening the source for the ATI graphics cards. More and more governments/organizations are using open document formats instead of MS Office formats.

So it's happening already. There are questions about how far it will go, how quickly, and whether Microsoft can reassert their lock-in in these areas, but progress is already being made.

Second Edition

[eepok]

Don't ditch it. There's no need to ditch it altogether. Release a "second edition" a la Win98, give some options to reduce bloat, work with major hardware manufacturers to make useful drivers, and work on general compatibility (back and forward). Then re-release the OS to praise and thanks.

Make it a logical step from XP so that companies needn't retrain their employees.

Vista is less important than Bill Gates...

[Jennifer York]

Losing the leadership of Bill is actually the devastating blow. Perhaps Vista is the result of his taking a less hands on role over the past year... When you lose the leader you change the face of the company.

All that being said, Microsoft is still a juggernaut, and they will continue for many years to come. My guess is five to ten years...

Re:Vista is less important than Bill Gates...

[Midnight Thunder]

Losing the leadership of Bill is actually the devastating blow.

There is that and also the fact the guy in charge of development is throwing chairs. Not something to be done when your system is called Windows ;)

Seriously, while some nay sayers might be right they are often proved wrong in the long term. I am not moving to Vista, because I have no need and I seriously have to ask myself what went so seriously wrong. I am suspecting a certain arogance and disconnect with the user base. History has shown us that Microsoft seems to get it wrong every other release and then sorts it out. The way I see it is that people who want to use Vista will and those don't won't. Sure its an obvious statement, but it is one that seems to need repeating so often.

Re:Vista is less important than Bill Gates...

[MightyMartian]

Vista may be a disaster, but Microsoft has had those before. OS/2 was pretty much a flop (I'm talking the MS versions). MS-DOS 4 was a terrible failure. Windows ME arguably gets the big award for the most pointless and worthless operating system update in the history of consumer operating systems.

I don't think Vista is the end of the company. The problem is that the software engineers are the second-class citizens of Redmond, and it's the marketers and the strategists who rule the roost. The dev teams certainly knew Vista wasn't ready, and delayed it as long as possible, but because Microsoft's long-term strategy absolutely requires a major operating system and Office upgrade every five years, and the delays were already fouling up The Plan.

It does create the rather unique event that Microsoft has generated its own major competitor. By folding to the demands of major manufacturers like Dell on continuing to allow OEM licenses of XP to be sold with new machines, they essentially ave created a situation in which Windows XP and Windows Vista are actually in competition with each other. If XP was like, say, Windows 98/ME and Vista was Windows 2000/XP, then Microsoft wouldn't have this problem, because there would be clear technical and feature merits. But XP is sufficiently mature, sufficiently well-supported and sufficiently popular that it actually directly stands in the way of the Vista upgrade path.

I'm not sure this has ever happened to a major software vendor before. Most other operating system manufacturers are as much in the service industry as in the licensing and distribution industry, so if someone sits around still using a ten year old operating system, you make your money with via support and maintenance contracts. You really don't expect systems to have a lifetime of just four or five years, so you build a business model that permits you to make $$$, support your R&D and keep the shareholders and customers happy. Since Microsoft has never been a support-oriented company, but rather a shiny widget company, they don't have that sort of model, and I think, after twenty years, they may be reaching the economic limit of their business model.

They haven't made the case for upgrading. They clearly haven't convinced a lot of peripheral manufacturers to pull their driver teams off of other projects to make Vista high priority. Computer manufacturers, at least for the business consumer end of things, are the 800lb. gorilla.

In the long run (over the next two or three years), I'm sure Vista will pick up the slack, but what has got to be filling guys like Ballmer with fear (and ought to be concerning Wallstreet) is what happens in four or five years, when the next Windows comes out.

Mars rovers

[SpaceLifeForm]

So, they may *outlast* Vista.

And, for a fraction of the cost.

DRM

[Puls4r]

Why do so many people ignore the often-cited reason for not switching to Vista? DRM is invasive, restrictive, and ridiculous. Hard-core gamers went vista ASAP, much like file-sharers who got it for free. The universal response was either that they hated it, or that they didn't see an improvement.

I've had to trouble shoot computers with it on there. I repeatedly found myself wondering why they had changed things that were so simply on XP to be so complicated on Vista.

Microsoft won't "drop" Vista, any more than they "dropped" their most horrible other operating system - Windows ME *cringe*. They'll just move on. They've already wrote the system. They'll keep updating it. The real question - the critical one - is how long they will support XP. They'll need to continue to support XP until they get a system out that is an actual improvement, and not just a corporate-ass kissing piece of crap.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we ignore that reason? Because it's complete FUD. Vista doesn't add DRM to anything that isn't already protected by the content owner.

Vista added support for content that already has DRM, which isn't nearly as "invasive" as your trolling/ignorance.

Re:DRM

[compro01]

and in the event that vista chose not to support it, how many media companies would be willing to shut out that much of the market?

It's not *that* bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a linux sysadmin. For work reasons (stupid software only runs under windows) I need to run Windows on my office desktop. I'm running XP here, Vista on my laptop, and Vista on one of my machines at home. Personally, I don't see what the problem with it is. Yeah, some stuff works a bit differently and things aren't in the places I'm used to seeing them, but on the whole it's not *that* bad. I'd take it over WinME any day.

Whatever

[imstanny]

The problem is not the operating system itself. The problem is with Microsoft's development processes. Its ineffiency bloats the operating system and bogs down the speed and quality of the development. Moving on to a new operating system will result in the 'same' product. Think about it... telling the development team of Duke Nukem Forever to move onto Duke Nukem Whenever will not result in an expedited, improved, or actualized product.

Re:Whatever

[rucs_hack]

if they drop it, how will I play Halo 2 and 3?

Thus far these are the only two reasons to buy vista, and even then, probably not for another year, and then as a secondary boot to linux...

Re:Whatever

[zlogic]

Their development libraries are much, much worse. To write an app that takes a frame from a video and saves it in a *.BMP file I had to download
1) Visual Studio (something like 2.5 gigs)
2) Windows SDK (another gigabyte); I need about 5 files from it (ten megabytes)
3) DirectX SDK (about 500 megs) - because DirectShow SDK was moved from DirectX to Windows SDK but still needs DirectX SDK to compile.

That's FOUR GIGABYTES just to use a couple of functions! Visual Studio can be replaced with some light compiler (like VC++ Express) but that's still an about 1.7 gigabytes total.

In Linux, GCC+Eclipse+Java+gstreamer-dev would be an about 200-300 megs download.

Re:Whatever

[Prof.Phreak]

How about they release their own distribution of Linux/BSD/whatever, and then make all of their other apps work great on that (as well as backwards compatible). They can make it look like XP---but without having to pay for developers to support all sorts of obscure system level stuff. They can do the same as IBM: benefit from it, instead of competing with it.

The OS itself is becoming less and less relevant---to have a company spend billions on developing a NEW one is mind boggling. Look at how quickly Apple caught up in this business; without putting in nearly as much effort as MS!

Re:Whatever

[HAKdragon]

...by buying an XBox 360?

Re:Whatever

[bigstrat2003]

Presumably, anyone who wants to play Halo is aware of its existence on the Xbox/Xbox 360. That doesn't mean we want to play it there, so your option could very well be a non-option for this guy.

Re:Whatever

[xhrit]

you could just wait for an xbox360 emulator to come out, and then run it on linux. Should be sometime in Q1 2025.

Re:Whatever

[Pig Hogger]

How about they release their own distribution of Linux/BSD/whatever, and then make all of their other apps work great on that (as well as backwards compatible). They can make it look like XP

It's like making Mohammed put on a Jesus-Christ mask (and stigmatas on his wrists) and ask catholics to worship him...

Re:Whatever

[geekoid]

for some people it's 30 pieces of silver, for others it a video game. It must be nice to know your cheap.

Re:Whatever

[blhack]

So, it was like a REALLY REALLY big map directing you to the "Print Screen" key?

Re:Whatever

[Tarlus]

Should be sometime in Q1 2025. Ah, just in time for the PC port of Halo 3.

Re:Whatever

[BitZtream]

If your trying to intercept directx video streams, then use it requires a bunch of crap since you are ... building a ... directx application. You want to integrate with a large complex API, expect large complex dependencies.

You can use the free MS c++ compiler and avoid the entire VS download, now you've cut off over 2 gigs of your download size. Don't confuse you're lack of knowledge about one set of tools with your more in depth knowledge of another set of tools.

Re:Whatever

[Xtravar]

Call me a pussy, but I'd rather use Visual Studio than any other IDE any day. In Linux, I don't even use an IDE... cause they all seem to blow. Except MonoDevelop, but that doesn't do C.

Also, all of those things you downloaded have samples, diagnostic tools, functions for unrelated things (not just video), and other goodies that you may or may not use in a million years.

I hate Microsoft just like anybody else. I use Linux at home. But one thing Microsoft does not do is treat developers poorly.

Re:Whatever

[budgenator]

That must be one of those Linux command-line abominations, because no matter how hard I try I cant get the mouse pointer to the Print Screen key!

Re:Whatever

[zullnero]

Ha ha, chances are he was making an app that had a screen capture function.

Anyone who has ever taken a screen cap of a video would know that the problem with your joke is that you've probably never taken a screen capture of a video playing in a video player in Windows. When you notice that the video isn't fixed to the active video player window, you suddenly realize that doesn't work so well.

There's a reason why there is a screen capture option in Windows Media Player, it's not there because Microsoft figured no one would ever use the print screen key.

Re:Whatever

[Adambomb]

GPP:

That's FOUR GIGABYTES just to use a couple of functions! Visual Studio can be replaced with some light compiler (like VC++ Express) but that's still an about 1.7 gigabytes total. PP:

You can use the free MS c++ compiler and avoid the entire VS download, now you've cut off over 2 gigs of your download size. Don't confuse you're lack of knowledge about one set of tools with your more in depth knowledge of another set of tools. Parent: Did he not JUST say that himself?

Re:Whatever

[Qrlx]

What? Muslims, Christians, and Jews are all children of Abraham. They all worship the same deity.

Re:Whatever

[suv4x4]

The problem is with Microsoft's development processes. Its ineffiency bloats the operating system and bogs down the speed and quality of the development. Moving on to a new operating system will result in the 'same' product.

It's the management. A good part of their programmers are really talented. But top level management makes the strategy around the business effect they want (better lock-in, succumbing to Hollywood's DRM demands, trying to out-flash OSX etc.).

Then developers have to match the faulty business plan by turning it into a product. Doesn't work this way. Sometimes, Microsoft puts up technologies down-up, and this is where they shine. It's easy to tell apart both of those. .NET was not initially created to be what it is today. It grew naturally and started to fit more roles into development of both server and client technologies that Microsoft ever predicted. That's a good example of great Microsoft technology.

Office 2007 is also another great example of a product well done (now we know there are some bugs to be worked out, but they're definitely working on it). The productivity gain and ease of use for those willing to spend 2-3 hours retraining themselves are amazing. It's the first time I could say I love my Office software.

Visual Studio is amazing development platform. Microsoft trusts their developers there, since it's software by developers for developers.

Counter examples include ironically OOXML. It was rushed and served pure business purpose, so developers put no heart in it. They just serialized the aging DOC binary format and the results are catastrophic (for something that wants to be a "standard").

Another counter example is Windows itself. They have amazing set of technologies in Vista which are horribly assembled and misused in attempt to create a product matching Microsoft's business agenda.

Microsoft have already abandoned Vista, they canceled their huge marketing campaign for a much more down-beat one, and they allowed people to downgrade to XP. That's what you can expect most from them in this situation.

Feature bloat and reform.

[mnslinky]

From my limited perspective, it appears to me that Microsoft tries too hard to be everything to everyone. Other operating systems do not follow this plan. What you end up with is audio drivers slowing down network performance and a whole lot of feature bloat. Whereas I'm a FreeBSD/Mac OS X fan through-and-through, I have to admit Microsoft wouldn't be where they are if they didn't have decent product. It's just unfortunate to see them getting 'a little big for their britches.'

I'm sure we're just heading into something of a reform in the world of operating systems. I think that Vista is going to be just one of many casualties of competition. In the end, I feel the users will win.

No! It doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't get the point of these commentaries. Yes, Vista is a bit of a dog's breakfast. Yes, companies aren't rushing out to buy it en masse.

But it's being bundled with home computers, and your average Joe is NOT going to know about the problems. If he's lucky, he may have a friend who recommends staying with XP for now. But for many, many people, they'll just buy 'the whole thing' from PC World and be running Vista.

Like a lot of things Microsoftish, it may not be a running success out-the-door (Zune, Xbox), but it'll slowly get a foothold until more and more people start using it. Vista is here to stay folks, and in five-or-so years, it'll be the dominant OS. Microsoft won't support XP forever.

(Posted on a Mac mini!)

Re:No! It doesn't matter

[torkus]

I'll fill in a few things:

1) Vista is fairly difficult to pirate. The draconian activation scheme has gotten fairly hard to avoid. Pirated copies show up on tons of home computers (really, who would spend $400 on an OS when you can buy a computer for that, or less!) and people learn the look, feel and use of the new OS.

2) People complained about 95, 98, ME (yech), 2K, XP. Except maybe for win95 everyone said "we're not upgrading ever". We did...because eventually developers and home users focused on the new OS. Business followed.

3) Corporate activation - MS continues to make it difficult to activate from a corporate perspective. Either use your key or build an activation server. Your key can get out in the wild and be shut down, forcing a re-keying of all your corporate PCs...OR you build an activation server and every PC has to check in EVERY 180 days. 181st day? LImited functionality mode...perfect for home users, eh?

Yeah, I reccomended holding off on deploying vista. How'd you guess?

Re:No! It doesn't matter

[zerocool^]

But it's being bundled with home computers, and your average Joe is NOT going to know about the problems. If he's lucky, he may have a friend who recommends staying with XP for now. But for many, many people, they'll just buy 'the whole thing' from PC World and be running Vista.

I used to think the same thing.

"Vista sucks, but it'll eventually be the standard, once everyone buys a new computer from dell/hp/whoever and it comes with vista." ...That is until recently, when I purchased a new laptop for my wife and found that it comes with the option of Vista or XP when you order. And I also have heard of other manufacturers doing this - appearantly, people dislike Vista enough that it's becoming more and more common to offer XP as an alternative. I got it with Vista, so she could try it, but she really didn't like it. When I put XP on her laptop, I also had to go find drivers for it, but there were a multitude of pages on how to get XP working on a Dell 14xx laptop, since support.dell.com isn't providing all the XP drivers. It seems it's really common.

~Wx

Unlikely

[Baron_Yam]

Dumping Vista is unlikely, as the real driver for change here is revenue.

If Microsoft switched to a support model - cheap OS and bill for official MS tech support (or charge officially trained MS techs to keep their credentials via refresher courses and recertification) - they wouldn't need to force out a new product on a regular basis to make money.

Instead, we'd be seeing 'XP 2.0' coming out with incremental improvements and a whole slew of new support docs, training, and tech certificates.

Re:Unlikely

[PCM2]

If Microsoft switched to a support model...they wouldn't need to force out a new product on a regular basis to make money. Instead, we'd be seeing 'XP 2.0' coming out with incremental improvements and a whole slew of new support docs, training, and tech certificates.

Except "incremental improvements" don't generally require a lot of additional support. What do you do when Joe Blow has pretty much figured out how to use Windows? What do you charge for then?

Doesn't make sense.

[Mongoose Disciple]

This article doesn't make any sense.

Microsoft can't be sunk by people choosing XP over Vista. Those people are still paying for a Microsoft OS. Congratulations, you've decided to give Microsoft money instead of giving Microsoft money.

A lot of things could someday sink Microsoft. People choosing to buy one of their products won't be it.

(Unless one of those products somehow combusted and burned down a pack of orphanages, resulting in worse publicity and lawsuits.)

Nah, it will work out ok.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It will work out OK for Microsoft. Reminds of on old joke.

Guy goes to an astrologer and he looks at the horoscope, does lots of calculations and says, "Jupiter is in the same House as Saturn. And Saturn will stay in that House for 7.5 years. All through that 7.5 years, you will have misery and misfortune. Your wife will leave you. Your son will usurp your house and throw you out. You will lose all your wealth and fall sick. You will be miserable for 7.5 years."

The guy, visibly disturbed asks, "What happens after 7.5 years when Saturn moves out of the House of Jupiter?"

The astrologer shrugged and said, "You will be used to the misery."

Same way, in three years the miserable performance of Vista will be defined to be industry standard fast tracked and approved by ISO and users will use 4GB of RAM to browse the internet.

How Software Companies Die

[lobiusmoop]

This short essay by Orson Scott Card (of Ender's Game fame) I think describes the development of the Microsoft Vista disaster pretty well.

Vista's Roots

[techpawn]

It's just cobbled together CE, ME, and NT versions with a new GUI. Though, they could of stuck with the first name... Windows CEMENT... Would of been far more accurate.

Re:Vista's Roots

[compro01]

so it would be cheap, versatile, solid, and non-flashy?

The corporate lifecycle

[KingSkippus]

I doubt Microsoft will take Don Reisinger up on his suggestion, if for no reason other than sheer arrogance.

Companies kill me, it's a corporate lifecycle that we see again and again, and very few seem to learn from it. Once a company gets so big, it gets it in its head that it's invulnerable. It thinks that it can do anything it wants, and people will flock to it because it's the latest and greatest offering from the King of the (Whatever).

We see it now with Microsoft and Vista. We're also seeing it from Sony on its Playstation 3. Sony thought, "Of course people will buy the Playstation 3. It's a Playstation, for crying out loud!" Anyone remember when Hayes thought that they had the modem market locked up tight? Or when IBM didn't treat clones as serious competitors?

Usually, companies like this end up either going out of business, or at least eventually become relegated back down into the fray because they stop asking themselves, "What do our customers want?" and become totally focused on "What do we want?

I see the same thing happening before too long with Apple and its iPods and even Google, which as recently announced that it's going to start running image and video ads and plastering ads on its YouTube videos. Once a company starts thinking about its own interests over that of its customers, it's the beginning of the end of that company's dominance.

Of course, who knows? They might eventually pull a Nintendo. Go into a slump for a few years, learn from their mistakes, and come back out swinging. Historically, though, that is rare, and we are talking about Microsoft here.

Hyped too soon

[Aqua OS X]

If MS is guilty of anything, they are guilty of pushing and hyping and Vista too soon. We all knew that Vista wasn't going to be ready for prime time until SP1 or SP2. However, MS was overconfident and they shoved Vista down a lot of throats.

MS should've followed Apple's playbook. Release the OS according to it's already delayed schedule, let early adopter screw with it, but don't force the new OS on people who simply want new hardware.

Great article!

[GMO]

"Of course, categorically dumping an operating system is quite difficult.." - I suppose it will be! When will Microsoft come to its senses and completely abandon its new Os on the basis of this sensible bloggers devastating comments?!!1!

"With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level.."
Of course! It makes such sense!!

This article is unmitigated crap, and I'm typing this on a MacbookPro, so I have a bias towards agreeing with the idiot.

I backrevd

[blantonl]

Folks,

I've always been in the camp that admired Microsoft and their products. I was an OS/2 guy out of the gate in my career, and when Windows 95 was released I was blown away at how innovative it was when it came to a consumer operating system.

Fast forward to today. I waited about 4 months before going out an purchasing Vista for my primary Windows XP machine. When I purchased Vista, I opted for the Ultimate edition, and looked forward to working with it. After one month, I was so disgusted with the OS as a whole, I backrevd my machine to XP and have been happy ever since.

I then within the past month purchased a Macbook Pro at my local apple store, and have been thrilled with how easy MAC OS X is to use, along with all the associated software products. I converted my XP machine to a VMware image, and now run it in Fusion to support IE and Visio. I've never been happier with a computer or platform until now... reminds me of when Win95 was released.

It is clear that MS has missed the boat, and that either XP will be built upon and support extended, or MAC OS X and Linux are going to begin to take even further mind and market share. ..and in the IT Consulting community, the cache of owning a MB Pro is really taking hold.

It's disaster

[Keruo]

We've tried deploying vista in a corporate environment, but were forced to switch back running XP.
Our company uses 3D design software which has been certified "designed for windows vista" for almost a year now.

Only problem is, that the particular software doesn't work on vista! (business edition)
At SP0 level, the design program installs, but doesn't start.
We tried upgrading to latest SP4 version of the software, and now it doesn't even install properly.
After spending +40 hours trying to get it to work, the support team responded to our request and told us to forget
running on vista before next version which will be available somewhere 2Q2008.

Long story short.. We cannot deploy an operating system which disables us from doing our core business, 3d modelling and design.
Good thing we bought XP with volume licensing so we can freely switch our new workstations preloaded with vista back to XP
and actually get some work done.

Re:It's disaster

[ScytheBlade1]

It sounds to me like the creators of the software you need to use have no clue how to write software for a multi-user environment.

Drivers and kernel aside, Vista changed one huge thing: through UAC, people can no longer write files to Program Files.

It's shocking how many programs did this in the first place. Almost every game in existence writes saves to their folder in program files. For work, I'm forced to maintain 10-15 different programs which allow the users to view "documents" (that's an entirely different story) - and half of them copy the file from the temp folder, to another temp folder... in Program Files.

Vista is trying to be secure. And, if you run Vista and Vista only, it is secure. Other big Microsoft products (MSSQL, Office, Visual Studio) all run happily - as a guest user. Admin to install, guest to use.

Sound familiar? It should. This is slashdot. We all use Linux, right? ... right? This "admin to install, guest to use" is nothing new to the world. It's been doable on Microsoft products since NT.

So Microsoft comes around and says, "you know, enough of this, we're going to make the OS stable by preventing unauthorized programs from writing files where it shouldn't" - and everything dies. Dies horribly.

Microsoft has many sins upon their heads, in the software realm. However, countless program incompatibilities because software designers have no clue what "multi user" really is - is not Microsoft's (direct) fault. Vista was in beta for an extended period of time. Then they pushed an open beta. It's not like they made these changes behind closed doors and shipped it.

The day that the complaints will stop is the same day that the third party developers get a clue how to design a program around the fact that they can't always write files everywhere they please.

It could be a while.

Is Ballmer single?

[RobertB-DC]

You know, the last time Microsoft rolled out an operating system that was a complete market flop, the developer had to marry Bill Gates.

There are worse fates for a failed project's lead, I guess.

So the question now is: is Steve Ballmer single, or will he just take on a mistress?

sigh

[MOMOCROME]

Such nonsense... flame bait: rabble rousing.

I've been using this 'abysmal failure' as a primary OS for 8 months with nary a hitch. I really have. I spend every day developing various codes with various tools, for what turns out to be many different platforms. Among a few others I have a Debian box and OS X 10.4 within reach, on equally capable hardware and I don't even bother with them. To the point where I'll probably power them down to save money on the electric bill.

I suspect all the bad mouthing comes from people trying to shoehorn the thing into old hardware, or from people who fancy themselves capable with PC maintenance but can't handle simple configuration issues. Or most likely, by people who only ran a shoddy beta or have never run it at all. I'd really like someone to explain why the OS that I'm using right now without any problems doesn't work and should be abandoned.

oh, I know, not towing the party line here will get me modded down quick. but aside from the excited FOSS fanatics here and a few ad-hit grubbing bloggopundits and the like, millions of people are getting along just fine with vista. hopping up and down while shouting about what a failure it is doesn't actually make it a failure. sorry to break it to you all.

Re:sigh

[Etrias]

My company foisted Vista on me because we thought market penetration was going to be higher and we had to learn the system to support it. A "for the clients" thing, and being intrigued and seeing what we do is support IT for our clients, sounded like a good idea.

I think I'm going to have to go with the "abysmal failure" part of your essay. And this isn't on old hardware. Brand spanking new T60 Thinkpad stacked with RAM and video.

I have to say that Vista gives me more time in the morning...while I'm waiting for it to boot, never a problem with my XP box. At least I have time now to get coffee while the damn thing loads up after I log in. The general feeling in the office is to wipe the new laptops and put XP back on to it so we can get our functionality back.

So, I'm not speaking without experience. Networking was a pain, drivers were an issue, security was a pain, performance was terrible...and for what? A sidebar? New user interfaces and every system tool moved somewhere else? Gah, Vista is a dog.

Just another "jump on the bandwagon" article.

[rrudduck]

The real fact of the matter from those of us that use Vista everyday is that fact that it works just fine. My games play the same or better than they did in XP, my development tools run just fine, and the UI for once is actually nice to work with. Now call me crazy, but I don't find Vista bad at all.

As a software developer myself I realize the fact that OS's are large and complicated and they all have some issues. I use Linux, I use OS X, and I use Vista. Each has their own merits and their own problems. The problem is that now, just like it was popular in the 80s and 90s to hate IBM, its popular to hate Microsoft. News writers see this as a bandwagon they can use to get articles read and website hits. The real fact is that Vista has no more problems than any other OS at this point in its life cycle.

I truly wish that for the good of all of the tech industry, people would see that every piece of software, and every OS has its place. Vista does a lot of things well... It just happens to have a few flaws and a few "features" that just seem to go against the grain of the most vocal people in the geek world (i.e. DRM) and thus we see articles like this that are ridiculous and inflammatory simple for being as such.

Re:Progress

[Jhon]

but it is now catching up to where its nearing XP's usability.

Great. So, it costs more to run an operating system at or below the previous versions performance level -- while fewer hardware platforms are supported, too.

Let me upgrade now!

Oh Please.

[MtViewGuy]

Didn't we go through this same issue when Windows XP first came out in 2001? I remember back then you needed 512 MB to make it run decently fast, and the "sweet spot" was 1 GB of RAM (both of which were not that common back in 2001).

The problem with Windows Vista is that the hardware has not yet completely caught up with the potential of the OS. Just wait till 2008, when machines with 4 GB or more of RAM become more commonly available and graphics cards that support DirectX 10 are more widely available.

Re:Oh Please.

[cmowire]

The problem is that each time, the reason to upgrade, other than not being able to purchase a new version of the OS when your CD dies, gets smaller.

Win98 to Win2k was a great upgrade. Suddenly, I didn't need to reboot every few days. And it supported multiple processors once everybody got their act together on drivers. And stuff.

I just finally upgraded to WinXP at home, largely because WinXP handles hyperthreading properly and I have a hyperthreaded CPU and because I figure it'll last slightly longer in the market than 2k since I'm avoiding Vista.

But before that, I was running XP at work and 2k at home and noticed no real difference other than a few bits of eye candy.

Vista was doomed as soon as they realized that all of the really innovative features weren't going to work out and dropped them... so it ends up being a few fairly marginal improvements and a bunch of features that nobody wants.

Re:MOD UP!

[LMacG]

Except the same joke was already used today in another MS article. By the same AC? Who knows . . .

Tech-writers are like gold fish...

[geeknado]

Virtually every major Microsoft OS release has been plagued with issues(I think Win2K was relatively smooth). XP was plagued with issues prior to SP1(my boss-at-the-time managed to totally toast his laptop with it, as I recall). It had serious system requirements for its day, and chugged if you didn't have an appropriately potent machine. Now, XP is being touted as the 'good' Microsoft OS by many pundits, which seems tinged with irony to me.

That's not to say that Microsoft couldn't suffer losses in this generation, but it would be more about the presence of strong alternatives than their failure to adopt a 'move on' strategy.

What's really interesting about this /particular/ FUDy article is how quibbly it is. He appears to have three major complaints: the pricing scheme, specifically of the Ultimate edition, the UAC(and specifically, that it doesn't like a specific unnamed third party app which we're assured is from a 'well-known software company'), and DRM. We're not talking about blue screens and security holes here.

There is no compelling reason to move to Vista, and it seems obvious that waiting for SP1 is probably the right move for anyone who wants to upgrade. That doesn't mean that this OS won't succeed, however, and it's shown marked improvement on many counts since launch. Can we just call this FUD and "move on"?

Is it 2001 again?

[Computershack]

Is it 2001 again? I'm pretty certain that exactly the same mutterings were made about XP when it was first released. Oh yeah...they were.

Here's a few choice quotes from a 2001 "Techspot" review of Windows XP. They may sound familiar...

On installation...

Let me start off by saying the installation of Windows XP is long. When I say long, I mean REAL long. It took me over an hour to install on either test system! On speed...

Well now, how does it feel you ask? It feels incredibly slow on the first system. That might just be an understatement. It feels ridiculously slow. If your system specs look anything like my first system, or even a little better, Windows XP is going to depress you.

To me, the speed thing is also a concern. The desktop moves a bit slower than a Win9x GUI, and there are still some worries about gaming performance.

On native drivers...

One quick note, XP did have drivers for the GeForce 2 card, but came up empty handed for the classic Voodoo2.

On whether to upgrade from Windows 98SE...

I really do not see a need to upgrade from Windows 98/ME. If you are building a new system, then by all means, install Windows XP. If you think that Windows XP is going to revolutionize the way you use a computer and surf the web, wake up and save your money.

And as plenty of recent Slashdot posts supporting XP have shown, we all know how short sighted the last quote was.

As I said, we've been here before in 1991 with Windows XP yet Windows XP is now touted as Microsofts greatest OS. I expect the same will happen with Vista and be said about Vista when Microsoft releases it's next OS in a few years time.

It's no ME

[ObiWanStevobi]

My main problem with Vista is that it is a resource hog. As far as I have seen, it isn't a flop in terms of capability like Windows ME was. The problem MS has is that standard computers are designed for low price. Most models still come with a gig or less of RAM and second class CPUs. On those machines, Vista doesn't run well. On a high-end dual monitor machine, it runs well.

The biggest problem they face is that a computer that runs Vista well still costs quite a bit of money. Leaving aside the obvious complaint that people don't want to waste so many resources on the OS no matter what they have, I'd think that waiting is the best bet for MS. Following Moore's law, it won't be too long before bargain PCs are fully capable to run it. Then, I think it would catch on better.

Re:Verdict is in?

[PCM2]

Is the Verdict in that Vista did, indeed, tank?

Finally getting MythTV working with my remote, configuring my video drivers properly, and getting my SPDIF audio working were the final nails for me. Now Linux can do pretty much everything that Windows Media Center was doing for me before. I haven't rebooted from my Ubuntu partition in weeks. I find I'm far more efficient in this OS (even with the GL Desktop disabled!)

This reminds me.....

[JDHawg]

.... of DOS 4.0

Now for you youngsters who don't know what I'm talking about, DOS 4.0 was a train wreck of an operating system that gave user's who 'upgraded' from 3.X nothing but bugs and heartache.

What's that old saying? Oh Yeah, it's "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." I guess 15-18 years is enough time to forget about past mistakes.

Vista is Microsoft's New Coke

[Animats]

Sometimes the new product flops. New Coke and the Sony PS3 are well known examples. Automobile models from major manufacturers flop regularly.

The problem for Microsoft is that they now have only one main OS product line. When Windows ME flopped, they had the NT product line almost ready for consumer desktops, and could afford to kill off the DOS/Win3.1/Win95 product line. This time, they only have one offering in the desktop/laptop OS space.

This is certainly fixable from the Microsoft side, but they need to recognize that they have a serious problem and fix it.

Cluestick to Microsoft: Focus on Fundamentals...

[UnknownSoldier]

Maybe if Microsoft spent more time on stuff (that people actually _use_ you know), instead of fluff, maybe Vista would actually be half decent.

- A way to customize the File Open dialog box, with the folders you constantly use, gasp!?
- Expose. Enough said.
- A built in spell checker / Dictionary / Thesaurus, with quick access to wikipedia
- A search that isn't broken (Thx WinXP!)
- The ability to re-locate, (or hide) the dam 'close' button
- Title bars that stop sucking up valuable screen space, instead of being small movable tabs like in BeOS
- Virtual Desktops
- An OS that gets FASTER from version to version (again BeOS)
- A proper KILL command -- I'm admin on the dam box, let me kill that process.
- Unified widgets/gadgets: NO, I don't want seperate run-times for Yahoo, Google, Apple, Microsoft, insert flavor of the month company because they decided to do their own implementation.
- A home folder without spaces that doesn't move with almost every version of windows.
- A file system that doesn't suck. YES, I want to be able to start my filenames with spaces for sorting purposes (Thx Explorer. NOT.) have my filenames contain colons, end with a period or question mark. And treat the underscore as a virtual space, so we don't have to quote filenames in our command scripts. A way to "tag" files, so I can visually see BOTH a heirarchy, AND flat filesystem.
- Config files that can be moved from system to system instead of hiding everything in the bloated registry
- Free dev tools would be nice.
- Stop rebooting my dam system everytime you update system software. Or at least give me notification/icon that a reboot is required BEFORE installing.

All I want is an OS that doesn't suck... is that _really_ too much for a programmer to ask?

What I really mean to say is...

[Aslan72]

Don't make me install Vista Bro!

Real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that CPU speeds have nearly flatlined. Making a new more bloated OS on the assumption that CPU speeds will offset the slowdown is yesterday(7 years ago?)'s development model. Moore's law still holds for a while but it will result in more cores and memory rather than a significant per-cpu speed increase.

Re:Real problem

[Clanked]

Hopefully Racetrack Hard Drives will come along soon, and ease this bottleneck.

Re:Real problem

[fractoid]

The real problem is that CPU speeds have nearly flatlined. I think the REAL problem is that with Windows XP, they created an OS that is 'good enough' that people don't need to upgrade from it. Windows 3.1 was OK for its time but on a scale of 1 to Awesome, it was shit. Windows 95 was better. Windows 98 SE was pretty damn good, people used that for ages, but it still required semi-regular reinstalls. *sweeps Windows ME under the rug where it belongs*

Windows XP will run for years+ without needing a reinstall, it has excellent hardware support and will run practically any software. It works fine on 5-year-old or ultra-cheap hardware. It has a familiar interface, good-enough network support for file sharing etc. Basically it does everything people need from it. So they have no motivation to go to Vista, which by all accounts provides an overall worse user experience than XP, while costing a lot more and requiring a fuckton more hardware power.

All businesses SEEK to become arrogant

[dpbsmith]

H. G. Wells got it right in Tono-Bungay:

"The idea of cornering a drug struck upon my mind then as a sort of irresponsible monkey trick that no one would ever be permitted to do in reality.... I thought it was part of my uncle's way of talking. But I've learnt differently since. The whole trend of modern money-making is to foresee something that will presently be needed and put it out of reach, and then to haggle yourself wealthy. You buy up land upon which people will presently want to build houses, you secure rights that will bar vitally important developments, and so on, and so on.... I will confess that when my uncle talked of cornering quinine, I had a clear impression that any one who contrived to do that would pretty certainly go to jail. Now I know that any one who could really bring it off would be much more likely to go to the House of Lords!"

The process has become somewhat moderated by antitrust laws, but the dynamic is still the same.

The phase in which a company produces good, useful stuff, and sells it to pleased customers, who are happy to pay money because of the value the product delivers... is just a temporary phase which all companies yearn to get past. It's just a ploy to expand market share in hopes of getting to the big payoff. The big payoff comes when the company is so dominant that it can stop pretending to be nice, and stick it to their competitors, their customers, and any meddling bureaucrats that have the nerve to try to regulate them.

Companies want to reach the stage where they can be arrogant, like Microsoft. It's not an aberration, it's what every good company is trying to achieve.

Re:Verdict is in?

[Samalie]

I bought a new laptop about 4 months ago, pre-loaded with Vista.

Yep, I've had signifigant problems. The removal of MS-CHAPv1 forced me to upgrade my office's vpn/router. Now works perfectly supporting both MS-CHAP 1 & 2. I have a couple of pieces of software that like to give me grief, but nothing I haven't worked around..

Memory useage sucks, I admit it freely. My laptop is a beefy box, but every now and then it slows to a crawl. There are bugs...oh yes there are bugs. Media Centre has issues at times with DivX files. Driver support is spotty at best. The Ultimate edition has got me diddly-squat over other editions really. UAC is retarded "Yes, I'm sure I want to move this file....yes, I want to connect to....aw fuckit" /disable UAC.

I've grown to HATE Vista.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I really don't hate Vista. It works - for the most part. Things are signifigantly more stable even now than back in the pre-release days (I've been testing since Beta 1), and I have hope that SP1 will fix some of the more annoying crap. Drivers are coming...although in the same vein you can't blame Microsoft when vendors choose to discontinue driver support for (x) product - thats the manufacturer's business choice.

I in no way think Microsoft released the next thing to perfection in Vista....but I really don't think it is complete ass either. Look at the release of Win95, or XP, and you'll see a similar pattern of spotty driver support, some applications failing to work, etc. The only real problem this time is everyone seems so hell-bent to beat on Microsoft that they're causing alot of the issues, being writing dodgy drivers, or software bugs in their products, etc.

I'm no Microsoft lover, be assured....but if the vendor community as a whole actually worked with Microsoft (and Microsoft with them) to get their shit done right, then quite frankly Vista wont suck...at least not as much :)

Vista right now is very WinME-like, but the OS does have potential. At least I can still surf for porn :P

err...how is that MS's fault?

[dtolman]

If your vendor says their software works on Vista, when it clearly doesn't - how is that MS's fault?

Re:I use Vista daily.

[thsths]

> My brother is using the 64 bit version of Vista for his video production work (since 32 bit Vista is capped at 3 GB of RAM), so I know that there's a lot more headaches with 64 bit Vista.

Indeed. I wonder whether 64bit will ever be ready for the mainstream. At some time it will have to be, I guess, but when is that? Certainly not before 32bit become rather painful.

The main problem with Windows and 64bit is that you need all new drivers, because pretty much every driver is in kernel space. And then there is the horridness of the 32bit subsystem: 32bit libraries go into WoW64, 64bit libraries go into System32. Sounds like Alice in Wonderland, doesn't it? Dropping the 16bit subsystem didn't help either, because it seems a lot of installers still need it.

Of course Linux has it own problems with 64bit. RedHat tries to be as compatible as possible, but only to RedHat. And Debian goes "pure64", with no compatibility whatsoever, and certainly not to RedHat. Until this problem is resolved, 64bit Linux will go nowhere either.

excellent use of the question mark

[Sloppy]

Good job.

rps

[someone1234]

Well, Vista video drivers are measured by rps (reboot per seconds) not fps.

Re:woa wooooaaaa woah

[HuguesT]

Win2k, which you left out, was easily the best MS product ever. Could (still can) play games as well as XP, more secure, no activation, near zero DRM, fewer bugs, less memory usage, etc.

Maybe, maybe not

[jc42]

Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around.

Not true. Vista is quite capable of "competing" in the same way that all Microsoft software has always competed with higher-quality software from competitors: Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings.

Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s: If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product. Computer customers mostly can't judge quality; they buy entirely on "reputation", i.e., marketing.

Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media (but never noticed by 90% of the buying public). There's no real reason to believe that Vista will do any worse. All it takes is the right marketing, and Microsoft has the budget to do it.

I'd love to be proved wrong, but ...

Re:woa wooooaaaa woah

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I just started a new job for a non-IT company and the standard issue monitor is a 15" Dell LCD locked at a max of 1024x768 resolution.

To make matters worse, they were recently upgraded to Office 2007.

At such a *low* resolution, with all the fancy eye-candy they have added, there is a little tiny window in the center of the monitor where I can actually see what I'm working on. There is so much wasted space (i.e., a 1/4" bar that says "Click here to enable Instant Search") that there is hardly any room to get any work done. It almost feels like I'm trying to view a document on a PocketPC or something... To make matters worse, I'm a touch typist and seldom use the mouse for something like Print Preview (Alt-F-V in the past) and now when I try to do that, it pops up a dialog telling me that I'm about to Convert my document instead of Preview it. Thanks, Microsoft, thanks a lot!

Downfall of Microsoft? NOT!

[dm0527]

He suggests that Vista may be the downfall of the company

Oh please! Microsoft could run in the red for ten years before they had to start thinking about maybe laying someone off if things don't turn around in the next five or ten years.

...cost too much, it requires more to run than XP, there is still poor driver support...

You mean Microsoft released an operating system before it was really finished? It costs too much? Requires "more" than their previous OS (I'm guessing you mean resources)? Poor driver support?
NO!!! SURELY NOT! - That has NEVER happened before! Well, except for the last time they released an OS...oh, and then there was that time before last too...and the time before that...

it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees

No. In order for Microsoft to be "[brought] ... to its knees", there would have to be a failure on a much larger scale than Vista, and it would need to happen repeatedly over the course of say, eight to ten years. Long before that happens, someone in Microsoft management would go crack some skulls.

Get decalf. And an enter key.

[dtolman]

Ever wonder why no one seems to appreciate your insightful long form commentary? Maybe its because 3 lines into a 50 line text block their eyes glaze over and they hit the back key. Paragraphs are your friend - not something to be avoided.

Reading a text block like that is the visual equivelant of listening to those sped up caveats they spit out at the end of car commercials - their must be something in there...but who the hell knows, I stopped paying attention 8 words in.

Re:Vista AWESOME compared with CRAPPY Linux

[Pensacola Tiger]

I've been running Windows XP for about four years now, and it has been an "OK" experience. Most things in the box worked right out of the box, with the notable exception of networking with other operating systems, but that got better as time went on. Games were the high point of the Windows experience. The less said about Microsoft Office the better.

There were few applications included with the operating system, really almost none. Many things not included were expensive to buy, and some didn't work well at all. I noticed that there were no applications worth talking about when it came to doing anything involving video editing that didn't crash the machine. And even playing a DVD required me to spend an extra $60 on WinDVD.

And then I noticed how completely broken the security is on Windows XP.

So I switched to Linux, the best OS the planet has ever seen.

Does Linux have any flaws? Probably. But Microsoft is in a panic over it. Maybe they're afraid that Windows will disappear in the shadow of Linux. So they've been conducting a FUD campaign for some time now, using a stalking horse named SCO. But that horse broke a leg recently, and will soon be humanely put to sleep.

Windows is about having to spend endless hours of your time applying security patches, scanning for malware and sometimes restoring the entire operating system when it glitches. Linux is about enjoying your computer.

For most people and organizations, I recommend Linux. I don't recommend Windows.

(Aw, heck, I couldn't help myself...)

--

Microsoft alleges that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. I say put up, or shut up.

It's all just a misunderstanding.

[Futurepower(R)]

"The real problem is that CPU speeds have nearly flatlined."

MOD PARENT UP. The abuse of deliberately making an OS require far more power, so people would feel it was necessary to buy another computer, has become a much bigger abuse than it was before.

However, that's not the REAL problem. The real problem is just a misunderstanding. People think that Microsoft is a software company that is routinely abusive, but it isn't. Microsoft is an abuse company that merely uses software as a means of delivering abuse.

It is more abusive to not just deliver abuse in constant streams, but to deliver big booms of abuse, too, so that people can't learn as easily to defend themselves. So, DOS 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 BOOM, 2.1, 3.0 BOOM, 3.1, 4.0 BOOM, 5.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME BOOM, Windows NT first release BOOM. Windows 2000, Windows XP first release BOOM, Win XP SP1, Win XP SP2, Windows Vista BOOM.

Dr. Death has arrived. After only 3 years, requiem for an OS: Dr. Death is ready to begin killing software that customers want to use. He has decided that Windows XP will begin to die soon: January 31, 2008. The purpose is to make Bill Gates richer. Bill Gates can't invade Iraq, so he has to be happy with killing an operating system.

The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and some of the fixes were not documented. The really major problems in Windows XP stopped only after SP2 was released, on August 25, 2004. That means we have gotten only 3 years of good use from Windows XP.

Let other people have the grief. Unless forced by circumstances, never move to a new version of Microsoft software until the second service pack is released.

(Someone said that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service packs much more often. If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule to "until the X service pack...")

Even though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170 Megabytes of files, Microsoft hasn't delivered a service pack for Windows XP in 3 years. The Windows XP updates of just August's Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes. Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using Windows XP.

New versions of Linux are released to make a better OS. New versions of Microsoft Windows seem to have the purpose of 1) killing the old version and 2) using more CPU power so that it is necessary to buy new hardware. When you partner with Microsoft, you partner with a company that may sometimes choose to be your enemy, in my opinion.

It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive. Microsoft's adversarial behavior is expensive, too.

Some of this may be a joke, and some of it may be the truth.

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[Shadowlore]

"Some of this may be a joke, and some of it may be the truth."

And some of it is both.

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[kklein]

Yikes. Well said, even if some of it was kidding on the square.

The problem, however, isn't that MS is a mean company (it is) that makes bad products (well--bad OSes. I can't believe how much I love my Xbox 360, and I've never even been tempted to buy a console before). The problem is that so many of us need their OSes to do our jobs. There really is very little most people can do about it. Linux really isn't an option for most people, and for a considerable number, OSX really isn't either.

The new Macs are the only threat I see, being that they can now boot Windows natively. I have a Mac laptop now, because I can still run my critical Windows apps either natively or in emulation (I haven't noticed any speed difference between the two, but games require a native reboot), and this has caused me to begin to loathe XP, whereas I used to be ambivalent. The Intel move is the smartest thing Apple has ever done.

Similarly, what may make Linux a viable option (provided drivers for people's hardware actually existed and worked), and which would give me pause, would be someone like VMware entering the fray with a desktop-class emulator like Fusion for OSX (which is what I use and which is awesome, BTW) on Linux. I've been accused of trolling about Linux's lack of viability 'round these parts, but really, until people can run the programs they really actually run (hint: MS Office isn't the only program people run) in a Linux environment, it's just going to live at the sysadmin level, and at the sysadmin's home computer level. A workhorse or a toy (as something of a statistician--don't tell a real statistician that I said that, though--I would like to head off any comments of "but I use it and I'm not a sysadmin" with a word of caution about generalizing from small N sizes, statistical outliers, and self-selected populations).

I'd happily reformat my desktop and put on Ubuntu (which I find slick and intuitive--though I suppose that has more to do with the Gnome folks than the Ubuntu folks, but still) if I could still use my Windows apps without a reboot (I'm open to a reboot for games)... Provided, that is, that I could get the nVidia drivers to work this time...

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[AmaDaden]

I would have totally agreed with you a year ago, But Ubuntu is a massive improvement from other Linux distros. Except for games I've been able to entirely replace my windows install. I've not once had to go out and muck about in the console or installing software on my own. I've used the package manager (think "add and remove programs" but it actually can find and install new programs) about 100 times now to install many cool little apps. They have not all worked they way I wanted but most of them would not have been possible with out hours of trolling freeware sites installing and uninstalling software that would wreak havoc on my PC. I can honestly say that my time using Ubuntu was FAR less painful then using XP. Just my 2 cents

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[Das Modell]

I like XP a lot, but Vista is just a huge pile of shit that I don't plan on using for anything except gaming. It's slow, cumbersome, difficult to use and has poor software and hardware support. I'm getting Ubuntu next month, and it'll be my first Linux OS. It's time for me to abandon the MS ship (except for gaming).

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[billgates]

Ha, give me a break. You moronic Microsoft fanboys are barking clueless for the most part. Blinded by your ridiculous lust and loyalty for a product that more often than not takes more time and gives you more heartache than Linux ever would. Some of us don't want to be slaves to corporations like you. Get over yourselves and realise that Linux has a place in the OS world. People who want ease of use, no fiddling with registry files, virus checkers, malware removers, DRM, and want to develop art/applications/websites with some of the best tools in the world.... will not use a Microsoft based OS. Believe me, Linux has its issues, some of them can be annoying but the enormity of the thing and the fact that it pretty much works straight out of the box is an impressive feat. So mod me down, and continue modding up the tool bags who merely say idiotic statements purely because they are anti Linux. A lot of slashdot's articles can be insightful but the comments seem to come from American teenage boys and as soon as something MS or Windows related pops up most of you people lose all reason and salivate at the mouth. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I could probably beat the enire lot of you with the help of our community. :)

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[Koiu Lpoi]

Windows only "works" because it has a huge market share, and thus has vendor support. It really doesn't "just work" out of the box, and (Vista) runs horribly slow on anything but the best computers.

And about "ease of use", "no fiddling with config files" and lets you "develop art/applications/websites with some of the best tools in the world", well, you described Mac OS X to a Tee. It's a great OS, works exactly how it's supposed to out of the box, and has the best, most intuitive "ease of use" of anything on the market. And it's What You Use if you're in the arts.

I'm not even going to cover Linux, as I believe it truly has no place on my Grandmother's desktop computer, and probably enver will. Ubuntu has made it far better, but it still fails the Grandma test (at last check).

I bet this post will get me marked as a Mac fanboy. Guess what? I'm not. Probably won't ever own a Mac - I personally really don't like ease of use (I'm weird).

Also, as a second point, supposed physical superiority (aka e-Penis) really has nothing to do with this disucssion, so please leave it out. It only espouses your ignorance even more by spouting a (quite possibly wrong) stereotype.

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[fractoid]

He's not on crack. He just hasn't used Linux for years. Back in 2004, last time I tried Linux (it was Mandrake somethingorother) I couldn't even get it to recognize my video card. I gave up rapidly, went "life is too short", and installed XP. I kept that picture of Linux as "something that's good if you have a spare week to set it up in and don't mind eternally tinkering with files and reading newsgroups full of elitist pricks" until about three months ago when my dodgy onboard RAID cracked the shits, and I decided to try Ubuntu Feisty out.

And since then, I've found out just how much better Linux can be than XP - it recognized all my hardware out of the box (no f**king around installing a floppy drive so I can get the SATA drivers going), took like 30 minutes to install, 'just works' at everything I want it to (WoW, intarwebs, IM, movies/TV eps, some document editing/spreadsheeting) and has better eye candy than Vista (yay Beryl!). It also doesn't cost me $200+, it doesn't insist on phoning home, and I know that if Ubuntu Co. dies or decides they want me to upgrade to some PoS, I can just keep using it instead of needing activation codes or cracks.

Really, there isn't any way Vista could be better for my uses.

Re:It's all just a misunderstanding.

[MORB]

The whole "just works" thing is really just a myth in the windows/microsoft world.

I routinely run into difficult to disgnose problems without even trying. I currently work at a company where about no one has administrator rights on their machines, most of them running xp.
The amount of small and less small issues not running as administrator brings. For instance, if you open a VB6 project that has references to some unregistered ocx, it tries to registers them automatically. But as you're not running as administrator, it fails - and not quite gracefully, it just crashes and you have absolutely no clue as to why.

I'm also forced to use ie7, and oh boy, sloppy doesn't even begin to describe it. It's slow, the interface has numerous issues, and it crashes on me at least a couple times every day. I honestly did expect it not to be quite as bad as I thought it'd be, but I was mistaken.

Oh, and microsoft in their deep wisdom, decided that if you buy visual studio in france, you can only run it in french. But the translations, especially of the msdn, are terrible and misleading. And of course, every error message and such are translated (poorly as well), so it completly defeats using google to find out more information about any puzzling error condition you may come accross.

And I'm not even going to detail into all the windows explorer performance and random hanging issues I always experienced on every single windows machine I ever used - I think I have kill it and restart it at least once every day.

Even shutting down windows is a painful process. They obviously never heard of timeouts, so you have to quit everything manually. And sometimes it just closes everything and hangs on the empty desktop background, and you have to turn off your pc manually.

What I'm getting at is that there is not one single microsoft software that I use daily that don't have huge flaws. It feels like all they ever churn out is utter and complete shit, which is inexcusable in regard to the fact that many free products don't have nearly as many issues as their paid for (and often quite expensive) stuff.

And I hate the "it just works" argument, because my daily experience of microsoft products for the past 8 years says the opposite. The correct argument would be "people are used to the many quirks of windows, and not of the linux ones". But really, if you are used to use linux to do everything, switching to windows is horribly painful - probably more than switching from windows to linux.

Slashdot logic

[Schnapple]

Windows Vista has been slow to gain acceptance and adoption in the less-than-a-year since it was released

Abandon it! Kill it! It's had its chance, but it's too late!

Linux has been slow to gain acceptance and adoption in the sixteen years it's been available

Linux is improving! It's getting better! Give it a chance! Yes it has problems but these things take time!

Re:All the Puppy does is Wine.

[SatanicPuppy]

But then you're right back to using Windows! I've gone that route, where I have a couple of big ass terminal services machines serving every MS app that people say they have to have, and at the end of the day someone is going to look at the balance sheet and say, "If we need this much microsoft stuff, why don't we just use windows?" and you're left trying to justify the cost savings to a bunch of PHBs whose staff is still pissy that they don't get to use Windows, and is making a stink about every single little flaw.

And Outlook, Jesus. Outlook/Exchange is a fricking deal breaker, you will run up against that wall over and over again, and trying to sell people on OWA or Lotus does not work. Outlook is one of those apps that does not have an OSS equivalent, and if you say "Evolution" you're telling me that you have no idea why people use Outlook.

spare us the advocacy

[m2943]

With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around

"Hot on Vista's tail" would mean that OS X has a market share close to Windows, which is obviously not true even under the most optimistic assumptions.

There is also no sense that I can see in which Microsoft has anything to fear from Apple. Even if Microsoft got out of the OS business tomorrow, Apple simply could not fill the void. Most likely, a disappearance of Microsoft would benefit Linux and BSD much more than it would Apple, because people can run those systems on the hardware they already have.

Microsoft is horrible because XP is still good?

[holophrastic]

Speaking as a Perl developer, a JScript developer, an IT professional, and a kiosk developer, I now adore the Microsoft corporate assistance, as well as Vista.

The article is question -- and boy is it questionable -- says things like "vista is too expensive" and "it sales are lower than xp's were". Welcome to economics. Just because you lack the funds, doesn't make it a bad thing.

As a business, I've had wonderful times with Microsoft licensing over the last six months. Where I thought I'd have to pay $300 per kiosk, I wound up having to pay $200 one-time licence. Umm, that's basically free.

I'm using both XP and Vista for the kiosks. XP is missing a number of features that Vista has perfectly --
all on the IT side.

I've been reading slashdot for well over a decade now. You guys have it all wrong. Windows is much more flexible than you give it credit for -- and all without having to re-compile a kernel. Absolutely every OS tweak and alteration is possible just as simply as changing a registry key. And each and every one is well named and documented. Just start reading.

Deploying a few hundred configurations is a breeze -- as easy as plugging in a UFD.

There are more tools, support, documentation, and details available for Microsoft's corporate professional solutions than Linux users have all but hoped for. And when they aren't free of charge, they are impressively within budget.

Sorry that your budget is absolute zero. Some of us actually operate successful businesses, and simply love the idea of spending one dollar to make ten. Spending zero to make ten is actually worse, not better. And spending half a dollar to make ten isn't significantly better than spending one.

Do something legitimate, with actual business intentions, and Microsoft is a dream to work with. Want to do something all on your own? That's a different story.

I have no problems with Vista. And any problems that you have with any features, are easily solved by disabling those features. I can't believe that linux users are upset with a default configuration -- freakin' change it. The only difference is that you aren't starting from scratch. You're capable, just do it. And if you do it for someone else, they'll pay you for it.

And no, you don't have to want to get paid. And no, they won't be paying you for your time, or your skill, or your abilities. They'll be paying you for the sole reason of not having to do it themselves. Welcome to the wonderful world of profitable business -- you don't do anything by yourself.

Halo 2 runs in XP anyway

[rbarreira]

It's even possible to run Halo 2 in XP...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_2#Windows_XP_compatibility
http://www.mininova.org/tor/763563

Re:I use Vista daily.

[Lost Engineer]

It's the drivers. It's always been the drivers -- ever since the invention of the IBM clone.

Vista itself, meaning the kernel and the shell, seem bulletproof to me (in terms of stability not security.) Also, I've never experienced any driver problems while gaming, probably because my only Vista machine has integrated Intel graphics, and Intel usually has their shit together.

However, for months I had to disable fingerprint-only authentication because the stupid driver, made by some no-name lamers too embarrassed to even brand the thing, didn't recover properly from sleep, the original reason S3 was disabled be default in XP.

Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place here. On the one hand, people want major changes from XP. On the other, they want everything to just work after upgrading. This would actually feasible if hardware makers would write solid drivers that follow the rules, but they don't.

LEAVE AC ALONE!

[PixelScuba]

How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Anonymous Coward after all they have been through?

Anonymous Coward hasn't made a good post in years. They begin everything with "fp" because all you people care about is FIRST POST! FIRST POST! FIRST POST!

LEAVE THEM ALONE! You are lucky they even chose to post here you bastards! LEAVE ANONYMOUS COWARD ALONE!

Please!

Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash a human being who is going through a hard time?

Leave Anonymous Coward alone, please.

LEAVE ANONYMOUS COWARD ALONE RIGHT NOW. I MEAN IT.

Anyone that has a problem with them, you deal with me, because it is not well right now.

LEAVE THEM ALONE!

Re:Vista AWESOME compared with CRAPPY Linux

[ABoerma]

I have used a computer for 14-15 years and it was an "OK" experience. Most things in the box worked right out of the box. With the notable exception of having to plug in a power cord.

The applications included by default did a good enough job. Many things not included but that could be downloaded from shady warez websites worked. Many others didn't, like Duke Nukem Forever. I noticed that there were no application worth talking about when it came to doing anything related to sliding beads on wires. Even the interwebs were a total disapointment with hundreds of megs to download (I need a lot of extra junky software) and hours to setup.

And then I noticed how completely broken is sound mixing on a computer...

So I switched to an abacus, the best way of getting stuff done the planet has ever seen.

Does an abacus have any flaws? Probably. The computer zealots rip their shirts complaining about it. Maybe they hopelessely witness computers disapearing in the shadow of abacuses. Or maybe there's a basis to their whinning. Probably not the latter though sice they can't provide any example of what's bad with abacuses that can't be easily brushed off..

An abacus is about getting stuff done. A computer is about enjoying the pretty pictures on the screen.

For 99.999% of people, and 100% of organizations, I recommend an abacus. I don't recommend a computer.

</makes-no-sense>

'Microsoft' didn't develop NT

[localroger]

That was a crew of people they hired en masse from DEC, whose previous experience was developing the operating system for the VAX mainframe computer. Unlike Microsoft, whose core competency was writing slow buggy 8-bit BASIC interpreters, these guys knew how to build a pre-emptively multitasking OS, and they did their job.

Today none of them work for M$ any more. I believe that factoid should complete the picture for you.

The source code for the hack

[Taagehornet]

To those who'd like to know how this is done: You'll find the source code for the 'hack' here. Be aware though that it relies on an older version of the Windows SDK and you'll need to tweak a header file or two, but you'll find all the missing details in the h2vista thread (as well as a bit of noise).

Re:Abysmal?

[pandrijeczko]

With all respect, Linux has has a *HUGE* growth rate.

No-one's denying for one minute that the visibility of Linux may be low because of it still being a minority on the desktop, but Linux has had a huge impact on displacing commercial UNIX systems like HP-UX and Solaris in the server space - not to mention in the embedded space also.

I myself work for a fairly major US-owned telecoms equipment supplier and the move to Linux-based platforms away from those based on commercial UNIXes and, to a smaller degree, Windows is truly startling.

Just because you cannot see it does not mean it isn't there...

Re:MOD UP!

[History's Coming To]

In Soviet Russia, joke repeats you.

Sorry. Force of habit.