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Microsoft Had Doubts About the 'Vista Capable' Label
dionysus writes "Last April, Microsoft was sued over its 'Vista Capable' labeling, and in hearing last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs presented evidence that Microsoft employees were skeptical about the 'Vista Capable' marketing. Some of the most damning evidence comes from Microsoft executives: 'Mike Nash, currently a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine." Jim Allchin, then the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, wrote in another e-mail, "We really botched this ... You guys have to do a better job with our customers."' The judge in the case is currently considering the plaintiffs' request to make it a class-action lawsuit."
'Mike Nash, formerly a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
Perhaps they should have forced it upon employees for more "real-world" testing first?
The first thing I did on receipt of my XP notebook with the Windows Vista Capable sticker was to remove it and put it in its correct place: on my bin.
And that's the sound of the point that the VP was attempting to make flying over your head.
...otherwise known as early adopters.
To be fair Vista introduced to an unsuspecting IT world the shocking concept that's been around in *nix that "You don't have root level access as a norm!" (Gasp!). This alone caused issues for the majority of Windows software, and is probably the cause of the majority UAC complaints too. Remember too that, this type of security really isn't appreciated by your average Joe, who honestly couldn't give two shits if someone has rooted his box. He'll care when he can't write documents, send emails and check the football results on-line (even if it does require closing various popups)...but a Windows SUDO was long overdue.
Also, Vista is the first iteration of Windows that's seriously supported 64 bit...XP does I know, but it's something of a stop-gap in my opinion, and very rare to see. The 64-bit shift was too, on it's own, bound to cause upgrade havoc, much like the "good old days" of Win95 not running legacy 16bit apps too well.
Finally, Vista does overhaul other areas of Windows that has been for the better in the long-run, but a world of hurts in the short-run. Check out the propaganda here - http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel-en.mspx
There's a tonne of reasons why Vista has been a painful upgrade, but these reasons above I feel are the most prominent, and not so much fault of Microsoft either in my opinion. Yeah, security should've "not sucked", the tech is still very new (many will say 'too' new), and the 64-bit switch-over is unavoidable at some point, but frankly Vista's getting better every day (for instance, just today this was released - http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B943899&x=14&y=11) but much of Vista's problems have been blown up bigger than they are by people that quite frankly, just want to see Microsoft fail, die, whatever...and are willing to "stretch the truth" if it helps that happen....
Hang on; I've just realised where I'm posting.
throw new NoSignatureException();
How many versions of the same system do you really need? Having created over six versions of the same operating system, Microsoft should have been aware that there would be confusion. Are people in the company so oblivious to the "Keep it Simple" approach? Generally a desktop and a server edition should suffice, and anything being marked a 'ready' should be indicating the expected experience and not the rationed experience.
A computer allowing me to experience 10% of what the new OS can provide me, is not ready in any shape or form. Games labelling gets this right, why shouldn't hardware? Are we dealing with crooks or incompetence?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Did you even read the summary? The MS exec's first thought was of the customers. Good grief. Yeah, in the same sense as when some hysterical woman shouts "Won't someone think of the children!" and Michael Jackson raises his hand to say "I am!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Anyone inside the project teams on the vista push knew many of the work patterns were B-A-D. teams had a top-down requirement change almost daily. they fought for changes via up-one-flagpole-down-another. The schedule cut all kinds of scope while the new features were "must haves". the security initiative, the team patterns, the scope dictation and the requirements "volleyball" were terrible at ever "finishing" a concept. Each team with any kind of pull would demand all others conform to the request they wanted, and the winning concept were decided in the mgmt level, not knowing the real impact of their decisions until afterwards.
Add in ideas that nobody had really tackled before, like the secure channel for content, driver signing, legacy app security rights vs. UAC, etc and you're bound to have a lot of latent problems that demand a longer period of testing. But this was after the 1st "scrap" so there really wasn't time to push the market off any longer, MS's ability to deliver was already in question.
it had many flavors of dysfunctional. but they've changed a lot and are starting differently with the next gen OS.
> Probably just due to being forced to use it regularly.
Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome?
Home Basic also does not include the Aero Glass UI, tablet PC support, Mobility Center, Meeting Space, SideShow, or Scheduled Backup. In addition to the ability to join a domain, Business and Ultimate include Complete PC Backup and Restore, Fax and Scan, Remote Desktop, and the ability to save your password when connecting to an SMB share. That's right, in Home Basic/Premium, the "save password" checkbox on the authentication dialog is missing (and command-line alternatives are broken). Finally, only Ultimate Edition includes BitLocker drive encryption.
I can understand why they might want to have two editions of the OS: Home and Professional, like they had originally with XP. The networking capabilities of Business/Ultimate really are integrated into the OS and can't be added on by a separate package. Plenty of small business users need these features, but they order new PCs for their employees without realizing which flavor of Windows is included, so they wind up buying an extra copy at retail, which makes Microsoft more money. It's evil, but from a business perspective it makes sense.
However, apart from Media Center, the features of Home Premium over Home Basic are things nobody would ever pay extra for. It makes absolutely no sense to me that Media Center should require its own OS version. Media Center should be a separate product, just as Microsoft Office is a separate product. Advertise PCs that bundle it as having "Windows Vista Home Edition with Media Center" instead of "Windows Vista Home Premium Edition". Let customers who bought PCs without Media Center go buy it, just like customers who bought PCs without Office can go buy it. Media Center is something that a lot of people do see value in and are willing to pay for. Let them do that.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Imagine buying a 12 cylinder Lamborghini, getting it home, and then realizing it's only firing on 6 cylinders.
So, you're married too?
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
At first I thought this post was meant to be funny (I actually laughed). Certainly, I and most /.ers are capable of doing this. But you can see by that post why Microsoft still has nothing to fear from Linux...even "user-friendly" Ubuntu.
"get the latest beta driver"??
"install by hand in text mode"??
"start sshd and do it remotely"??
You might as well ask the typical user to perform brain surgery on himself.
The typical user does not install the OS he uses.
I run the blogs over on Intel Software Network, and this has been a hot topic of, erm, "discussion" there. People are REALLY mad when they buy a new laptop that says "Vista Capable", and find out later that it really meant "Sorry, you can't run the Aero theme eye candy, DVD Maker, or Movie Maker, because your Intel 915 integrated graphics chip doesn't qualify for a WDDM driver." Somehow explaining that they should have bought a machine that was "Vista Premium Ready" doesn't make them feel better.
Seriously, between the two blog posts (one with video!) on the topic that I've done, there are over 800 comments (by FAR the most visited and commented on posts on the whole blog), most of them mad at Intel for not providing a WDDM driver for 915 graphics chipsets. Problem is, we can't. It doesn't meet the WDDM spec, which is controlled by Microsoft.
Here are the posts in question:
Video: Why Intel 915 graphics don't have a WDDM driver for Vista
Update on the 915 Graphics WDDM Vista Driver Issue
I'm actually relieved to see this news story come out, not that it makes me happy to point the finger at Microsoft (it doesn't), but to at least point all those angry blog commenters at a 3rd party source that sheds some light on the problem. I maintain my naive hope that it will educate and placate them all, and they'll stop emailing me and calling my cell phone. ;-)