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Microsoft Concedes Vista Launch Problems
notdagreatbrain writes "Maximum PC just posted a lengthy feature looking back at the myriad problems that went into Microsoft's 6 billion dollar failure of the Vista launch. Aside from running benchmarks comparing Vista at launch how its performing now, they also found a Microsoft exec who was willing to speak frankly about Vista. The Microsoft source blamed bad drivers from GPU companies and printer companies for the majority of Vista's early stability problems and described User Account Control as poorly implemented but defended it as necessary for the continued health of the Windows platform. He assailed OEM system builders for including bad, buggy, or just plain useless apps on their machines in exchange for a few bucks on the back end. Finally he conceded that Apple appeals to more and more consumers because the hardware is slick, the price is OK, and Apple doesn't annoy its customers (or allow third parties to)."
He blamed everyone but Microsoft?
Why does that not surprise me?
Where they invite users to 'try' the newest Microsoft OS, before revealing it's Vista.
Sure, have users play around a bit with a top of the line machine with a Slim Vista install, it's great.
Go to try to configure stuff, install 3rd party programs, run actual benchmarks, it's not so nice.
I don't read AC A human right
Well, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. Good for them, I guess.
Continued? What? Continued?? Health? What? Health??
I'm not sure those words mean what you think you mean.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
They had to scramble to get drivers out the door because microsoft hardly gave them any time to work with the last revisions of Vista.
TFA misses a major misstep. Microsoft allowed Vista to be shipped on hardware that just wasn't up to the task. Vista is unusable with less than a gig of memory, but chain stores were flooded with laptops equipped with "only" 512MB. This gave new users a terrible experience. "First boot" of a new laptop took half an hour. No application, not even Solitaire, would run without freezing.
Two of my family members had Vista laptops ... for a few hours, anyway, until I installed Ubuntu. Performance problems all went away after that.
I think Vista is getting a bad rap. I'm not a gammer, so I can't speak of it in that regard. I use my laptop, Dell E1505, dual core, 2 gig ram, ATI video card, sata drive, 6-10 times a day, it runs pretty much 12 hours a day, in and out of sleep mode, on wi-fi spots all the time. Photoshop, MS office, and a couple of custom built apps. No problems since March of 07. If you have the hardware, at least for me, it's been a pleasure.
There's no question Apple is improving its brand.
However, the reason for Apple's popularity is a massive generalisation:
The hardware is slick, but it seems to be getting worse (or being exposed to more scrutiny) as it becomes more and more mainstream. The hardware also has little to do with MS and its products success or failure, in the sense that it is perfectly possible to spend Apple-type dollars on a Windows PC and get a very solid, high performance machine.
The price is ok - I won't restart that debate but it remains the case that Apple is typically somewhat pricier for the equivalent hardware.
But the last part really annoys me - I have been an Apple customer from time to time and they annoy the absolute crap out of me. They deny problems, use proprietary software, aggressively attack anyone who attempts to open up their hardware platforms, and generally act in a self-righteous manner.
What Microsoft needs to realise is not that Apple is gaining on it because it "just works", it is gaining because it works at all, unlike many aspects of Vista.* There are plenty of ways to attack Apple, but unless you have a product that is at least competently made there is no way you can do it.
A case in point is the revised Zune - it looks like in many ways (other than MS's bullshit DRM/proprietary interface stuff) it is the equal of the equivalent ipod. If MS can do the same with its OS, then suddenly it has a product as good as Apple and 80%+ of the PC market already in its corner.
* and yes, I do know what I'm talking about, I have done several Vista uninstalls which have dramatically improved stability and performance of new laptops
Read Pynchon.
The problem with VISTA is that it was launched it BETA. Missing drivers, big footprint hardware requirements, and horrible power management (which drained many a laptop battery) caused the early demise of VISTA. I gave up on VISTA, but I understand that MS is slowly working out the problems. Legacy drivers will always be a problem for VISTA and the TPM/DRM features will continue to make smarter users shun VISTA.
I am back to the DUAL BOOT Linux/XP on my older hardware and performance is decent. Same hardware with VISTA... forget about it.
The Nazis were pretty sharp dressers. I mean, if WWII had been decided on fashion sense alone, we'd all be speaking german right now.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The systems they used in the Mojave advertisements were HP Pavilion DV 2000 machines with 2GB of RAM.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/31/windows-mojave-advertisements-start-to-appear-in-the-wild
Not really top of the line...
An interesting read, but this telling comment was on the last page:
Yes, the June conversation was dazzlingly candid, and we were looking forward to an equally blunt follow-up meeting--a scheduled late-July on-the-record interview with Erik Lustig, a senior product manager responsible for Windows Fundamentals. But then the universe as we know it returned to normal, and Microsoft became Microsoft again. Our interview with Lustig was overseen by a PR representative and was filled with the type of carefully measured language that we've come to expect from Microsoft when discussing "challenges." A "challenge" is Microsoftese for anything that isn't going according to the company's carefully choreographed plans. In the text that follows, we've combined the information conveyed during the mid-June background conversation with decoded translations of the "on the record" conversation we had in July. The contrast between the two interviews is stunning.
The part where Microsoft was open to admit mistakes - even if done with back-handed compliments to Apple and slaps to other developers - began to sound like a breath of fresh air.
But the article itself is highly qualitative and lacks coherence, as if we're missing the director's cut. (Yes, I am comparing a bad movie as superior to this written word - knowingly.)
Nothing to see here, move along.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
So lets see, the drivers sucked.. maybe thats because, in order to get the WHQL/"Designed for Windows"/Windows Logo Program/whatever-the- marketing-team-decided-to-stick-into-the-name-today stamp of approval needed to be able to be able to supply a signed driver for 64 bit vista they had to run through a 6 month release gauntlet?
Any software release cycle that gets stuck delaying that long between finding a bug and issuing a fix is going to suck
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
Apple doesn't annoy its customers (or allow third parties to)
AT&T. Locked iPhones. Can't do anything not officially blessed with your iPhone unless you unlock it. Can't register your iPhone with anyone other than AT&T. iTunes is loaded with DRM, and QuickTime is pretty annoying... I do love Apple, but seriously, they constantly flirt with annoying their customers far more than most companies.
major ones in some peoples' eyes. First the business version came on my laptop, but since I had plenty of money at the time, I got the Ultimate upgrade. Well thats been a disappointment as my Sony VAIO laptop has two graphics chips in it. A high end NVidia one which makes the graphics scream, but makes the computer hotter than hell, and a then a slow Intel i810. So I always keep it on i810, esp since I'm running FreeBSD which doesn't have very much control over the ACPI, ie it gets hot anyway.
The second problem was the price for something that wasn't much of a difference from XP as far as I can see, but perhaps I just don't care about the advanced features. The Ultimate updates have really never come, so that upgrade was worthless.
But as far as the OS itself, I think they did a good job on it. I only ever had a couple blue screens which were caused by the USB subsystem and were patched quickly. I also found that the only programs that don't work on it (that don't need special drivers) are DOS programs that require full screen display. And finally now I even have a driver for my 10 year old printer. So in the end it hasn't worked out so bad.
But perhaps thats more a reflection on Sony providing all of the needed drivers, updating them, etc, and making a really good laptop. I try to use FreeBSD when ever possible, but I have a couple Windows-only engineering programs so I need the dual boot.
So why their certified those faulty drivers?
Most drivers carry the log "Made for Vista" with digital signature provided by MS. That is supposed to have some QA, isn't it?
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Why would you want a new kernel in it? I do kernel development on a daily basis and the NT kernel is by far the best in popular use.
XNU is an ungodly slow mess of code with so many redundant APIs at every level that it's not even funny. Take a look at L4 to see microkernels done right -- hint, it was created to be a less retarded Mach.
Linux is poorly documented, has little to no code reuse, no real design (leading to modules being rewritten to fix bugs and design flaws while introducing even more), a ton of race conditions (causing stability and security issues), and scales very poorly in an SMP setting (the BKL is a joke).
Solaris is quite nice, but it's not used nearly enough. I've heard good things about the kernels in the BSDs, but I don't have enough experience to talk about them.
A lot of Windows is horrendous, but people talking about the kernel as this terrible thing need to learn what the NT kernel actually does and assign blame where blame it's deserved -- base services and shittacular drivers.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
It's not well known, but the officers uniforms were actually designed by Hugo Boss, that's why they look sharp.
But why not pick at least a few users that didn't like to talk about how much Vista sucked? The "after" part made sense: the previous haters were now lovers. Still, if you leave after the first part of the commercial ("Bathroom break!"), all you'd have heard was how bad Vista is.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Nazis were pretty sharp dressers, but the Italians gave them a good run
He couldn't be German. His sentence at the end does not his verbs have.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
WTF? Operating systems are supposed to have two interfaces - an API and a DDI. MS fails at both.
Their technical problems are directly related to their legal problems. They can't be a neutral vendor of systems code while they're competing in the apps market.
Sure, Linux can be a pain in the ass to support, but usually it's a relatively simple build issue. And part of the pain is overly tight control of source code. With MS, there's simply no insurance that your technology will work with theirs.
For anyone who hasn't been paying attention for the last two decades, MS IS ROTTEN TO THE CORE.
No, instead MS adopted their normal "fuck you all" attitude and forced a new, ill conceived driver model onto the IHVs.
Sure, XP driver support would probably not been a good long term solution, but it would have been a good idea for a year or two: enough time to make the transition slicker.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Every printer, network card, scanner and camera I've installed on Windows in the last ten years has tried to add useless dummyware on top of the driver.
You install the driver, then there's a "print manager" that has extra options, ink monitoring, visual queue monitors, and tons of crap that most people never need to do.
Of course, it also takes up residence in the system tray, in case you need dummyware at a click.
It's like our society in general. By attempting to pander to the stupid, it puts the smart in difficult positions and makes life worse for everyone.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
It's good to be the King
It's a very poor ripoff of MAC OS.
It's funny; one of the reasons I switched to the Mac was that I looked at Vista and thought, "well if I'm going to be running OSX, I might as well run the real thing."
Read the whole post, please.
I clearly state that I used the included Anytime Upgrade DVD to perform a full, clean install. No OEM disc, I can use that same disc to reinstall Vista Ultimate on my desktop, by simply entering the correct license key.
Yes, I've tried it. Yes, it worked.
Another case of HUAS.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
One thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned much is that if you have vista and a Windows 2003 R2 or later file server (or another vista box) they can use SMBv2 to communicate/share files with. This has vastly improved performance over WAN links...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Saying Vista has problems is like saying George W. Bush is a few fries shy from a happy meal.
Yes, yes, yes, Vista = problems
Of course, for Microsoft to admit that, it took what, uh, XP sales still surpassing Vista's? or the fact that most people downgrade from Vista to XP? (I should say Upgrade.. :)
It's a crappy OS, takes too much resources, let's not even go with all the stupid security windows, etc..
It is said that we can learn from anything, even failure, well Microsoft, Vista should be a heck of a classroom of a lesson for you, that's for sure!
I think sometimes that Vista is to Microsoft, what "New Coke" was to Coca Cola.
A big mistake.
Yep, I have seen the published kernel docs for Windows and can agree with what you said. Between the kernel and user is a lot of crap which is wrecking the experience. Putting the GUI into kernel space was a performance improvement in NT4 days but it immediately meant that the GUI and the graphics driver became tightly bound and easy for their interaction to bring down Windows.
See my journal, I write things there
Because I wanted to be certain, I looked on Wikipedia.
Specifically, it says the SS uniforms and the Hitler Youth uniforms.
That's what the Unix people like to say all the time, but it's not very helpful.
AFAIK for Desktop users there's very little difference between rebooting and restarting X.
They lose all their unsaved work - since most of it is still in apps in X. And the last I checked if you restart X, the apps die. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
Sure it's not a big problem for people who just use X as an interface to ssh and screen, and for some browsing. But I heard there's this push for "Desktop".
In the old days Windows 95 ran on MSDOS, if it hung, even if you could get it to exit to dos and then you type win to start it back up, it's still not very helpful to most people.
The revised zune has taken the mp3 market by storm has it? Taken a chunk out of iPod sales? Oh wait, it hasn't.
MS worsed enemy isn't Apple or Linux, it is MS. MS wasn't loosing Vista sales to Apple or anyother OS company/provider, it was loosing Vista sales to XP, its own product.
That is REALLY REALLY scary for a company, after all, yes they COULD copy more of Apple or whatever other product but you can't make a copy of your own product without people wondering, if it is the same, why should I buy a new one?
Vista, as many predicted, turned into Windows ME and people just didn't upgrade and then slowly just stayed with what they had and decided to wait for the next version. MS can't have that, forget the home user, it means billions in lost sales if industry decides not to upgrade. Sure sure, they get Vista with each new PC, but MS has been counting on upgrade sales that now just ain't coming. Worse, MS had this offer where you could suscribe to upgrades. One of the reasons Vista launched earlier for business is that they needed to have a new product out to allow all those companies that had subscribed to actually update just ONCE.
Do you think that in future companies would be less willing to believe MS on a similar upgrade program? That is a lot of lost sales.
And now MS has to fund the development of a new windows, that is promised for 2010 but lets face it, when has MS ever launched on time? Worse, what if it again is a dud? Sure sure they promise lot of new stuff, but they always do that and never once have been able to deliver.
MS still is very rich, but the cracks are showing, it is no longer the darling of the stock market, it has had to pay dividend because its increase in price was no longer enough to keep shareholders happy. MS got a lot of money and a lot of money coming in but it is also bleeding money like mad. The 360 finally managed to beat Sony only for Nintendo to popup again out of nowhere. So MS will have to fight yet another round that might NOT turn a profit straightaway on that market. The Zune still ain't doing well. There is no Microsoft music store that anybody uses. Its office suite is under near constant attack. Netbooks can't run Vista but can do Linux. Apples market share is constantly increasing. Vista can be as easily pirated now as all previous MS software.
The real problem that MS has? That they got far to many problems to list. But the biggest is simply that they are to big to really feel the effect of their failures. Billy boy and dragged out into the streets for Vista or Zune or MSNBC or live search etc etc. MS bleeds some money but the company survives easily and that means they never adapt, never learn from their mistakes. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. But what is also true, that which doesn't hurt us, doesn't force us to change.
Apple on the other hand has felt the bite of failure and has changed because of it. That is what created the iPod and OS-X, because they screwed up before and felt it, so they learned from their mistakes and improved on it. Yes Apple is heavy-handed with its customers and denies problems, that is because so far that attitude hasn't hurt it. Its customers tend to forgiving in that department.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He couldn't be German. His sentence at the end does not his verbs have.
Does that mean Yoda was a Nazi?
Reason #8 that Vista sux is that they built it chock-full of internal DRM that simply wastes CPU cycles and memory trying to prevent you from using your hardware as you may wish to use it. This was never Microsoft's job to do, and I find it curious that this design decision doesn't even get passing mention. Makes me doubt how sincere and forthcoming he has actually been about the rest of the issues.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Windows 7 won't have these problems! It'll fix everything!
But really. Blaming everyone but Microsoft? The drivers, when they deliberately changed the driver model at the last moment so XP drivers wouldn't work? What?
http://rocknerd.co.uk
a.k.a. Windows Vista.
I like the bit where he complains about the crapware and payments:
I've worked in one of the vendor companies. Why do you think that places like Fujitsu Siemens, Dell and the like have the tag lines that say "[Insert company] recommends Windows Vista® [pick a version]"? It's because Microsoft give them kickbacks and payments for it!
Where's the difference between saying "Yes, use Windows Vista [version] because we get paid" and saying "Yes, have this 'useful' bit of junk on your machine because we get paid (a proportionally smaller amount, because it's a smaller app)"?
Linux is poorly documented, has little to no code reuse, no real design (leading to modules being rewritten to fix bugs and design flaws while introducing even more), a ton of race conditions (causing stability and security issues), and scales very poorly in an SMP setting (the BKL is a joke).
Your statement above indicates only one thing to me - you know nothing about Linux.
There is as much documentation for Linux as there is for Windows, it's more of a case that most users of operating systems just cannot be bothered to read books, program documentation or search web sites when they encounter a problem.
No code reuse??? You're kidding me, right? That's the *whole point* of the GPL, that code *is* reused!
No real design and race/stability conditions? Again, you clearly show your ignorance. Yes, I agree that hardware vendors do not support Linux as well as they do Windows when it comes to drivers but all that means is that because of a need to backwards engineer drivers, some Linux drivers do not have the equivalent functionality to Windows ones. But that's not a fault of Linux, it's a fault of the hardware vendors not handing out specifications.
As a power user of Linux for 10+ years now, and Windows for longer, I can honestly say that I have rarely seen Linux crash as a result of a driver problem - and even then it's happened because of a kernel that I have myself compiled, at which point I just boot into the old kernel again and just do some investigation. Yes, I've had lots of standing around waiting for a new kernel to come out so that an included driver will have the functionality I need, but that's nothing to do with stability.
Yes, Linux does have its problems, just like any other OS. But it's you that is treating it as a "threat" to your beloved Windows, not anyone else. And if you're going to make statements like you have done, then please be prepared to qualify them properly - otherwise you yourself will appear to be a zealot.
I work for a telecoms company that produces major PBX and call-centre reporting systems and just about all of our products now run on Linux. Much of that has to do with the world moving away from commercial UNIXes to Linux, but the fact is that any attempts (in the early days of our migrations to commercial OSes) to migrate to Windows for anything but the smallest systems failed. Windows *does* have a place when it comes to integrating client applications into a customer Windows network - but the fact is Windows is too big and bloaty for this kind of application whereas Linux can be optimised and streamlined much more.
In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
UAC is NOT poorly implemented. UAC implementation is much better than Linux's sudo. The programs are poorly implemented assuming administrative privileges for everything!
No. Only that he was German.
theefer
You have a hardware problem ...
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
...if you don't. With regards to third parties, Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place. They are the dominant operating system vendor. They can't exactly lock out third party developers or pull the kind of crap that Apple is doing with iPhone devs.