The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed

Posted by Jason Hiner @ 4:21 am October 6th, 2008

Excerpts taken from : http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10303


On Friday, Microsoft gave computer makers a six-month extension for offering Windows XP on newly-shipped PCs. While this doesn’t impact enterprise IT — because volume licensing agreements will allow IT to keep installing Windows XP for many years to come — the move is another symbolic nail in Vista’s coffin.

The public reputation of Windows Vista is in shambles, as Microsoft itself tacitly acknowledged in its Mojave ad campaign.

IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have put Windows 7 on an accelerated schedule that could see it released in 2010. That will provide IT departments with all the justification they need to simply skip Vista and wait to eventually standardize on Windows 7 as the next OS for business.

So how did Vista get left holding the bag? Let’s look at the five most important reasons why Vista failed.

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista

Apple’s clever I’m a Mac ads have successfully driven home the perception that Windows Vista is buggy, boring, and difficult to use. After taking two years of merciless pummeling from Apple, Microsoft recently responded with it’s I’m a PC campaign in order to defend the honor of Windows. This will likely restore some mojo to the PC and Windows brands overall, but it’s too late to save Vista’s perception as a dud.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched

In 2001, when Windows XP was released, there were about 600 million computers in use worldwide. Over 80% of them were running Windows but it was split between two code bases: Windows 95/98 (65%) and Windows NT/2000 (26%), according to IDC. One of the big goals of Windows XP was to unite the Windows 9x and Windows NT code bases, and it eventually accomplished that.

In 2008, there are now over 1.1 billion PCs in use worldwide and over 70% of them are running Windows XP. That means almost 800 million computers are running XP, which makes it the most widely installed operating system of all time. That’s a lot of inertia to overcome, especially for IT departments that have consolidated their deployments and applications around Windows XP.

And, believe it or not, Windows XP could actually increase its market share over the next couple years. How? Low-cost netbooks and nettops are going to be flooding the market. While these inexpensive machines are powerful enough to provide a solid Internet experience for most users, they don’t have enough resources to run Windows Vista, so they all run either Windows XP or Linux. Intel expects this market to explode in the years ahead. (For more on netbooks and nettops, see this fact sheet and this presentation — both are PDFs from Intel.)

3. Vista is too slow

For years Microsoft has been criticized by developers and IT professionals for “software bloat” — adding so many changes and features to its programs that the code gets huge and unwieldy. However, this never seemed to have enough of an effect to impact software sales. With Windows Vista, software bloat appears to have finally caught up with Microsoft.

Vista has over 50 million lines of code. XP had 35 million when it was released, and since then it has grown to about 40 million. This software bloat has had the effect of slowing down Windows Vista, especially when it’s running on anything but the latest and fastest hardware. Even then, the latest version of Windows XP soundly outperforms the latest version of Microsoft Vista. No one wants to use a new computer that is slower than their old one.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista

It’s easy to forget that when Microsoft launched Windows XP it was actually trying to change its OS business model to move away from shrink-wrapped software and convert customers to software subscribers. That’s why it abandoned the naming convention of Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and instead chose Windows XP.

The XP stood for “experience” and was part of Microsoft’s .NET Web services strategy at the time. The master plan was to get users and businesses to pay a yearly subscription fee for the Windows experience — XP would essentially be the on-going product name but would include all software upgrades and updates, as long as you paid for your subscription. Of course, it would disable Windows on your PC if you didn’t pay. That’s why product activation was coupled with Windows XP.

Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP simultaneously in 2001 and both included product activation and the plan to eventually migrate to subscription products. However, by the end of 2001 Microsoft had already abandoned the subscription concept with Office, and quickly returned to the shrink-wrapped business model and the old product development model with both products.

The idea of doing incremental releases and upgrades of its software — rather than a major shrink-wrapped release every 3-5 years — was a good concept. Microsoft just couldn’t figure out how to make the business model work, but instead of figuring out how to get it right, it took the easy route and went back to an old model that was simply not very well suited to the economic and technical realities of today’s IT world.

1. It broke too much stuff

One of the big reasons that Windows XP caught on was because it had the hardware, software, and driver compatibility of the Windows 9x line plus the stability and industrial strength of the Windows NT line. The compatibility issue was huge. Having a single, highly-compatible Windows platform simplified the computing experience for users, IT departments, and software and hardware vendors.

Microsoft either forgot or disregarded that fact when it released Windows Vista, because, despite a long beta period, a lot of existing software and hardware were not compatible with Vista when it was released in January 2007. Since many important programs and peripherals were unusable in Vista, that made it impossible for a lot of IT departments to adopt it. Many of the incompatibilities were the result of tighter security.

After Windows was targeted by a nasty string of viruses, worms, and malware in the early 2000s, Microsoft embarked on the Trustworthy Computing initiative to make its products more secure. One of the results was Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which won over IT and paved the way for XP to become the world’s mostly widely deployed OS.

The other big piece of Trustworthy Computing was the even-further-locked-down version of Windows that Microsoft released in Vista. This was definitely the most secure OS that Microsoft had ever released but the price was user-hostile features such as UAC, a far more complicated set of security prompts that accompanied many basic tasks, and a host of software incompatibility issues. In order words, Vista broke a lot of the things that users were used to doing in XP.

Bottom line

There are some who argue that Vista is actually more widely adopted than XP was at this stage after its release, and that it’s highly likely that Vista will eventually replace XP in the enterprise. I don’t agree. With XP, there were clear motivations to migrate: bring Windows 9x machines to a more stable and secure OS and bring Windows NT/2000 machines to an OS with much better hardware and software compatibility. And, you also had the advantage of consolidating all of those machines on a single OS in order to simplify support.

With Vista, there are simply no major incentives for IT to use it over XP. Security isn’t even that big of an issue because XP SP2 (and above) are solid and most IT departments have it locked down quite well. As I wrote in the article Prediction: Microsoft will leapfrog Vista, release Windows 7 early, and change its OS business, Microsoft needs to abandon the strategy of releasing a new OS every 3-5 years and simply stick with a single version of Windows and release updates, patches, and new features on a regular basis. Most IT departments are essentially already on a subscription model with Microsoft so the business strategy is already in place there.

As far as the subscription model goes for small businesses and consumers, instead of disabling Windows on a user’s PC if they don’t renew their subscription, just don’t allow that machine to get any more updates if they don’t renew. Microsoft could also work with OEMs to sell something like a three-year subscription to Windows with every a new PC. Then users would have the choice of renewing on their own after that.

Will your company eventually migrate to Vista? Take our poll.

This article was originally published in the Tech Sanity Check blog (subscribe via RSS or e-mail alert).



This post has been edited by Flex: Oct 7 2008, 01:51 AM

Using Vista Ultimate with no problems at all though...

hmmm....

same here

XP is better than vista... but i like vista interface

The above article didn't mention that Vista had any major problems but more towards why it failed being mass adopted operation system which it supposedly to replace Windows XP.

'IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista.'

This post has been edited by Flex: Oct 7 2008, 02:04 AM

It's the same thing when they 1st launched XP....
Most programs isnt compatible with the new OS yet, that is why organizations havent changed.

Vista is seem like another version of Win Me (to fill the gap between the Win98 and WinXP). . . to fill the gap between the WinXP and Win 7. . .

Vista is kinda like WinME... It's there for not much purpose other than to fill in a timeline...

Get your shields ready for the Vista fanboys tough

But then it's been more than 21 months to date since it's official launch in January 2007.

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Added on October 7, 2008, 2:10 am expected coming in soon...

This post has been edited by Flex: Oct 7 2008, 02:10 AM

i hope windows 7 will fix all the vista problems........

Good article but thats the same thing that happens when they try to create a change.

Probably Vista will have updates to make it faster and better we won't even have to update to Windows 7.

Oh? Honestly tell me, how many people here SAW the commercial or even considering on using MAC in the near future. This is just a red herring. Mac has their own target users, and Windows has their own. I can say the same thing about Mac vs Linux where a cheap OS can do all the stuff that an expensive one can. It's a non issue, and the article writer must think that we are stupid enough to believe it isTrue enough, but then again Vista was never targeted for teh netbooks and such. It was built so that it can fully utilise the new technologies, like the multicore processors that XP has problem adapting to. And remember, XP has been around for more than 5 years, thus it's easier to utilise. Then again, if I want to use a netbook, won't Linux be a better option? A custom build one would be faster than XP on the same machine.O'rly? That's just pure bullshit. On a multicore (quad core mostly) Vista was proven to be more faster and stable. Heck, the way it's built, memory management is now better, and you are less likely to get memory leaks. Want to compare speed? Try turning on an XP PC and VIsta, and leave it for 3 weeks, and see which is more responsive after that. Heck, just use multitasking, and see which is more responsive. And remember, those "bloats" are ones that the CONSUMERS asked for. Why he didn't compare it to server 2008? It shares the same core as Vista, and yet because it's a server and don't need most of the things that a consumer OS needs, it has more or less the same line of coding as XP has. Err wha? Do this guy even read PC articles? During the XP lauch, they were ALREADY MAKING CODES FOR LONGHORN. And whose fault is this? Certainly not the OS. Microsoft had given MORE THAN AMPLE TIME for developers to fix their softwares. They are just too lazy. Take IBM for example. 1 year before Vista was launched, they fixed all their softwares to be Vista compatible. I knew because I was freelancing for them at the time and we had to convert the codes. A tedious task, but when Vista was fully launched ALL IBM softwares was fully compatible with Vista.
And Unix also has UAC. Go figure.I lol'ed. There is no truth in that. Why? Read at the bottom

The article writer is certainly in denial. The new windows subscription model is not only featured in Vista, but now in XP SP3. Thus whatever problem they have with Vista over subscribtion, it would be the same with SP3. and honestly with the way XP is being exploited by the hour (it's still the leading OS that holes are being breached everyday), SP3 is a must. Even my place of work are now getting Vista because they noted the department that has been using them has less report on PC problem (virus, OS related to user error, etc) than any other.
And why are they championing too much on Windows 7? I mean if they take the time to LEARN about it, they would found out that it's
- Vista, with different UI
- Vista, with new File System
- Vista, with DX11
- Vista, well it's just vista, but with new look.
In other words, they are just hyping something that they do not understand in the first place. And honestly, the way the build for Windows Vienna/7 is churning out, it would be a miracle if it's even reach beta next year, let alone RTM in 2010.
And ever SEEN the mojave ad? It was not a failure. It just prove that when ppl don't know what they are using, surprise can be cruel.

This post has been edited by linkinstreet: Oct 7 2008, 09:59 AM

i love Vista oni for d GUI...

Haha for me..Seriously Vista is Faster than XP..
Vista 1GB with X2 is enough edy for smooth.Now me running 1GB RAM only..my 1GB sticks spoilt
Everything smooth.EVEN SMOOTHER THAN XP!..
Although ram left about 300MB

heheh....another nail for vista.

seriously, i wouldn't use an OS that requires at least 2GB of RAM to function with good speed. heck, i've never recommend vista to any of my client. it's just too bloated for standard business use.

i'm pretty sure"fancy-interface" is not a part of "friendly-interface". "friendly" does not mean "fancy".

microsoft should really stop putting "fanciness" in all their new updated software and starts putting more "usefulness".

Why? Honestly RAM is so cheap that I found it a stupid reason not to get 2GB ram. And honestly it has better RAM management than XP, thus it's still better than XP on 2GB. Really, who in the world still uses less than 2GB of RAM today?
And have you ever USED vista before? It's more intutive and friendlier than XP has ever been and would be. Remember the UI was done after feedbacks from countless of people. And honestly if you hate the UI in Vista, you would never want to use Windows 7

Vista oni using 1.7GB of my ram...
itu pun time stressing...
if play crysis pun not all utilize...
lagging summore...
how r??

I lol at people who doesn't have any idea how Microsoft marketing works... The first release of Windows XP was critized just as bad as Windows Vista now...

With all the "bad news" about Windows XP, eventually more and more people are adopting Windows XP shortly after the release of Windows new service pack, SP1, SP2 and latest SP3... The "bad news" about any Windows operating systems is the real force for consumers to stay put supporting Microsoft main income.

While you retards argue whether Vista or XP failed, Microsoft kaching the pocket with more millions on sale of both operating systems. Any news about Windows operating system is good news for Microsoft, coz people keep adopting to see whether the rumors are true or not. Eventually customers found out that most of them are totally crap.

Good luck guys - don't be a fan boy. Adopt a Windows operating system today, be it Vista or XP.

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Oct 7 2008, 11:04 AM

Hmm... then I guess ~90% of the world's professional software developers and system administrators must be so dumb, stupid and in denial that they don't like Vista...while the fanboys, who are actually the smart ones...

One thing I don't quite get is the multiple steps I need to click on to get to manage network connections...

Network Sharing Centre does not seem particularly helpful.

you are not getting the point of this article. Of course your PC is running vista fine right now. After it has been released for more than 10 months. Hardware power already increased and most bugs fixed.

If microsoft would have released vista in current state, adoption level would have been much higher. Like said in the article, vista doesn't run well in old machines. At least with XP, it run acceptably on old machines. That is a big difference cause corporations wouldn't need to buy new hardware.

I can say the same thing with XP when it was released, and yet it was not a failure. So?

how many business machine (clients NOT servers) are using 2GB ram? stop talking with your "home user" attitude. again, stop commenting "vista is cool" when you are only seeing the "home user" scope.

yes, i've used vista lots of time. i've found it to be too buggy when dealing with network monitoring/management environment. so what if RAM is cheap, an extra 1GB RAM upgrade for 400 machine is still not cheap, kid. so if RAM is cheap, i should waste resource buying more?

a good OS is an OS that utilized little RAM so that your application gets RAM priority.

^ do you even take Computer Science? from what you posted, you know nothing about good operating system design.

Dont agree here,vista runs faster than XP in fact.Booting time is much faster than XP.

both hav pros & cons... in fact, vista juz a lil buggy cause it still in development... it juz microsoft error for releasing it too early to compete with other os maker...give it a lil more time, xp also need 2-3 years to become stable

if u dont like vista, juz switch to xp & wait for vista to become stable. no need comparison as both os hav their own uniqueness..

hey..it's already stated in the article. Old program compatibility.

When XP was out, it does have problems running old programs but at least it run a lot more old programs than vista did. With vista, all old antivirus will not run anymore. I remember symantec and mcafee having problems getting their vista antivirus running properly.

People with business software wouldn't want to change if vista can't run their program properly. That's important for business. Home users can format their machine like crazy. Also, vista's interface need some learning which working people doesn't want to spend time doing. With the ui from 98 to XP, it's not much changes. But from XP to Vista, lots of new UI relearning. Home users can spend all the time learning but not business users.

So, stop with your home user mentality level already.

Like I said earlier, is it the OS problem? If you have bothered to read my reply, you'd notice that the BETA testing for Longhorn --> vista took a long time, and during that time, if software developers had BOTHERED to update their products, compatibilty problem won't happen. And the article writer has serious memory issues. Many companies HAS problem converting from Windows 98 to XP, even more than Vista as the so called bloat that he said includes MORE backward compatibility than XP has over win 98 during it's release. To blame it on the OS is really retarded. Heck, I know a company that still has some Win 95 machine running because one of the software that they use won't work with newer windows. Is it the OS fault? Not really as Win 98 is considered to have the same core as Win 95, and yet it refuses to run. And because the company felt that the newer version of the software has no siginificant advantage, they felt that it's not worth it to upgrade. In the end, it's up to the company on which OS they chose, but it's never the OS's fault.
Oh, from what I've tested, Symantec never had any problem with their AV installing on Vista, just REALLY old ones, starting from Norton/Symantec AV 2005, which considering that at the time of the release of the OS, was considered too old to be taken seriously.

before i converted to Vista...i was a Xp fanz....i always said to people..Vista was not good la..this la that la....new hardware, more memory...not good for old comp...

later...i switch to Vista..i want to try....then...wow!!...i think i will never get back to XP.....if someone has older computer..just stick to XP..but if u have computer just like my siggy...its alrady enough to run Vista....

i feel the same when i switch ME to Xp...

Try getting CST or ADS to work properly in Vista...it's a real pain in the butt...

These softwares are just few among the many professional tools that companies and professionals rely solely on for their work... We are not talking about the usual antivirus, games or simple spreadsheet applications here, mate...

FYI, if you modify a new OS so much that it sacrifices compatibility with these existing million dollar applications, no company's going to buy it...even if it looks amazing and has 'rock-solid' security...

Thus which is why the long beta testing time. And honestly, if you put it that way, how would the future for this industry goes if they keep relying on that software considering that Microsoft themselves would be making new OS based on the Vista core? The way I see it they have to keep using an old OS then.

Frankly,every OSes initially also will comes with instability isues,its normal what?Like Xp last time also.Until now vista Sp1 runs juz fine on my pc.

at this moment...its really hard to compare with old software with the new 1.....
like windows 98 you can run on 512mb ram smoothly but when u change to window xp...can u run smoothly on 512?no rite?atleast 1gb....so its the same thing happen on vista.

yes,for now vista are not so good,but in future it might be as good as XP

Companies are looking to cut cost and boost profit margin, while Microsoft is also trying to do just that by hoping that these companies buy their 'new' software while in turn increasing their operational costs... Do you see the problem here? This scenario just won't happen. Period.

In order for this scenario to happen in a 'symbiosis' business state, Microsoft has to offer something more than good looks, solutions the companies' IT departments haven't already provided, or features that will increase productivity by at least ten fold...

If Microsoft can't provide that, then the loser at the end of the day will still be the big M... as companies can look for better and cheaper alternatives or, just keep everything the way they were...remember, they are still the customers in this business relationship. They can choose NOT to buy and you can't force them to either... Something you can clearly see in the current sales figures of Vista in the corporate arena

FYI, I am not a fanboy of anything and I speak of personal experience in the corporate environment.. IMO, if someone is ranting why people are dissing/not buying/avoiding the Vista craze, he/she definitely hasn't seen the big picture yet... but go ahead, argue and rebut all you want...

I don't care cos it's just software

Thing would just be like that,those company or school adoptions to the new OS would be actually much slower than home user/SOHO.So thats why my family nowadays cant find XP operating machine liao,all now vista ady.Only left my old pc running XP only.

Good point, but that is where the server OS comes in. By default it turn off every eyecandy and yet the core is still the same. Remember that people said the same thing about the "Ribbon" feature in Office 2007, saying that it makes them work slower, yet in time when they learned how to fully use it, office 2007 users now say they are doing job faster as Ribbon is more intuitive. The same with the way the OS gui is presented.
And remember, it's not JUST about Company and Microsoft. It's Company, Microsoft and 3rd Party Software/Hardware Maker. They will always use the introduction of a new OS to force people to change to a newer product. Case of fact, Canon admitted that they won't support older printers for Vista, because they want people to buy newer ones, NOT because they can't make drivers for them
Coming from a place where the common problem with the PC's here are usually spyware and virus that leads to slowdown when a worker had to send the PC in for inspection, installing Vista helps slow this down, and in a way, they have better output.

This post has been edited by linkinstreet: Oct 7 2008, 03:15 PM

one thing about vista that really sucks is the wireless bug. and it was really a pain to figure out how to solve it. so can dota with my housemates lol. otherwise i'll get 2000+ms lag every 60seconds+

i dun think is windows problem.
i can ply even c&c3wit LAN using hamachi wit no problem.

it is windows problem; it's the autoconfig service. it will automatically searches for network connection every 60seconds and that causes your ping to be unstable. in xp you can easily fix this by simply disable the service, but in vista i had to find optimizer programs and new driver for my wireless adapter. the driver that came in with the cd didnt work even though it specified that it works with vista. i guess they didnt count in the lagness for gaming.

but ofcoure for browsing or rather play Dota on either GG client or blue server i wont have lag, because it uses internet connection. do abit of search on google and u'll see alot of people encountered this as well.

From Business point of view, it is not advisable to change from XP to Vista as the current OS is more than stable enough already to be used for daily business activities. That is the reason why major corporations such as my company are reluctant to change from XP to Vista. Even the new HP lappies that my boss ordered comes with XP pre-installed though it is originally built for Vista

My company uses a lot of different softwares so changing OS is not an option as lot of our system are not compatible with Vista. To ask our system developers to tailor made our in-house softwares to be compatible with Vista + upgrading our current hardware to support Vista is NOT an OPTION as it is very costly considering the size of my company.

As for home users, it is very easy for you to switch as you only maintain one PC unlike big business which have a lot of PC's to be maintained. I used Vista before but i switched back to XP.

i dun think so since the xp core system is unungradable , switch to vista is needed
xp cant catch up new technology already , bug and virus can kill xp easily
of coz if u r using old school pc , u shld not upgrade to vista , vista is traget to catch up new technology not on old school pc , increase using resources is a must since proc ram is increasing as well
well vista failed for me juz bcoz it wont last long like xp but i still happy with vista for now , friendly user interface , better memory managment

First of all, it's not about whether XP or Vista or better, it's about "is it worthwhile to migrate to Vista at a price". For a commercial enterprise, especially a large one, costs and profits are very much concerned about. Would migrating to Vista increase sales? If it does, how much would the amount be? And does it suffice to cover up the costs for re-establishment? How about training costs? How much time is needed for staff to get used to the new operating system? There are so many questions that management has to ask themselves before making such a big move. If Vista couldn't provide a significant improvement over XP, no one single company would want to spend thousands of dollars to do what MS wants them to do.

The author is talking about how Vista failed to attract enterprise customer, not how Vista sucks. Get the point right.

one thing i dun understand...

the corporate/business users always say Vista not stable, incompatible with old programs...

so wat will they do when Windows 7 is out in, say, 2011?? still stick with XP???

ok, support for XP is till 2014, but by that time Windows 8 is out... which is still based on the Vista core, or perhaps an improved one... then wat do they do?? still stick with XP when MS dun provide support???

come on, wat's technology if we dun adapt and embrace the new stuff??? we will never improve if we refuse to use new stuff...

Finally i migrate from XP to Vista ultimate 32bit. I notice Vista startup really faster than xp. Many old and new software i used in xp can be use in vista no issue or problem. Before the SP1 were release Vista seem so buggy with many driver and software on my trial period of vista and revert back to xp. After Sp1 release i give it a try again and love it and dump my xp. The only problem i get was the sound driver Audigy4. Who i would blame CREATIVE.

So thats why you cannot claim that windows vista is a failure right?You know what?Actually vista has pros and cons also.So conclusion is,Vista is not a failure.

Vista is a failure. You just look around you, how many ppl is actually using vista? For that matter, around the world. I'd say forget about Vista already, when Windows 7 comes, vista-what?

Vista core...

so anything that u can't use in Vista will not work in 7 also...

Well , I can't comment on the RAM usage as Windows Vista caches it up to speed up system performance. Its normal however and the RAM Usage I find it to be okay (I would say Bloat in sense of the GUI , I find it bit annoying , some find it nice. It depends how you look at it)

In terms of graphics wise , I am forced to use Vista for my laptop because of my crappy X200 OpenGL Shaders (it sucks , nuff said). The beauty of Vista is that it allows OpenGL Instructions to be translated to DirectX , hence making it playable. This way I could play games such as KoTor on my laptop. Thats the other added advantage I can think of

The bad is I would say the horrible way of implementing the UAC. People find it annoying. It would be great if the UAC could remember our frequently done task (especially for the home users) , that way it would be less annoying.

Anyway , my oath is to use Windows Vista once SP1 is out and its out , so I am testing Vista to see how good. So far its pretty good as a HTPC (some of the HTPC hobbyists may disagree with me , saying that XP 2005 MCE is far superior compared to Vista. I have to agree , especially if you're on a tight budget). Vista is the first step taken by M$ to improve the overall computing experience (to make it more like OSX). Lets see how Windows 7 is going to perform !

This post has been edited by prasys: Oct 7 2008, 10:00 PM

I think 'some' people upgrade because they "kiasu" scared people will ask why still use old XP? . For branded pc's /laptops you got no choice coz they force you to use Vista. If you have the latest hardware of course you would like to use latest OS but if you are having an old pc whats the point to upgrade when XP is sufficient?

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Added on October 7, 2008, 11:03 pmFor business what extra benefits they gain from upgrading to Vista? nicer looking GUI and need to upgrade hardware as well? They will do it slowly due to high cost involved. My comp pc's all standard 256MB Ram for XP . If upgrade to Vista will have to wait until hardware is too old then only upgrade together.

This post has been edited by xchris: Oct 7 2008, 11:04 PM

agreed,im using ultimate 32bit..no prob at all

hmm....i'm pretty sure i'm making a living off "computer science" for the last 5 years.

in the working environment (where things really counts), i'd prefer my OS to have as little footprint as possible. an OS as bloated as vista is not very suitable in most "working" situation. i'm using my OS to run programs.....not using my OS to run....just an OS. i can do a lot more on a CLI only linux machine with 1 GB of RAM but i can't even get a decent speed running vista alone on the same machine. so why should i upgrade?

i see no reason why to improve certain aspect of XP, microsoft needs to revamp the whole windows. at least XP solved a lot of problem(especially on plug & play). what have vista solved? security issues? vista is still not the most secure OS yet.

heck, i'm not even complaining about the backward hardware incompatibility yet.

up to this day i still can't understand why vista does not have hyperterminal, can you explain that based on your so called "computer scientist" mind?

Why even open this thread about 'failure' . . . we all know Microsoft is moving on with the development of its next version of Windows...

BTW, I think post # 12 answers it all.

This thread just made my top 5 most hated threads.

Again and again...

"I'm using Vista since release. Now on 4 computers at home. 2 laptops, 2 desktops. Laptops - Home Premium. Desktop - Ultimate. Dell + HP. I am extremely satisfied with Vista. Problems? No. SP1 just made the butter even smoother."

ah.. finally someone has sounded

just because few people using Vista than XP ,it does no mean Vista fails.

but i think vista business is not good for me because it cannot install football manager 08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i find the communication of windows vista to windows xp using network neighborhood is slower then xp to xp and harder to master but i think after a few years i think i will master it

*i got my windows xp business with my laptop and i cannot change it to ultimate T_T

This post has been edited by -_-: Oct 8 2008, 03:01 AM

Yes...that does means vista fails. From business perspective vista failed to achieve target. That means FAIL. Just because you get F in your exam doesn't means you fail your test, is it?

Cutting things short, it's been 10 months (more in the US) since vista release. It failed like when XP was released. XP got earlier and better adoption (and definitely sales) than vista. A lot of vista sales depended on Microsoft's monopoly in the market. Or else it would have sold less.

Just because some people "have no problems" running vista means others doesn't. Look around and listen. Does more people say "Vista is great" or more people say "Vista sucks"? The sales already answer you that. Plus, the price microsoft is charging for vista is ridiculous.

Just like when it was Windows ME times. So many people complained about it. Yet, there are tons of people using Windows ME and also people saying "I am running WindowsME and I have no problems". Did windowsme failed or not?

you said it, it's "your preference" and "your preference" is not one of good OS design recommendation. Modern application that doesn't take advantage of the power of modern hardware is a waste of investment. What the use of running Linux-based OS with kernel 2.4 (or older) while you have a Intel CQD/PCI Express 2.0/Firewire 800? An operating system that doesn't utilize hardware resource as often as possible is a waste of your hardware capabilities. You better stick to your 486 CPU then

and you are comparing a full 3D-oriented desktop operating system with simple text-based UNIX shell? are you kidding me? If you want to stick to Linux-based OS, fine with me, not that I can't use it, but I prefer something that takes the power of my PC to the step.

btw, you never realized there are tailored Vista edition that is suitable for business environment - Vista Business Edition, the name suited the purpose

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Added on October 8, 2008, 8:56 amthe problem is who says Vista sucks? It's the anti-Microsoft community
Browse around project Mojave - see Vista without the prejudice of GNU community and alike.
Abubin - I know you're a Linux/UNIX fan, so you can stick with your "religion".

Windows XP sales is also depend on Microsoft monopoly of its previous predecessor, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 98 SE. You guys never realized this important fact, it is the same with Vista...
Pricing for Vista is ridiculous? you know that many of Windows XP users are using pirated copies right? Since when they actually buy a licensed copy of Windows XP? Unless it's an OEM, many Windows users out there use pirated/illegal copies of Windows XP.

counted properly, the sales of Vista > sales of Windows XP if you add this factor in the first place.

The hype of using Windows XP lately is because the price of licensing of Windows XP is going down since the mainstream support ended, not because Vista is expensive...

BTW, did you use Windows ME before, abubin? Or you just "heard" about it from someone else?

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Oct 8 2008, 08:56 AM

Agreed. Creative is a bunch of lazy arse...it takes them like a whole year to get a proper X-FI driver for VISTA out...

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Added on October 8, 2008, 10:39 amWell said....i can't understand what's the fuzz with Linux...it's crap...after months of Ubuntu, i finally throw it out of my PC...Linux is a fugly waste of time..

For me: MacOSX > VISTA > XP > All the crapp Linux.

Oh yeah, VISTA is great. There i said it.


This post has been edited by Matrix: Oct 8 2008, 10:39 AM

where you get that ? getting F in your exam means fail.
and in Universities you must retake the subject.


well honestly ...its true some poeple dont like vista .
but from my experience there are more people say "micro$oft sucks "(or "Steve Ballmer sucks".just joking ) than say "Vista sucks".

my bro use it on his lappy,its working great ,just some very small issues.

cheers

This post has been edited by murzark: Oct 8 2008, 03:37 PM

Excuse me? Do take a look at what Linux and Windows are meant to be used for. No normal end-user is going to use Linux for daily usage. I'm pretty sure they'll grit their teeth and try to b**** the least when using an OS that isn't user-friendly and less GUI intuitive. Linux isn't for everyone. Which is why Windows is still much more popular. And i'm sure a home end-user cannot be bothered to type in terminal commands when there's already an OS out there like Windows that only requires you to CLICK buttons and menus.

As it is, i'm satisfied with my Vista. I can still run programs and applications critics claim that i can't because "it's not supported" or because "Vista sucks". So where the proof that Vista isn't backward compatible AT ALL?

Do note that when it was released, Vista had way less bugs than XP had.

A lot of people forget that XP faced the same issues that Vista is facing now. Only now, Microsoft wised up more and there's less problems.

I just love when some of us doesn't want to admit that Vista is a failure. Yes , it does work fine but still its a failure. Its just like the transition from MacOS 9 to MacOSX 10.0 . When OSX 10.0 was launched , many Mac fanatics said that its a total failure , its a flop - basically its screwed up big time. Over time , Apple slowly started to improve their OSX Series and now we have Leopard. Its first step by Microsoft , certainly its not a good move. Thats why they are working on improving in Windows 7. Its normal

Windows ME is a total disaster. All it does is hang and restarts every now and then. Its not me that is saying that , a vast majority of users are saying that as well. Pretty much like our political arena. That is why most of the users continued to use Windows 98 , because of its stability. Because of the total failure of Windows ME , Windows XP was born. Its something like a placeholder for Microsoft. We saw new features from Windows Me such as System Restore , Windows Movie Maker and new multimedia stuff. These are the baby steps.

But Microsoft and majority of users should at least understand that Vista is a failure in terms of reaching market share. The adaptation of Vista in Malaysia isn't wide yet , especially in government sectors whereby people are still sticking with Windows XP or Windows 2000. So maybe in the next few years , once these folks upgrade their PCs and Windows 7 is out , we might just see the change. For home users , its a big leap as it gives the 'Mac experience on a PC'

basically - no compelling reason to upgrade, other than those who insist to have DX10.

for me, i personally would've stick to XP but no choice, i had to go Vista. and the USB issue was really dumb.

Wonder how they screwed that up. For all it's faults, at least it's not like ME. I see it as a testbed for new ideas from MS. If you can call them new.

well, basically when Windows 7 is out i think there will be articles like:

Why you should stick with Vista?

Top 10 bugs of Windows 7

7 is not for everybody.

Top 5 reasons why Windows 7 failed.

or perhaps

Why XP is still a legend?

There's juz no stop to this...

This post has been edited by astria: Oct 8 2008, 07:14 PM

i hope history will repeat itself.

remember windows ME?

vista situation is very much like ME now.
vista will b 1 of least remembered OS coz most of us will skip it.
just like how people went from windows 98 to xp last time.

well, wat a great OS xp prove out 2 b, i hope windows 7 will b as successful.

i think MS makes XP to be too successful...

many of the Vista only features become available in XP in a bid to prolong XP's life so that there's enough time to build up Vista...

if not for my mum, i would ve converted the only desktop in my home using XP to Vista as well...

an OS that uses more hardware resources for unnecessary "eye-candy" is even more useless. to use the "improve memory" feature of vista, i have to upgrade all my machine with an extra 1GB RAM.

"hardware power"? tell me, which business environment will always have the latest modern hardware?

vista business(yes i do know about it from several Microsoft seminars and running it on my own company laptop)? i've never even get preference from any IT professionals to install vista business on any of their machine. most of 'em prefers server grade OS or at least XP pro rather than any version of vista. why is that? did the statistics lie?

i'm NOT comparing 3d capabilities, i'm talking about business scopes. vista is just not a justifiable upgrade.

yes, YOU prefer to take YOUR pc power to the next step, so does that makes vista great? your scope is just too narrow man. i wonder what is your "good OS recommendation" including to your "computer scientist" mind? do enlighten me and perhaps i could persuade some corporate customers to upgrade to vista.

nowadays IT is not about latest tech anymore, it's about usefulness(cost & function). even cisco is loosing their market share on network equipments because their equipments are too overpriced compared to other brands with the same capabilities or even better(ever heard of Force10, they put cisco to shame). what have you to say about this?

that is the funniest statement in this thread(if not mindless).

update yourself to the real world man. vista is even more complicated to learn than XP for the average user. i trust you are talking from your experience within you home? give a vista machine to an entire account dept and see how much fuss they'll make over it.

linux is not point and click? which era are we talking about here? desktop wise, linux's X environment is even better looking than any windows provided you know how to configure it. linux already has the 3d desktop effect even during the XP era.

"a program made from passion is always better than the ones made for money"

note: i'm using linux as an example, not as comparison. some of you may have misunderstood this point. yes, i agree vista to linux is not an apple-to-apple comparison.

hmm, ve u tried Windows "Mojave" then???

oh, and u mean u would migrate to Server 2008 then??

This post has been edited by astria: Oct 8 2008, 08:00 PM

It's a different scenario. ME was still based upon the old win98 core, but was rushed because they wanted to release it before the year 2000. XP was based on the windows NT core, and was a new OS altogether.
Compared to that, it took Longhorn/Vista 5 years to develop, and all the time, it was delayed because of users like you and me complained ABOUT FEATURES IN XP.
And why are we waiting so much for Windows 7? I mean it's just Vista (again) with new GUI that you need new hardware to run. Heck, if i were you I'd stick to XP, as Windows 7 would never run on your current PCI agree, but then again, the what the article said was not even near the truth. The OS fail not because the OS itself has a problem, it fail because people are too entrenched with their current hardware to change.

This post has been edited by linkinstreet: Oct 8 2008, 08:19 PM

i agree only half.
how can u clap wit only 1 hand?

even all manufacture release vista compatible h/w, how many people will actually spend on new h/w just 2 upgrade 2 vista?

the main OS consumer aren't home users but big cooperates & companies.

ask urself, if u're the boos the a company, will u spends millions 2 buy new h/w for thousands of PCs in ur company wit no promise of performance increase?
i guess not.

B the time there would be vast majority of people would adapt to it. Its just like how people adapted from Windows 3.x to Windows 9x and then to Windows XP and now Vista. They aren't used with the so-called friendly user interface and others aren't bothered about upgrading their PC to Vista just because it kicks ass , as they would be thinking that its waste of money. On top of that , Vista is always stereotyped as something that is bloated. Old PCs would be turned into servers or paperweight. I am using my old Pentium III as a server , which has linux installed as I feel that Linux gives me more control over say Windows. On top of that License for Windows Server is way to expensive and I can't afford it. So my best bet would be linux.

Of course , now with the current economy crisis , you might expect Vista to fail even more. If recession occurs , god knows - the whole world would be in chaos. So , people wouldn't be spending their money on say upgrading your computer. I guess Vista's launch timing wasn't prefect. Oh well , it takes time for people to adapt from DOS to Windows. It just takes time and time. Vista is a baby step and again it depends on your how you view os. For me , generally if you want to do word processing , listen to music and uh say watch porn , it doesn't matter if you're on Linux , OSX or Windows. Those are basic stuff and you can pretty much handle it. Now from that you choose which path you want , a OS which has soo many softwares and games written for it and its widely used (Windows) , an OS which just works out of the box , has fancy graphics and its user-friendly and its hassle free (OSX) or an OS which you can tailor it according to your needs (Linux or BSD). So you choose , as there isn't any prefect OS out there.



As for Vista Fanbois , Vista isn't prefect and for vista haters , it isn't that bad. Its just like any other OS and it depends on how you view it and at which angle. Just think of it like humans. Oh yeah , I just hope they make it easier for me to change Wallpapers and Resolution in Vista. Its bit annoying that they have removed 'Properties' when you right click the desktop to change your wallpaper and resolution. Its bit annoying with the control center. Anyhow , thats just one of the cons

My 2 cents worth of though (Yes I used to be Vista hater , but I find it Vista to be the prefect OS when it comes to a HTPC)

Second that, I take Sarawak gov as an example, most of the state gov agencies here did request their new oem pc (which bundle with vista) to be downgraded to xp.

Reason.. many.. one of them, their current used software (such as older version arcgis, autocad and so on not compatible with vista) which if upgraded will cost a bomb...

This post has been edited by miloy2k: Oct 8 2008, 08:43 PM

nah ... no problem at all for me in term of workstation & gaming ... im using vista premium 32-bit ...

I didn't say it was point-and-click. But would you recommend it to a home end-user? I certainly wouldn't. Though in the end, Linux may be free, but you're paying for support. You pay tons for Windows, but support is given for free. Either way, it's still pretty much up to you how you want it.

Vista will take 3days at most to be reasonably familiar with if you put your mind to it. I had no trouble transitioning from XP to Vista. Would you like to tell a home user to transition from XP to Linux? They're sure as hell going to tear the hair out of their head after two days and shift back to Windows. Saying that it's complicated is just an excuse not to move out of your comfort zone.

and yet, the price is going down so much that companies are now buying new hardwares every 6 months or so. My department has 3 PC upgrades in the last 6 month, and just last month they are getting quad cores. Why? Because it's cheap when buying bulk.

err....1st you don't have to pay a penny for linux support. that's only for some more commercial oriented distro. 2nd, support for linux is easily obtainable through the net from several linux community sites. it's free dude. it seems that you know nothing about linux/open source and yet insisted to dish out negative comments. at least i have experienced vista business before actually commenting on it.

you forget, a person is controllable, but a community(a crowd), is not. yes, i can teach a single person to learn linux in a few days, but not a crowd.

then there's the mindset. linux is an entirely different OS. not tailored to same crowd as vista (as i mentioned, i'm not doing an apple-to-apple comparison between linux and vista). anybody who wanted to learn linux should 1st leave their windows ideals behind and learn from scratch. i can't say the same for vista. vista is still windows. people will think it's still windows and expect it to behave the same. a more apple-to-apple comparison would be:

1. transition from a red hat based linux(let's use an old one, RH9) to a debian based linux(let's use the latest one opensuse 11.0)
2. transition windows XP to windows vista

which one do you think is an easier transition?

seriously, for a casual officework/home-used machine, linux is no difference from winXP. any SMB company on a budget could easily migrate to it without the need for hardware upgrades. it's so much more easier to justify an upgrade rather than with vista.

i think this is coz we are using XP for too long.
once we are using Vista for a while, we will getting used to it.

My bad, i meant Linux distro support. Forgot to add that into my post yesterday. Thanks for the correction.

Other than that, going through official channels will usually mean you having to pay for support. Especially if you insist on using open-source. Not many companies have the time to dedicate goggling the internet for open-source solutions and support.



This post has been edited by Aoshi_88: Oct 9 2008, 09:11 AM

2 - 3 computers is different, how bout cooperation wit hundreds of PCs?
depends on department & usage also.

example, let say customer service.
basically u just need the pc 2 receive calls & read e-mail, absolutely no reason 2 upgrade so often.

you truly have no idea on how big the linux community is do you? you also seems to know naught about what you are arguing.......about,huh?

problems? what problems? as long as you update regularly, Vista works just as good as XP or even better in some cases. I for one am reluctant to throw away my Vista for XP.

Hell yes i have no idea how HUGE the linux community is and hell yes i don't know anything about what i'm talking about! You happy? Cuz i most certainly am!

But my points still stand.



But if a company WERE to switch to open-source software, tell me, how many of them would actually be able to troubleshoot errors and glitches by themselves? They don't HAVE the time. Which puts more strain on the in-house techies, if they had an in-house tech dept.



Again, Windows-toWindows transition is easy, Windows-to-Linux isn't. Hence my argument that open-source may not be the way to go. And i'm still standing by my point that it's up to you which direction you wish to go. I am not biased towards nor against Linux and Windows.



I don't believe SMEs would be able to just pick up Linux, force their employees to migrate and expect to run it perfectly the first time round. Hence why i said that most companies would be going through a third-party that provides business solutions. They can't do it on their own. The same pain would be less for corporate level companies with a good inhouse tech dept.

Such third-party companies provide consultation services, hardware and software support for the client for a fee. Which is why i said you still end up paying for Linux support.

But would you realistically expect the tech depts to teach the rest of the company how to transition? I think not.

EDIT: I'm giving my case a rest. It's not worth to keep nitpicking at all your points and refute them and vice-versa. I'll keep quiet from now on unless i see something which i can reply to. Wouldn't be nice to turn this into a flamefest would it?

This post has been edited by Aoshi_88: Oct 9 2008, 10:35 AM

i've stated before, this is NOT a comparison between linux & vista. a good company would hire a good linux tech to adopt linux(duh). however, a good company would need to hire a good vista(windows) tech and at the same time pay the cost for hardware upgrade to adopt vista(i'm not including license here). and yet vista is suppose to still be windows.

note: you can replace other PC based OS on the paragraph above and still my point stands valid.

seriously, most government agencies would better utilized their budget simply upgrading to open-source than to vista. the feel is still the same. remember, the point here is, vista is simply not a worthy upgrade for most SMB company and even for some larger enterprise company. it'll cause more problem then it solved. for home users, it's a totally different story.

yep i agree... vista not worth upgrade for company base pc.... but for home user its worth it...... becos GUI and dx10(dunno the diff wif dx9)....

windows and linux feels the same??? i really beg to differ...

to a technical user, yes...

to an average user who ve used windows for the last decade? i really dun think so...

if they really so called feel the same, MS would ve closed shop long ago...

btw, can someone juz close this thread for good? this is getting to nowhere...

This post has been edited by astria: Oct 9 2008, 12:40 PM

haha, yeah right. the government agency I know (couple of them, maybe lot's more) are using pirated Windows and softwares on their offices. Upgrade to open source my backside . Government is promoting the open source initiative, but how many of them agencies adopt open sources? still providing paid softwares to newly established offices. btw, I agree with astria, just close this thread, it's flaming all over the place...

This post has been edited by FarCry3r: Oct 9 2008, 06:48 PM

it wouldn't be flaming if some of you sticks to the topic. again, flush the home user attitude aside. it's all about business environment here, and yet there is still "the vista in my basement works fine" post.

OT(non-vista related):
do you actually think an entire account dept cares about the installation process of linux? no, they don't. most non-IT related dept only requires their machine to work with the software they are using. they don't care about maintenance, upgrade and what not, they just need a working machine. when it comes to this situation, linux is not much difference from windows. point-and-click is still the same. seriuosly, again, i've seen a fair share of windows user who can't even find their documents when it's not in "My Document" or the "desktop".