Just downloaded and installed OpenSUSE 10.3 today. Boot and shut down is twice as fast as Vista, and its SOOO refreshing to login to the desktop and have NO hard drive thrashing with 130+ services all fighting each other for CPU & disk access. Needless to say, the Vista partition just got paved over.

One word > "Ubuntu 7.10"

Can't WAIT!!!

nuff said ;-)

Joe I believe you key paragraph is this;

"Personally, I would never go back to using Windows XP, nor do I share some of the venom expressed about Windows Vista. But I do believe that Microsoft is paying dues for architectural changes, particularly around security, that have brought untoward hardship on customers, partners and the company itself. The circumstance is unfortunate, if correct. Improved security is one of the key benefits for switching to Vista. Businesses sticking with, or going back to, Windows XP will lose this important benefit."
----------------------------------------------------
I would disagree that the important "architectural change" in Vista is sercurity. Sercurity if anything was only a small incremental step in Vista, and as such missed the boat. In fact one could do a whole lot better with XP and a lot of the freeware/open source sercurity programs out there than Vista, sercurity wise.

The really important "architectural change" change in Vista was the wholesale adoption of DRM into it. One sees it everywhere when one tries to install programs like anything to do with multimedia or cd/dvd burning. One will have to get the latest versions of these types of programs to have any chance at all of getting something to work. So its really DRM that is causing the software incompatiablity problems in Vista, which most users are saying is the number one problem. DRM is coming back and bitting MS. Rightly so I might add.

Now while software incompatability might now seem to be a problem to those who never install these types of programs, it is to more of the power users. These are the people that MS will lose. Furthermore, buying a lot of newer 3rd party apps, just to make it work with Vista, when you already have the apps that work with XP, can cost a lot more than your new computer with Vista did. Not to mention the hassle of buying and replacing all those apps, that takes time and not all will have a replacement. So you start to see the problem, as DRM and not Security. Security was only a very small mostly worthless step in Vista, which has caused more pain than gain.

Sadly, MS should have not gone done the DRM route,and spent their time revamping XP with strong sercurity improvements, and then they would have had a good product. Vista like Windows ME, needs to be dumped, and a better product released, not based on Vista or DRM.

In IT world , the only constant is change.

If a product keeps evolve , it is the responsibility of the CIO and IT manager to take care and address its impact to the organization and its staff.

A lot of CIOs are overpaid as they can not address these problems timely

The reluctance to swtich to Vista manifest the imcompetance of our CIOs in this world

I after all this time just purchased a notebook with Vista Ultimate on it and yes it is going to take some getting used to after XP, but .... there is nothing wrong with it at all !!
2 GHz processor, 2 Gig Ram, 200 gig HD ....works like a charm !!

Joe,

Your article has gotten me thinking. About six months before Vista went on the market (May 2006), I released a research report about Vista's effect on the security aftermarket. Based on my testing of Beta 1 and additional analysis, among other things, I made the following high level predictions:

1. "Vista's Tighter Security Will Annoy Users. The security enhancements planned for Vista are the first major changes to the Windows security model since the introduction of Windows NT. They will be disruptive to end users and independent software vendors alike... Vista revealed that although the new security system shows promise, it is far too chatty and annoying for everyday use... Microsoft has privately acknowledged the company is still "fine-tuning" the balance of
usability issues with UAC. That's worrying this late in the development cycle."

2. "Lack of ISV Enablement Will Slow Adoption. Given how fundamental and critical least-privilege accounts are to the future of Windows security, it surprises us that Microsoft's typically polished ISV enablement programs appear to be an afterthought. Microsoft's online resources describe Vista's security architecture in detail, but devote little ink to helping ISVs enact the security changes needed to make their programs Vista-ready. And although the company's November 2005
guidelines for its Windows Vista "logo program" for software include four pages of high-level security requirements for ISVs, other supporting documentation and how-tos appear thin indeed. As a result, Yankee Group expects ISV enablement problems will severely hamper the availability of "Vista-clean" software for as long as 1 year after the initial release of the OS."

3. "The X Factor: Vista's Complexity and Code Quality... We do not believe... malicious parties will be daunted by Vista's new security measures --if anything, they will redouble their efforts. Yankee Group believes entities seeking to extend their illicit economic franchises will be partly successful by creating mass exploits that take advantage of: legacy Windows compatibility features, ActiveX, 32-bit kernel drivers, and new collaborative Windows functions... We believe Vista will successfully reduce the number of critical vulnerabilities endured by end users by a significant amount -- up to 80% -- and the impact of the remaining fraction will be sharply reduced. However, the Windows security problem will continue to be a permanent fact of life and Microsoft won't always be able to provide the mature enterprise management features enterprises want. As a result, third parties will always have a rich and robust aftermarket available to them to serve. "

I'd say I got #1 and #2 right, but these were fairly easy predictions. I'd say I got #3 partly right, in the sense that Vista's security track record has been pretty good. In the year or so that Vista has been out, though, I have been thinking more and more about the complexity issues of Vista. Namely: when does an operating system become so complex that it needs to be retired?

Vista is, by some accounts, 75 million lines of code. That is an astounding amount. Much of that code is devoted to backwards compatibility, or "thunking" code meant for older Windows systems so that it runs in Vista.

Thinking about this a little more: I've concluded that Microsoft's best strategy would have been to preserve XP's core code base in a virtualization container, and build a new OS, with new APIs, around it. This is essentially what Apple did with OS X in 2001: they built something most people would now call a virtual machine (the "Classic" environment) for running all of the old stuff. That gave developers a powerful incentive to use native OS X (Cocoa and Carbon) APIs for all of the new stuff.

What's ironic is that Microsoft already has some pretty nifty stuff in its research labs that could do the job. For example: the Singularity OS -- a microkernel OS which runs all user applications as managed code. Whether this would be suitable or not, I have no idea. But it seems to me that building a new OS from scratch, while providing a side-by-side "virtual machine" for older Windows code, could provide a graceful migration strategy while preserving compatibility with legacy apps and hardware.

John Gruber wrote a fairly provocative post a year-and-a-half ago about Apple's Boot Camp, in which he stated that "Windows is the new Classic." Maybe Microsoft should do the same thing?

"I spoke with a VAR buddy" - Thats some professional journalism right there.

Am I the only one bothered by the draconian control of our computers by the Vista OS. How can anyone be comfortable with a OS that can cripple his or her computer if Bill Gates thinks you are cheating. My computer is my computer, not Bill his. I wouldn't install Vista if Bill gave it to me for free.

i see Vista's future as a great freeware os.

Your comment about Dimdows being a "commodity" rang a bell with me. Neal Stephenson predicted this many years ago, in his essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line", when he claimed that there was no future in selling an operating system. I suppose many people thought he was out of touch at the time, but now the chickens have come home to roost.

I found it much easier to switch from XP to MacOS. I was a power user of MacOS in a matter of hours and got everything working from phone syncing to wireless networks and GPRS connection in a couple of hours since I opened the lid of my Macbook for the first time.
I was productive in an afternoon with Word, my web servers (already istalled), my databases and all the development environments I need: a good editor and Eclipse.
I tried hard to set up a GPRS Internet connection on Bluetooth after booting VIsta from the other partition of my drive but gave up.
The control panel has become way more complcated and there is no single place to tweak everything. The search box is a lot helpful, it's goot that Wndows has one too.
Today I boot Vista only if I must.

I disagree that M$ have to worry about the stability in the market of XP.

People will buy new PC`s....

If M$ dont sell XP any more but only Vista - what will they do then (alot of people will have XP OEM licences)? As much as i do like linux (i am learning) there is just no alternative then to buy what MS sell?

Dan

I have switched several customers & business over to Vista. They all love it. Networking is alot better as well.

Just downloaded and installed OpenSUSE 10.3 today. Boot and shut down is twice as fast as Vista, and its SOOO refreshing to login to the desktop and have NO hard drive thrashing with 130+ services all fighting each other for CPU & disk access. Needless to say, the Vista partition just got paved over.please, do the open source world a favor, and don't use OpenSUSE, there are better distros out there without supporting MS' henchman, Novell.

I just bought a Dell Dimension 9200 with an Intel Q6600 Quad-Core processor, 3GB of memory and 500GB hard drive. (This is from Dell Canada.)

The machine is smokin' hot! But I do have one complaint. The Task Manager shows that it's using 800MB of memory with no other application running! WTF?!

What the hell is Vista doing in the background that it requires 800MB of my 3GB of RAM??? I feel a bit cheated for having purchased so much memory.

XP was never so memory-hungry. No wonder businesses are avoiding Vista...

The machine is smokin' hot! But I do have one complaint. The Task Manager shows that it's using 800MB of memory with no other application running! WTF?!

It's caching data in case an application needs it later. It's actually a good idea, under the idea that unused RAM is wasted RAM. RAM is faster than the hard disk drive and if it can pull the code and data from the RAM instead of having to spin up the disk and seek to the location of the file and read it and load it up to RAM to use, then well, that actually is better.

this is just another stupid article written by a stupid jornalist.

LOL at this guy trying to be a journalist.

Time for a new career Joe. Bashing companies is something my 12 year old could do.

What grade did you get on this?

Hi Joe,

Illuminating post, as usual. Re: Vista -- it seems to me Microsoft has to move forward, regardless of the cost. The least-privilege paradigm has to become standard on Microsoft OSes. Until that happens, it will always lack that critical security element. Of course, they'll need to improve it a great deal from the horribly clumsy implementation that is UAC, and I have confidence Redmond will do that. XP simply cannot remain the de facto standard; it's a good, solid OS, but still has too many security holes. It could well be that Vista's successor, "Windows 7" for the moment, could the OS that gets it right. It wouldn't surprise me to see Vista mostly skipped, and plans made by the public (and, maybe, Microsoft) to upgrade to 7.

It's amazing that people are willing to believe that Microsoft will ever again get an OS right. Wait 4-7 years for a working OS with no problems, or use the ones that are available now which already have what we need, and which are free. And with the free open source OS's, you don't have a system that is basically controlled by big brother.

The time is now to switch, the writing's on the wall. Why tie yourself to a sinking giant?

This is my take on Windows, first I want you to think about " how many" software and hardware developers, manufacturers are out there trying to skim a buck from Windows. Now, assuming there are thousands, and there are, maybe more, right ? Yes, No, well regardless they all develop software and hardware and they all have drivers and related software that comes in from all directions and in ways you wouldn't believe. Now, let's assume they all work with Windows XXX, great, wonderful. Now let's evaluate how they work with each other and Windows, software, drivers and the mountain of other avenues, venues and abstract, backdoor ways you can focus on including backward compatiblity which is limited with Vista. How on God's green earth would anyone expect Vista to be without errors, problems and don't look for it to get better because Microsoft has NO control over the software or hardware vendors out there. They tried to verify by charging them money to have their drivers certified. This was just one aspect, it didn't float, they walked away and avoided any kind of certification, verification, activation and whatever other venues MS had in mind. The consumers were told, ignore it, install it anyway and being the good sheep that they are, they did it. Well, popups began, crashes began and MS had it's own set of idiots that got paid for work that was mediocre at best. Look folks, the problem is not you, not your PC, not your software, it's the numbers of various manufacturers that have climbed into the soup pot you created and now you have discovered there are NO fixes, no tums for the belly, no grind for nelly and definitely no way in hell MS is going to be able to fix anything soon. Let's not talk about extras that MS was going on about with Vista, those extras are so far off in the future, I'd bet you'll see another version of Windows first. So, now you say, well shakespeare,
you know so much, what the H do you think we should do about it ? Well, the choices aren't great but my choice is it's time to move on to an OS that has some manner of control over their OS, the hardware, configuration of all related software and hardware. Time to think about a Mac and NO, I've never owned a Mac, have no clue as to how to do anything with one but I do know they have more control over what's going on than MS ever will have and it doesn't take a nuclear mind to figure that out. This is not a plug for Mac but it sure as hell isn't any kind of plug for Windows nor bash either as MS is doing well enough
screwing themselves without any help from me.

Vista is a total wreck. Period.

As someone who had tested Longhorn from the early days of developement, I had high hopes of what it would eventually become. The LH project was reset and [re]developement continued. Still, the hopes were there. As the later Alpha and BETA stages progressed, it started to look as though the new OS would not live up to the expectations of the previous LH builds. I opted to stop any further testings.

I later received a copy of Vista Business from my work place. The sheer amount of bugs that still plague Vista today is astounding. The performance is horrendous. The system specs required to get a satisfactory experience from the OS is rediculous. I upgrade my machine 3 times a year to the latest and greatest to keep up with the ever expanding H/W market and I think it's absolutely absurd to HAVE to have a gaming rig to use this OS effectively.

To answer another article on here about how much I would pay for Vista, I received it for free and I still want a refund. 5+ years and 5+ billion in developement costs and Vista is what they come up with. Hopefully, Windows Seven will be better. Anything would have to be.

It's time for a rewrite and it's time to drop the legacy code.

Usage of Windows Vista without activation.
http://tunevista.net

TO MrCobra :

Quote; "Vista is a total wreck. Period.TooIt's time for a rewrite and it's time to drop the legacy code."

"As someone who had tested Longhorn from the early days of developement, I had high hopes of what it would eventually become."
------------------------------------------------------
MrCobra, your post struck a nerve here. Like you I mostly agree except, I don't think its time to totally drop the legacy code. I think MS could devel several operating systems to the public if they should chose do so. They have screwed up major big time with Vista and the wholesale embrasment of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Who else would want this but those with a Sony Bluerray or Toshiba HD-DVD player or more likely burner in their computer? And the fact that it will be highly crippled compared to a normal dvd burner in xp is not helping MS.

Longhorm could have made it, but Bill decided on DRM and short term money, and we got Vista, bummer.

Thats when I gave up on micro$oft and the longhorn project and others, and started looking elsewhere. Why be a partner or work for MS and they care nothing for you?

They have not loyality, not matter how much you do for them. The simiply are all about the bottom line, and care not for people.

So what is ewatch and Joe doing, playing Linux and MS off against each other as you suggested to increase readership? Perhaps. But then, they better get someone of a higher IQ than Neil to repo the MS line, as he just dosen't seem to have any idea how to chat with people. He only comes across as a troll which is why the public MS evanalistic will not respond to me. They know I will show them up as complete corporate moroms who only live for there next paycheck.

MS could do a lot of things, but they won't. Heck, I am in some sense almost if not, a softie, as much as I hate to say that. I have sujested some solutions, but MS with its shils/trolls continues to go the route that only will spell failure in the long run. But the route is not becoming one of a shorter run now guys. Even mini would have told u that long ago.

on second thought, just time for MS to just go away, and to gradually fade away, which if what their hard headed corpate menatality is leading them to. The die is cast. Linux is the future, free has already won, just noboday has noticed yet. Look at how much free open source software you are already running on XP? How much would it be to do the right thing and really run linux, the OS that dosen't crash or infect, and is the best open source improvement your could make.

We were considering upgrading to Vista, we tested it on a IBM T60 (3 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD, T7300).

But performance, interface, UAC etc.. has made us pull the plug on Vista for now.

A new round of test will be performed once Vista SP1 gets released. And hopyfully this will fall out to the benefit of Vista.

All newly machines are Vista "compatible" and comes with 3 GB RAM. So hopefully once Vista improves, we can perform the test again. And hopefully start upgrading certain laptops etc.

ish
You left out one important area ... the graphics card !
What was the graphics card you used ??
Without a good enough graphics card ... of course the performance would be slower.
And tell me ... what has the interface got to do with performance??
Or do you expect the UI as XP, if it did have the same UI there would be an even bigger cry out !!
As for the Hard Drive ... don't you think 80Gb of hard drive is a bit SMALL these days ?
Chips
You are full of it !!
Go away and dream some more mate !

I upgraded my 2 1/2 year-old computer to Vista Ultimate back in February. I did a clean install. It was the quickest, smoothest install I have yet had with Windows. Vista picked up most of the drivers and the few I had to install from my mobo's website were for Windows XP and worked fine. Windows update has since updated those drivers and everything works perfect. I am not having the problems so many others are. A couple months later, I built a new computer and purchased an OEM version of Vista Ultimate. Pretty much the same experience as with my previous computer. I upgraded, by clean install, my sister's 18 month-old Dell XPS laptop to Vista Ultimate. Again, no issues. Smooth as silk. Maybe I am just lucky, maybe some people just don't want to like Vista. Personally I believe it is simply that XP was out too long. Businesses and consumers got too used to XP and now don't want to deal with change.

But for the most part, I would just say it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you use OS X, XP, 2000, 98, VISTA, or any Linux distros of any kind. Whatever YOU are most comfortable with and feel secure with is all that really matters. Somebody somewhere is not going to like the OS you are using and they are going to berate that OS. They are going to tell you how it was slow and caught viruses and trojans and they couldn't find drivers. And they will try to make you feel foolish for using your OS. Don't listen, because if it works for you and all is going smoothly, you will enjoy your computing experience. Just keep it secure. And since we are heading more and more into web-based computing, it matters all the less.

By the way, I did try installing Vista on my own laptop, with poor results. It installed fine. It just kept displaying open windows poorly and leaving artifacts. So now my laptop continues to run Windows XP with no issues and I am happy with it. Also, I have no problem going back and forth between OS's.

@Rich Gowran:

What was your total cost, Time and $M?
Inquiry mind want's to know.

I Went the GNU/Linux route, hmm?,
maybe I could've saved a bunch of duckets ...

And yet, based on web usage stats, Vista is the most used OS other than XP, already passing OSX and destroying Linux and the like.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

And each month, Vista's share goes up about one point, and XP's goes down, while OSX and Linux remain static.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5

Vista doesn't represent a big enough change to warrant a faster upgrade rate, unlike the change from Win3x to Win95 or from Win9x to WinXP. And that's fine. Vista's share will increase, and its rate of increase will increase as well.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Vista-Is-Nothing-Compared-to-XP-Move-to-Mac-OS-X-and-Ubuntu-Linux-65786.shtml

Link is titled: "Vista Is Nothing Compared to XP – Move to Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux"

Quote from the link: "Consumentenbond (Consumers' Union), the top Dutch Consumer Rights Organization came to
the conclusion that Vista is not an alternative to XP following a four-week long survey in which the first question is "Heeft u problemen met Windows Vista?" (Have you encountered problems with Windows Vista?). There are two answers available to users: Ja and Nee.

n just four weeks, Consumentenbond gathered a total of 4,200 complaints related to Vista. The operating system has had everything but a smooth ride since it was launched at the beginning of 2007. The platform was plagued with a variety of problems. Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in July, acknowledged that Windows Vista was released into a world that was not 100% ready for it. The issues enumerated by Sievert are synonymous with the ones delivered by Dutch Vista users: software, driver, compatibility and poor hardware support."

Since I built the computers, I felt justified in purchasing OEM copies - Newegg $189 each copy of Vista. And like I said, it was a breeze to install, has tons of features, works perfectly and looks pretty. I have tried 3 Linux distros on my main PC. Ubuntu was a nightmare on that PC. Knoppix was so so. It seemed slow and buggy. Freespire worked the best. I really had no problems with it at all.

Personally I use and prefer MS Windows because I like the programs I have and can get for it. Office, Photoshop, Roxio Media Creator, etc. Plus I find it easy to work with and troubleshoot (admittedly due to familiarity).

Remember, my main point was that it doesn't matter what OS a person uses as long as they are a happy using it. If someone has the money and wants to spend $400 on a retail copy of Vista Ultimate, good for them.

Eventually the main point will be using the best conduit or portal for gaining access to your "desktop in the sky". Then very few people will be willing to pay for an OS. Maybe I will go back to Windows 2000 then! I am kidding of course.

@Rich Gowran:

Chalk it up as dumb luck, eh,:^?

"For Consumentenbond it rained with 4,200 Vista complaints in just one month."

See chips's link for further details.

Rich Gowran:
Thanks for the voice of reason! A breath of fresh air!

Neil:

Why did you have to spoil your insightful response to ish with a pointless taunt at chips?

You are capable of better posts--you just proved it. Unfortunately, old habits seem to die hard!

Some musings that keep popping into my mind, but I never see discussed. Not that I care about some of them, but seems to me somebody would have asked them somewhere . . . .

Anybody calculated the environmental impact of Vista? Seems to me that needing a more powerful computer uses more, um, well, electrical power. Not only power, but what of the electrical garbage when Mr. Throw-it-away chucks his old computer in the dump 'cause it doesn't run Vista so well? I've also read what a resource-hog DRM is (or could be, if what I've heard about current implementations is true), especially when decrypting HD movies . . .
Shouldn't the OS-makers be more concerned about doing more with less? Instead of . . . less. . . . with less . . .? I use OSX 10.4.10 with a paltry 512MB of RAM, a little 1.33Ghz G4 processor (no dual-core here!), and can do everything I need to do with it . . . even video editing (not HD) with no problems . . . granted, it doesn't boot so fast, can't game with it (don't game anyway, I read books) but hey, is anybody so pressed for time that they need that thirty extra seconds it takes to boot? Now, really, come on people. "My computer boots 30 seconds faster!!!" But I digress . . .

In consumer computing (and electronics), looks and style will eventually reign supreme. Of this Apple has been ahead of the curve for several years, and has been mocked (sometimes which was justified, i.e. the flower iMac, first versions of OS X) for the same. As the market for computers becomes saturated, hardware homogenized, the only difference will be style (ok, stability and security will still be issues, but then again, that hasn't hurt Microsoft's market share) This is what Microsoft has done with the look of Vista . . . and all the eye candy. A bit sweet for my eyes. And as people buy and use something because of its beauty, unconsciously or no, it becomes an extension of who they are. Witness the antagonism between Apple and Windows (and Linux) fan-boys which has gone from poking fun and jokes in past years to all-out flame wars replete with personal character attacks against strangers on unread and unimportant web pages. (uhhh, ok, I guess I, um . . . looked at them, heh heh)

@Andrew Jaquith, what a cogent post . . . right-on about the Classic point . . . Vista should have gone that route. I think I'll visit your website . . .

Regardless of Vista, computers will continue to become more powerful. And as technology increases, so will efficiencies. It doesn't matter what OS you are going to use, the majority are going to want more powerful computers anyway. Oh, and Mac OSX 10.5 has minimum system requirements almost identical to Vista.

And as for low system requirements, I can use Windows 2000, which has very low relative requirements, and pretty much do all the same "work" as I can in Vista. I would however have to go back to Office 2003, but it works just fine. But back in 2003, someone else could have said that they could do just as well with Office 2000.

Use what suits you Mac Fanboy, MS Fanboy and/or Linux Fanboy! If it works for you, enjoy your computing experience!

Oh my god the same system requirements as Vista well well well, no wonder the Mac people have been so silent.
Leopard the OS that was going to outshine Vista ...hasn't !!
Although I did go to the apple site and have a look and it seems as though OSX 10.5 has tried to "catch up" with Windows.
Spaces ... I prefer flip 3d thanks ! It does what Mac recons its supposed to do ... clear the desktop.
Time Machine .... System Restore
Finder .... Vista is unsurpassed
Etc. etc. etc.

Prediction: Leopard will be a relative non-event, making Vista look like an overwhelming success in comparison.

Rich
Leopard is just a money grab by Apple against the apple users who upgraded last year !

Neil
Not to beat a dead horse, but come on, I can get VISTA Home Premium for $112 (OEM). That is not all that unreasonable. And I didn't have to pay for a new version of Windows for over 5 years. Remember, the XP SP2 update was free, and most experts agree it was a new operating system. More so than Windows 98SE or Windows ME were to Win98.

I get a good laugh every time I read any comments that are obviously influenced by Star Wars or 1984. Once past the betas Vista has been extremely stable, fast and offers far more administration tools for me. I have been running it on slow older hardware to new high spec'd systems with minimal issues. Some of the comments I see remind me of the old IT farts that tell you that Windows DOS is still far superior than Windows XP in many ways and that they would be very happy going back to it. Hmm... no I obviously didn't know that running a search query in DOS is quicker but thanks for that tidbit. Also it is easy to dismiss all comments by someone that says that there are many operating system available out there better than Vista that are free of cost. Maybe for your personal home computer but that isn't the case for a fair sized company that would like a quality level of vendor and OEM support. Free support from Cliff's Linux and LAN Party Services company doesn't count. You complain about software compatibility with Vista? Good luck then when trying to port your apps to that "free" OS you are touting. You say that end users are complaining about the interface changes and popups between XP and Vista? Good luck with completely retraining them to function when your port them to the new "free" OS interface with no complaints. Hmm... I wonder if retraining your employees to the "free" OS is also free. You would have to also retrain or hire new support staff for the new "free" OS. This might sound bad but it is rare that I have seen a "free" OS technically knowledgeable person that doesn't look like that creepy guy two houses down that never opens his shades, turns on his lights and only comes out at night. I might have a hard time getting him just past an initial Human Resources interview.

I could go on and on but I would like to last point out that using a Dutch organization's statics of if they have ever experience a problem with Vista isn't the best thing to quote. Isn't this the same people that have legalized drugs? I can see it now... "Dude this flyer says we get a free magic brownie if we answer this questionnaire.". Their complaints of software, driver, compatibility and poor hardware support can mostly be pointed at the businesses that created the software and the hardware OEMs driver development teams. Of course someone will then comment it is the evil empire that caused these poor companies to not come out with solid software compatibility code support and certified driver support right? Check your midichlorian levels as I believe they are too low my wannabe Jedi.

Adam: Man you have it nailed!

I especially love this part:

"This might sound bad but it is rare that I have seen a 'free' OS technically knowledgeable person that doesn't look like that creepy guy two houses down that never opens his shades, turns on his lights and only comes out at night. I might have a hard time getting him just past an initial Human Resources interview."

As a home user, I have tried Linux, many many distros, and guess what? I always land back with Windows. As I said in another post, "I am running Windows Server 2008 RC0 right now as my desktop OS and it is incredibly easier to use than even Ubuntu!" And I can use: Photoshop, MS Office, MS Money or Quicken, Adobe Acrobat, GAMES! Halo, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Sims 2, Need for Speed. They work. They work with WS2K8 RC0! Not only do they work, they work great. I don't notice a difference in performance as compared to WinXP.

FYI: I run WS2K8 RC0 just to play with it. I wasn't chosen to get Vista SP1 Beta, so I downloaded WS2K8 RCO because it was free and it is there!

Joe,

Another point is that in large organizations there is a protracting migration path. Our CTO said NO VISTA until ALL servers are at Windows 2003 Server. We had almost 1,000 servers still running Windows 2000 Server and spent most of our efforts in 2007 on getting applications moved to Windows 2003 Server environment. The 3 year hardware refresh cycle doesn't necessarily mean Vista either, as we get new PCs with XP until we are positioned for full application and infrastructure support for Vista (in 2008).

Thanks.