@Joe
I really like this site, and I do believe you are quite fair in your articles. The Vista post you have made, really just reinforces what most people have been saying (except Andre, who believes people have matured to its feature rich environment). But the question needs to be asked. Is there any faith in Windows 7? Why will it be any different to Vista, in regards to its take-up?
Windows 7 has already been branded Vista SP3 around the net before its release. As much as I like to laugh at Vista, I think its unpopularity is largely due to what people have read and a general dislike of the corporate monster MS. I cannot see why people will suddenly say "lets give Windows 7 a try" when they have been hanging on (in the mainstream) to XP (and moving to alternatives, at a slow but steady pace)
The average Windows user IMO, neither cares nor is interested in "whats under the hood" of their operating system, so why is the average Windows user refusing to make the move in the main to Vista? and what will MS have to do to convince its customers that Windows 7 should be trusted and is a decent OS? after all, the likes of Andre have been praising Vista when the reality is quite different.

"One user, one experience multiplied by 180 million Vista licenses is scientific enough. "

Uh, no, it's not even remotely scientific.

"so why is the average Windows user refusing to make the move in the main to Vista?"

Poorly-written articles like this? People are buying the FUD, and reporters are jumping on the anti-Vista bandwagon. The Mojave Experiment was quite telling.

my new HP laptop came with Vista, i formatted the HDD & installed Windows XP before doing anything else. considering how long Microsoft has been around, it's beyond me that they haven't been able to put out a trouble free product.

I've barely touched Vista - I just can't deal with learning and teaching clients (I do IT consulting) where things they've used for years with XP are now. Where's the start button? Why did it change? Etc. My docs folder? now pics are in their own folder. there's a users AND docs and settings folder tree now, right? too confusing for my feable brain.

I'd like to look forward to 7, but if it's based on Vista, what's keeping it from inheriting Vista's bad rep? Get rid of the bloat, make it lean and mean and stop moving things around

I fear (more than hope) that Goblin is correct.

WindowsME was a blip on the radar--didn't add anything, went away quickly with the good pieces cannibalised. MSFT moved on.

May not be able to happen here. If it had gone the other way--think those lousy pre-3.51 versions of NT in the workplace, while Windows still dominated the desktop--there would still be a strong upper-management constituency for MSFT O/S. But, unless you have data thatshows otherwise, I'm seeing more and more non-MSFT O/Ses in the offices.

And consumers are p*ss*d: the LATE early adopters got machines that s*ck because MSFT effectively lied about what a memory hog Vista is. The later buyers are still getting asked a third time in two minutes if they want to do the same thing--good for tech support, but hardly a friendly USER interface.

It's one thing to safeguard your customers by asking for one confirmation; it's another to act as if they are stupid. (This is where Goblin is wrong--I care VERY MUCH what's "under the hood" if it keeps the Idiot Light flashing. And Vista does this--long enough and often enough that I stopped thinking it might be me that is Wrong.)

Vista showed clay feet, and I suspect Ballmer's performance over the past few months has competing CEOs thinking "we can get this guy." And losing market share in the home market, while failing to defend well in the workplace, becomes self-immolating, even as the m/o/n/o/p/o/l/y/ ubiquity of Windows3.1/95 kept NT going until they got it right.

Quote Rob "Poorly-written articles like this? "

Is that refering to mine or Joes (or both?)

If you meant Joe's, I think that is a little unfair on him. Being a Linux user and supporter, I have no loyalty or sympathy for MS, however Joe does manage to keep a balance (check his previous article) and whilst I do disagree with it, I think that he provides reasoned opinions and I do enjoy reading his posts.

If youre refering to my post, then fine! As some people like to say Linux users are just "open source thickies" what would we know about anything?

@57charlie - Whilst you were probably right in "downgrading" to XP, I hope you did at least try Vista on your new machine. From the people I have spoken to, the new machines with pre-installed Vista seem to be the ones that have the better chance of being satisfactory. Again, it goes back to what I say about freedom of choice, try the alternatives so that you know you have the best system for you.
Out of interest 57charlie, will you be considering Windows 7?

Rob :wrote

"Poorly-written articles like this? People are buying the FUD, and reporters are jumping on the anti-Vista bandwagon. The Mojave Experiment was quite telling."
-----------------------------------------------------
Reporters NEVER jumped off the anti-Vista bandwagon. The people buying into the Vista FUD (which is well founded) are former Windows users who are now buying Mac machines or migrating to Linux. MSFT shot themselves in the foot with Vista and the bleeding hasn't stopped.

Mojave Experiment was quite telling. Users in the commercial were in a controlled environment with high end machines. Lets see how well "Mojave" works on a "Vista capable" computer.

Not to throw any "FUD" into this...I guess no one noticed the latest defection from proprietary (read Microsoft) software....and that is Russia which is now mandating open source (read Linux) in all Russian schools...now in all regions. If the school wants proprietary software they have to buy it themselves.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1423&blogid=14

Surely this does not bode well for Microsoft, or any proprietary software company for that matter.

Joe, I'm disappointed in the quality of this article.

Joe, I'm disappointed in the quality of this article.

1) The number of years since XP's release is irrelevant to enterprises. They buy new OSes when they buy new hardware, and many of them wait for the first service pack before buying machines with a new version of Windows.

2) There is at least one PDC talk on Vista, Raymond Chen's.

3) Wake time on Vista is virtually identical to OS X. I know, until last month I had a Macbook running both OSes. Boot up time is only slightly faster in Leopard versus Vista. Note that Leopard takes much longer to boot than Tiger did. Either way, both are under a minute.

Start-up time is pretty low on the priority list for most buyers anyway.

Vista has been the most frustrating and annoying computing experience ever. Never has a product filled me so much rage. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to pick my machine up and throw it at the wall. The solution? Keep a book near my Vista machine so I can quickly grab something to read while I wait out the 1-3 minute Vista freeze that happens 10-15 times a day. And yes, I turned searchindexer.exe off. FU Vista! If the next OS doesn't simply WORK, I'm done with Microsoft. Is that too much to ask? FFS.

@Brandon, I've made the transition to Vista and can see and appreciate its advancements. I find XP clunky each time I have to go back to an older machine running it. However, Joe makes an important point about supporting lower cost, resource constrained systems. As a developer, I'm having to support two different versions of the OS where I see growth--on the premium side (Tablet PC and touch features in Vista) and on lower-end notebooks (with the older XP). In the education market where there should be overlap in this, there isn't. The most recent version of Windows needs to run well on these new, lower cost systems so developes can take advantage of their popularity and the latest and greatest in the OS.

If you have a 7 minute start-up time for Windows on any sort of modern laptop you're doing something wrong! Your friend should get it checked or viruses, failing hardware, etc. Do you really think that 7 minutes is normal?

Joe this is by far the worse article you've ever written. Vista's sales are better than XP's. Do some research before writing an anti-Vista article.

The negative perceptions of Vista didn't arise in a vacuum: they were caused by genuine problems and limitations with the software. Limitations that Windows 7 doesn't actually show any signs of addressing. So what are Microsoft actually doing to ensure Windows 7 won't accumulate perceptions that are just as negative as well? Hard to see anything.

I like Vista. I don't want to go back to XP. I use Linux in server roles but don't want it as my main desktop. I haven't really spent enough time with OSX to claim an opinion, but I don't want to have to buy a Mac to run it. So for me, Vista is clearly the best choice right now.

But I don't think my personal affinity to Vista is a good reason to call this article FUD (as apparently some others do). Joe makes some points - it really does look like MS is starting to abandon the Vista name/brand. And the lack of corporate uptake is a pretty serious thing.

I think Windows 7 will probably be the stitch in time that saves nine. It will take advantage of many of the good things that happened in Vista. I think we Vista-lovers do have to face the music here: Vista's rollout was botched. Other software makers could get away with similar mistakes, but MS is too large get away with such things. Expectations were mismanaged, users were not educated well enough, and the reset was a major poison pill. Combine this with an increasingly effective PR competitor (Linux itself may not really be ready to take the desktop by storm, but Linux lovers are standing by, ready to make the anti-Windows case in every online forum where they can post), and ... well ... we see the result.

Win7 will (I hope) dodge most of these problems. I've been really impressed with the Engineering 7 blog; it seems that what Windows needed was a dose of Sinofsky! He seems to have gotten Win7 development on track. In that blog I am seeing a focus and a commitment to substance over style which seemed lacking during the Vista cycle. Hopefully the marketing efforts will be just as focused and performant.

Vista sux. Period. You nailed it right on the head Mike. Thank you.

Out of curiosity, where are the stats as to what % of new PC users downgrade to XP? I find it hard to believe that it's more than a couple of percent. I just installed Vista 64-bit under Bootcamp on my Mac, best of both worlds.

Krystalo :wrote

" Vista's sales are better than XP's."
----------------------------------------------------

Anyone can fudge the numbers and MSFT seems apparently quite good at that.

How many were HAD to be sold as Vista in order to downgrade to XP Pro? Somehow MSFT conveniently left that minor detail out. Yes.... those pesky details don't REALLY matter.

How many Vista netbooks were sold...oh..lol Vista can't run on netbooks, so MSFT had to drag their seven year old OS out of mothballs (which they officially just declared dead weeks earlier) in order to keep in the game. Yes sir thats real innovation. The people on the Linux boards were having a field day with that one.

I could play "cook the books" declare that Windows ME was all time best seller and millions "sold" .....(for a four month period - projected into new computers for a segment of the fiscal year into new desktops and laptops for the assigned period. In fact it out sold Apple and other Operating systems hands down.)

Yea Vista was the greatest thing sliced sliced bread, thats why MSFT is so eager to bury it....

Good Lord, they could not even trim it,make it run fater, make it more lean and mean. So MSFT's solution instead of fixing the flawed OS was to persuade OEM's to sell Vista laptops with FOUR GIG RAM in order to try to deal with the on going performance problem.

Vista was very successful ....................for Mac and Linux.

Steve Jobs seems apparently happy with Mac's sales.

The other Steve...? Well, thats a different story.

Joe says; "Windows Vista No Longer Matters
Did it ever?"
----------------------------------------------------
Almost you begin to sound just like me here Joe. And soon, even Andre, will start telling us that Vista is a pig, and just buy Seven. Thats when we will really know when Seven is about to be released to market, for sure. Although I stand by a June 2009 release.

Vista tried to do too many things, and in the process used too many resources and cpu cycles. The net only positive effect of this was to make the average computer as a small electric heater in cold climates. One of the too many things that MS tried to do in Vista was the DRM, that contributed to the bloat, unstability, and extra polling of drives, drivers, subsystems, and extra cpu cycles. Not to mention, gave many users the impression, justified, that Bill Gates and Micro$oft are nothing but a bunch of control freaks who are scheming for ways to charge every computer user in the future whenever a media file is played.

Vista tried to increase protection for malware, with the UAC. Sadly, they did it all wrong, and should have just forced limited user account on people by default. Those would not have broken as many programs and games as the poorly thought out and implemented UAC did. A true limited user account would clearly have been better protection against malware than the UAC in Vista is. UAC and DRM are the reasons that so many programs that worked in XP do not in Vista. Seven will still have these problems of program compatibility, and DRM. Yes the UAC is supposed to be fixed, but that should have been done in a service pack 1 for Vista. Where is that?

The fact that XP has to be continued to be sold for netbooks, and for downgrade rights, tells the whole story that Vista is unloved, but mostly hated by most of us.

Andre has said in another post that Seven will be available for some netbooks, when its released. Andre never gives any links to back up his claims. But I will confirm that I too have read that, but again it could turn out to be just more MS vaporware. Seven would have to be much faster, and netbooks would have to have faster cpu's and more ram. MS would likely be looking for a combination of both to happen.

Andre has also said that the return rate on (some) linux netbooks was 4 times higher than XP. He tries to give the impression that XP is better and that is why the return rate. I read that article, and the reason that particular netbook with linux had that return rate, was the folks that bought it, thought they were buying XP, not Linux. When they got it home, and found something different on it they brought it back, not because it did not work, but it was not XP. Again Andre did not give the link.

It would be nice if Seven would fix the malware problems of Windows, but don't expect Microsoft to be a bit concerned about your computers.

Joe - one thing to remember about PDC is that it is a futures conference. Developers are always first out of the gate when it comes to the next version of an OS because they're the ones who will write the apps that run on it. It's not a surprise to me that there are few sessions on Vista compared to Windows 7 at PDC.

On the other hand, Microsoft's other big technical conference - TechEd - is all about current products and technologies. A check on the upcoming TechEd Europe site shows 51 sessions related to Vista out of 534, with only 3 sessions devoted to Windows 7.

So regardless of what else you might say in the article, the focus on Windows 7 at PDC is a red herring.

You clearly have an agenda setup here and its to generate garbage. All brand new notebooks I see are running Windows Vista. Regardless netbook's are running XP, its Windows and its made by Microsoft, not Open Source, Connical or Linus Torvald. That's what you fail to realize, its a win-win for Microsoft. Vista is a success compared to Apple which has garnered only 25 million users with their platform while one release of Windows out shines and delivers all the capabilities and more of Mac OS X. Microsoft toting the next release of the platform is no surprise. Was XP toted at PDC 2003 or 2005? Nope! the new Windows campaign Life with Walls spans the PC, Windows is more than Vista, its mobile devices, its rich online services and its PC's. Its unbelievable you don't see this. Are you living under a hate the Microsoft rock?

Vista is plagued with stupid problems. Start up times are not really an issue... its a non-issue really.

How about explorer's lack of speed or sense? Each folder I open is incorrectly identified and doesn't recall what I set it as. Try coping 150 MP3s from one folder to another.

Or the fact that all of the things that used to tell me what the OS is doing are replaced with a never-ending looping loading bar.

How about your printer? I get calls each week about how their HP printer vanished!

Wrap that all up with a call center in an "English Speaking" country and you've got Vista.

Deal with it, guys. Vista is a goner. Sure, it ain't dead yet, but it sure is beginning to smell funny.

Using the author's logic (or lack of), XP should have been gone years ago and everytime they have the PDC, it means the end of all things current.

The majority of information presented in this article is far from factual.

Sales down a few percent in these times? Most sales are down much more than that!

Joe, please either grow up or learn to write factual articles. Just because some bonehead wrote it does not make it true.

Seven minutes to boot Vista? Does your friend have 180 million programs on startup?

I have bought three laptops this year all with vista on them. An Acer 52xx a HP DV6704nr and a Gateway p6860fx. None of those laptops will run xp correctly as their are some drivers like video, which can be overcome if you hunt for custom drivers and then other drivers like hdmi and audio can not be found. So the point is the pc makers are making it harder then ever to run xp on your laptops so if it comes with vista use vista or have driver issues.... Also xp does not support direct x 10 so no new games and also if you have over 3gb of ram xp 32bit will only see upto 3gb not the 4gb or more. So....

I must be a rare exception. I have three desktops and two laptops in my house. I have XP, Vista and Linux. Vista machines are by far my favorite to use. Linux is fun, mostly because it is new, so I get to play. Vista accomplished everything I do better than XP. XP feels old and Vista is so much better for my use. I have no crashes, no long waits to process or even long start up times. Again, I must be the exception.

Operating systems are becoming irrelevant. Vista's incompatibilities forced many of us to take a hard look at alternatives, and many of us found browser based applications to be the answer.

Now we can run any OS with a browser, and at least in our case, our new computers are mainly Macs and Linux.

Windows isn't going away but it is no longer the only game in town for business.

According to both IDC and Gartner, Apple/Mac's worldwide market share is still in the Others category, behind at least five other companies. IDC puts 5th ranked Toshia at a 4.6% worldwide share, so Apple/Mac's worldwide share is somewhere below that.

Joe, no one likes you except your newly found Mac fanboy friends...stop posting because seriously, I've been a reader for about a year, and you went from legitimate to a microsoft-bashing goon who just does it because everyone else does...

This FORMER reader says goodbye.

I can't disagree with your general thesis. Vista has sold a lot of copies, but it is a flop and Microsoft finally seems to be acknowledging that albeit indirectly. A lot of the blame lies with Microsoft, but the media, including yourself, can also claim its fair share.

On the 7 minute Vista boot up time, your longtime Windows buddy must not be very technical if he can't troubleshoot that and fix it. My Vista machines all boot from post to desktop in 45 seconds to 1 minute. On Vista not being particularly better than XP, I strongly disagree. On appropriate hardware, it is a much better and more stable OS than XP SP2.

I bought 2 new puters, one Dell, on Gateway, both Q6600s
Vista was too much of a problem.
That stupid User Account Control, It plain sucks,
Keeps asking me the same questions over and over, just like a 3 year old. It can never remember what my preferences are. Why ask me a million times if I want to do the same thing every time I run a program
It should remember what I told it the last time I ran that same program.
Vista would not wakeup, it would just sit there.
The built in games would not run, not even at the display puter at Fry's, Salesman says..hell If I know what the problem is.
On one puter, I left Vista cause I help others and need to know whats what in Vista.
On the Dell, I reformatted the HD and loaded XP Pro. So that still counts as a Vista sell?
How many have done that?
Overall vista is not too bad, as long as you run a Quad cpu with 4 Gbs of RAM, otherwise forget it.

The problem was not just of Vista, but also of the pre-installed crapware. To give a simple example, when I bought it, my OEM Vista laptop took some time booting, inspite of my removing craplets. But when I went in for a clean install of Vista, I was truly surprised with its boot time and performance.

Vista SP1 is as good an OS as I'd like it to be; but it failed more on the 'perceptions' front.

Microsoft may have noted that Vista brand had lost its equity and as a result of which it may have decided to abandon the brand; but make no mistake Windows7 is just a polished vista Re-loaded.

I think a lot of these Vista 'sales' are off the back of the huge drop in laptop prices over the past two years-or-so; a lot more people have PCs now (or even multiple PCs).

I regularly use all three major OSes (XP on my desktop, Vista on my PC laptop and OSX on my Macbook) and don't really have a favourite. However, I find Vista to be slower, more resource-hungry and ultimately too 'busy'. It's as if MSFT made a check-list of features they wanted to include with Vista, but didn't edit themselves.

It's all very good for 1337 haxxors to prattle on about how to tweak (and I use the word tweak in the loosest sense) Vista to get the most out of it, but they're forgetting one thing - YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT, IT'S MSFT 'S JOB.

Windows 7 is windows vista R2. The world will move on and xp-fanatics will watch the world move with or without them. The majority of people don't care for xp, or vista, or win 7. They'll just buy the microsoft OS and if MS is smart, they will not let apple and other clueless bloggers spread lies about the new OS the way they did.

at this point vista has a bad name and there is no point in fixing much of the perception. Microsoft is instead focusing on the windows brand. That is a smarter move because:

1) most people will never know that when they get windows 7, they will just get an evolved version of vista.

2) most people aren't fanatical about OSs and XP is a terrible OS as it is which will only keep being eclipsed by future "windows" versions.

3) the windows brand (which btw includex xp) carries far more weight than these "vista = doom" people give it credit for. People aren't migrating to linux or apple. They are saying, we're stickying with microsoft. Microsoft could not be more pleased.

4) vista is an excellent OS, but like xp before it, it is a poor OS to upgrade to. I upgraded to XP, and switched back to win2k 2 days later. Then I bought a machine with xp and kept it. Since I bought 2 machines with vista and they perform flawlessly. why bother with the outdated XP? it is neither faster nor better nor good.

People who just want to do email and internet don't need a full fledged PC, a cheap netbook will do fine... but they don't run Vista.

People who work or play games on their PC need all the memory they can get, and XP is a lot lighter.

Vista not have any essential functionality as far as I know, and isn't particularly appealing to any of the above mentioned customers.

The main problem with Vista IMHO is that it simply ate up too many resources without providing much in return. Make 7 on par with XPs resource usage and I think you will find more people willing to give it a shot.

I agree with Ralph here.
It's possible to run MacOSX with 512mb of RAM. It's not lightning fast, granted, but the boot time is quite good and the operating system still feels quick.

Why am I comparing it with Mac OSX? Because of the eye candy. Whatever difference is between XP and Vista is the eye candy and the addition of an annoying, hyperactive babysitter.
I don't own or want to own a Mac, but OSX looks gorgeous, much nicer than Aero or Compiz-Fusion.

I use linux Mint mainly, and keep XP for gaming. I have a very fast CPU and 2gb of RAM. Vista is sluggish compared to whatever OS I throw at my laptop.

The simple truth is, that software developers have given up on being, well, GOOD software developers. Fifteen years ago, with 16MB of (expensive!) RAM, you had to optimize the code to make it use the minimum ammount of memory.
Now you can buy a matched pair of sticks, 4GB in total, for about $50. And a terabyte HD for $100. MSFT developers don't care much about code optimization anymore, if the product will be ready by next week and looks shiny.

Sadly, it's all downhill from now, for the exception of open source.

I've actually been pretty happy with Vista. I was late adopting because the internet nerd machine got me scared. Now I regret it. Vista makes a lot of what I do easier. Sure, it's not utterly groundbreaking, but it's reliable and incredibly easy to use.

I remember when XP came out, everyone was downgrading to 2000 professional. Everyone talked about how "enterprise wasn't making the move". The truth is, Enterprise is always slow to adopt, because making an IOS change is very expensive. I remember buying a notebook for work and you could still get 2000 professional installed as late as November 2003 on Compaq business laptops. Why? Because enterprise likes to standardize and many were still running 2000.

Now, things are just the same. People are afraid of new things. The difference is that now, those people have much louder voices.

Why is XP X64 edition so overlooked? I use it as my main OS and love it. Havent really had any driver issues and its great for gaming. The only issue with XP of any variety that I see is the lack of true DX10 support, but its not a deal breaker for me at this point.

ok, yeah vista was a joke. Just like XP, and Windows '98 as soon as they were released, Vista is hardly problematic anymore because they're past Sp1, adn have worked the majority of the kinks out. but more to the point, you're wrong in stating that Vista does'nt matter, because I like many others have already seen the Developer version of Windows 7, and with respect to the streamlining of certain key functions and programs, it is just a better functioning version of Vista. Also, one thing that has always bothered me in relation to the MACvsPC debate(and we have both, and use them both) is that if one thing can be said overall, it is that at least Windows and Microsoft are consistant. any mac user who has gone through the Plethora of different operating hardware, and OS's knows what I mean. how many new versions of windows have there been since OS X came out? and the powerpc thing is just a big F U to the MAC user, I hope everone has replaced their PowerPC MAC, or just does'nt plan on buying the next OSX whether it's Lynx, or Snow Leopard, or whatever because your PowerPc MAC won't run it. And Windows has x86 which has remained basically unchanged for the better part of 20 years. I know as a consumer, I would rather buy an OS, and download FREE service packs for it, rather than go out and buy a new OS which is marginally defferent from the last(but cost just as much) every year. the problem with MACs is that while at one point they were excellent, now that they're using intel chips, their superiority is a fallacy, and a moot point.

The main problem with VIsta, other than image, is that Microsoft no longer makes products for the people who actually use them. They make them for their partners.

After the first run of TRS-80s, when Tandy rushed to meet demand, the quality fo their computers was very good--but the image was fixed and they became the Rodney Dangerfield of the computer industry. With Vista, Microsoft has had its TRS-80 moment. It will be interesting to see if they can recover.

Meanwhile the hardware manufacturers are discovering that if the OS uses standard protocols and formats, everyone doesn't have to have the same OS. Dell is producing computers with Linux, and HP is developing their own distro. In other words, they are beginning to use Apple's technique.

Of course Vista is rubbish!

I dont really understand why people hate Vista so much that too in era where every PC is equipped with high speed hardware which usually goes unutilized. Whats the point not running vista which will atleast utilize some of the idle resources and runs without flaws? And beyond...cant people change with technology...why to stickon with old xp..when vista adds many RBAC features. And I dont think only Enterprise adoption makes an OS success or failure...as every PC/Laptop is shipped with Vista. BTW if the enterprise is what determines success then...I dont think of any reason why they r not adopting except becoz of these kind of articles and reviews by people who just want to critisize new things instead of appreciating change!

I tend to believe those who say the service pack mostly fixed Vista, but I'll never buy it. (Got Dell hardware designed "for Vista" in spring but beat the deadline for XP preinstall, and now I've bought a new Acer netbook with XP.) I was interested at development stage in new functionality, none of which materialized at release - it offers a spiffy cosmetic and security defaults that are nuisances for some - mostly it simply doesn't do anything XP doesn't do and I won't go out of way to learn to manage a new OS to do all the same things.

I think it's about time Microsoft admits that Vista hasn't been a success..nowhere near as successful as its predeccessor. I think that focusing entirely on Windows 7 is the right thing to do instead of just trying to trumpet Vista even when it hasn't been adopted for such a long period

it's kind of funny some opinions here...

About Windows 2000 -> XP -> Vista -> Windows 7 ... it's the logical evolution and the same thing! What you guys think? Windows 7 will be vista's kernel evolution (hopefully with another explorer.exe - that horrible aero look really sucks), just like Windows XP was Windows 2000 kernel evolution, etc...

Vista was at least as problematic as Leopard in the first version. I am not a "switcher" - I have a MacBook laptop just like I have 3 linux machines and many PC's - I work in the industry - the OS doesnt' matter anymore; I only ask the OS not to eat all my resources. I have stripped down all the shit out of Vista and it works fine! By the way.... Vista without all that is 99% windows XP SP3, don't let eye candy disturb you.

About MAC, I had Tiger, I installed Leopard only to see how it SUCKS. Boot times multiplied ... Installation went from 1.2Gb to 8Gb and silly new bugs even at the keyboard driver level .... I spent some hour looking for Apple's 300 innovations only to find a pathetic wireless backup software given for free, as well as a "virtual desktop" thing that has it's own website on Apple's... What a load of crap. Besides, the laptop fans sounded like it was going to take off anytime. Two weeks after the nVidia chip died overheated because of a MacBookPro design flaw - and my motherboard was replaced (for free, thanx apple;) ) ... Now I have it back with Tiger and things are usable again.

So... the story of both worlds is really parallell, and IMHO M$ is going up and acknowledging mistakes while Apple is doing really bad, fueled by those hordes of musician-artist-hacker-wannabees mostly in their teens and with a desperate need to be cool. Apple is abandoning their PRO user base with hardware and software annoyances here and there. New laptops for professionals without firewire. Laptops for photographers without Matte screen. IPhone 3G software full of flaws. Leopard first release of dubious quality... be careful Apple... I also know many switchers in my area - but the other way !

Windows Vista never did matter. It only mattered to Microsoft's bottom line. They (M$) claims a victory because of enterprise OEM licenses but doesn't give the numbers from the vendors doing downgrades to XP Pro (which, granted, they may not have). Reports from other analysts indicate the majority of enterprise purchases take the downgrade option.

The Mojave and "I'm a PC" ads show not only how much Microsoft's Vista has been a failing but how ignorant they believe their customer base to be, crying out from their marketing cubicles "We don't suck! Really we don't!"

Apple is barreling forward like a snowball gaining ground with the next generation of computer users that are raised as "power users" not shackled to the fear of leaving Windows behind. Apple over the last 10 years has been providing quality hardware and software time and time again. People are starting to take note that the up-front costs for Macs and their halo products don't represent the overall cost.

Microsoft is no longer alone in the computer world and they're starting to feel it. They can no longer assume they have a position of monopoly and I look forward to watching them fall.

If the industry did not buy into Vista was because SW vendors did not like it. Simple as that. They thought XP would be immortal .... and decided to ignore Vista.
Now, those unbiased who tried Vista, myself included, find it a good and stable OS - and mostly all instability comes from non-MS applications that have been poorly and not at all ported to Vista. Hello!!! - why to blame the system for applications' failures??? As soon as you find the right application software, fully compatible with Vista, all problems and bad perceptions disappear. I have been enjoying Vista for more than a year, and by the way I am using it to do my job (computer consultant) ... yes, it took some time for waiting for Vista-ready applications, but finally I got all of them!

I am afraid that this and similar articles are exactly about FUD towards Vista ... I do not understand the rationale ... as for Macs, they are the same PCs, just in a more elgant wrapping. For real users it really does not matter what to prefer: these are applications, required for everyday work, that should drive the decision about bying a particular PC. If for my business I needed an application that runs on Mac, but not on Windows, I would be the first to by a Mac ... and then spend a few hundreds dollars more, by the way.

Make up your mind: are you buying a toy, or a tool? and then decide!

When Steve Balmer boasted about the "success" of MS Windows Vista he neglected to note how many of the 180 million licences sold were forced on unwilling consumers who had no choice in OS when they purchased new home systems. Well, unless Linux counts and I don't think it's really ready for "mainstream consumers" yet. Neither is it widely available on home systems. I don't think it is right to count the forced licences as a metric of the OS's success. They were not "sold". Consumers did not buy those licences for the OS.

@YK - "Now, those unbiased who tried Vista, myself included, find it a good and stable OS - and mostly all instability comes from non-MS applications that have been poorly and not at all ported to Vista..."

Not true. That may be your experience, but in our office we see Excel, Word and other M$ apps crash all the time. And the BSoD is not as extinct as marketing would have you believe.

If MS wants to try to get businesses to buy Windows 7, they need to stop the games like the Mojave Experiment, (giving packages to end users) and give 20 or so licenses to every Windows Administrator, with real time access to level 2 or greater support. I would consider evaluating it for 6 months under these conditions. We had serious problems with $75K large scale printers and Vista. That's what killed it for us, no further testing was necessary. Getting a hold of MS was a joke, Being routed to someone reading a script is not tech support.

I can honestly say that we gave Vista a real chance at my company. We even went to the point of deploying it to our whole executive team on new laptops we bought for them. Every single one of them has asked to go back to XP, with the last one requesting to downgrade today after 18 months of Vista use. He said he just could not take it any more.

Some of the slowness was definitely caused by vendor bloatware. But there were other issues that really never seemed to pop up on XP - like the UAC nonsense, patches that would try to install over and over again, wierd crashes (my Vista machine actually blue screens under certain conditions), and offline folders not working properly. Of course I looked for patches for all of this and even contacted Microsoft, but it was just too much to get it to work consistently well for everyone.

I've supported Macs, Linux machines, and Windows PCs for years. For Enterprise deployment (where we try to save $ by making everyone about the same and centralizing management), I think Windows is the best choice by far. And I really think that Microsoft has hit it out of the park on alot of things, like Exchange 2007 (Unified Messaging is awesome!), Windows 2003 server, Windows 2008 server, SQL 2008, and the list goes on... But Vista was a strikeout from my point of view. It just does not work well. Deploying and supporting an O/S should be much easier than this.

What I find so frustrating with Vista -- and computing in general -- is that the industry just can seem to get basic stuff right. If Microsoft is actually just going to get stuff working in Windows 7 -- and adds NO new features at all -- I would be insanely happy.

When Vista works, it's fine and adding memory and faster processors isn't hard. The trouble is that even with enough memory and horsepower, Vista inexplicably slows to a crawl without warning. Out of nowhere, a dialog box will suddenly take 30 seconds or more to open up. Why? Who knows. Seems like crappy programming to me. The glitches are everywhere.

Linux isn't much better. I recently put Ubuntu on a Toshiba laptop. It has hibernate and sleep functions, but if I actually tried to use them, well too bad. If the laptop came back up, it was basically frozen. The UI and font rendering is just ugly compared to Vista, but, hey what do you expect for free. Not ready yet, unfortunately.

Note to software industry: please make stuff work.

@Brian Edwards:
Re: "Ubuntu on a Toshiba laptop"

I think that is probably the worst combination you could have tried. That you get it to work at all is amazing. My son tried it on his, and had to give up and go back to XP due to various Ubuntu/Linux drivers not being available for the Toshiba.

On the other hand, my experience with Ubuntu on an older Dell has been nothing short of wonderful. I replaced Windows 2K, and that old laptop ceased being slow and sprung to life. (It is a corporate laptop, and I have no pressing need to get a new one since my Ubuntu desktop is my primary system, and the laptop is working so well with Ubuntu.)

Re: "Note to software industry: please make stuff work"

*sigh* I hear you. But I can tell you from long personal experience producing near-bullet-proof reliable software on time is that there is VASTLY more financial reward from releasing buggy software than reliable software.

Exhibit 1: Bill Gates.

Exhibit 2: In most software companies (that I've had to leave behind, including IBM, aka Idiotic Boneheaded Morons), ass-kissing and empire building is still VASTLY more financially rewarding that spending your career producing software that works. Unless you finally wise up and move on, that is. Which I finally did.

Re; Your web site
It rocks! Thanks for the link!!!

From a user standpoint. The biggest issue that MS had was the poor configuration of UAC. Simply asking a user Confirm/Deny multiple times for the same action annoyed everyone. Another problem that still hasn't been fully addressed is hardware driver support for fairly new printers/scanners/camera's.

From a business standpoint, Vista begged the question: "Why should I replace the new laser printer I purchased 6 months before Vista was released to get Vista Support?"

A critical problem with Vista is that it still refuses to play nicely on a small network with any XP systems. Even after a year and SP1 release, I am unable to get a Vista system to properly share files/folders to any XP computers on my home network even with SP3 installed for XP. MS really tripped over their chair this time as people are unwilling to solve problems they created.

Due to these problems, I decided to switch from an MSft OS to Linux (Gentoo x86-64) on my desktop, with XP running in a virtual machine. Now if MS solves the Networking and UAC issues while providing reasonable defaults along with the ability to do an Advance installation with a single product SKU and only two prices - OEM/Retail and I might consider returning to using Windows from Linux.

What Microsoft doesn't seem to understand is that users can't afford to keep trashing all of their pc's and peripherals every time they come out with a new OS. It's not just "perception". My company had to invest mucho bucks to update to XP because we had about 400 pc's that just couldn't be upgraded to handle XP. I ran their Vista test on my laptop at home and it is not compatible with Vista and it's only 4 years old. When I upgraded my home system to XP, I had to replace my scanner. I'm not talking about ancient systems. In today's economy, Windows needs to spend more time fixing the bugs in their existing OS, not producing a new one that needs a super computer to run on. Unfortunately, in order to keep 3rd party applications updated, the users are forced to switch to the latest OS once the programmers stop supporting the previous OS. The other problem with the latest Windows OS's is that they require a total reformat of the hard drive to install the new OS, which means having to reinstall all the apps and personal files.

VISTA is an excellent OS compared to XP. I bought a sony VIAO TZ (1GHz) and 2MB RAM recently and it came pre-loaded with VISTA Business. I have ESETNOD32 as AV program, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Flight simulator, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server Express. I have not noticed anything out of the ordinary. The machine boots up OK compared to my XP Pentinum II. Flight simulator is acceptable at 20 Frame Per Second and my VS 2008 is running just fine.

The AERO glass effect is modern and contemporary compared to anything on the other side of the competition.

Improvements and features have to continue and probably some hardware will not be able to handle what is coming forth now from Microsoft. That does not imply that innovation such as multi-touch effect etc should not come through. No one is compelling any one out there to go and get the latest OS.

A number of problems are perceptions created by writers who have never spent enough time to use the product.

It is six month now since I got the hardware with VISTA - it runs just fine. I never use the machine with ADMIN Account. This guarantees that nothing gets installed by default without my prior knowledge. I would rather be asked seven times than find out that a malicious program has been installed on my PC without my knoweldge. The UAC concept is right. It is even better in WIN 7. Besides you can always turn off the UAC.

For the record, the machine has never frozen nor has it required a forced reboot except when I installed updates the machine goes through the normal cycle of rebooting the PC.

I look forward to WIN 7 and some of the nifty features that will come with it. I am not switching to LINUX nor OS X. I would rather deal with the product and company I know than start all over again.

Having seen the announcement at PDC 2008, the AZURES Platform, WIN7, VS 2010... and hopefuly soon Windows Mobile 7... The entire eco system is coming together after almost 30 years...Yes a very long time indeed for some us.

windows is a complete flop.

I hope Microsoft doesn't make the same mistake with "7" that they made with Vista. If they want Enterprise Operations to adopt it they have to make it work. They seem to think that the Consumer Market drives everything. Well so sad to find out that its Companies and Corporations that rule the roost.

The fact that Vista initially shipped with some pretty buggy drivers is understandable, but no Admin Tools? As a Systems Admin we have YET to get either Exchange 2003 or 2007 Email Tools for the AD Admin Console that work on Vista. Consequently we've stayed with XP SP3. And if my Admin Console isn't Vista, you better believe none of my clients will be.

Get it together Microsoft. If your Client Software can't support the administration of a Domain, that software isn't gonna be on the clients in my domain. Period!!!

Well there you have, its time to move to alternative operating systems and a new office suite. Seven will just be Vista R2. No mater how much MSFT polishes the chrome turd, Seven is just more of the same Vista smell, with more eyecandy and DRM, and if we lucky, a few things more fixed.

If Windows 7 is Windows Vista R2, then Windows XP would be Windows 2000 R2. I think a lot of you need to blow the Open Source propaganda out of your nose and clear up the Apple sinuses because your idea that Windows Vista was a bad release is more like a tune from someone that has been living under a rock since the Flintstone ages.

Windows Vista - 180 million licenses installed and growing.

Mac OS X - 25 million and stagnant

Linux - 1% and going no where except that hobbyist basement.

BTW, hear the news everyones been talking about? Ubuntu has gotten slower and slower with each release.

@Andre Da Costa:
Yes, I do believe that XP would be Windows 2000 RX (not sure of the exact revision number). And there's nothing wrong with that. Product evolution is the best and safest way to go. Throwing Vista out and re-writing it would never have worked. In fact, I would bet that Windows 7 is pretty much Mohave: Vista but with some evolutionary improvements and a new name to get past a (rightly or wrongly) tarnished reputation.

At one time, WordPerfect owned over 60% of the PC word processing market, and that was done WITHOUT any arm-twisting back-room pre-install licensing deals. So I guess that Microsoft Word was never going anywhere because it has such a tiny share of the market??? No??? So, a small market share now doesn't necessarily translate into a small market share forever, does it???

Mac OS X is stagnant? Apple has a higher market cap than Microsoft. You and I should be so stagnant. People risk their money, their freedom, their very lives for vastly less than that.

Windows TCP/IP networking stack owes its very existence to open source. I'm not sure how blowing it out one's nose has anything to do with it, but maybe programmers have odd customs where you come from. "You think it's code but it's snot". LOL

Linux really is going nowhere. If you count Germany, Brazil, Finland, IBM's billion-dollar investment, and all the growing ranks of others as "Nowhere". I don't, but then again, maybe all those nose-blowing programmers in your country have different definitions.

The news that everyone's talking about seems to be far more related to the economy and the upcoming US presidential elections. But for those who live under rocks since fictional ages, I guess that increased function in software being slower is Really Big News. Funny, the best article I read did a lot of performance testing, but couldn't isolate the slowdown in compilation to the kernel or to GCC.

I've used Fedora Core 3, Fedora Core 5, Ubuntu 7.10, and Ubuntu 8.04 on the same single-CPU AMD Opteron with 2 GB of RAM and a 200GB disk. Without any formal performance analysis, but with heavy daily use as a C++ and Java development environment combined with office tasks (email, documentation), and so on, I would say that some things have slowed, some things are much quicker, and overall the system has gotten much smoother and increasingly easier to maintain and keep up-to-date. Overall, my C++ build times are not noticeably slower (a little, but not appreciably, and some of that is due to the growth in our product.. more code to compile).

But this is the same 2 GB RAM system with the same graphics card. How does Vista compare to XP on a 2 GB system with one CPU? And not just with browsing, but with corresponding upgrades and heavy use of Visual Studio for C++ and Java, MS Office, MS Outlook, IE, all running at the same time?

When people complain about a big slowdown when moving to the next Microsoft operating system, the Microsofties come out of the woodwork and condemn those people for not spending the money to upgrade. And when Vista doesn't support 2-month-old hardware, Microsofties condemn them for not spending the money for even newer hardware... or else condemn the vendors for not releasing Vista-compatible hardware.

So before you jump on Ubuntu's little ol' slowdown, look at Microsoft Vista's huge slowdown. And apply the SAME criteria to judge both. Or risk being irrelevant. Which would be a shame, since you are young, bright, industrious, and have a lot of potential.

How do you get away from Vista when it's being forced upon us? I'll admit it's not as bad ME (which had to be the worst Windows version ever), but as with ME, when you buy a PC or laptop, Vista is often the only option you're given. I've gotten used to Vista's quirks, but what I find most frustrating is how it handles certain applications, and the amount of work arounds required to get applications to run.

Andrew Da LA la Coster, says:
"Windows Vista - 180 million licenses installed and growing.

Mac OS X - 25 million and stagnant

Linux - 1% and going no where except that hobbyist basement.".............

What he does not tell you is that of those 180 million of licenses sold (not installed), 35% were XP that had either used downgrade rights, or businesses and consumers that reimaged them to XP. Furthermore, it can be assuned that at least, 1% also, removed Vista and installed Linux. 35 + 1= 36% removed Vista. It could also be argued, that many many more could not find the XP drivers for their hardware, but wanting XP back.

What Andrew does not tell you, is since the advent of the cruel hoax that is Vista, Mac has doubled and Linux desktop use has quadrupled. Windows has lost over 4% of the desktop market, and that trend is increasing in volume. No wonder the $hill Andrew wants to try some misleading facts (lies) and try to convince us otherwise.

I am a small business owner. We use XP and have NO intention to move to Vista. Even if a replacement PC is bought, the first thing we do is format the drive and install XP. It is just not worth the trouble to teach users how to use Vista and have mixed systems. We are testing and deploying Linux.

Before anyone gets their hackles up, there is a fundamental reason for this that everyone seems to overlook. Lots of SMB don't need all of the features of the Windows world view. Consider our case:

We run a proprietary application in our retail world. Running that application, accessing the Web, and sending emails is all we do. Anything else that comes with the O/S is just not used and therefore bloat. From our perspective, having an O/S that we can strip everything out of and just keep what we need is desirable. We don't see how Vista or Windows 7 would help us in any way. So we are moving to Linux.

Get your facts straight. You rant that if Vista was successful netbooks would ship with Vista. Bull. Netbooks can't handle office let alone Vista.

It does seem strange that the M$ shills don't take the compulsion on OEMs to sell their products with Vista into account. Freedom of choice? Fergeddit. American values? Not the good ones. Freedom of choice? All the consumer retailers forced to sell with only Vista on board and claim (arm-twisted or bribed) that they "recommend" Vista. Freedom of choice? No way. Dead easy for OEMs/retailers to make machines that can be provided with EITHER Vista OR XP OR Linux. But they don't offer Freedom of Choice. Everything else you can choose, but not the OS. This is lunacy. Monopoly compulsion.

By the way, to the list of countries turning to Linux you can add China and Russia. Piddling little countries, right?? And the take up of Vista there, where piracy makes the cost of an OS practically zero, and the piracy gives you real Freedom of Choice?? I wonder... Without the piracy legacy in these countries Linux would have a) taken over long ago, and b) Windows would have no take-up whatever, and no legacy momentum.

Of course, corporations never test new hardware, software before they invest millions of dollars - don't make me laugh!! Those customers have - guess what? FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

What American values do the shills trumpet?? Monopoly compulsion to use crap bloatware, and gouging prices, and attempts to turn their software into high-priced rental systems to make all customers pay through the nose each and every year... OR Freedom of Choice, Competition, Openness and Transparency, Responsibility of powerful bodies to the people/public, etc etc ad infinitum.

Choose your religion, choose your school (lots of constraints there), choose the people who spend your tax dollars, choose where you live (constraints but...), choose what clothes you wear... But choose your operating system when you buy expensive hardware? Go fukc yourself dear customer is king.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph!!

Hm, did I mention India. Not many people there, so that doesn't matter then.

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Hello people. MSFT hasn't gotten it right since Good Ole Bill had the blue screen of death with WIN98. I still laugh at that egg on his face. They haven't been able to recover since. As far as windows goes. Bad OS built on bad kernel. If MSFT wants to get it right, STOP TRYING TO IMPROVE WINDOWS. Come out with something new. Portal maybe.

I bought a new computer last year that came pre-infected with Vista. Sure, the eye candy is nice, some of the features are a bit more user-friendly... but I like to control my OS and I do not want an OS that is going to diminish the performance of other software I run.

In this regard, Vista is a nasty, bloated nightmare. I too get 10-15 instances a day of the 2 minute lock-up many other users suffered. My games seemed jittery, etc.

Killing themes, search indexing, DWM and other unnecessary crap helped a little. Then out of curiousity I installed a streamlined version of XP. The difference was staggering. Sure XP doesn't look as nice but everything ran smoothly and it was nice to feel in control of my OS once again.

I've 6 friends that have had Vista, one of them still uses it and likes it (He has 4GB RAM and a quad-core processor!) the rest of us (mostly with mid-level spec machines) either have XP installed alongside it for when we want an OS that doesn't choke our machines or have moved exclusively to XP and ditched Vista, each giving Vista at least a few months and a service pack release before making that decision.

To summarize, if you want a fast, responsive OS that isn't excessively bloated and won't diminish your experience using any software besides the OS... go with XP because Vista sucks to anyone that doesn't rate eye-candy above everything else.

And yes, the Mojave experiment clearly demonstrates that on high-spec machines where you don't notice the degradation of performance, Vista is actually bareable. Unfortunately this isn't the case for most people.

Microsoft, in Windows 7, please give us a "performance" mode and an "eye candy" mode. So that those of us who don't like bloat, laggyness and stuttering game play on the latest games aren't forced to downgrade to the superior performance offered by XP!!! (while those who've responded positively to Vista can choose the "eye candy" mode with all it's aesthetically pleasing but performance-destroying useless junk)

Have a nice day! ;)