Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 01/11/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

A year since the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is cringing at the poor sales of the new operating system. It was initially touted as a landmark new development to reinvigorate the IT industry, prompting expectations of wide-ranging “Vista effects.” Instead, Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs, is stealing the thunder. Microsoft has hurriedly responded by developing a new version of the old XP.

◆ Windows Vista flops

According to market researcher Net Applications, Apple is enjoying the largest-ever share in the global operating system market with Leopard, the newest version. Since its release in December last year, Apple OS including Leopard have gained a market share of 7.31 percent, a record high. During the same period, Windows OS products including Vista saw a drop in their market share ? although their aggregate market share still stands at 91.79 percent. But Leopard is enjoying critical and consumer acclaim, which Vista has signally failed to win.

Major media outlets like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have showered compliments on the Apple OS, which they say is easy and fast. Consumer opinions about Vista have not yielded to Microsoft’s efforts. Tech product reviewer CNET’s UK division picked Vista as one of top 10 “terrible technology products” for 2007.

◆ Microsoft in Agony

Vista cost US$6 billion and a workforce of 8,000 to develop before making its debut in January 2007. It shows a handful of good improvements, especially better security features. But the bundling of too many functions into the OS takes up a considerable portion of the computer memory and causes unexpected hitches like a slowdown in processing speed. The IT giant faced a stream of consumer requests to change the operating system of their computers back from Vista to XP. In Korea, Microsoft failed to win a single corporate customer.

Kim Hyun-jung, an analyst with Tongyang Investment and Securities, said the Vista effect did not happen, and memory chip makers are “suffering from their miscalculation.” Memory producers aggressively increased investment in developing facilities in expectations of Vista effects, but they have yet to see a profit from the investment.

A Microsoft spokesman said XP was only in genuine demand one year after its release. His company, he said, has follow-up plans to boost sales of Vista like the release of a service pack in the first half of the year. But he declined to reveal exact sales figures of Vista in Korea. Despite Microsoft’s efforts, many IT insiders worry because there is insufficient supply of programs that run on Vista. One IT industry guru said the operating system market situation shows that “even the mythical Microsoft monopoly could break down if it fails to meet the demand of consumers.”

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[buffyt]

I know that my son who is a computer wizard genius, taught me what I know, built my computer from spare parts....
hates Vista. Insisted that I NOT have it on my new laptop.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

What people want is performance, not pretty pictures. That is what hurt it. If MS can’t optimize the performance to bring it in-line with XP, without having to have twice the memory and processor, then it is the second coming of OS/2.

[giotto]

My computer wizard son said that Vista requires at least a gig of RAM, so any computer with less than 2 GB will not run well.

[Gorzaloon]

know that my son who is a computer wizard genius, taught me what I know, built my computer from spare parts.... hates Vista. Insisted that I NOT have it on my new laptop.

Every single person I know and every neighbor who bought or was given a new laptop has either taken it back to the store for a refund, or demanded an XP conversion. There are only a few things to call a Vista Customer, particularly on a laptop:

A Mac Customer.

A Linux Convert.

Angry.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

My company recently upgraded our XP laptops to Vista laptops. It was a BIG mistake, to say the least. I'm forced to run Vista every day, and it sucks at so many different levels that I don't know where to begin my criticism of this turkey.

Needless to say, our IT manager is on the phone EVERY day to Microsoft trying to find solutions to annoying "issues" that repeatedly pop up and have the potential to cripple our operations if left unchecked.

Microsoft ought to be ashamed of itself for putting such a shoddy OS out on the market and trying to force folks to upgrade to it via their draconian licensing agreements and control of the business software market.

[Gorzaloon]

If MS can’t optimize the performance to bring it in-line with XP, without having to have twice the memory and processor, then it is the second coming of OS/2.

Haha, more like the Second Leaving.

I remember OS/2. It was better than Vista, and it was a train wreck. The OS/2 Team worked their hearts out trying to get mine to work, and I felt sorry for them.

I cannot work up that sympathy for MS. Anyone who would do what Vista did to their customer base deserves whatever happens.

PS: DRM, anyone?

[SkyPilot]

I haven't had a Mac since the 80's, but these commercials are just great.

[ovrtaxt]

I HATE vista. I want to convert my newer vista PC to XP, but MS won’t honor the transfer of the license.

I may try Linux after all. How much does Leopard cost?

[Casaubon]

as a IT pro i would almost agree entirely with the article

yet vista’s biggest issue wasnt the OS, it was all the 3rd party software makers and drivers (lack of to be more precise) that are currently the biggest headache. Now you can say Micro~1 was greedy and made software companies jump through hoops to develop for vista. But in reality Vista is harder to code for. dotnet even compounds the problem.

vista will either become good after sp1 like win 98. For those who remember win98 stunk to high heaven and was buggy as heck til sp1. Or will be the next ME if the vista name becomes to tainted to carry.

currently XP pro cost more oem on all the sales sights....hmmmmmm

[Washi]

I haven't used or investigated Vista very thouroughly, but since the moment I heard of it, I sensed that it was the second coming of Windows ME (which I upgraded to, back in the day, for about an hour before I decided to roll back to 98.)

Based on everything I've read and heard from Vista victims that I work with, I was right to avoid it.

That being said, I think I will leave this thread now before the Mac snobs finish watching their BetaMax movies and log-on to hijack the conversation.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

Another problem is Microsoft has become a much more bloated, bureaucratic company. Too many cooks in the design kitchen gives you a clear Vista of a bloated mess.

[Peter W. Kessler]

I just got my first super-zoomy computer. For ten years, I’ve been using hand-me-downs and <$400.00 machines.

This one is a monster. 4 gig ram, 500 gig hard drive, quad core processor, the works.

And it came with XP installed.

I insisted on that and, from what I’ve heard, I’m glad I did.

[ovrtaxt]

What’s DRM?

[ovrtaxt]

Wow, that’s a beast! How much?

[Fred911]

I run XP, I run Vista....I don’t see what the big problem is.

[bcsco]

A fellow Kiwanian and his wife came to me for advise when buying a new laptop last week. I advised them insisting it come with XP. They didn’t take my advice and bought one with Vista because Best Buy told them that’s all they sell and the system could not be converted to XP (Does anyone know if this is a fact?).

I spent 4 hours yesterday working with a system I’m unfamiliar with (Vista), trying to get the laptop and their old desktop (XP) linked through a wireless router, and a new printer installed. I have to go back Monday and finish up. While not all of the problems I encountered stem from Vista, I don’t find it as intuitive as XP.

Note: The install pamphlet for the router came with instructions that related to XP installation sequences (I’ve installed one under XP). The way the software ran in Vista, it looked and performed completely different than it showed in the pamphlet (or what I’d experienced before). Boy, was that confusing. Also, the printer (an HP All-In-One) was not installing. It was in the ink cartridge alignment stage and wouldn’t progress after that. Sheesh!

I’m NOT an IT tech. Nor am I a geek who can whiz through software and hardware issues. But I am more experienced than the average customer, and these folks and I agreed that they’d have been completely clueless if on their own. The IT world lives in a bubble, and has no idea what kind of a monster they’ve created for their non-corporate customers. And Microsoft is the pinnacle of this disassociation.

[Westbrook]

I want to hear more about installing Leopard on a PC.

Has anybody in this forum done this or know somebody who has?

To run your Windoze programs, you can run them in a vmware windows guest on a Leopard host. But for overall productivity, you can use Leopard native.

The underlying OS of Leopard is BSD unix.

And has anybody seen Linux Mint? It’s free, and provides a Vista-like “experience” without the Vista headaches.

[FreedomPoster]

Are you up on Microsoft licensing?

I believe it used to be the case that if you owned a license for a more recent OS / higher level OS, you were legal to run something earlier. In other words, if you held a Win98 license you could run Win95, if you had a Win2K license, you could run NT 4.0, that sort of thing.

Does that still apply today? Has anyone tried to get a WinXP install verified based on holding a Vista license?

[reefdiver]

I love the Mac, Beautiful hardware, seamless operating system, Instant start up’s, support and training is almost unbelievable.
I will never go back.

[Monitor]

I want to hear more about installing Leopard on a PC.

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

[Netizen]

vista will either become good after sp1 like win 98. For those who remember win98 stunk to high heaven and was buggy as heck til sp1

Which is just another example of MS foisting a piece of junk off to the consumer. I was one of those that had to wait for the stores to open so I could spend another $208.00 for the sp, just so I could use my new pc without getting the blue screen all the time. Be nice if we could all get rich by ripping people off like that. Whatever happened to debugging software??

[billorites]

It is maddening.

My "state of the art" XP 1GB system is 6 years old and I have to upgrade.

I use memory intensive graphic stuff like Adobe CS3, Lightroom, printing utilities, etc. and would need at least a 4GB system with Vista. I'll need that much RAM anyway.

I have to stick with some version of Microsoft's offerings. It's very frustrating. I'm ready to buy an expensive multi-monitor system and I'm afraid to pull the trigger.

(I know, I know.... Buy a Mac, vote for Ron Paul, wear hemp-fibre clothing....)

[bcsco]

And has anybody seen Linux Mint? It’s free, and provides a Vista-like “experience” without the Vista headaches.

I've been running Ubuntu 7.4 on a small 7.4Gb partition in addition to Windows XP. Does Mint come with the pre-installed applications, such as OpenOffice, as Ubuntu does? I know Mint is built on Ubuntu. I ask, because the manual suggests a 10Gb partition because of future software. I really don't want to resize that drive at this time, but would like to try Mint. I'm impressed with Ubuntu, but really don't like the terminal/sudo experience for handling many tasks. I want to see what Mint has to offer.

[Riley]

What’s DRM?

Digital Rights management. Or, Die Roll Modifier, if you're an old-school gamer. :-)

[Netizen]

Based on everything I've read and heard from Vista victims that I work with, I was right to avoid it.

When we bought our new computers, at the end of 2006, we had the choice of XP or Vista. I made sure they we loaded with XP. They are Vista capable, but I don't anticipate ever using it. I learned from past experience to avoid MS's first generation OS's.

[blu]

Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs,

Correction: Mac's new OS does NOT work on PC's...but Windoze OSes do work on some Macs. I think the writer got it backwards.

And only a foolish Mac user puts Vista on their machine! Well, ok, only a fool of either stripe puts Vista on anything but their "to avoid" list!

[nralife]

“Has anyone tried to get a WinXP install verified based on holding a Vista license?”

I haven’t, but I’ve read that is okay (legal) to downgrade to XP if you have Vista Premium or Business. A Google search should return many hits. Best of luck. My new notebook (ordered yesterday) will come with XP. You can still get XP on a new machine if you order online through Dell. Or through a couple of other OEMs.

[Jim Noble]

OK, so I'm a Mac guy, so take it whence it comes...

On my Mac Pro tower, I run OS X (10.4.11), Win XP, and Vista.

XP isn't so bad compared to OS X. OS X has more eye candy and is somewhat more intuitive. You have to learn more about the OS to use XP, but once you do that, it's snappy and responsive.

Vista, OTOH, is ponderous and slow (8 core quad processor Intel Xeon, 8GB of RAM). It's like driving a truck instead of a sportscar. And it's always inserting itself into what you're doing, by connecting to the internet, or asking you if you really want to do what you are trying to do, etc, etc.

I would think, for experienced XP folk, that Vista would be a step down.

[nralife]

“I have to stick with some version of Microsoft’s offerings.”

Microsoft is allowing the installation of XP on new machines through the end of June. You just have to order them online, like through the Dell website. I believe you can do the same at the Gateway website.

[ekwd]

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3672_7-5021075-1.html?tag=bhed

This is a review of XP six months after it came out. Sound familiar? You could substitute "Vista" for "XP" and be right at home for today.
And if you think Leopard doesn't have its share of problems take a look at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom forum.
I run Lightroom, Bibble Lite, Photoshop Elements, Video Studio 11 (both video editing and DVD authoring) and it works fine.

[billorites]

"I would think, for experienced XP folk, that Vista would be a step down."

Read This. Guy "upgrades" from Vista to XP and review's the "new" operating system.

Pretty funny for Windows users anyway...

[btcusn]

Just bought a new Dell Inspiron 1521 laptop. Vista installed on it. Took a racehorse and turned it into a nag.
will be installing OpenSuse 10.3 today.
Jack

[Gorzaloon]

I HATE vista. I want to convert my newer vista PC to XP, but MS won’t honor the transfer of the license. I may try Linux after all. How much does Leopard cost?

I do not know about anything else but Debian, which I have installed on 4 machines so far. Some posting on here last year clued me into it...It is FREE.

Just plug in your ethernet cable and go to:

http://www.goodbye-microsoft.com

Then fasten your seatbelt.

[Gorzaloon]

What’s DRM?

Digital Rights Management. RIAA-like entities stand behind you watching and if you do something they don't like it deliberately degrades your drivers, among other things.

You end up paying for "licenses" to use some AV formats, etc.

[VanDeKoik]

“http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3672_7-5021075-1.html?tag=bhed

This is a review of XP six months after it came out. Sound familiar? You could substitute “Vista” for “XP” and be right at home for today.
And if you think Leopard doesn’t have its share of problems take a look at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom forum.
I run Lightroom, Bibble Lite, Photoshop Elements, Video Studio 11 (both video editing and DVD authoring) and it works fine.”

That’s the thing. These Apple guys who are running here to extolling the greatness of Leopard are basically pretending, or not telling the truth about how there have been zero issues with Apple’s new os. Apple users have been complaining about bugginess left and right, but I bet no one is going to write an article about it.

And the guys who are trying to pawn Linux like it’s paradise are even more off.

[Gorzaloon]

(I know, I know.... Buy a Mac, vote for Ron Paul, wear hemp-fibre clothing....)

I am old enough to remmeber when Apple treated its customers JUST as badly as MS does theirs, now. I have a long memory.

Intoxication by success infects any company eventually.

[Big E]

I just bought a laptop for my assistant, and I foolishly got one with Vista, instead of buying a Dell online with XP. How bad could it be... it’s newer, therefore it’s better, right? Wrong. It’s slow. All the buttons are in different places, so it takes a long time to do anything. The Vista computer won’t network with my other XP computers... still working on that one. So far I have yet to find one thing the Vista machine does better than my old XP’s.

[primatreat]

10.5 is the greatest. My company has been Mac since 1984. We were laughed at by my friends. I got the last snicker.

[battletank]

“I love the Mac, Beautiful hardware, seamless operating system, Instant start up’s, support and training is almost unbelievable.
I will never go back.”

I’m with you and for the exact same reasons. I was always skiddish of Macs until I heard that you could partition the harddrive to run Windows. There was a sense of security in knowing I could have that security blanket if I needed it. I haven’t done that and I won’t be doing that. My MacBook is THE best.

[abb]

Microsoft ought to be ashamed of itself for putting such a shoddy OS out on the market and trying to force folks to upgrade to it via their draconian licensing agreements and control of the business software market.

You would have thought they would have learned after they inflicted Millennium Edition on customers, but I guess not. Whoever put ME out for use should be locked up in the penitentiary.

[nevergore]

I ordered a coiuple of Gateway Tablets this past May from Gateway....

They came standard with Vista.....

Since I was ordering directly from the factory, your system is customizable; I told them NOT to load Vista but XP.

First they told me that they couldn’t because of their agreement with Microsoft. I told them I really didn’t care. Then they told me it would cost me $220 more....I said “Thanks, I’ll shop elsewhere”. Then they came back and stated it was approved.... What a hassle.

BTW, the Gateway Tablets have been great.....

[C210N]

could not be converted to XP (Does anyone know if this is a fact?).

I found a great deal Black Friday for a Dell 531. It was designed for Vista and only came in the vista flavors (home, pro, whatever). I took the standard home vista. It sucked.

So, I went thru the process of putting on XP on it anyway, and now have an Excellent machine. Here are the caveats:

Installing XP itself went generally okay, but left me without most drivers, like USB, network, sound card, video, etc, etc. The system still worked, albeit with no network, low screen res, USB 1.1, etc.

Forgeddabout gathering the drivers from DELL; they must have aggreements w/ MS that the machine is vista-only.

Browsing (and participating too) various user forums, found fantastic driver sources... so loaded drivers from the various manufacturers: motherboard chip set, video card, etc.

Other users have now gathered all the required drivers and put them in single packages for download. The bottom line: Everything works now with no "yellow-flag" hardware.

[toddlintown]

“The Vista computer won’t network with my other XP computers”

I had the same problem, and then the drive on my brand new HP laptop blew out. Vista-induced? Who knows?

[TomGuy]

What people want is performance, not pretty pictures.

That is 'xactly what I said when I was forced into Windows ---- 3.0 ---- 1990.

DOS was plenty good, especially with a few GUI programs.

Actually, without all the add-on crap, Windows is just a fancy menuing system. XP still runs some old DOS programs in a DOS window.

[Big E]

Oh, man, that’s not funny. I think I’m going to downgrade the other machine... although it aggravates the hell out of me to pay another $200, or whatever it is, for something that should work the first time. oh well...

[nralife]

Dang! What an experience. At the Dell website, the machines I looked at with XP, start out about a hundred dollars more expensive than comparable ones. Glad you got yours without paying extra! I got some other goodies for free, though, since I used our company portal for a discount.

[6SJ7]

Guy "upgrades" from Vista to XP and review's the "new" operating system.

Looks like the only way out of this mess for Microsoft is to market a new, new O/S called VistaXP, which would really be XP with SP3.

[docbnj]

Felicitations, Mr. TigerLovesRooster sir!

Please do not refer to us Mac users as “snobs” who watch Betamax movies. Oh no, sir, we are all very ‘umble, sir. Ever so ‘umble. And we do not watch Betamax, but Blu-ray movies. We watch them ‘umbly in our thatched crofters’ cabins on the moor.