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This post is not meant to be taken as an attack or in any other negative manner. Just me stating my opinion based on my background and my experience with the multitude of people I deal with on a regular basis regarding their computers.
Ditto. It's all in good fun
I'll also add that what is most important here, and what we can agree on, is that Vista wasn't made for old computers. What bugs me is that the people who install it on old computers anyway and get a performance decrease out of it, make people think that their new 16GB octa-core computer will run better with XP. That's my issue.
In other words, no, Vista isn't for everyone. It's not for as few people as the computer magazines and tech experts want us to believe either, though.
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Sorry, let me reword my earlier statement... there is absolutely nothing NEW AND USEFUL about Vista.
Doesn't change my counter-statement. There was nothing new and useful about XP. There are literally thousands of new and useful features in Vista. A lot of them are only starting to be useful now, as programmers start using them to benefit the users.
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Ask the thousands of users out there who experience problems on a daily basis with Vista. It all comes down to performance.
Ask the millions of users who don't.
As I said, performance is better on Vista than XP on most, if not all, desktop computers sold today, laptops soon to follow (and in a large percentage of cases, users won't miss the tiny amount of performance lost on their new laptop). In any case, I have no need for more performance at the moment. Running Photoshop, Visual Studio 2008 and Sonar side by side (not to mention Firefox, Messenger, Thunderbird, AVG antivirus etc., as well as all my commonly used programs loaded into memory in the background by Vista, ready for use), while playing back an HD video, my counters say 23% RAM used, fluctuating around 10% CPU. I've yet to see RAM usage above 40%.
Please note: The price of my computer has already dropped 30%. In three months, it's outdated.
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Vista does not support alot of hardware and software.. But that's OK because everyone is in the position of replacing their computer they just bought 6 months ago with a newer one just to run a grossly bloated incompatible operating system.
95, XP and Me didn't support a lot of hardware and software either, but no one seems to remember.
And nope, not everyone is in the position of replacing their computer (my old computer, until 2 months ago, for example, was from 2001), which is why XP is still supported until mid-2009, and will receive security updates until 2011 or later.
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Speaking of added features, another huge disappointment is WINFS.. what happened to that? It got pulled before Vista was release. But wasn't that one of their big bragging points as to why Vista would be better?
Exactly. Because Vista is, again, a technology release. With a complete rewrite of every major subsystem. One (1!) of those many subsystems was pulled.
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You can't argue with real world experience/data.
Real world experience/data would indicate that it's not a majority of users who are experiencing problems. Can you argue with that? Sure you can
And most do. As is usually the case, the users who do have problems scream very loudly and persistently (not meaning you -- you're not screaming
)
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And no I am not your average tech going with the flow.
Sorry, I did not intend to imply you were.
But I've met a lot of them, who can't even say exactly
why they think Vista sucks, other than "PC World said this".
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I agree with what you said about it working for the majority of people in the future, but Vista is not a reliable operating system RIGHT NOW to justify the switch.... especially for business environments. <snip>
For me it was. For anyone who doesn't expect to fit a wooden square peg into a circular hole and turn it to gold, it is.
Now, we're not consulting businesses in this thread. That said, I just finished an application for a major Danish bank (with branches in most of Northern Europe). They have a huge technical department. That department decided to switch to Vista for security and reliability reasons, and guess what? No problems. All their experts could justify the switch.
And no, 3 years is not half the average. Since 1985, 15 major versions of Windows have been released. From 1.0 to Vista. That's 15 releases in 23 years. Even if we ignore pure-NT and only count 3.0, 95, 98, 98SE, Me, XP and Vista, that's 7 in 17 years. Average amount of time: 17/7 = new release of Windows every 2.4 years.
Mac... I am a Mac fan. And Mac sales started to increase long before MS even made the name "Vista" public -- when the iPod became popular, making the Apple brand once again visible in the consumer's mind. Adding to that, since the late 90's non-product-related branding has been all the rage.
Apple is the prime example of how well persistent focus on branding your company can work -- artists vs business school graduates. I hate business school graduates.
Apple's success does not have a shred to do with Vista, especially since Vista didn't magically appear on the old computers of the people who were contemplating buying a new one. The person who switches from a 2007 Windows-based laptop to a Mac is a rare breed. The one who switches from a 2000 laptop to a Mac is more common.
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Let's say you bought a car a year ago.. It runs great.. reliable.. no problems... <snip>
I hate cars. Can you make a motorcycle analogy instead, please?
Nah, anyway, my "old car" wouldn't let me do proper typographic design in anything except Adobe InDesign, because the OS support for OpenType sucked. That's a problem for me, much more so than a loss of 4-8% of performance would be. Vista (and WPF) allows that to soon change. Just one of several examples.
In your analogy, you didn't just buy the newer model, you decided to transplant the fuel injection, one of the cylinders and various springs from the suspension of the old model into your new car, using gaffer tape since you couldn't find any screws, plus add some aftermarket parts designed for the old model because the suppliers haven't started stocking the parts for the new model (basically, they await the result of the FUD campagin all the car mags have been spewing onto the public about the new model).
Trying to do this is understandable, but it's not what the car company intended. They may have communicated their intention badly (or their sales department told them they should get everyone to upgrade). But for some reason, that cylinder won't quite fit, even if you bang it with a hammer, so you complain.
And, erm, no: Even after making a patch job out of your car (once again, understandably), the car doesn't stall, crash or refuse to start. It might give you problems, like the suspension isn't quite as smooth as it could be
I've yet to see a Vista user's computer freeze, crash or refuse to boot (as a side note, most examples of Windows freezing in the past, has been about badly written drivers -- now MS decided to control driver releases very strictly, and of course -- and understandably -- people complain).
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It's basically a gamble as to whether you are going to be able to make a living from day to day because you have an unreliable piece of equipment that you count on for allowing you to earn a paycheck.
Oh but wait... there new seats are shiney, the handles are pretty, the paint style is different.... Would you keep the car just for the looks?
Interesting. My bank account does quite fine. I don't
think I'm gambling?! Oh noes, what if I am!?
You don't keep the car for the looks. You keep it since it's the first major redesign of the car since 1999, with new features that actually make sense from both a personal and business perspective, and an engine that allows for fun and efficiency you never imagined (and hasn't been imagined yet by most people) well into the future.
The one major reason the visuals are there, is because that's what gets people in the short run. It's the only way to sell the interesting stuff inside, that people can't see (yet). That said, I'm the kind of person who turned off the XP Playmobil theme to use the Windows Classic theme, and turned off shadows under the mouse cursor etc. Didn't bother to do that on Vista, because -- for once -- it actually does look nice -- and again, my soon-to-be-outdated computer won't care if it's on or off.
If MS decide to drop any of these innovations in Windows 7 because users still haven't gotten used to how the PC market evolves, I'm done with MS. Because for once they looked into the future rather than playing catch up. That's what makes it a step forward.
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This post has been edited by Kaneda: Mar 29 2008, 08:11 AM
An entertaining read
