[pheonixash]

While Vista was originally touted by Microsoft as the operating system savior we've all been waiting for, it has turned out to be one of the biggest blunders in technology. With a host of issues that are inexcusable and features that are taken from the Mac OS X and Linux playbook, Microsoft has once again lost sight of what we really want.

As we're more than aware, Vista Ultimate comes at a premium. For an additional $160 over the Premium SKU price, Ultimate gives you a complete backup and restore option, BitLocker Drive encryption, the ever so popular Windows Fax & Scan, and the "Ultimate Extras." But what started with a promise of "Extras" by summer, quickly turned into an apology from Microsoft and the eventual release of DreamScene and Windows Hold 'Em (among others) today. And while each of the "Extras" runs just fine, Microsoft's "Extras" blunder is just another reason why the company must abandon Vista before it's too late.

The first indication that Microsoft should abandon Vista is its poor sales figures. According to a recent report titled "Windows Vista Still Underperforming in U.S. Retail" from NPD, Vista sales are significantly behind XP sales during its early days. Even worse for Redmond, some are reverting to XP, citing issues with compatibility and overall design. And if that wasn't enough, Macs continue to surge and with the impending release of Leopard, Microsoft may be in for a rough holiday season.

With each passing day, it's becoming blatantly clear that Microsoft released Vista too early and the company's continual mistakes and promises that can't be kept are further annoying the Windows faithful.

Much talk has been given to Service Pack 1 and how this update should address many of the issues users have with Vista, but I simply don't agree. Will SP1 eliminate the ridiculous Microsoft licensing schemes? Will SP1 drop the price on the higher-end versions? Will SP1 eliminate the need for users to buy a new computer just to use the faulty OS?

SP1 will do nothing but fix the holes and issues we currently know about and create even more. As we all know from the days of Windows ME and even XP, Microsoft is not the best company at finding and addressing security issues, and chances are, Vista will be no different.

One significant problem that I have with Vista is its inclusion of new DRM, specifically the company's decision to install Protected Video Path. To prevent a person from copying (or in most cases, backing up) a movie, the operating system provides process isolation and if an unverified component is in use, the operating system shuts down DRM content. For the first time on any operating system, we're not even allowed to backup our favorite movies? Come on.

I also find it interesting that Microsoft decided to take the user access control concept from Mac OS X and make it much worse. Can someone please explain to me why I need to be asked if I wanted to do something entirely innocuous like open a third-party app from a well-known software company?

Never before have I seen such an abysmal start to an operating system release. For almost a year, people have been adopting Vista and becoming incensed by how poorly it operates. Not only does it cost too much, it requires more to run than XP, there is still poor driver support, and that draconian licensing scheme is a by-product of Microsoft picking on the wrong people.

The road ahead looks dangerous for Vista and Microsoft must realize that. With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around. If Microsoft continues down this path, it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees--not Bill Gates' departure.

Of course, categorically dumping an operating system is quite difficult and with millions already using the OS, chances are Microsoft won't find a good enough reason to do it. And while I can understand that argument, there's no reason the company can't continue to support Vista and go back to the drawing board for its next OS. Even better, go back to XP--it's not nearly as bad as Vista.

As a daily user of Mac OS X, Ubuntu and Vista, I'm keenly aware of what works and what doesn't. Mac and Linux work.

The time is up. Microsoft must abandon Vista and move on. It's the company's only chance at redemption.

Link

I didn't even know 'bout that DRM thing. This gets funnier each day! Thoughts?

[analogue SPRINKLES]

I think it is a bit overly dramatic but I have never seen such a meh launch. Even the big PC heads I know don't want anything to do with it.

[highstakes]

Vista is looking to be the next Windows ME.

[King Bob On The Cob]

I work as a student tech worker at a pretty major University.
Our initial plan was to migrate Vista ready systems over this semester.

It has been put off indefinitely, and the assistant director of my department has come to me asking about setting up an Open Directory server (the Active Directory plugin can lead to a hang on a Mac), a NetBook/Install server, and the best way to roll out ARD.

I believe it's because we're going to push macs more often. That's saying something, because we've been slowly transitioning away from an all Windows network.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

It has been put off indefinitely, and the assistant director of my department has come to me asking about setting up an Open Directory server (the Active Directory plugin can lead to a hang on a Mac), a NetBook/Install server, and the best way to roll out ARD.

Haven't had any crashes or hang putting Macs on an ActiveDirectory structure. The only problem comes from the mother f'n Keychain that can't keep track of the password when it's changed over the network.

That's solved if you set up an XServe as an ActiveDirectory/OpenDirectory intermediary... or you run Leopard.

[MacosNerd]

While I'm not fan of Vista, it is the OS of the future for M$. That being the case it will be replace XP. I think things will settle down in SP1 or SP2. As with all M$ operating systems it is always wise to wait till SP1. People were saying the same thing about NT when it first came out. Took a few iterations but they finally fixed things.

I've used Vista on my MacPro and it has some nice features but most of it is a pain. One thing that really pissed me off was that it decided to automatically download a fix and then reboot the computer on me. It didn't prompt me, about downloading or notify me that it was doing this and then it closed all of my apps and rebooted. I lost a fair amount of work because of that. Personally I went back to XP where I turned off automatic updates. Even then with XP, it would ask if I wanted to reboot now or later after an updates was applied.

[driven]

I won't touch it. Ever.

As a consultant I'm in many large technology enterprises over the course of a year. I have not yet seen a single firm migrating to Vista. However, I have started to see many more OSX boxes in corporations.

[analogika]

MacNN | MS to sell XP until June 2008 after Vista backlash

[Mastrap]

^ Since Macnn has implemented automatic adword linking from the copy of their articles I've stopped reading it altogether. It's way too confusing.

[theDreamer]

I think Vista is here to stay, but people are so deep into XP that it is going to take many years (5 or more) to move people over. Problem is Microsoft wants another new OS (at least into beta) in five years.

Most people are not going to go out and buy a copy of Vista or a new machine just because a new operating system was released. What they will do is wait until they feel a need to upgrade their computer, and when that happens Vista needs to be the choice and gradually XP will be faded out. Just wish Microsoft would have stuck to a 64bit OS only.

[BadKosh]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Haven't had any crashes or hang putting Macs on an ActiveDirectory structure. The only problem comes from the mother f'n Keychain that can't keep track of the password when it's changed over the network.

That's solved if you set up an XServe as an ActiveDirectory/OpenDirectory intermediary... or you run Leopard.

have you tried AdmitMAc?

[Sörnäinen]

To be honest - it took an AWFUL long time for Mac-Users to migrate to MacOS X - and still there are Classic Machines out there.

I think the bigger problem is that the "next generation Windows" is just the same as the old one, just added a lot of features that confuse the average user and what else is better about VISTA is more interesting for developers...

How they could spend that LARGE an amount of money and invest so much time and manpower with such a lousy outcome... i really don´t get it.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Sörnäinen 

To be honest - it took an AWFUL long time for Mac-Users to migrate to MacOS X

Mac users? Not really. Businesses? Most waited till about 10.2. 10.2 came out .. lots of business switched.

and still there are Classic Machines out there.

Yup, I own a B/W G3 tower. Yosemite. The Smurf Tower. I love it for classic stuff.

I think the bigger problem is that the "next generation Windows" is just the same as the old one, just added a lot of features that confuse the average user and what else is better about VISTA is more interesting for developers...

How they could spend that LARGE an amount of money and invest so much time and manpower with such a lousy outcome... i really don´t get it.

MS is more concerned with keeping it's reign than giving the customer what it wants. It wants to tell the customer what it wants. Bill Gates even said once that people want to be TOLD what they need to use.

This simply isn't true.

It's a lot of the reason when people switch from PC to the Mac, you rarely see them switching back.

[starman]

People seem to forget just how revolutionary XP was for Windows users. It was a dramatic step up from the 9x builds, and 2K didn't really count for home users and most gamers. Now that everyone's happy with something stable, MS gives everyone this turd and people are very happy with XP.

[Kevin]

What was revolutionary about XP? It was basically Win2k with some minor updates, and a last minute GUI revamp to reply to Apple's Aqua.

[Sörnäinen]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

MS is more concerned with keeping it's reign than giving the customer what it wants. It wants to tell the customer what it wants. Bill Gates even said once that people want to be TOLD what they need to use.

Yo, and that´s probably the reason why Microsoft produces so terribly bad software, despite the money they have and the manpower they can bring up.

I still have one of the first versions of Bill Gates´ book "The Way to the Future" - he simply forgot the Internet in his future vision. In the second edition it suddenly appeared. So good M$ is not really leading the way to the future. :-)

[pheonixash]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

What was revolutionary about XP? It was basically Win2k with some minor updates, and a last minute GUI revamp to reply to Apple's Aqua.

Yes, but it supported all the games which Windows 9x/ME did, and 2000 did not. That was the biggest issue with Win 2000, though it was the only release of Windows I did like. XP made me switch to the Mac

[Tim Collier]

Well, I have Windows Vista running on my Mac for a few reasons, mainly being program compatibility. I don't like it at all and it was a reason for me to switch to Mac after seeing a friends iBook.

XP is not bad in my opinion. It's a simple OS that just does what you need it do when it's needed. Vista's launch campaign was so over the top and downright stupid.

[pheonixash]

Originally Posted by Tim Collier 

XP is not bad in my opinion. It's a simple OS that just does what you need it do when it's needed. Vista's launch campaign was so over the top and downright stupid.

Well yea, XP was alrite, it was more the paranoia of virii and spyware that got me to switch. XP had become quite a breeding ground to those...

[driven]

Well yea, XP was alrite, it was more the paranoia of virii and spyware that got me to switch. XP had become quite a breeding ground to those...

Well .... XP was crap. It really was.

However, Vista showed us that it could be worse. It's only when compared to Vista that XP comes out "allright."

[pheonixash]

Originally Posted by driven 

Well .... XP was crap. It really was.

However, Vista showed us that it could be worse. It's only when compared to Vista that XP comes out "allright."

That could probably go two ways. XP was miles ahead of anything Microsoft had put out before too. It didn't crash much as compared to 9x or ME. Compared to OS X it was definitely crap, but compared to everything else Microsoft, it was alright.

[driven]

Originally Posted by pheonixash 

That could probably go two ways. XP was miles ahead of anything Microsoft had put out before too. It didn't crash much as compared to 9x or ME. Compared to OS X it was definitely crap, but compared to everything else Microsoft, it was alright.

It really wasn't much better than Windows 2000, unless you really liked the UI update. In fact, with product activation included it actually was a step back in some ways.

Saying "compared to everything else Microsoft" isn't a glowing endorsement. (At least not recently.)

[.Neo]

Let's just hope Mac OS X Leopard won't suffer from the same problems. Apple is known to release OS updates prematurely just to make their self-imposed deadlines: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger wasn't exactly a dream to use at GM stage either. I even remember Apple making a huge deal out of the 10.4.3 release because it supposedly fixed many of problems people were facing.

With that said, Windows Vista is nothing like Windows XP was at the same "age". Overal Aero runs pretty slow compared to Aqua on my 2.8 GHz Core 2 Extreme iMac. Hopefully SP1 will improve things, but naturally the real design flaws won't go away. It's amazing to see that so little has improved after almost a year.

[driven]

It's amazing that there was no substantial improvement in functionality of Windows after over half a decade of development.

[pheonixash]

Originally Posted by driven 

Saying "compared to everything else Microsoft" isn't a glowing endorsement. (At least not recently.)

Wasn't really meant to be!

[lpkmckenna]

Frankly, I can't see much difference between XP and Vista, other than excessive transparency.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Frankly, I can't see much difference between XP and Vista, other than excessive transparency.

Vista's changes are more under the hood. They (m$) supposedly totally redid the kernel and other internal works to make it more secure and more robust to handle today's computing needs.

Truth is they kept changing what they wanted vista to do, they had a huge wish list 5 years ago with tons of new features. As time went by they jettisoned them one by one until you only had two seemingly major enhancements. Cancel/Allow and of course the OSX rip off of its interface to which they've dubbed it "aero glass"

[Sörnäinen]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Frankly, I can't see much difference between XP and Vista, other than excessive transparency.

It seems it´s the developers who have the most benefit from the news in Vista.

YouTube - Ballmer's developers...

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Sörnäinen 

It seems it´s the developers who have the most benefit from the news in Vista.

YouTube - Ballmer's developers...

But not anymore, baby!

[PB2K]

THAT was funny

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by theDreamer 

I think Vista is here to stay, but people are so deep into XP that it is going to take many years (5 or more) to move people over. Problem is Microsoft wants another new OS (at least into beta) in five years.

Just as it took many years for people to migrate from Win2K to XP and OS9 to OS10

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by driven 

Well .... XP was crap. It really was.

However, Vista showed us that it could be worse. It's only when compared to Vista that XP comes out "allright."

Indeed. They should have released vista the day XP came out. It would have sold better.

MSs OSs keep getting crapier as they go on.

And yes I realize crapier isn't a word.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Just as it took many years for people to migrate from Win2K to XP and OS9 to OS10

The difference between OS 9 and OS X was FAR greater than the difference between 2k and XP. Business didn't switch to XP so soon because their was simply no reason to.

OS 9 using companies didn't switch to OS X so soon because with OS X you had to buy new software, and some of the time, hardware. It was a completely new OS. More like the difference between Win95 and Vista. And even though two have more in common than OS 9 and OS X did.

The change from OS 9 to OS X was a big one. Home users went to it much faster than businesses. For the reasons I stated above.

But that simply wasn't true with 2k and XP.

OS X brought stability to the Mac using world. Stability it desperately needed. Business WANTED to switch and switch bad. But most had to wait till "corporate" decided it was ok. And most of the people in "corporate" don't know squat about computers or the needs of those that use them. They just know the bottom line, and how much they can spend to get their bonus every year.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

And yes I realize crapier isn't a word.

Its a perfectly cromulent word

[JoshuaZ]

I`ve been unimpressed with seeing VISTA run on a couple of coworkers laptops. Their one year old systems can`t handle VISTA that well, and it feels slow and buggy. I don`t know WHY they upgraded. Email, internet, and Pron all run fine in XP...

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

But not anymore, baby!

Jesus, what is wrong with that man?

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Bill Gates even said once that people want to be TOLD what they need to use.

This simply isn't true.

It absolutely IS true. Trust the numbers. Marketing-research types will tell you that ordinary folks do not care which computer they use, as long as it works most of the time. Market share evidence bears this out. People dislike worrying about the innards of their PCs so much that they'd rather use a kludge like XP. I hate it, but it's true.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Jesus, what is wrong with that man?

At least he's honest about what the main focus behind Vista was!

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

MS is more concerned with keeping it's reign than giving the customer what it wants. It wants to tell the customer what it wants. Bill Gates even said once that people want to be TOLD what they need to use.

This simply isn't true.

Um, Jobs has said the same thing...

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by finboy 

It absolutely IS true. Trust the numbers. Marketing-research types will tell you that ordinary folks do not care which computer they use, as long as it works most of the time. Market share evidence bears this out. People dislike worrying about the innards of their PCs so much that they'd rather use a kludge like XP. I hate it, but it's true.

I've actually known people like this so badly they've switched to Macs because they are sick of having to do with "PC innards" spyware, and the like. So you may be onto something

Originally Posted by goMac 

Um, Jobs has said the same thing...

Really? Quote?

[PB2K]

exactly how many people switch because of this? because i don't see apples marketshare rise that fast

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

exactly how many people switch because of this?because i don't see apples marketshare rise that fast

A lot of people I know personally in my office has... I don't think I've made any statements about Apple's stock rising fast.

But as far as that goes, the last I heard the numbers weren't falling, but gaining percentage points. at one time we had 3%. it's more like 5% now.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

exactly how many people switch because of this? because i don't see apples marketshare rise that fast

3x the industry growth rate (and a lot more than that in many European countries) not fast enough for you?

[driven]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Jesus, what is wrong with that man?

This is the very first time that I've seen that video. That's really really sad. This explains a lot about what's wrong with Microsoft.

Catering to advertisers are fine, but to give them a focus over your end users (the consumers of the product) and over the developers (those who add value to your product) is really delusional.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Really? Quote?

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them"

Steve Jobs - Wikiquote

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by goMac 

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

That isn't the same as saying People want to be told what they need

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them"

That true, is more on that vein. But Bill said things like..

"Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy. "

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

exactly how many people switch because of this? because i don't see apples marketshare rise that fast

Ahead of the imminent release of Mac OS X 10.5, research firm Net Applications said that Apple's global share of the personal computer market rose to 6.6 percent in September, up from 4.7 percent in the same month last year -- representing a year-over-year gain of more than 40 percent. In addition, the company's market share grew from 6.15 percent in the previous month or a sequential gain of more than 7 percent, according to a report by TheStreet.com.

MacNN | Global Mac market share up to 6.6% - report

Year over year gain of 40% isn't fast enough for ya?

[Kevin]

Dang, I haven't kept up. I didn't know it has been growing THAT fast. :o

[Jawbone54]

This one's pretty funny too....

Balmer is Hitler

[CharlesS]

This is pretty embarrassing also - Ballmer weirds out an interviewer