Hot on the heels of our previous story outlining the fiasco that Vista’s release has been, TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner predicts that Microsoft is aware of its blunder and will respond by making a release of Windows 7 ahead of schedule (primarily by overhauling Vista and calling it Windows 7, it seems) in order to encourage its enterprise clients to upgrade directly from XP to Windows 7.
For me, I see thoses reasons not to adopt vista at all:
– Way too slow, memory hog, too much background services
– WGA crap, call home build in, I don’t like being monitored
– Activation & reactivation are plain bullshit
– compatibility problems
– can’t slipstream services pack with out thrid party tools
I’ll keep xp until it really die and install Linux as dual boot option.
– Way too slow, memory hog, too much background services
– WGA crap, call home build in, I don’t like being monitored
– Activation & reactivation are plain bullshit
Some people may say that about XP too..
The first point can also be applied to other systems, like Ubuntu for example.
It is swings and roundabouts, but my experiences with Vista was enough for me to remove all Microsoft products from all my machines.
I have shares in the company, but I seriously do not like the way they are moving.
Huh? From my (fairly extensive) use of Ubuntu, I rarely see it top 512MB RAM usage (usually in the 350-400MB range – this is with no swap usage), compared to Vista, which can barely boot in that (and has to use a significant amount of swap/pagefile), on my system (3.5GB RAM) it uses about 1GB idling.
As for speed, (X)Ubuntu runs acceptably on my old P-II 400Mhz laptop, I’d like to see someone try to run Vista on something that old.
With background services, both OS’s use them extensively, but I’ve never had one cause problems on Ubuntu, whereas on Vista I regularly experience slowdowns caused by background services (usually TrustedInstaller).
So how does “Way too slow, memory hog, too much background services” apply to Ubuntu again?
Well, I don’t want to stray too far away from the topic at hand here, but Ubuntu IS slow. Not comparable to Vista in any way and not SUSE-like slow, but it is definitely slower than some distros out there. Considering that they built their house on top of Sid, I always wonder how could they make it that slow…
Edited 2008-04-24 12:29 UTC
Yes, Ubuntu can be seen as a memory hog and way to slow.
Try a distro like Slackware for example and see your machine fly.
Don’t get me wrong, I use Ubuntu too, I just upgraded this machine to 8.04… and WOW !
but there are services enabled by default that I do not need, nor did I ask for them.
Why should I need evolution-alarm-notify to be running all the time when I do not use evolution ? speaking of which, why is it that when I try to
aptitude remove evolution
it also tries to remove ubuntu-desktop
I call that unwanted bloat.
I have searched and searched and cannot find the answer as to why Ubuntu is slow and a memory-hog… 430mb on this machine compared to other desktop distros like Mandriva and Fedora.
I think it is also way too expensive. A mere upgrade is a couple of hundreds Euros.
Where I work we are currently preparing to migrate to Vista. I’m not sure when, because I’m not in the working group, but I believe it will be this year.
I’m not exactly looking forward to the migration… I’ve messed around on Vista (mostly to help out friends who purchased a new computer with Vista pre-installed) enough to know I do not like it. It will be a double-edged sword though… I will be issued a new, faster and more capable notebook at work, but it will have Vista on it.
/currently using a Thinkpad Z61t with Windows XP Pro
hmmm I would wager that the Thinkpad will be WAY faster than anything with Vista on it.
I work for a very large hardware company in the outsourcing department. Our laptops and main computers run Windows XP. Our company obviously has a subscription and Vista is readily available for download and install any moment we would like to, however, so far almost no one has upgraded, the equipment we’re provided is not cutting edge and Vista is a nightmare to run there.
Incredibly, the massive company we support is just migrating from Windows 2000 to 2003/XP. If that’s the trend everywhere I don’t know how MS will cope with this.
I can confirm that part with the massive company migrating from Windows 2000 to XP/Server 2008. Same here. Things move slowly and money for these kind of investment is not as readily available anymore. Not because there is a drastic budget cut, but simple because the IT-managers don’t care to justify this investment of time and money while things are running smoothly (and with some team admins silently moving to Debian with obvious success).
Been running Vista for a year on two machines, one of them an upgrade from XP (a supposed no-no). The upgraded machine suffered for good drivers for awhile, and had an annoying sound issue until an update a few months back, but has been otherwise very usable. The desktop that came with Vista has been rock solid and nothing but utterly reliable. I’ve even made UAC more strict, by setting it to require a password.
On the corporate desktop I can see the case for waiting for a more mature product, and for software developers to catch up in their next release cycle. This is the same position they took with XP. Heck I work with companies still running 2000 on the desktop.
The two biggest issues for the corporate user are software and drivers. Most drivers are basically there already, but corporate users want to use their their copy of Accounting package X they bought in 1999. Well guess what? They are going to have to upgrade. They’d have to do the same thing for Windows 7.
The reason most software fails to work on Vista is the fact that MS actually did the RIGHT thing for once and removed some of the cruft. It constantly amazes me that the same people who call for a from scratch rewrite of Windows are the same folks who complain about all of the incompatibilities in Vista. You can’t have it both ways.
There is not going to be anything magical about Windows 7 that suddenly allows your 10 year old accounting package to print to your 12 year old printer. It will most likely have the same level of compatibility found in Vista – with whatever improvements are made in Vista between now and then.
In some settings, this is realized via a mainframe class computer running (even older) accounting software because its operating systems allows it to, and the terminal nodes are regular PCs, running whatever “Windows” the company wishes. This concept allows a differentiation between “we bought this programs years ago” and “we need the newest ‘Windows’ on our desktops” requirements.
Of course, that’s how it is intended to.
You’re mentioning a valid point here. I’d like to add that not only corporate customers suffer from this “radical break”, but also gamers who have their games running happily on “XP”, and then encountering problems running them on “Vista” they got with their new gaming PC.
But let me – just as a sidenote – introduce the fact that you can have it both ways, but of course not with “Windows”. For example, the FreeBSD OS version 7 allows you to run 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x applications just by installing the corresponding compat libraries. And I can imagine something similar would be possible with “Windows”, too, but only if you get some kind of emulator or virtual machine running.
Why these big year numbers? Try half of the values, doesn’t work, too. 🙂 But you’re right, any kind of backwards compatibility to applications and hardware won’t happen, I’m sure. Why? Because it’s not intended. Buy. Buy now. Buy more. Buy and… be happy. =^_^=
Furthermore, I don’t think 10 years old printers will work (except they are professional office products, not the inkjet toys, in such cases they are capable of standard interfaces, such as PS or PCL which will allow any (!) OS to use them).
Inkjet home printers are not manufactured to live 10 years
This is what I wanted to say. Going more off-topic, I think nearly all “modern” home customer hardware is designed to have a short life, just think about DVD drives. Just to scare you, I still have a HP Laserjet 4 that works perfectly (!) – I’m using it more than 10 years now, and I don’t know how the previous owner treated the printer, at least I wasn’t a very kind printer owner. In opposite, I hear lots of firends and family aound me begging to fix their “new” printers for free – they usually bought cheap or expensive inkjet printers (sometimes even multifunctional printers with scanner unit and other stuff) – because the “new” thing did strange things (printing without having something on the paper, refusing to work in general, requesting to press keys that do not exist etc.). It’s hard to explain that this behaviour is completely intended. Well, that’s what we call “Lehrgeld” (tr.: apprentice’s premium / to learn it the hard way) im Germany, but they don’t learn. 🙂
Going even mor off-topic, life costs are increasing in Germany. Simple food (milk, bread, meat, vegetables etc.) are getting more and more expensive, but especially inkjet printers and flatscreen monitors are getting more cheap. Just too sad that I can’t eat them. 🙂
To follow this off-topic post: feel free to eat a flatscreen if you want
(I heard LG are the tastiest). Take car enot to drink gasoline with it 
I still have my first computer screen: 14″ 800×600, which is 13 years old and still working. Since this one, i never kept one more than 2 years. On the other hand my Samsung P35 laptop is still up n’ running with 3h30 of battery after 4 years of daily use.
This is getting funny…
What do you think I am – a car? Well, I think flatscreen monitors would be delicious if I was a garbage shredder. 🙂
Woah… that’s really strange. Allthough my equipment at home (oldest x86 PC stuff from approx. 1992, newest from 2005) is to be considered “outdated”, it works – it worked over many years and I think it will continue to do so. Maybe the older stuff is really reliable. But this does not fit into the “throw away society”, I know, so I’m hurting the industry and the government while I refuse to buy something new while the old stuff still runs perfectly. Shame on me. 🙂
Wow, that’s something I usually just hear about Apple (iBook G4) hardware… in most cases, it’s about how you trat the charging cycles of the battery. The opposite I’ve got at hand, too: A Toshiba Satelite class notebook, not older than 3 years, battery dead, doesn’t even accept any loading current.
And continuing such trends, consumers meanwhile have accepted that new PCs are loud, new OSes are slow, and all the stuff obsoletes itself in a few years, so it’s neccessary to buy something new even if it’s not needed.
For further entertainment, read this before shopping:
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_stupsales.shtml
My NeXT is 16 years old, almost 17, and it still works perfectly
my Nec Versa P/75 laptop is like 12 years old and it works perfectly still… Various other old products that still run perfectly. But family members have bought computers and printers and the like in the last two years and have them suddenly just up and die. It’s pathetic
Oh well, guess companies have to insure income somehow…
I could not agree more. I have a Laserjet 4, that I have no idea now how old it is (it has been that long).
A better example of quality is this. I have a Cisco PIX 506 firewall running 8+ years non stop…24/7…for 8 years! Yet in that time I went through countless Linksys and D-link home routers, before eventually taking an old computer and ran Linux for a firewall. In this time I have still gone through numerous wireless routers (used as access points). At the moment I have 3 wireless devices sitting in a closet waiting to be recycled.
It is not just that consumer devices are designed to have a short life, but rather the cost construction dictates this. The fault is not on the business, but rather the consumers who demand cheap products. Consumers are simply not going to pay $400 for a firewall, but they will spend $60 for one. It is simply not just the features that determine the cost difference, but the quality of materials and design.
Ever wonder why HP can have in their home line a quad-core CPU with the latest Nvidia card, where as most of the business models run much lower CPUs. Because companies like HP know that the product development cycle requirement for business demands a much longer design and testing phase, with the result that whatever the latest fastest CPU is now won’t reach the workstations until months later.
Yes, that’s true, at least from my point of view. Here in Germany, you can get an injket printer without problems for less than 50 Euro, the ink cartridges are sometimes more expensive than the printer. If you tell someone: “Just buy a colour laser printer, invest 150 Euro once, don’t pay anything the next years”, they start screaming it’s too expensive. Heared about amortisation of invested buying costs? 🙂
Your example of a firewall is another good example, too. Customers get what they pay for. They want cheap, they get cheap. Expensive doesn’t automatically mean good, there are, for example, DVD recorders where you pay for the boo-yah great label (a famous one, so it’s gotta be good anyway), but the device is El Cheapo Kaputnik.
And I’m always fascinated how some people don’t have problems not updating their IT settings month by month, having hardware and software running over years without problems, while others are forced to replace parts in a nearly monthly cycle without finding it strage in some regards…
Furthermore, good hardware seems to be manufactured less and less. Do something very simple: Try to get a good keyboard. It’s impossible, because only cheap crap is manufactured. You need to get a used one (e. g. an IBM EC-528693).
There are different markets and target groups. As you know from business, hardware (and – nota bene – software) has to be used much longer than in a home setting. More expensive fields are HPC or server facilities where cheap stuff makes everything more expensive.
Business as usual – you get what you pay for. Sometimes.
Do something very simple: Try to get a good keyboard. It’s impossible, because only cheap crap is manufactured. You need to get a used one (e. g. an IBM EC-528693).
I actually disagree here
I have a totally el cheapo Logitech keyboard, costs around 10 euros, and it’s actually pretty damn good. I love the feel of it when I type, it’s not too soft nor is it too ‘clicky’, and it’s pretty sturdy too. But then again, I have always liked Logitech keyboards and mice, I still use Logitech iFeel MouseMan I bought somewhere in the 90s and it’s working still just fine 
Well, I still have some 3 button PS/2 Logitech mice around, I really like them. And a Logitech WingMan (the analog one), and a Logitech SoundMan. Cool stuff, not very expensive. I know the TrackMan, too, but I never had one.
Keyboard feeling is of course a very individual thing. While I think the IBM keyboards are the best keyboards that do exist, I’m typing this on a Sun Type 6 USB keyboard. It’s not that bad, allthough it’s manufactured rather cheap way. But it has extra keys I cannot live without anymore. 🙂
Cherry (Auerbach, Germany) made great keyboards, too, many years ago of course, with real keys – MX series – (and additional key locks, magnet card reader, chip card reader, relegendable keys for POS purposes etc.), not the “modern” rubber wobbly sloppy bubble stuff. Oh yes, and robotron made keyboards without contacts! They work on a Hall element’s basis. I’d give my soul to have one of these connected to a PC. See http://www.robotrontechnik.de/index.htm?/html/zubehoer/tastaturen.h… for some pictures. Needless to say “Vista” doesn’t support them, just to come back on topic. 🙂
it’s called virtualization.
Something Microsoft should have done.
If it’s really a 12 year old accounting package, it wouldn’t require more than windows 95. That could have been run in a very small virtualized environment (think 64 MB/s ram is plenty and 486 performance is good enough).
That could be easily virtualized on a modern dual core with 1 gig of ram. If MS has spent there time doing better virtualization integration, then you could have had it both ways.
Yes, an I am sure Vista with a 512MB plus memory footprint XP virtual machine, and all the extra disk space usage that entails, would have been welcomed with open arms by all of the Vista critics.
Virtualization is not perfect. It would use much more memory. It would suck for games. It would introduce it’s own incompatibilities. It would be slower. It would introduce hardware issues as the VM attempts to access the hardware devices with legacy drivers. Basically all the problems people are already complaining about with Vista.
So, if MS had done this, they would have been faced with all the same complaints, and would have forced all of the Windows software vendors to rewrite their software if they want to get out of the XP penalty box. Wow – sounds like a win-win. Wonder why on earth they didn’t do that.
There is no excuse for MS not to have both 100% backward compatibility AND a fresh properly designed OS. They bought VirtualPC. They own the rights to ship every version of MS-DOS and MS-Windows ever released. 100% backward compatibility should be no more difficult than to select the specs of the machine I want to run, and the OS version that goes with it.
If I can get darn near 100% compatibility with Atari 2600, NES, SuperNes, Genesis, Vectrex, every model of Amiga ever made, and various other systems, all coded by a handful of guys who are reverse engineering the original systems, there is no excuse for MS not supplying 100% backward compatibility for their OS.
Backward compatibility has been a lame excuse for not fixing their broken OS. I have a hard time believing that no one at MS has ever suggested “Hey, lets just include VirtualPC in the default OS install”. The fact that they have not done this has be purely a business decision.
I tried Vista (which came with my machine) for a few days in my virtual machine. I didn’t actually find any performance issues or UAC issues (except for a minor issue about Shares not working and the only documented solution was to turn off UAC….it would have actually good if it gave me a “Confirm”/”Deny” box instead of failing silently with no logging).
The main problem with Vista, from my perspective is that it seemed half baked. For instance, to turn off the UAC, you have to go to a special non-obvious place in the control panel and click a link that launched a DOS prompt that disappeared quickly with no feedback on success. Even Gentoo does a better job that this in their GUI tools. Things were also re-organized for no good reason and hidden under more layers of hierarchy (which made things hard to find). There wasn’t even an escape hatch for classic mode since that didn’t exist….even XP classic mode.
I felt handcuffed and weighted down….the way a Windows 95 user would feel if he was forced to use Windows 3.1. I could still get things done, but it was painful. It definitely seems like a downgrade of Windows XP.
“The main problem with Vista, from my perspective is that it seemed half baked. For instance, to turn off the UAC, you have to go to a special non-obvious place in the control panel and click a link that launched a DOS prompt that disappeared quickly with no feedback on success”
Hmm i wonder what OS you really used. Firstly it’s behind user accounts which is quite obvious since its UAC(user account control) even name says the location, secondly you been asked to reboot in order UAC to go off(this isn’t big enough confirmation to you???), thirdly there is no dos box.
“The main problem with Vista, from my perspective is that it seemed half baked. For instance, to turn off the UAC, you have to go to a special non-obvious place in the control panel and click a link that launched a DOS prompt that disappeared quickly with no feedback on success.”
I just clicked the start button and typed “User”. I saw “User Accounts” in the list and clicked it. At the buttom of the page is a link “Turn user account control on or off”.
If that’s not simple enough for you, run Help, and type in UAC – the first item in the list will be “Turn User Account Control on or off”.
I’ve turned it off and back on before as well, and I didn’t see any DOS prompt, and there was quite clear feedback about what was happening.
Ever hear of… virtualization? I’ll just say this: Yes, you CAN have it both ways.
A brand-new, from-scratch operating system, plus virtualization, plus a copy of an older “legacy” OS (ie. WinXP) means you get the best of both worlds. Well, assuming that this new host OS is decent to begin with, and judging from Microsoft’s track record of brand-new products, I would guess “decent” (if even that) is the best it would be for quite a while.
The “right thing” in my opinion (emphasis on that part) would be to start from scratch, for the most part, and rebuild Windows from the ground up, in a more sane way… doing away with all the cheap quirks and hacks. Build it with security in mind, instead of tacking it on to the current OS which still reflects in its design its former self which had absolutely no concept of security.
Unfortunately, what “should” be done won’t be done, because money talks. Can’t let the superior operating systems out there catch up, or their monopoly position will be descended to a mere level (and fair) playing field, where they have to (oh no!) compete and actually innovate.
I just don’t see it being too hard to start over, with all their resources, and considering what you actually *get* with Windows (Calculator? Notepad? Wordpad? Come on…). The hardest part would probably be the absolute lowest level stuff and getting it to all work together. And if they were to go that route, drop the Win16/32/64 APIs for .NET and leave the legacy OS in a VM for older apps… I honestly could envision a good, modern OS. Well… after version 3 maybe.
And on top of that… the size of the OS on disc and installed would probably drop by countless gigabytes. *keeps dreaming*
… and the worst of both worlds too. This would be a nightmare security- and sysadmin-wise. The virtual machines would need to be administered too. If you were managing an organisation with a x number of PCs, all of a sudden you would have to manage x*2 PCs, half of which with a legacy OS, for which support is going to be stopped soon.
That’s why you use a Virtual Machine. I built a Vista 64 computer for my wife to run her business, and she had to run a (16 bit) Win95 application. Upgrading to the current version would have exceeded the cost of her computer and all the other software combined. So I put it in Virtual PC (VBox did not work) with 98SE and it works just fine. It runs faster, in fact, than it did on her previous Pentium 4 under XP.
I have had no issues with drivers, the update to SP1 was painless, the system is quite responsive, and she likes it a great deal. Honestly, I don’t understand all the wining.
Personally I’ll stick with FreeBSD at the moment, but Vista seems pretty decent to me based on this exposure. I realize that this is a minority opinion.
I would have to be bold enough as to disagree with you here to some extent. In the Apple world, for transition to OSX from OS9, they used (Apple people, please forgive my crude oversimplification) a virtual machine to run their software-My point is: Why would amaze you that people would expect the same from a company with such vast resources as Microsoft?
Classic sucked big time. It was incredibly slow on an incredibly slow OS and crashed a lot. Yes 10.0 was a beta at best and so slow that one could be tricked into believing the bouncing icons were animated backgrounds. 10.1 was the real release. If you used classic under 10.0 you would have known that apart from being slower than molasses running uphill in the middle of a Canadian winter there were many applications that simply would not run.
If anything Apple tricked its incredibly tolerant and at that time much smaller and more hardcore user base. They promised backwards compatibility, then when it sucked badly the relatively few and mostly small development companies ported their mostly small applications to the OS X. Companies like Quark took ages to get their software on OS X.
I can’t comment on Apple hardware, as I don’t touch it that often, but surely you can’t believe that they *tricked* every single “hardcore” user? Could it be that perhaps you had a subjective experience?
No matter, it was just an analogy I used to point out that Microsoft could do something similar, and with extremely vast resources in comparison to Apple could create a VM that would be less “buggy” than the Apple example I gave
Yes Microsoft could and should do backwards compatibility in a VM. But the point is no matter what they do it will be interpreted as a failure / as a short coming by the legions of Microsoft haters contrasted with how Apple apologists will make excuses / justifications for almost any failure on Apple’s part.
Note: bouncing icon observation was intended to be colourful language describing just how slow OS 10.0 was. By 10.2 the speed issue was solved.
Edited 2008-04-24 20:21 UTC
You’re right. MS should have done virtualisation. If OS-X can have parallels and everyone raving about it why can’t Vista?
Only now is bloody Parallels actually useful in a Windows Network Environment. Before it was a nightmare but no one seemed to bitch about it which seems to indicate Mac OS-X shrills seem to think Apple can do no wrong. They still overprice their hardware and underspec their systems.
Here’s to hoping Windows 7 is Vista stripped down and optimised but that being said, I actually like Vista and seem to be able to get a lot done in it with little heartach. It took a little to get it there but the main problems I was having was a faulty SATA2 controller on my old Motherboard and a XFX based Nvidia 8800GT with crap BIOS. That and nvidia drivers have only started coming into their own recently. How long has it taken Nvida to step up to the Vista plate? Over a year.
Actually, that’s not your original point-the point you made was that it amazed you how the same people calling for a scratch rewrite of Windows are the same folks who complain about Vista incompatibilities and that they couldn’t have it both ways, but you in your own words admit that it can be done (and indeed it can). Whether those same people choose to be Microsoft haters is clearly their choice-but that’s a different argument altogether. I’m merely pointing out that perhaps, as other people have stated, they *can* have it both ways. That’s not at all an unreasonable request for a piece of software backed by multi-billion dollar company.
Like others Vista was that moment for me to call it quits from Windows.Many for whatever reason wont.So lets call Vista a field test,albeit a very expensive one.
I wish there were some honest statistics out there on how many people switched to another OS because of Vista (and which OS). I’m probably going to switch when I next purchase a new system.
Get this. The USCG is a beta tester for Microsoft and as such they are moving to Vista in their standard image very soon. Even though 80% of their custom applications do not work. Yaaay!
The good news is they are using to rescuing sinking ships!
It’s very hard to rescue other sinking ships when you are in one yourself
Sounds like the return of RADM Merlin from the 1980s. Someone is trying to get an Achievement Medal out of that, but Thad Allen won’t be too pleased with the results. Sometimes I don’t think we ever learn — probably because we don’t.
where art thou?
…in alphaland.
(sigh)
Yes, this is an annoying feature, but the increased security is about the only valid reason to upgrade to Vista or its successor there is, so if they are going to remove this they will have to fix the security problems another way.
If it looks like XP, then why would people not continue using XP.
What Microsoft has going for itself, is the large installed base. If people need to buy and learn new software and hardware, they could just as well buy a Mac or install Linux.
Probably a good idea, but what about old apps, see above.
Or even better give it away for free, It is very hard to compete with zero cost competitors
I don’t think a subscription model will work well on consumers. It will be even more obvious that Microsoft holds their data hostage.
This will prove costly both to Microsoft and other software venders that will need to support both Vista and Windows 7 for a considerable time.
I would think that the best thing Microsoft can do is to make Vista work. Why not drop all versions but ultimate, lower the prices, or give it away for free, and try to make money from support contracts and MS-Office instead.
UAC doesn’t fix Windows security problems either. It just reminds users about said problems so said users don’t do something stupid. This is obviously assuming that the users haven’t got so fed up with UAC that they’ve started blindly clicking ‘OK’.
Lest all we forget that in a properly configured active directory corporate environment, UAC is pointless and redundant.
Clicking OK blindly is exactly what users will do at home, anyway. At least *nix and Mac make you enter a password.
It’s just a matter of finishing what they started way back when. I don’t think they can do anything to win back anyone but the hardcore fans. Enterprise customers had already been considering the switch as soon as they saw the hardware requirements to run Vista and they’re dragging their feet.
If all they need a terminal emulators, the switch to a Linux base may be quicker than trusting another Windows environment but most of the CRM and HR software runs on Windows and integrates with MS Office.
The author mentioned that backward compatibility should be removed to streamline the Windows code base. I agree since many applications apparently don’t seem to like Vista anyway and need to be (slightly) re-worked to function correctly. MS could throw out the mediocre for once and actually try to get things right.
Agreed. I think the biggest problem isn’t incompatibility, but iffy compatibility. Now, if something isn’t supported, and it isn’t going to run on Windows Vista, it should plain well not run. Its a binary of either yes it runs, no it doesn’t. The biggest compatibility headaches aren’t with those applications that plain don’t run. The biggest headaches come form those applications that kind of run.
Why are they a bigger headache? because at least with an application that doesn’t run – you’re under no illusion, it just doesn’t run. The problem is with the ‘kind compatibility’ which Microsoft markets as ‘full backwards compatibility’ – there are still issues. The worse part, even those applications that are ‘compatible’ still have ‘compatibility issues’ with new versions. Even with the layers upon layers of complex shims, there are issues.
Marketing ‘kinda compatible’ serves to benefit no one and thus, Microsoft should not spread the illusion that some how they can defy the basic laws of programming claiming they can have perfect backwards compatibility (when so many in the past have failed). Even Solaris, with its compatibility cannot guarantee 100% backwards (although they do, given the application isn’t written by a half-witt) compatibility (remember people, programmes are written by people, some people are crap programmers who don’t stick to programming conventions).
The day when Microsoft starts hiffing old stuff out, they start using their new API”s which they bundle with their operating system (as Apple does with its own in house software), and stop spreading the illusion that 100% backwards compatibility is possible – then we might get some where.
Windows 7 *SHOULD* be a clean break. They *KNOW* all the unsafe API calls, they know this, because they have created safe counterparts – simply remove those unsafe API calls which have safer counterparts. Remove old cruft from 10-20 years ago. There should be no reason why there are icons, dlls and pixmaps from windows 98 still lurking in Vista. There should be no reason for a font dialogue (let alone the widgets used in the font dialogue) which is a hang over from Windows 3.1.
Remove all the crap, bundle Virtual PC, and allow end users to virtualise what ever operating system they need for compatibility. Make the information well known about the changes, and those third parties who choose to live the high life rather than investing their over inflated profits back into their products – rake them over the coals; and if you (Microsoft) make competitive product of a company who fails to update their product line – then offer it to the customer free of charge. Kill of those third parties who fail to invest the time and money in keeping up to date with Windows.
Yes, it would be vicious, yes, people who cry and scream, but at least there would be a long term goal that addresses the issues we face today rather than the pathetic meandering that is going on in the IT world where no one is willing to stand up, stamp their foot and say, “enough is enough” and actually lay out a future road map that is customer focus – not ‘protecting third parties from actually investing in their software’ focused (which is basically what backwards compatibility is code for – allowing third parties to do the *least* amount of work possible to maintain and actually care for their code base).
That article is about as pure as speculation can get.
Yes, it’s speculation, but there is a lot of collaborative evidence to support this conclusion.
Microsoft are never going to come out and say ‘yeah, we failed with Vista’. At least not for several years [remember Windows ME?], yet they have publically said that Vista has problems, and started talking about a forthcoming Windows release.
The use of the buzzword ‘modular’ has been carefully chosen by the MS PR people to make people think that Win7 will be less bloated than Vista.
Vista has been a big media failure for MS, the best way to recover from this is to push a new Windows release.
you just don’t drop a product that took 5 years and multiple 100’s of millions of bucks to develop. The shareholders would kill them.
Right or wrong, MS will stick with Vista until Windows 7 is fully baked. If they rush Windows 7 out the door, it’ll be more of the same, and then no one will be happy. MS knows this, and anybody else who claims that Windows 7 is coming out soon, or claims to know what Windows 7 is going to turn out like is just rumour-mongering.
Yet, the lifecycle of XP will allow it to migrate from XP directly to Windows 7. On April 14, 2009, Windows XP will begin its “Extended Support” period that will last for 5 years until April 8, 2014. So if they don’t mess up again, Windows 7 could be out by then.
I don’t see the relevance to that. Just because you can upgrade from XP doesn’t mean anything. When XP came out you could upgrade from WinME, Win98 and Win 2000.
I won’t believe any of these rumours. I don’t want to believe any of these rumours. I want MS to take thier time, get Windows 7 right and put it out when it’s fully ready. I hope that MS has learned from Vista. Rushing Windows 7 out the door does no one any good, including MS
He was not talking about the possibility of upgrading from XP to Win7, he was talking about the support contracts lasting until past the win7 release date. Thus negating the need to move to Vista.
There are an immense number of corporations who are stuck on 2K or XP and will not touch Vista, Microsoft are trying to recapture the market again by bringing the win7 release date forward.
Microsoft will of course have lost billions that they used for development of Vista, but the whole mess is costing them more in public relations. Better cut the losses are try again.
You know, and I know, that rushing Windows 7 out the door will be a balls up… but the company decision makers are usually muppets without one ounce of sense, and the ones who still have a job after Vista will once again rush out and buy win7.. The ones who held off will wait for others to review, and if it is better than Vista, they will buy.
The posters here and in the article are not rumour – mongering, everything you have read, not just in the computer press, but in interviews with the “normal” news agencies, like the BBC, Sky and CNN, various people like Mr Gates and that guy from Microsoft UK, the one from Japan, all of them are singing with the same hymn book… “vista has problems but win7 will be excellent”.
Even monkey boy himself Ballmer is saying that Vista has “teething problems”
Now, slightly off- topic, part of my job entails working on a customer facing helpdesk, and I get a lot of people who have just bought their first computer, these people do not know anything else…. but still they complain about their frustrations with Vista. Others who had machines with XP before, complain that their older computer was way better than this new one with Vista, and could I help them remove it and move to XP.
More experienced ones know that it is a nightmare finding all the drivers for XP and ask if they can have a Linux dual-boot, yes, ones who were complete Windows fan-boys not so long ago.
Honestly, since I started working in computing in 1985, I have never seen such a flop. WinME was nothing like Vista. Sure is was a little unstable, but the majority of people using it had no problems, and there are some who prefer it over any newer release.
I only know 1 person who has ever defended Vista, but it was his first computer and he thought it was supposed to take around 6 minutes to start up.
In fact, how can anyone defend Vista when Microsoft themselves will not ?
All the information I’ve found (and I’m only trusting information direct from Microsoft), tends to suggest that extended support will end on 31st December 2011.
Microsoft’s policy on support is 5 years from release date for mainstream support (Release date of XP being 31st December 2001), once mainstream support ends, extended support runs for a further 5 years, taking us to 31st December 2011.
I’m not suggesting you are wrong, I’m just interested to know your source, as I’d like to know the definitive answer to this.
Microsoft Support Lifecycle
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=7&y=8&p1=3223“&…
Backwards compatibility shouldn’t be a problem, even native. Look at Linux, it’s binary compatible with userspace back from 2.0 and it doesn’t hinder progress. Older API’s can coexist with new ones. The rest can be handled with userspace compatibility layers which aren’t even active if the old app doesn’t use it.
Reason for Vista slowness is brand new driver model for almost anything, and a bunch of new, half-baked userspace frameworks, among other userspace components. New and unoptimised code, that’s most of it (other part is what MS usually does, bloat with higher hardware requirements to please PC vendors).
Hopefully this whole virtualisation thing will take off. My computer happily runs Windows XP AND Linux together [Linux in a VM] faster than Vista. If they relegated all the backwards compatibility of Vista to a virtualised OS, then Vista might be able to really fly.
Apart from grabbing hardware access.
Fedora installs use Xen virtualisation out of the box, and the Fedora system itself is set up as Xen0, so it can have full hardware access. So in effect, Xen is running as the operating system, and Fedore is running in a VM.
It is interesting where things are going with VM at the minute, I just hope that the Xen way wins out.
Microsoft Windows ME… Vista Edition.
This article is self-contradictory. Do an incremental release to prevent breaking applications, but streamline Windows by removing backwards compatibility?? I call shenanigans.
I think we had this situation in past, too.
Windows 2000 should be a mix of 98 and NT for home users – but Microsoft failed and Windows Me followed.
A year later Windows XP released – which really met the expectation.
Microsoft only really gets it’s arse in gear when it has to compete. Vista shows what microsoft are like when there is no competition. We now have Mac OS X polished and very attractive to many people, we have linux evolving at an incredible speed.
Windows 7, dropping the Vista name will be the only way Microsoft can pull through the bad reputation of Vista.
I hope they clean up the UI a little, lose a few icons in control panel, make it quicker and easier to change basic settings such as networking, wireless etc.. I really hope they can also make it leaner on resources.
The core parts of Vista are not bad, Vista really does have some really good underlying technology (trye Windows 2008 to see really how well vista could have been, SMB 2, snappy and responsive and pretty lean on resources to boot).
It’s a shame they stuck a poor UI, which i think uses quite a lot of desktop space simply with large borders on windows etc.. (using it on a 4:3 1280×1024 monitor) and a crappy search system. I found that it loves to thrash the hdd and doesn’t really perform searches that well at all. With the mountains of files and media we are storing on computers, a descent search system is fundamental. (i wish they should make something a kin to spotlight, i love instant search).
Vista is a forign word for falure.
Having just got a new pc at the busiest time of the year for me, I was more than a little worried about Vista. Being more at home using Debian than Windows XP and having read so many articles, etc expounding on how rubbish Vista was/is. I am very pleasently surprised about how great Vista actually is!! And this isn’t just my personal experience, I have many friends who are equally impressed.
It hasn’t crashed once, when apps die (which happens no more often than on Linux) I don’t even have time to bring up task manager before Vista offers to force the program to quit. I think the aero interface is great, very smooth, although I was a bit miffed at the lack of effects like that offered in compiz fusion. And startup time is no slower than XP or Linux.
So, in nutshell Vista is great, MS doesn’t need to rush out any successor and while some people obviously have problems with Vista; just think of the problems they would have if MS broke compatibilty with their previous products.
Anyways, that my opinion…oh and I’m not an MS plant!
Microsoft, please work on XP SP4, and please make a 32 bit version of Windows XP “64-bit” Which is simply Windows 2003 rebadged Windows XP.
Microsoft, your Vista and 2008 products suck so bad, its utterly pathetic and embarrassing and you are risking longtime customers to simply defect to something better.
Solaris: opensource, Linux: opensource, Darwin:opensource, OS X, you name it, we are getting more choices. Stop trying to make them easier to make.
The reason most people want XP on a new computer is that they hear a bunch of BS about Vista from somebody they know who read that BS on the internet from some idiot blogger who thinks he knows everything about computers. It’s getting ridiculous