Two negative reviews of Vista RC1. First off, CRN says: "Microsoft is making its first Vista release candidate and pricing information more broadly available to partners and consumers this week. Solution providers who have seen it say it's not yet ready for prime time." Our favourite 
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Well, maybe so, but isn't this the method that a large number of users will employ to get Vista up and running? That is to say, won't this be the default method of installing Vista for users who aren't buying a new PC with Vista preloaded?
Yes, unfortunately. Which underscores the point that 98% of people having problems with Windows don't know how to run it properly. Of course, this is no fault of their own .. these people are probably better off on Macs.
but I would still have expected this to be a major focus for Microsoft, so as to ensure that as few problems were encountered, for as few users, as possible.
With XP, I think there's only so far you can go .. I mean, God himself probably couldn't make the upgrade process go smoothly for everyone 
At the moment, I cannot see any reason to use Vista; compared to Ubuntu, it really looks a bit low-class---especially given the price difference!
It really depends on what you use computers for. For example, if you are a professional who uses computers to make music for a living, then any flavor of Linux doesn't make a whole lot sense. At least, not compared to Windows or OSX. There are some other things where this is true as well.
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2005-09-02
Well, maybe so, but isn't this the method that a large number of users will employ to get Vista up and running? That is to say, won't this be the default method of installing Vista for users who aren't buying a new PC with Vista preloaded? This being the case, shouldn't the upgrade process go smoooth-ly (in the words of Zim)? It seems pretty important that it does. I know that upgrading is tricky, and that when custom apps are installed this is always going to cause problems, but I would still have expected this to be a major focus for Microsoft, so as to ensure that as few problems were encountered, for as few users, as possible.
By the by, although it may be an apples-oranges comparison, I'd like to observe that upgrading is something that Ubuntu tends to do very well. I can't speak for special cases of funky software being installed, since I generally only use stuff from the Ubuntu repositories, but I upgraded from Warty to Hoary, from Hoary to Breezy, and from Breezy to Dapper, without ever reinstalling, and without any problems that I remember. I'm sure some other people will not have had such an easy time, but in my experience Ubuntu far outpaces Windows in the stability of the upgrade process (I recently reinstalled upgrading to Edgy, but this is because I changed CPU arches). Edgy, incidentally, has been very solid so far and I really like it.
I mention Ubuntu because I see it in direct competition with Windows---and if it is doing something better than Windows is, then Microsoft should take note. At the moment, I cannot see any reason to use Vista; compared to Ubuntu, it really looks a bit low-class---especially given the price difference!
Ymmv of course (: