Submitted by Technologizer has an interesting article about why Windows Vista failed, and it provides 16 reasons why this is the case. A few of those reasons reveal a certain lack of understanding, but a more pressing issue is that while listing these reasons individually is interesting, Vista’s failure in the marketplace can be explained in a much more compact fashion.
I wasn’t planning on touching on each of the reasons listed specifically, but there are a few I want to add my thoughts to. The fist one that really struck me as the author not fully understanding Vista is the one about Aero being about nothing more than translucency. “Vista’s signature feature was the Aero user interface, which…drum roll!… consisted mostly of making the frames of windows transparent,” the author claims.
The author is missing the big point here by about 3923823 miles. Aero is not the important feature – Aero is just a theme. The feature that matters is the Desktop Window Manager, which meant that Windows finally moved beyond the tearing and jerkiness of GDI. It required a hefty video card in its day, and Microsoft and the OEMs made a big mess out of the whole thing, but equating DWM to just translucency shows a clear lack of understanding of the importance of a compositing window manager.
The article also severely overstates Apple’s influence on the failure of Windows Vista, probably reflecting the American background of the author. While Apple certainly plays a major role in the desktop market in the US, that is simply not the case outside of the US; according to Apple’s latest financial results, 4.53% of the world’s population (the US) accounts for 56% of Apple’s sales.
The author continues to overstate Apple’s importance in this matter by referring to the Get a Mac campaign. This campaign is limited to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan, meaning that most of the world’s television viewing public has never heard or even seen any of these ads, so they couldn’t have played that much of an important role in Vista’s failure.
No, Vista’s failure can be explained much more easily. Windows Vista was an overhaul of the entire Windows operating system, top to bottom, with every framework being overhauled or completely re-written. This introduced a whole boatload of issues that Microsoft was unable to fix, but because they had already lost precious time due to the Longhorn fiasco, they were forced to get Vista to market way too soon – resulting in an operating system that simply wasn’t ready for prime time.
It is only now, with Windows 7, that we’re starting to see Windows Vista grow up and become truly usable. Windows 7 pulls together and builds upon the new features and frameworks of Windows Vista, presenting them in useful ways that make using the operating system more pleasant to use. Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should’ve been from the start.
Windows Vista, in its state during release, should have never been promoted the way it was. Microsoft promised a well-rounded meal, but in fact only gave you the raw ingredients, and that’s where it went wrong, and all of the 16 reasons in the original article more or less boil down to that.
I don’t remember any ad or promotion of Vista in Australia.
I worked in a computer shop for the last 2 years.
You did not have the, lame, “Wow!” commercials? You must be lucky!
You have to be kidding! Harvey Norman and MS were promoting Vista like the Second Coming!
I saw Vista logos plastered all over all but one computer store in Mackay (Australia). There was so much advertising here it was impossible to turn on the TV without hearing “Vista” once or twice as I flicked through the channels. Conversely, I don’t see any Apple advertising at all. Not even lame iPod or iPhone ads.
Although i bet most of us knew it already, thanks for the clear article. It is pretty much exactly how you stated it.
Windows 7 is infact not half bad at all, it is very stable (for me) and it does look great.
For me Windows 7 has taken over the role as my primary OS going from Ubuntu. Still have Ubuntu on the laptop, though.
I could never use Vista but 7 works great.
Vista just became a magnet for everyones personal issues, i remember hearing a drunk on a bus ranting and raving: “why is windows vista so crap” 4am in the morning …
“The author is missing the big point here by about 3923823 miles.”
“but equating DWM to just translucency shows a clear lack of understanding of the importance of a compositing window manager. ”
(I hope I’m not starting a flame war here)
I think that the author is saying: what is the advantage of this all important DWM? What does it do for the end user? Oh, it makes the windows translucent. Big deal!
I agree with you that the failure of Vista stems from the longhorn fiasco. I think, first of all, that longhorn should not have been a fiasco.
But, that left aside, MS left LH behind with the firm determination ‘not to break things’.
THAT was their mistake. You cannot expect to address a far reaching architectural issue like security and not ‘break things’. As a result of this attitude, MS did not warn OEM’s that ‘a lot of things were going to change’. Instead they kept repeating: it will keep all your old stuff running.
Which it didn’t.
And indeed, as you said, time was very short. Too short e.g. to create a real added value using the DWM for the end user.
I haven’t explored the DWM in Windows Vista and 7 yet. How does it compare to Compiz and the one in OS X (don’t know the name)?
I would really like to have Expo and Spaces without having to resort to 3rd-party applications like “Switcher”.
No DWM, means no more GDI graphics problems. Ever have parts of windows get overwritten with other parts, and it just refuses to redraw itself? That’s a problem due to GDI. Its really annoying. Its also about offloading specific tasks off of the cpu and putting it on specialized hardware for dealing with that problem.
Its a big important change, that’s sorta tough to explain to the average customer. Like when windows moved from real mode to protected mode. Or when they recompiled windows xp with special software to remove buffer overflow vulnerabilities to create SP2.
…for Windows 7. It got released when it did because the whole project was already so delayed that they felt like releasing unfinished garbage would be better than releasing nothing. In fact, it seems a lot like the KDE 4.0 fiasco…
Edited 2009-08-11 11:17 UTC
If you are comparing Vista to KDE 4.0, bare in mind that KDE 4.0 has turned into KDE 4.3, which is by far the fastest and most capable desktop environment available today, whereas Vista has turned into Windows 7, which is looked upon by its owners purely as an opportunity to extract money from people:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136454/Ballmer_confirms_Win…
[sarcasm]What a boon, hey! With Windows 7, you get to spend more money. Yipeee![/sarcasm]
PS: When Ballmer says “lightweight performance”, he actually means: get back to something almost as good as XP was. He doesn’t mean a “boot in 10 seconds” type of performance, and he doesn’t mean “faster than any other OS” type of performance, he only means “faster than Vista” type of performance.
Big deal. Everything is faster than Vista.
Edited 2009-08-11 11:36 UTC
Yeah, and not even YOU, the biggest KDE fan on these boards, know what type of precarious hardware/driver/distribution combination is needed in order to NOT have KDE resize windows like sticky tape.
And Windows 7 is seen by Microsoft as a way to make money?
STOP THE PRESSES! COMPANY IN WESTERN WORLD WANTS TO MAKE MONEY! WORLD WILL END! STOCKPILE CANNED BEANS!
Edited 2009-08-11 11:40 UTC
I don’t mind a company trying to make money by offering wanted value-for-money goods and services. In fact, that is what the whole economy of the world thrives on, and that is a good thing for everybody.
Windows OTOH is a very poor product from all kinds of perspectives (the Vista story being a nice illustration of this point). Windows tries to extract money from people by making it impossible to get any alternative. Windows is the antithesis of having a good product, the exact opposite of being better value for consumers than competing products, and thereby making a deserved profit from that offering.
The “artificial scarcity” approach taken with Windows 7 starter edition illustrated in the article I linked is a perfect illustration of Windows ripping people off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity
The economic consequence of artificial scarcity (which is the cornerstone of the Windows market) is know as dead-weight loss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss
Edited 2009-08-11 12:02 UTC
It is not your job to tell others whether or not Windows is worth their money. You are not an all-knowing god, and your opinion is just as worthless as mine. Just because you see no value in Windows 7, doesn’t mean others must feel exactly the same way about it.
So please, stop trying to hijack every Windows thread with your hatred towards Windows. We get it. We know it. We don’t care.
I thought this thread was a thread about why Windows Vista had failed?
Just to be clear … I don’t hate Windows because it is Windows … what I hate is rip-off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip-off
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rip_off
I’m talking about the meanings numbered 2 and 4 in the above link. Windows in a nutshell. That is IMO why Vista failed.
PS: It is not your job to try to tell people off for dissing Windows … or is it? Now there is a thought.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:13 UTC
out of 21 comments on this post, 7 are yours.
we get it dude, you don’t like windows. now please quit the trolling.
Trolling is all that “frosty piss” crap we see on Slashdot all the time. Or that copypasta about Obama’s policies bankrupting the world, or deliberately inflammatory statements made only to agitate others. This guy isn’t trolling, he’s arguing his point. It’s not up to him to tell us if Vista or 7 are worth our money, but he makes a good case for things to consider before we decide.
saying the exact same thing over and over again until you get someone that will actually argue with you is trolling. And it is literally every single post about anything remotely to do with windows.
It is not your job to tell others whether or not Windows is worth their money. You are not an all-knowing god, and your opinion is just as worthless as mine. Just because you see no value in Windows 7, doesn’t mean others must feel exactly the same way about it.
Oh…so if someone expresses an opinion counter to yours, it has no value?
You know, when Eugenia primarily ran this site, she may have disagreed with a poster but, for the most part, she was respectful. I find you rather peevish and intolerant.
So why the hell do I get “taxed” by Microsoft when I buy a laptop? Just because Windows users consider Windows worth the money?(Those OEM deals are not imaginary, you know.)
Cause you are an idiot and buy a laptop that comes with Windows instead of one that comes with Linux.
I challenge you to walk into a brick and mortar store in Australia and buy a laptop with Linux on it off the shelf. I can guarantee the staff won’t even know what Linux is. Until we can buy Linux machines as easily as Windows ones off the shelves of our local rip-off merchants, the Microsoft Tax will still exist and be valid fodder for debate.
I challenge you to walk into an Apple store and buy a Mac book with linux. It’s simple idiot, most people who buy a laptop want something that works not a religon. Windows works and linux doesn’t. Retailers aren’t stupid they will sell their customers what they want and for the majority of reatilers their customers want Windows. If you want a Linux revoultion go figure out a way to make the greater public want it. Here’s a hint it’s not what you as a nerd want.
http://www.kogan.com.au/shop/kogan-agora-netbook-pro/
Does Kogan have a “brick and mortar” store? I would guess they do, because you can’t really run a computer business from a tent.
Hey, guess what … I can verify this thing actually works. It comes with a whole raft of free, working, licensed, non-trialware, non-shareware, non-malware, non-spyware, non-adware, fully capable software, and yet it still manages to be the cheapest 10-inch netbook in Australia.
Fancy that.
From what I hear, the Agora Pro version is selling pretty well.
Edited 2009-08-12 10:14 UTC
Can’t see why anyone moderated this up as it is just Trolling.
Firstly Apple is invoked in an irrelevant way to defend Windows. Then an abusive comment about Linux users, followed by the Windows works Linux doesn’t comment which is idiotic and simply untrue, it is remarkable how many Computers a distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE will just work on (without any geeking about) and if these were set up by OEMs obviously customers would get them delivered fully working. My experience is that if you setup a box for someone they are often more than happy with Linux
Finally we get a comment with some validity, however, the ubiquitous nature of Windows means that ordinary users are familiar with Windows and therefore may feel that they don’t need to learn anything new an inertia effect. However, probably Windows greatest advantage is the availability of third party applications.
You probably mean alpha, since betas are (supposed to be) feature complete.
Most of the reasons given in this article for Vista’s poor reputation would have passed most users by. Vista would have come pre-installed on their PC and as for the rest, most people don’t follow computing very closely if at all.
Vista had two problems in my experience. First it was slow and clunky and a resources hog (given the average PC’s resources at the time). Second, it acquired an awful reputation by word of mouth. Ask almost anyone, even those who had no real interest in computers, what Vista was like and the reply would likely have been “crap” or “OK” at best.
Once a word of mouth view like that is cemented into the marketplace, you are stuffed. Microsoft had no place to go save get out of the whole vibe as fast as possible. It will be interesting to see whether a similar fate befalls Apple, in this case not because their OS is below par but because of the company’s high-handedness and obsession with lock-in.
It’s a tipping-point thing: there will always be a minority who disagree, but if something is sufficiently foobared then at some point that view crosses over into a majority and then it becomes received opinion in every bar in the land. Corporations ignore this at their peril.
FWIW, I am using Windows 7 RC and it is very good. I think it presents a real challenge to desktop Linux because, again in my experience, neither KDE nor Gnome can hold a candle to it. KDE 4.3 still looks a bit ragged and unfinished (imho, of course) and with limited functionality, while Gnome looks like the DE from yesteryear which in many ways it is. Of course that’s only a part of the story, but Windows 7 makes “Why use desktop Linux?” just that that little bit harder to answer.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:16 UTC
Excuse me, but you have GOT to be kidding, surely?
Install Windows 7 from the install CD. Then install Kubuntu Karmic (KDE 4.3) side-by-side (perhaps dual boot) on the same machine. Then try and do stuff with that machine.
The bare Kubuntu KDE 4.3 installation will absolutely spank the bare Windows 7 installation for functionality (and beat it for performance, but that is not the point here).
Having noted that fact and thereby introduced an element of objective truth into the discussion … carry on.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:30 UTC
If it’s going to spank Windows 7 for functionality, then why does the entire linux install base still add up to less than a percent?
….
It’s functionality. People choose applications to get stuff done. The operating system is merely an underlying component to this end result.
Morglum
Edited 2009-08-11 12:35 UTC
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/67031.html?wlc=1249994640
Its availability. Microsoft pays under the table to make sure that Linux systems aren’t offered to ordinary people at retail.
Ballmer more-or-less admits this in this article:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136454/Ballmer_confirms_Win…
… when he talks about the “mistake” of offering Windows XP at a very low price on netbooks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing
Edited 2009-08-11 12:55 UTC
Why do dickheads complain about a lack of bundled software with Windows and then complin that IE shouldn’t be bundled with Windows. You can’t have your cake and eat it too!
Edited 2009-08-11 12:52 UTC
Why do dickheads try to introduce irrelevant whines into the discussion, try to provoke nasty responses to their ad hominem attacks, and utterly fail to address the actual point made?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_%28idiom%29
Edited 2009-08-11 13:11 UTC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing
🙂
lol, l’ll mod you up if I could.
But nobody cares about bare installation functionality. The only comparison anybody cares about is Windows 7 with all your favourite Windows software installed vs Kubuntu KDE 4.3 with all your favourite Linux software installed.
Perhaps on your computer, but certainly not on mine.
And even then, after all that additional expense on Windows, often more than doubling the initial purchase cost of the machine … what (as an ordinary consumer) can you do on Windows that you cannot get for Linux?
Apart from being able to scan your machine for Windows viruses, of course, and encumber your own files with DRM and other lock-ins so that you can’t use them on another machine, and being still unable to properly utilise open formats such as ODF, SVG and HTML5/Theora …
Edited 2009-08-11 13:27 UTC
Nobody would care about these open formats if they weren’t properly supported on Windows by third-party applications.
Meanwhile, I can enjoy games and specialized applications on my desktop without having to cope with DRM. They are the only reasons why I kept Windows on my desktop, but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages to me. Many people are probably sharing the same thoughts.
Of course, you already know all of this…
Games is one area where there is considerably greater availability on Windows than there is on other desktop platforms, but seriously, I use a computer for computing. If I want to play a game, I use a games console.
When I walk into any store specialising in electronic games, I see that this is the case also for the vast majority of people.
Edited 2009-08-11 14:14 UTC
“Nobody” is meant to be an offence, isn’t it?
What about the falsifiability of your hypothesis?
Now I would like to know the specs of such a computer, that runs Windows 7 faster than Kubuntu.
I’d agree about the KDE functionality spanking only IF you were talking about KDE 3.5
The 4 Series stripped out SO MUCH functionality that KDE 3.5 contained. And that’s the original point the poster was trying to make. Windows Vista didn;’t deliver where XP had thrived (in some casess breaking previously working functionality). Likewise KDE 4 broke/didn’t include a lot of the functionality KDE 3.5 had.
4.3 doesn’t come close to the customization options 3.5 had. When the 4 series finally “catches up” with 3.5 let me know. Then and only then I might come back. Til then I’ll keep enjoying E17 with ecomorph.
It is off-topic (we are talking here about how dismal was Vista and why it failed) but anyway … you are of course entitled to your opinion, but then again so to are these people:
http://www.kdenews.org/2009/08/10/reviews-kde-43
http://polishlinux.org/kde/kde-43-early-preview/
Configurability is not lacking.
Edited 2009-08-11 13:52 UTC
You do understand that quoting references on the internet doesn’t mean your statement is true?
It adds no weight to the discussion. Honestly.
That’s why we have a mod system, where people can up things as insightful or down as straight trolling. They mod because they believe the comment in their experience is true or false (or some degree of true and false). Adding internet references never makes your point more correct; it only re-reinforces a belief that the poster’s position is lacking in substance.
Morglum
In what way was the original opinion supposed to have more substance, giving as it did no references, but just sprouting an unfounded, unsupported alleged criticism which is easily shown (with a few simple screenshots) to be false?
As for the moderation system …
http://www.osnews.com/user/lemur2
(98% positive moderations).
Oh, BTW, trolling is anathema to my personality type. I’m not trolling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ#Characteristics_of_INTJs
Some people here really seem to be in desperate denial somehow.
Edited 2009-08-11 14:09 UTC
Hi
I’ve read your profile page. You’re really proud of that INTJ concept.
I kind of get the feeling that you’re abusing it, though. You’re just too intolerant to other peoples ideas, preferences or experiences and use it (INTJ) to justify your aggresion (that’s what I would call your way of arguing…).
BTW, this page is incredible smug: http://intjcentral.com/manual3
or
It’s not like INTJ is another word for genius/superior being…
Typical INTJ response would be: yes it is.
😀
A little translating is in order.
Sorry man, I just had to do it
Edited 2009-08-11 19:41 UTC
That’s simply not true. Many options were reorganisized, but were not removed.
Slightly off topic, but why would anybody want to install a pre-release of the worst Linux distro in exsistence?
Kubuntu ships with broken KDE packages in its final releases. Now you want him to install even a pre-release of that cr#p? Surely everybody will then prefer Win7 instead.
That one is good, however: http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/
Lemur2 wrote: “Excuse me, but you have GOT to be kidding, surely?
Install Windows 7 from the install CD. Then install Kubuntu Karmic (KDE 4.3) side-by-side (perhaps dual boot) on the same machine. Then try and do stuff with that machine.”
No I’m not kidding. I’ve used Linux as my daily desktop for nearly eight years and so I think I’m able to form a view that isn’t entirely kneejerk.
People forget that open source applications are plentiful on Windows, too. In fact the more well-known ones – Open Office, Firefox – seem to put more into getting things right on Windows that they do on Linux these days. If you then throw in stuff like Google’s many applications, Gimp, Pidgin, Vlc, Filezilla, Putty and Thunderbird, among others, you can have a very capable machine whose underlying OS happens to be Windows 7 – even if all those apps aren’t pure open source, but then they aren’t when run under Wine on Linux either.
The only rational position to take towards operating systems is that of an Angry Agnostic, imho. These are very complex systems, as is IT generally, as is the world. No one can possibly predict what will happen next, let alone in ten years’ time. No one can work out what unintended consequences will produce – often the most influential determinant of all. Texting on phones is the prime example. When it first turned up, no one realized how important it would turn out to be.
Therefore I think it is best to keep an open mind, use what is best at the time and be prepared to change if necessary. I realize these views are probably a little challenging for the black-and-white brigade on here with their fingers hovering over the mod buttons much like a disapproving suburban curtain-twitcher, but that’s just not my problem. One example: system-wide colour management and photographic tools. These are important to me and Windows 7 at the moment provides the superior platform. Tomorrow it might not, but today it does.
FWIW, the KDE 4.3 I was referring to is KDE 4.3 on Ubuntu so presumably Kubuntu packages. Since this seems to have buggered up my Ubuntu install nicely, with frozen dialogue boxes every time I open a gtk app, I am most likely swapping over to the latest SuSE 11.2 KDE 4.3 milestone. This should also allow me to synchronize my Google calendars, something that KDE 4.3 on Ubuntu 9.04 isn’t able to do.
Edited 2009-08-12 13:37 UTC
There’s one big problem with Aero, whether regarded as a theme or a window manager:
The “Windows Classic” skin is still using the old technique!
So everyone who doesn’t want to have all that transparent / color gradient / glossy stuff is forced to use the old window manager, “with all its GDI jerkiness”. Why, god why?
Why can’t they include a “Windows Classic” THEME that runs on top of the new stuff, instead of having two window managers included in ONE operating system?
Also, the new GUI is completely broken. There are checkboxes which behave like radio buttons, there are buttons with different heights, there are context menus with beveled borders and some with flat borders, there are buttons that keep being raised, even when you click on them…
So, in the end, the only thing left that might be enjoyed by some users, is the translucency…
You seem to argue against yourself here. First you seem to agree that GDI-based windowing is jerky and unpleasant, then later you say that the new GUI (the DWM) sucks too. If this is so, what’s to be gained by having Classic as a theme for the DWM? You get freedom from jerkiness at the expense of a disjointed and inconsistent interface — won’t that inconsistency just be even worse against the backdrop of Classic?
For my part, I do detest aspects of GDI (massively delayed redraws are my pet peeve), but I only ever stuck with Classic in XP so I could disable the “Themes” service and squeeze out another piddling drop of performance. I don’t know enough about it, but I assume that if you have the hardware for it, a compositing desktop/WM would actually be better for performance than if the CPU has to do everything.
In the current Windows incarnations, Classic sucks for both reasons: because of jerky GDI handling AND because of being totally inconsistent.
In my opinion, the new DWM should be consistent, lightweight and hardware-accelerated, and then get a Classic theme, so that you can enjoy the old looks in their old consistency, but without redraw errors and so on.
Maybe now it’s a bit clearer.
Actually, the Aero skin looks a bit more consistent than the now-Classic-theme, maybe because it’s so over-the-top and full of glossy stuff, so that you simply don’t notice all the inconsistencies anymore. But it gets reveiled by switching to Classic.
I largely agree with you, however, one thing about Aero:
I think the original author was referring to what’s actually noticeable to the user. Of course, people like us know that the new technology behind Aero is a big deal, but Vista fails to present it in a useful way to the user. He/she only sees transparent title bars, Flip3D, and some live thumbnails.
Showing what really is possible is left to third-party tools, like the Expose-like tool “Switcher”, or those virtual desktop tools that reproduce Compiz’ cube.
And there’s two points I really can’t agree with:
You could say the same for *any* successor, but hell, it’s a different product. Vista SP2 is what Vista should have been.
I mean, the same way you could claim that Windows 7 is what Vista, XP, 2000, and everything else dating back to Windows 3.11 should have been. Seriously, 3.11, who in their right mind would require you to install a TCP/IP stack? So you see, 7 clearly is what 3.11 should have been.
Oh, just ditch this bullshit.
Heh, well, imo you can’t say it that way. It was service pack 1 when Vista grew up. Vista became truly usable when its irks were fixed with updates and service packs.
Of course I don’t deny that 7 is more usable than Vista, I just beg to differ. Vista SP2 is a truly usable Vista, and 7 is a different, better product.
I very much agree with you on this, in my opinion Microsoft should have included a decent non transparent theme for win 7 and preserve Aero basic and “Vista” Aero just as a second option.
At first sight i thought that Aero was “pretty”, but after a week using it every day it becomes just a lot of transparent windows all over the place with no usability advantage.
I really think Win7 is a good OS so far but the included themes are annoying for every day use.
You can turn the transparency… Off.
But it will still look… unprofessional.
Granted, I’ve thrown 12 GB at it, but Vista SP2 x64 is rock solid, blazingly fast and highly usable. Not sure if I really need the extra eye-candy in Windows 7 quite yet.
I agree. I run them both on the same hardware: Vista SP2 and Win7. I don’t see any speed difference.
Hardware is an Intel I7 with 6 GB RAM. It runs anything fast.
I do have to say, that with the stuff I do, I found Vista on my previous 4GB machine to be sometimes subject to extreme bouts of disk thrashing. But XP did the same thing under similar workloads. But x64 and 12GB of RAM have solved all my problems.
And you find it acceptable that you had to upgrade to 12 gb of ram just so Vista would stop thrashing? Give me a break. Besides, the way Vista thrashed on most average computers, most people are stuck with it as they’re not going to pay for 12gb of ram just for that piss poor excuse of an os to work the way it’s supposed to. Still, at least win 7 did fix that much of it… too bad most people got stuck with Vista and now have to pay a rather steep upgrade price for Win 7 just to fix issues like that.
Windows 7 IS what Vista should have been in the first place. Those were the exact words I used when trying out the beta version.
It’s NOT about transparent window borders, it’s about the overall feel of the OS. Vista was very pretty and did work well, but it suffered from what I call “puppydog” syndrome. It was always shouting at me, “Look What I Can Do!!” with all of it’s little pop-ups & notifications, and the UAC was simply HORRIBLE.
And in their attempts to make Vista easier to use, they made it more DIFFICULT for folks who KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. Example: I should not have to jump through a bunch of hoops just to change my display resolution!
Windows 7 removed a lot of the cruft and silliness of Vista, and turned it into a real, useable OS. UAC has been relegated to truly important things, the OS is easier to use, it gets out of your way and lets you work, it works with my peripherals without popping up little boxes every 10 seconds, and it’s helpful and informative without being a puppydog.
I’ll stay with the best OS I’ll be used till now. Windows XP; fast, lite and every software I need works like a charm.
Edited 2009-08-11 14:11 UTC
In my own experience, Windows 7 is even faster than XP, thanks to Superfetch. Also, there is an illusion of slowness when Aero is turned on. I recently tried Windows Classic with all effects turned off and the difference is noticeable.
I may give it a try. But in the lite part, XP is still the clear winner.
Yes XP is lighter than 7 but it is also crippled compared to 7 because it is lacking fine grained control of multicore processors and does not properly take advantage of it’s benefits. XP also lacks decent AHCI drivers and the ability to use TRIM support on emerging SSD standards. Then you add on things like services triggers which don’t allow services to run until needed reducing over head with out tweaking services like people do in both XP and Vista and basics are automated like disk defragging which is more than acceptable use of resources to make computing easier.
You can stick with XP but I will move on to Windows 7 and make the most of my hardware, not cripple it with a out dated os.
Vista for one is not a complete failure like people imply. Getting over 30% market share in a little over 2 years is very much in line with XP’s market penetration at the same time in it’s history and hardly a failure. Where Vista has failed is to capture peoples hearts and minds because of a botched launch by Microsoft, a relentless campaign by Apple to trash Vista and OEM’s putting out hardware with poor driver support and underpowered hardware. Then you add on a clueless tech press (Randall Kennedy, Walt Mossberg and John Dvorak) who continue to trash Vista for page hits. It is no wonder the public and press regards Vista as a failure, even if the sales figures say other wise.
Edited 2009-08-11 16:13 UTC
All you said is true, but my desktop pc its 2 years old, I bought it to run vista, but XP always ran better.
7 is better and XP, also is Vista, but XP performs better in my hardware than those.
Moder hardware may be another story.
Edited 2009-08-11 16:20 UTC
That’s wat they said about Win 2000 as well and almost nobody uses that one anymore.
I don’t denie windows xp may die in a couple of years, meanwhile, I’ll use it.
Some of Vista’s bad reputation was earned. Some was created by hype and people who didn’t know any better. Some was a direct result of Microsoft haters.
Vista was not as bad as everyone makes out. It had a rough start, and the “Vista capable” fiasco did not help at all. Most of the complaints I hear from Vista are from people that have no idea what their computer is doing anyway. The same complaints were made of XP when it first came out. I vividly remember people clinging to Windows 2000, vowing to never use the “bloated, POS XP” that “did nothing better than 2000.” Times change, and now people are repeating the exact same process.
I have seen people spend literally days getting Linux working on their equipment, yet these same people bitch and moan about having to search for Vista-compatible drivers. “Microsoft is an evil company that uses its monopoly to squeeze out competition; why can’t Microsoft use its monopoly to FORCE hardware vendors to make the right drivers for Vista? Its probably because they’re trying to kill Linux. What an evil company.” Some people are really close-minded.
At least Windows 7 looks promising. I’ve tested multiple versions of the Windows 7 beta on a couple of old laptops I have. Both are, as I said, old machines. One is an AMD Athlon 3200+ with 1GB of ram and the other is a mobile p4 512mb ram (Thinkpad T30). Windows 7 runs reasonably well using the default theme. Using the classic theme, it is faster than XP also using the classic theme. This is 6+ year old hardware. (Thinkpad T30 was released in 1999; 10 years old now)
I have been a long time Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD user. Windows 7 is the second MS-released OS that I am actually looking forward to using. (the first was Windows 2000)
You raise an interesting implicit point; the big problem was that Vista spent too long in development chasing too many long hop ideas in divergent directions over poorly managed timescales.
It is problem entirely attributable to management and perhaps the arrival of 7 indicates some of these issues may have been addressed.
The notable thing is that the BSDs (amongst others) have avoided this to a very large extent.
If Windows 2000 came in AMD64 flavor and games ran on it like they do on XP, I would stick to a 10 year old OS, that is Windows 2000.
I am a person that actually hates to configure anything that does not bring me direct value. Therefore I choose Ubuntu. No more f*ing update to drivers done manually, no more searching for drivers on the net for that device.
Though technically, Windows 7 does look progressive. And does show that just a little competition can push such a big company to do something better and out of total stagnation.
I have work laptop that for some weird reason is still Vista without SP1, and it works very well. I find still weird that people oversize Vistas failure, because it sold reasonable well. I agree Thom that biggest problem was that most of the huge changes were invisible. Quite frankly Vista is mostly hated due 4 things:
1) Longhorn: Longhorn was the real failure, it promised moon from sky but couldn’t even deliver rain. Vista suffers from Microsoft hastely decision to dump some of the biggest part of Longhorn.
2) IHV: Independent hardware vendors, oh they really tried to make money from Vista. I still have, not so old, scanner that won’t work on Vista, or 7, thanks to manufacturers decision to not make drivers. And speaking of drivers, they sucked. How couldn’t Nvidia or Ati make drivers in 6 months that they had before release?
3) FUD: Most of us remember great horror stories how Vista will suck all memory and other crap. It’s kind ironic that we still suffer same thing, remember Randall Kennedys newest “OMG stop 7, there is bug” crap, it’s not first time that so called tech journalists don’t see ass from donkey. It’s also Microsofts fault, they didn’t bother saying that they done new features, instead they let rumors fly around in internet.
4) PR: Stupid premium vs basic stickers, cutting Longhorn features, cocky release and no public beta or anything. Also Microsoft didn’t respond or critics or FUD, which costed alot. I think they could done better if Steve Ballmer would been jumping naked in stage. There was huge demos about DX10 and other stuff but none of those materialized on working programs. PR on Vista was big failure.
If you look back now it’s pretty clear that Vista was big disappointment for Microsoft, Bill Gates retired, Jim Alchin retired, lot of changes was made. Lot of people are saying Microsoft should have just skipped Vista and make 7, but the main reason why 7 is better than Vista is because those mistakes that Microsoft made with Vista.
My experience with vista has been mixed, on my laptop a bare install was constantly using 100%(worst was task manager showed 0 cpu usage on everything) cpu, oem copy, business, and any others i tried to throw at it. My desktop showed a performance hit as well, the only benefit to me was 3D on the second monitor, which wasnt enough. Was vista a major failure, my parents, neighbors are all using it fine. It’s just a shiner layout of XP. I’ll be interested in the windows 7 impact on regular users. Quite a few everyday users i know still dont fully grasp the start menu, or the taskbar. Yes its icon based, however i still get asked which icon launches the web browser.
Now have I had any other major problems with vista. Vista Media center crashes frequently on my dads media center. To add to that media center seems to be a major resource hog. The other day, a vista machine, randomly decided to uninstall both the core keyboard, and mouse driver. Which was a nightmare to fix. Networking shares are rather buggy, i.e. sometimes they often dont show up in network explorer(note this is on the client pc, error logs, show the network sharing service crashed). However in light of this vista is still good enough. The worst thing was the keyboard/mouse driver, past that it was an okay OS. A failure to me is constant blue screening, frequent locks up. Or something that makes my family or neighbors call and ask me how to do something constantly. The only major calls ive had pertained to printers.
Marketing wise and general user perception was rather bad and still is. You know its bad when an average user ask im using vista, thats bad isn’t it. Yes I was asked that more than once.
Windows 7 application is near top notch, the new taskbar is a great improvement. I’m using the rc and have been for a while, performance is really good, and all around is a great OS(however ive switched to running linux in a vm, and using that for daily tasks). However there are still a couple of problems i have. Some I think were common enough comments on the win 7 engineering blog. However i can understand why they weren’t implemented, just something else that may confuse the average user.
Now im wondering how soon till either gnome, kde, or something else on linux imitate/use the taskbar style of win7. After all as shown by open office(ribbonish), transition needs to made as easy as possible, not sure if that is fully confirmed.
I’ll close by saying whenever i use windows, there are a lot of features i miss from X desktops and window managers. Also give vista break, at lest it doesnt blue screen all that often.
Probably the number one thing that hurt Vista’s popularity is that people used to XP didn’t dislike it enough to switch. The fact that Vista has drawbacks, and that even its “advantages” are dubious, has not helped. But the fact of the matter is that more is not always better. Newer and later are not always better. Or at least not enough so to persuade people to switch. There is such a thing as “good enough”.
I’m not saying that people really love XP. But it is, at least, the devil they know, as opposed to the slightly nastier looking devil they don’t.
Edited 2009-08-11 17:43 UTC
That really is the crux of the problem. There is no obvious advantage, or killer feature if you will, to Vista over XP. MS rewrote a lot of the NT kernel for Vista and drastically improved security, but fine grained control of the audio server isn’t something that’s going to push product, to most people.
For instance, I only moved off of Windows 2000 when it was obvious XP handled wireless networks better.
I have always said that Windows Vista development and rollout was the equivalent to that of what became OS X version 10.0. Years of development, besieged with problems, delays and even a starting over on development while making a “quicky” upgrade to the old OS (Mac OS 9, Windows XP SP2) pretty much forced both companies (Apple 2001, Microsoft 2006) to release an OS that was not ready. Remember OS X was so slow, buggy and bloated that most Apple machines still booted into OS 9.
Remember this review? “Mac OS X shows tremendous promise, which is a nice way of saying that the 10.0 release is not quite ready for prime time. This is most certainly an early adopter’s OS release. Interface responsiveness and effective stability are the two biggest fundamental problems, but missing features and compatibility issues rank just as high if you actually intend to use OS X as a full Mac OS 9 replacement: the 10.0 release cannot view DVD movies; printer drivers are still scarce; CD burning is not yet supported, even by Apple’s own iTunes CD authoring application; and a lot of hardware (like my G3/400’s serial port adapter to which my printer is attached) seem destined to be orphaned forever.”
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-x-final/macos-x-1.html
That it took Apple three years to get all the major kinks out of the system is forgotten by Mac partisans, and unknown to the new switchers who started flocking to OS X after 10.3 was released. OS X 10.1, like Vista SP1 fixed most of the egregious issues with OS X, but it wasn’t until 10.3 that APIs were finally finalized and the OS looked and felt solid. I know people will take this the wrong way, but I think Windows 7 is very much like OS X 10.3 like that, right on down to the fact that the companies felt confident enough in the internals to introduce enhancements to the interface. Note that Expose was introduced in 10.3, like today Microsoft introduced Aero Peek to W.7.
The major differences between the two stories are external. OS X was release back when Apple was still near rock bottom, but that insulated them from the public eye somewhat. Apple is freer to start off with something incomplete and refine it until it is working , as its base at the time was the true-true believers. Fortunately, by the time the iPod proved to be a success, they were up to 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. Microsoft, however was near the top of its game but was beginning to take assault from the resurgent Apple (at 10.3 and 10.4). Vista was a bigger stumble because it was a much more public stumble.
Vista failed because it offered no real advantages for most users over XP – OK UAC made security a little better but was generally hated.
But it was slow, clunky, slow and horrid to use and slow, maybe if you have a kick ass gaming machine with 12 Gig of RAM and the latest video card it’s fast enough (but what wouldn’t be) however, they sold this on Celeron lap tops with 512megs of RAM and on such a machine Vista is a horror even with a Gig of RAM.
And would anyone on this forum want home basic? I think not.
Vista has worked fine for me! I find it to be both faster and more stable then XP.
I love the fact that most of the people that complain about Vista say it is just to big. Did I miss something? The cost of drives are way down and people complain that it may have a 20gig footprint… LOL… And a 500gig drive is how much? Get over it!
Then there are those that complain about the UAC. I am an advanced user and I leave it on. It does not get in my way but does give me the assurance that nothing is going to install without me saying allow. And this is a problem why?
People just wanted a reason to gripe.. Did not fit into what most people considered to be uber.
For me it runs way faster the XP. There is nothing really in 7 that makes it a must have. Of course I am a geek and to feed that inner geek I will more then likely buy it. But my reasons will not because I hate Vista for this reason or that.
Do you want to know the best way to tell Windows 7 from Vista? Look at the taskbar.
Do you want to know the ONLY way to tell Windows 7 from Vista? Look at the taskbar!
Microsoft is laughing at you! Their Mojave experiment told them that people would have a more positive view of something that was exactly the same as Vista but with a different name. And now they are releasing Windows 7. To my untrained eye they look and feel the same, just the different taskbar and slight interface changes in non-essential apps like MS Paint.
*None* of the “problems” from Vista have been changed for Windows 7. Resource use is similar. System requirements have increased. UAC is still present and annoying. Driver and software compatibility is the same as Vista. File copying was fixed in a Vista service pack.
But in the meanwhile, computers have been shipping with more RAM and faster graphics, software vendors have updated their programs not to fire up as many UAC prompts, and all new hardware has Vista drivers. Microsoft has changed precious little; Windows 7 is like Vista SP3. And people are falling for it!
Alert:
Could Microsoft have been working on longhorn and then delivered vista as a test before the actual release of longhorn happened. I think they may have. I use vista and its stood by me through some really bad times, raid broke, page file drive lost, disk instability, overheating cards, etc. I think i like vista because it grew on me. But can it be so that win 7 was the actual longhorn. Hmm!
Does Windows 7 have WinFS or the other major dropped Longhorn features? No. There is your answer. Vista was the alpha. Windows 7 is the beta. We’ll have another release (Windows 8?) in which the currently included features are actually baked. And you’ll possibly get another chance at Longhorn after that.
Patience, Grasshopper…
Edited 2009-08-12 05:13 UTC
… also helps dictate what users pick when getting new systems. Vendors primarily target windows users with their hardware and drivers, and only release Linux drivers at a later time (and often, they don’t release them at all).
Users want an OS where all their existing devices, and the ones they plan to get, will work. Yes, Linux may support your existing hardware, but for the latest/upcoming ones, only if you’re willing to wait (for the community to come up with drivers, or for vendors to release them).
For regular users or IT/support folks, downloading driver source code and compiling them is never an option.
At least Microsoft itself seems to think so. The real version number of Win7 is 6.1. Vista was/is version 6.0. Why would MS want to dissociate Win7 from Vista if not out of a fiasco feeling?
Strangely, MS does not think the same about its Server line of Windows products. Vista for servers is called Windows Server 2008, while the Win7-based Server release is called Windows Server 2008 R2.
Thom, good analysis. I’m with you on this. Like I’ve said before, Microsoft simply were obliged to release something “new” after the six-year relative holdup.
I just wonder, of that ±5% of the world’s citizens (in the U.S.) making up half of Apple’s market share, is it reasonable to assume that the majority of this 5% is centered around San Francisco and New York?