LXer: The Outlook for Vista Gets Even Worse
 

Published at LXer:

As someone who has been following Microsoft for over 25 years, I remain staggered by the completeness of the Vista fiasco. Microsoft's constant backtracking on the phasing out of Windows XP is perhaps the most evident proof of the fact that people do not want to be forced to “upgrade” to something that has been memorably described as DRM masquerading as an operating system.

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Really, the failure of Vista boils down to two points:

1) It doesn't offer any benefit over XP. You don't get any new software, you don't get any better performance and if you actually pay attention to XP security, the increase in security is negligible. Consumers have reacted correctly in that they aren't paying loads of money for nothing in return.

2) The rise of netbooks. I think this caught everyone flat-footed, but it pointed out the reality that a majority of people don't need quad cores with 16 GB of RAM and a 12 TB hard disk when most of what they are doing is web surfing and emailing. Vista simply doesn't work on netbooks, although I'm very pleased to say that Linux definitely does

I think the evil empire is doing something self-destructive. As M$ forces people to upgrade, and when they do and they realize how much Vi$ta sucks, they will turn to alternative OS's. I hope M$ annihilates itself with this foolish tactic, because they along with all their DRM deserve no better.

It certainly will be interesting to see what happens next. Netbooks are introducing people to Linux (although not always in a good way) and at least getting them thinking about something besides Microsoft. Windows 7 will be make or break for MS. If they screw that up as badly as they did Vista, a big piece of MS's stranglehold on computing will be broken. Given how fast they seem to be rushing Windows 7, I suspect it will be more like XP sp4 than anything else, which will be a disaster. Vista proves that you actually have to provide serious value to command the prices MS needs to charge, otherwise people stay where they are. For now, sticking with XP is viable, but if Windows 7 is a screw up, people will probably look elsewhere.

By the way, Happy Birthday H_TeXMeX_H!

Yeah, I guess there is still the option of staying with XP, but I think M$ will still push for people to switch to some new version. BTW, is it just me or does Windows 7 look KDE-like ?

Thanks :)

And can you guess my present ... another freaking xbox 360, because my old one fried itself after only 100 hrs of active use. I hate M$ !!! I swear this is the last one I buy (this time I mean it, even tho I said this when my xbox broke down and I got another for one of my other birthdays). So total 2 xbox, 2 xbox 360 = 4 birthdays in which I got crap as a present.

From chatting to friends, you should be able to call a number and get your xbox fixed? Happy birthday, by the way. :)

Thanks. Unfortunately, the xbox 360 is out of warranty so I don't think so (it also happens to be in pieces scattered on my desk :)).

Every business I've seen in my little part of the world is sticking with xp for the foreseeable future.

BUT don't go reading too much into that.

Microsoft have had some pretty bad products in the past, and managed to come back with a much better product. This has happened more than once: DOS 4.01 and Windows ME are two really bad products. DOS 5 and Windows xp, on the other hand...

And yes, I agree. Windows 7 really does look a lot (too much!) like KDE. I guess it was only a matter of time. ;)

I've almost lost all interest in Windows. I got rid of XP from my desktop setup months ago, and have never missed it. So it's days are numbered on my laptop. Vista? No thanks, no way! I'll read about Windows 7 when it materialises, but that's all.
A late Happy Birthday fom me too, H_TeXMeX_H!!

I think they just lack imagination, they must steal things form their competition, be that Mac or GNU/Linux. And of course, they even do a poor job of that. They try to make IE look like and have the same features as FF, steal Mac and GNU/Linux styles, themes, window manager setups. And then they claim they invented it all in the first place and patent it. A great way to do business, that's why it's the evil empire.

@ brianL
Thanks :)

I'm seeing almost all my clients stick with XP, and anytime anyone pulls out a Vista machine, it is greeted with general groans of "you poor bastard". On the other hand, when I fire up my Linux boxes, it almost universally generates questions about how well it works as a desktop. I think just plain old ignorance about Linux is at the root of desktop adoption issues. Hopefully netbooks will help to change that. That said, I think you're right that Windows 7 will probably be good enough to keep a lot of people in the Microsoft camp. Provided they learn from their pricing and version mistakes with Vista.

...are not really good products either. They are only good when compared to the utter c**p that preceded or followed them. On an objective basis they can best be described as "adequate". And at least in XP's case, it wasn't until service pack 2 that it really reached that level. Leave it to Vista to actually make XP look like a good product.

Seriously, has MS ever put out anything that could justifiably be described as "good"?

Conspiracy Theory Alert!
Could it be that Vista was actually designed by GNU/Linux agents working deep undercover at Redmond to put people off using Windows for good?

I refuse to believe it, you should not think such things. But, if they did it, hooray ! Mission almost accomplished.

Hey, DOS 5 was the "duck's nuts" back in it's day. :) At least, it was to me. Maybe it didn't support CD-ROM drives or networking or even mice out of the box, but... aww who am I kidding... You're right. Everything Microsoft has ever released sucks ass. It would seem that of all their products to date, Win xp (SP2) sucks the least - hence the reason people are hanging onto it.