A Gloomy Vista for Microsoft

The article leaves out the fact that many people are technophobes and despise the idea of having to re-learn how to operate their computer. Many consider XP great because they just ???now??? finally learned how to use it and are not all interested in having to learn a new system - it's scary and seems like too much work. I happen to love Vista. The problem is with hardware - PC makers need to stop producing cheap & ugly computers that all too often fail; consumers deserve better.

As a gamer, there is little chance I will ever adopt Mac. However, I've delayed building my dream machine until Microsoft can iron out the kinks in Vista. I remember all the colorful ranting about WinXP, so I'm sure it will just take time. Besides, Mac acolytes just bug me with their elitism.

The only problem I have with Macs, is the fact that they are so expensive to own and upgrade. Yeah you can throw a "you get what you pay for" comment in there, but it is all the same. As for myself I'm working with Vista64, I have not had much trouble with it, so far. I do know that when I first got Vista (32bit home) loaded and saw first hand it was a "resource hog," I went online and acquired "Tiny XP Beast Edition" (a stripped down version of XP) and started using it. As far as the commercials, they are asinine to say the least and maybe they could use the gaming edge that they have with the PC which, to me, seems to be over the Macs. The argument that the Mac is more stable is some what true, but ask any designer who has experienced the "Rainbow Spiral of Doom" when using CS2 or 3 on a PowerPC Mac (or Intel Mac for that matter) and you realize that the only thing between a MacOS and Windows is how they crash.

Thank you, thank you. As a new PC purchaser with pre-installed Vista, I have been honestly astounded at how poorly the OS runs and how I need to use an endless series of 'workarounds' for problems, especially for games. I'm certainly no computer expert or programmer, but being forced to run everything in the compatibility mode for XP says alot to me. I don't want to have to switch to Mac if only because so much of the world is Windows, but I'm really thinking that my next purchase will be a Mac. Congratulations Microsoft on being so incredibly arrogant as to not only release garbage product, but force it upon your customers as an 'upgrade.' Perhaps more disgusting is Microsoft has gotten away with it. Or have they? They might be helping to instigate the final computer revolution more than any Mac ad. When you so alienate customers who have already invested in your product, that spells doom. As much as I do enjoy my 'missing driver mint tea.'

You know your product is bad if you have to pretend it is something else to trick people into buying it. And the commericals ridiculous. Regarding Lenovo, how are you going to promote/sell a product you are not willing to use?

Can someone explain to me why Microsoft let Apple get away with their slanderous commercials for so long? Microsoft let over a year go by before finally putting out a commercial of their own. Let me tell everyone my real life experience. I work in an office with both Macs and PCs. Within five years, EVERY SINGLE MAC HAS FAILED, while EVERY SINGLE PC IS STILL RUNNING. And that is my personal experience.

I have Vista on my new HP laptop and haven't had much problems with it at all. When I first got it had to set my internet options back to default once and ever since it's been doing fine. I love the magnifcation feature for the screen. If I ever get a new desktop unit I hope it will still have that feature on it. Works great and my husband will like it. The speed has been great and nothing has frozen per say. I don't game a lot and haven't seen any problems with the games I do play. It even let me copy an old Windows 98 program to it and it works like a dream.

Lyons, like most other pop "tech" writers these days forgets what the early years of XP were like. Ours is an industry that loves to hate the big guy and is slow to change, grumbling all the while--hype otherwise aside. It is no surprise at all that Lenovo still has XP as a standard. Corporations change slowly. Change is expensive. Retraining is expensive.

We should add a fourth kind of lie to the old quip about statistics, "generalized statements that sound statistical." The "massive" save XP campaign had numbers that were miniscule compared to the number of Vista users out there, let alone the number of XP users. While Apple has gained market share in the last year according to Marketshare, Windows (XP and Vista combined) has grown even more--with all of the growth coming from Vista as XP has lost ground.

Those who Apple is better really should look at the specs for what they are buying.
24 inch monitor duel core 2gb ram 500 gig HD NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory - $2200.00
Now the PC which will runs more and better software...
24 inch monitor quad core 3 gb ram 750 gig hd NVDIA GeForce 9600 GS with 768MB memory - $1750.00
These prices come directly from Apple.com and HP.com - you get a better machine with more to it for $500.00 less when you go for a pc. Do the math and don't listen ads...it is hype.
I have been running Vista on all 5 of my computers at home flawlessly since Vista was introduced.

Is that your story? Newsweek... I think you got more important things to worry about.

Is that your story?

Do not question the wisdom of Bill Gates. Those who do will be relegated to the purgatory of market irrelevance. Give Up Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.

Face it Microsoft - XP is Classic Coke and Vista is New Coke. We all know how this will end so cut to the chase and listen to your customers (like that'll ever happen).

The figures MS cites for satisfied Vista users remind me of elections in the USSR, with 99.9% voting Communist.
Judging from the comments here and the painful experience of some friends, I would expend to spend about a week getting Vista shipshape if I were to upgrade from XP now, not to mention buying expensive hardware. What for? For an OS that would eventually 'work fine'? XP does that now. My costs in time and money, plus the added risks and uncertainties hardly justify such an upgrade.

Dan Lyons must be using a different version of Vista than me. My HP Pavilion starts up and operates much faster than my old HP Pavilion with the XP Operating System. Microsoft's mistake was not admitting that Vista requires more than the minimum amount of RAM to operate efficiently. My Vista PC has 3 MB of RAM and is faster than any other PC or MAC that I've ever seen. I'm not a Microsoft plant - I despise MS Word and especially it's new 2007 version.

Dan Lyons must be using a different version of Vista than I'm using. My HP Pavilion starts up and runs much faster than my previous HP Pavilion which operated on the Windows XP OS. The mistake Microsoft made was not telling people that Vista requires more than the minimum amount of RAM. My Vista PC has three MB of RAM and works faster than any PC I've ever seen - including MAC's. I'm not a Microsoft plant - I despise MS Woprd and especially its new 2007 version.

I have been using Vista Ultimate for eight months now. I realized that there might be problems trying to load the OS on an older computer so I purchased a Sony laptop (fairly basic configuration with a gig of memory, etc. and only $700)) and upgraded my Adobe software to CS3. I know that this is not an option for a lot of people, as the cost does tend to add up however, aside from a few (very) minor glitches that happen only every now and then (things like my wireless icon failing to show up in the system tray) I have to say that I have been extremely pleased with Vista. I'm not sure what all the commotion is about. Vista is better than any Microsoft OS I have used. And I go all the way back to DOS 2.0.

I think the allusion to AOL is a just one. Microsoft is only biding its time with Vista and its over-demanding hardware requirements. This while other OS's are getting slimmer, slicker, faster, and more user friendly: Mac OS X & Linux (specifically Ubuntu). All operating systems take to the same place and for the most part, do relatively the same things.

The future is on the 'Net anyways. Office, Vista and Windows 7 will have its market share eroded over time as companies seek to gain greater flexibility, cheaper software, and better interoperability. Microsoft needs to take 2 leaps ahead of the competition instead of playing catch up with the rest of the industry.

Already, mobiles are leading the charge for change: Google Android for most mobiles and Apple for the iPhone. Both successes will be a foretelling for Microsoft's tough path ahead as their Windows Mobile share continues to become as relevant as Palm's OS.

Microsoft's AOL days are approaching. It should make the leap to not convince clients that there is just one solution and that is Microsoft. It should re-win the minds and hearts of its user base and developers by re-inventing itself like Apple did when it leapt from OS 9 to NeXT-->OSX or when UNIX because the venerable LINUX. If Microsoft achieves that, then they will seal their fate as a top dog for many years to come.