Comments

1. bezee

   
   Posted on: September 11, 2007 at 2:58PM  

   Bezee here again,

   Just a quick follow up after a reread.  

   The accountant that we upgraded to Vista is a power user and an early adopter.  He likes Vista with some minor complaints and wanted it to work, but Peachtree and another app were givng up trouble, that was eventually worked out, now the kicker is this user is on XP and Office 2003 because we also installed Office 2007 on his machine.  The problems with Office 2007 have soured him soo much he says we are not going to Vista/Office07 for a long time, and when we go to Office 2007 he says he will not do it.  He HATES the ribbon, calendar won't print right, graphics don't print as nicely.

   Business users a complely different animal to home,hobby,gamer,college,users.  Microsoft can not rebuild Rome so to speak every few years and expect nothing but applause.  Yes, my mom would do better with Vista and Office 2007 as a new user, but experienced users are very hindered by the alltogether overwhelming amount of change in migrating to Vista and running Office 2007.  For me getting to often used control panels in Vista much more clumsy.  For a new user who likes all the obstructive hand holding Vista does, they will like it.  

   Vist is a home user, new user, gamer, change for the sake of change OS.  Throw in Office 2007 too.
2. Nick White

   
   Posted on: September 12, 2007 at 1:25AM  

   Hey bezee:  I wanted to get back to you with info on how the costs are calculated in this study.  The metrics in this study compare "run state" costs for both Windows XP and Windows Vista; deployment costs for both operating systems are not included its scope.

   We know that new users will spend time learning and adapting to Windows Vista, and such costs should be included in every business case.  But, note that those costs will be quickly offset by new productivity benefits, realized in Windows Vista in ways like reduced PC self-support time and due to new features like Meeting Place, which improves collaboration. User productivity benefits were not included in the Mobility paper (as we explicitly focused on "run state" TCO), but can be easily calculated using a formula found in Appendix A of the study.
3. dexteur

   
   Posted on: September 23, 2007 at 12:03AM  

   This is a problem with Microsoft: they make biased and illegitimate claims about their Operating systems. Just to present myself not as someone who has absolutely no experience with computers, but I do have experience managing a computer repair shop. In this post I want to tell you some of the problems I have had with windows Vista, simply because Microsoft does not provide adequate user support.

   1. Windows Vista is unstable.

   No doubt windows vista has made its way to becoming one of the most unstable operating systems to deploy in a large-scale business environment. The way Windows handles its process and services is still unacceptable. After all the research and effort into Vista, crashed processes still crash the entire system. Explorer.exe crashes more than often, not to mention that on my SECOND day of using Vista...I received a blue screen. New to windows Vista is the increased CPU usage and inefficient resources to tasks that "get your work done."

   2. Windows Vista is slow. As already seen someone else complained about this problem. Copying a 196 MB MP3 file from your hard disk to an MP3 player using USB 2.0 took me 2 minutes on windows XP, it took me 5 minutes to copy the same file on Windows Vista. Explorer has crashed 2 times trying to "calculate time remaining". All my co-workers have been advising me that the Windows file copy algorithm is illogical in the way that it handles large files.

   3. Windows Vista is hard to use. I do not know the reason for having the misleading "Network and sharing Center"...actually I find it annoying and useless for two reasons: first, the name is misleading, it assumes users know where to find the network adapter configuration. This wasted 10 minutes of my time trying to find where the network connections adapter settings are....this is talking from the viewpoint of a computer technician. Simply said, it takes 2 steps in Windows XP to get to the network adapter properties page. It takes 4 steps in Windows vista.

   4. Windows Vista still has the same security loopholes. I must admit that you guys have come a long way in terms of security. However, you still run most Windows services under the "SYSTEM" user (aka the most powerful user on the computer with unlimited rights)....secondly, you pre-install internet explorer, hence forcing users of windows vista to initially use internet explorer until they can gain access to a much more decent alternate browser such as Mozilla Firefox. Seriously guys, give up on Internet explorer, it is built upon a very weak foundation and there is no point trying to "renovate a house built on a weak foundation" so to speak. Again, including and forcing users to use internet explorer is against fair-competition laws and there have been numerous lawsuits concerning this matter.

   5. Microsoft "forces" you to use vista. This actually, again, is a violation on "fair-competition" and "consumer-rights" laws set by the United States and many other countries. Typically said, computer manufacturers only say they "recommend Microsoft windows vista" because Micrsoft dominates the software market, hence manufacturers are able to get mass numbers of legitimate licenses for windows Vista at a significantly lower cost. This is fine, except there is one problem, new conmputers prevents users from downgrading to windows XP. If you want to use windows XP, you must use a third-party partition manager to wipe your hard disk clean, and install XP from "scratch".

   6. Master the essentials before adding on the unnecessary. Aero interface = useless, network and sharing center = useless, all the entertainment add-ons like sidebar = useless. I want to quote another computer technician: "if you want to see your CPU usage skyrocket on your vista box, use aero." I personally think that you should master the fundamentals of operating systems before "having fun". Compare the number of exploits on Windows platforms, Linux platforms, and Macintosh platforms.....you get the idea. Yes, linux user-interface is hard to use, but with the linux box that I am using and as I look at the system uptime = 12 days 03 hours 43 minutes......without crashing. Every since purchasing my new computer with vista pre-installed, the longest system uptime without crashes is 4 days. You compare the stability.

   7. Microsoft doesn't listen. I had the opportunity to participate in a Microsoft "show-and-tell" event that took place last winter at the university of Calgary. These are the first words that the microsoft representative said to us in the seminar:

               "you said you want it clean and simple, you said you want it easy to use, you said you want it secure........now we're saying......we heard you."

   Web of lies. The fact that Windows vista is simply harder to use than windows XP is out there, the fact that it is more unstable is out there, the fact that it is slower is out there, and finally, the fact that you literally force the market to migrate to windows vista, is also out there.

   decide for yourselves.
4. kampfgranate

   
   Posted on: January 09, 2008 at 10:31AM  

   Thanks dexteur, you've really said what I was thinking.

   I am deeply sorry for every minute that Vista has wasted and is continuing to waste for me.

   Look at your own blog, Mr. White: It seems as though the only product that Vista can be compared to is XP -and that's supposed to sound like an advertisement?

   It's a monopoly is what it is.
5. Colon Cleanse

   
   Posted on: October 18, 2009 at 5:25AM  

   Talking about your best users, how did you determine this? is it by their dexterity with computers, or with Windows? In our deployments, I have found the converse to be true: the UI is the one thing that users, especially power users seem to love.