I finally got around to reading this juicy, albeit lengthy, Tweakguide.com article,
Vista Annoyances Resolved, last night in which Koroush Ghazi takes an objective view of Windows Vista from inception to its current state. You see, like a lot of us, Koroush is tired of reading, in his (assuming he's a he) words, "what can only be described as a plethora of articles on Windows Vista, almost all of them repetitive, one-sided and of little practical use." The main driver of this type of FUD is the hunger for traffic. If sex sells on TV and in advertising, bashing Windows Vista sells on the internet. As the article points out this has resulted in what the New York times coined as "blog stress" to refer to the never ending need to break company news and expose corporate blunders, mostly unsubstantiated.
So what I find refreshing about this article is, it attempts to provide a blow by blow of reviews and articles that reveal the good, the bad ... and the ugly. All of his claims and opinions are backed up by articles, reports, and data readily available to anyone with some time on their hands and is familiar with this thing called the Internet. For the conspiracy theorists out there, Microsoft has no relationship with Koroush beyond that fact that he uses our products. He includes a full disclaimer on page 3.
Some of the "neat" stuff Koroush points out are things we are pretty proud of, especially the security enhancements in Windows Vista. There's been an ongoing debate whether or not it's actually better than XP. Koroush unearths some numbers:
In a comparison of Vista and XP security advisories issued by Microsoft between November 2006 and July 2008, Windows XP had 64 advisories rated Critical or Important, whereas Vista had 33 of the same type. Similarly, comparing the advisories issued by Secunia in 2008 Windows XP had 35% of its advisories rated Highly Critical or above, compared with Windows Vista's 29%. In fact as of late August 2008 XP still shows 30 unpatched security advisories, the highest one rated Moderately Critical; Vista shows 2 unpatched security advisories, the highest one rated Less Critical.
There's also been some speculation that XP's adoption curve and reception was much faster and more favorable than Windows Vista. We understand that people get tired of Microsoft constantly saying "Vista is great! Vista is selling like hot cakes!" (it is, by the way!), which is why it's great to see Koroush point out that there is evidence out there to demonstrate that Windows Vista is on the right track. It's also refreshing to see that Koroush kept an open mind and took the time to understand what normal adoption rates look like.
The above information is provided simply to demonstrate that Windows XP was subject to the exact same types of criticisms and concerns as Windows Vista, many of them totally baseless or sensationalist as we now know. It took roughly three years or more for XP to reach the point (SP2) where users began to start trusting it, and started blaming their errors and problems on things other than the OS itself.
He also outlines some very creative solutions to common issues he's noticed users may be hitting up against like slower than desired performance or driver support. While we appreciate his efforts, we don't recommend or endorse the tweaks included in the article.
Like I said, the article is long, but it's full of interesting information, tips and tricks for the PC users. And again, it's great to see that there is a cure for blog stress...