Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

ebudae2000 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:10:01 GMT

It rather annoys me how people who "love" Vista seem to label people who don't as Microsoft haters.

I am no Microsoft hater...but I am an Apple hater, but that's another story. My point is, despite not being a Microsoft hater; I do very much dislike Vista.

I simply feel it uses way too much of the resources on my machine to perform functions that very often could be performed faster by XP. I still find myself experiencing arbitrary errors, hanging screens and software incompatibilities. Fortunately all my BSOD issues have been resolved, but this does not make it okay.

I have a question: why is it Microsoft never seems to learn from its past mistakes?

Vista defenders will often say that XP had the same teething problems as did windows 98 and Windows 95 before it. That may be true, but why?

Microsoft controls about 90% of the desktop market. That means that just about every hardware manufacturer and software developer is catering to the Microsoft market. Why is Microsoft not getting the big guys onboard and ready with drivers and software updates before they roll out a new OS? Simply releasing an SDK and some documentation and White Papers is not good enough.

Creative, one of the largest soundcard makers still has no fully Vista compatible drivers. Why? (I may be wrong on this, but the last time I checked this was still true.)

Vista may be better than XP...a debatable statement at best...but that is all useless if people can't get the most out of their shiny new OS because all the applications and hardware that their OS is supposed to support does not function optimally.

Let's face it, an OS may have more features than you could ever hope to use but its main function is still to relay communication between your software and your hardware.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

rcpr — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:59:25 GMT

i use XP daily and the only problems I had in the beginning were - hmmm, I can't think of one thing... an occasional blue screen, but that was it.

I work for a large state agency as a state employee in the IT department. Our plans for downgrading to VISTA are not even on the horizon. It could be light years...

I have learn a few things about VISTA since I have to help my brother and a co-worker who each bought new laptops (new HP/Dell machines) with it two months ago (07/2008).

1) it is slow

2) the menu sucks to high heaven,

3) they lost many features that were useful and friendly

4) they curse when they refer to it (and they don't usually curse)

5) they are ALWAYS asking if I can put XP on the laptops for them (I always say no because I am afriad of a can of worms being opened).

6) they express disgust at not having had a choice.

I am doing the design for a small 100 user network/computers. My boss tells me NOT to put VISTA on these machines... I really like to stay up to date with technology and I am concerned. But at the same time I am relieved...

what are we to do with Microsoft? Can there be a collective created that will straighten out this mess? They know they have a mess, we know they have a mess... can we do more than just expect to see VISTA as a classroom study on major screw-ups by a super power corporation?

who ever the PM was on VISTA needs to run out of town? where was the user input? if present, how could it have been so far off track?

'I use XP daily and the only problems I had in the beginning were - hmmm, I can't think of one thing... an occasional blue screen, but that was it.........................'

THESE USE TO BE TWO STRONG HANDS...

;)

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

vista56rocks — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:32:09 GMT

@ dovella

Not 180+ million Vista licenses being used but 180+ million Vista licenses sold which does not nececeraily meam 180 million+ being used.

P.S: I am the same fiji from istartedsomething.com

Microsoft in Denial: And I Don't Mean Egypt

Linux IT Consultant — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:32:08 GMT

Is Microsoft in Denial? If you have their version of the story, Vista sales continue to be strong and life is good. Taken from the vantage point of a major OEM, HP, the story is more than a bit different.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

mazyy — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:08:27 GMT

About time Microsoft started speaking up....

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

jove4015 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:38:51 GMT

Our company has 75 users spread across several continents, almost all on the Mac platform. With Leopard the biggest concern we had upgrading was that Photoshop 7 (a very old program) no longer worked with it. Beyond that it's been smooth sailing. We have a few people (mostly in accounting) who have XP and they do ok... but there's one guy who insisted on having Vista. Even he's telling us now to buy XP if we're getting new PC laptops. It's a giant hole of support issues. Nothing really seems to work 100%, and to boot it has to be the messagiest, dialog-boxiest, annoying OS ever created. And that's when it's working properly!

Oh and for the record, the ROI on Macs is much, much lower than PCs - you need far less support personnel and the applecare warranty is cheap and unencumbered in comparison to most PC warranties we encounter. Also, generally 3rd party peripherals work on Macs - they use the same hard drive, ram, etc... Unless you need a wireless broadband card with T-Mobile, you're fine - that's the only case I've had of something not working on a Mac. Citrix is even supporting it well now. The OS is 1/3 of the price. A great deal of the software is free, too, and we need a lot less of it... we have Open Directory with LDAP, everything's centrally managed, and remote administration is a breeze, even across subnets. We spend at least $1K and 5 hours more on any new PC.

They really need to switch to a solid, real, UNIX based platform. Say what you want, the real problem each new version of this Wintel platform is the new security precautions they keep having to build in. There is a reason the mac works better - I'm not running antivirus or anti-spyware software, and I have no problems. I downloaded Virex once for sh*ts and giggles and it almost bricked my machine. Viruses could be written for any platform - but there sure aren't that many of them that affect unix-based platforms, strange for a platform that runs the majority of the web servers in the world. The simple fact is, it's harder to write viruses for a more stable platform which has more diverse eyes *with access to the source code* looking for problems.

No one's saying Mac or Linux or whatever is the answer... I'm sure Microsoft could come up with a fine, intelligently laid out UNIX-based OS that does everything Windows does now without all the hassle (heck, I love Excel. bring someone over from that design team). Even if it doesn't eliminate viruses - it will render inert the vast majority of the ones that exist now, and at least for a little while people might remember what it's like to actually *use* their computers again.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

smehaffie — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:06:48 GMT

I have had vista installed since it was released and have not had any problems. And this is on a machine that is not considered Vista Ready. I ran Vista with only 1 MG for almost a year and then upgrade to 2. But other than that this is really a 3+ year outdated laptop.

The biggest issue I have has was with the file manager hanging up the whole machine and it was frustrating. But in the end it was not Vista causing the issue but the application I used to compress files. The vendor took care of the issue and have not had any issue since. Lesson that we all should learn, Don't always blame the operating system becuase most of the time it is a bad driver or another program being run that is the issue.

I do agree that Vista was slow to unzip files and copy files, but if you have downloaded SP! this was one of the big issue addresses and even on my dog of a machine file copies / unziping files are not pretty fast. I know a lot of developer who use Vista on a daily basis and love it and have not had any of the issue mentioned here. So maybe it is the end-user and the application they are installing that are the issue and not the OS.

MS just has to live with a big target on their back and that will never change. Most of the time it is because people are just jealous. Mac might be a better OS, but it also is so proprietary that buying part for it is very expensive and to get a decent MAC cost more than a XP or Vista based machine.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

wwpd — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:58:02 GMT

Just a further comment from my previous post:

To clarify, my colleague's laptop with Vista was also unable to access the same web sites. Fortunately it didn't affect the web app that he is developing.

I am an IT professional who makes decisions relating to our deployments. We have some machines that run Vista without significant problems. These are exclusively machines that came with Vista pre-installed.

My one colleague who installed Vista on his laptop and is very happy with it has never been able to resolve a hardware issue (USB dongle) on his laptop even though the same hardware was no issue when I had Vista on my laptop which is from the same family of laptops. (His is actually newer and was labelled as Vista Ready). He was actually ready to ship the laptop back for warranty repair since the same hardware worked fine when he had XP and the same hardware worked on mine with Vista. However, he eventually just resigned himself to the fact that he can't use this USB dongle on his Vista machine.

Another example is a PC card that I purchased to allow connection to Firewire 800 devices. It worked fine (not even requiring any additional drivers) in Windows XP. However, in Vista the machine immediately Blue Screens so you can't even get to point of trying to resolve the problem. My colleague's laptop is the same. However, another laptop in our enterprise that came with Vista pre-installed was fine. (P.S. I'm looking forward to using this card again under XP :)

I think it bears consideration that many PC's and laptops are being sold retail with the "selling feature" of being Windows XP "downgradeable". The number of Vista sales/installs definitely does not reflect the number of machines that are actually running Vista. Retailers are specifically putting this "downgradeability" in their ads in order to boost sales.

From an enterprise perspective, I would not upgrade ANY machines in our environment to Vista. And I would readily downgrade any Vista pre-installs if there were significant problems and/or performance concerns.

On the other hand, when I had my own small business I upgraded to Windows 98 from Windows 95 on the day Windows 98 was released and never looked back. As well, I upgraded my later Pentium III 600MHz with 256MB of RAM to Windows XP from Windows 98 shortly after XP came out and never looked back.

Windows Vista will be the first version of Windows that I won't be using until I purchase a machine with it pre-installed. Unlike previous versions of Windows, most existing PC's are essentially not upgradeable to Vista without taking an unacceptable performance hit.

I hate to think of how many hours (more likely days) that I wasted in the last 6 months "waiting" for Vista to respond or trying to resolve a Vista problem. Fortunately, most of my actual work occurs on Windows XP, Server 2000 and Server 2003 Remote Desktops.

Vista is a nice OS but is unacceptable in the massive resources it demands. Most enterprises don't want to buy hardware at the level that is required by Vista even when deploying new machines. One thing that Vista has succeeded at is lowering the price of mega quantities of RAM and CPU cyclces. I will admit that Vista may be better on a 64 bit system. But then maybe XP is too!

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

TucsonGuy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:22:42 GMT

Chris,

I will have to echo some of the same concerns that others have mentioned in their comments.

First, I have zero faith in Microsoft's claims of how many copies of Vista sold because I and my clients currently have lots of Vista DVD's that are sitting on a shelf, unused, while the computer is running XP. Too sell a copy of Vista with XP "downgrade" rights and then not count when the computer is upgraded (intentional word usage) from Vista to XP is disingenuous. I am actively discouraging all my clients from moving to Vista.

My personal experience is that many of my clients are looking at alternatives to Windows for the first time in my 20 years of consulting. There is some interest in Mac, but the majority of interest has been in Linux, and they are asking me to investigate it for them. A couple years ago, they wouldn't have even considered looking at anything but Windows. I have had one client completely switch to Linux, and am working with another right now on a pilot program.

Those who are using custom apps are looking at having to re-write them for Vista, so that makes them willing to investigate Linux. They are looking at using cross-platform languages because they are seeing the danger of being locked into Windows with no alternative. Even if they end up staying with Windows for now, they want to be able to change their mind later if they continue to not like the direction Windows is going.

This change has come about for several reasons. Vista being so late, and many of the great, promised features were stripped to finally get it out the door. So many changes to Vista requiring a steep learning curve. If they have to undergo a steep learning curve anyway, they are willing to consider something other than Windows. Microsoft announcing that those waiting to upgrade until Windows 7 should not do so because Win7 is based on Vista created a surge in interest in alternatives and was the impetus that tipped my client that completely moved to Linux to do so. They are saying if Win7 is based on Vista which they don't like, there isn't any point in waiting - move now. Microsoft shot themselves in the foot on that one, I think!

There are other reasons and observations, but this post is too long anyway. In summary, I think Microsoft created this mess by releasing Vista too late, with too few of the promised features, with too many bugs, with too much differences from XP, needing too much hardware to perform at an equivalent speed to XP, and not offering enough perceived benefit over XP for the cost other than a different UI.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

wwpd — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:18:39 GMT

I run an HP laptop with 1.87 GHz Pentium M processor and 2GB of RAM. The only thing about my machine that is not fully Vista Ready is the 64MB of dedicated video RAM. However, Vista readily shares additional system RAM for the video.

I purchased and installed Vista in January 2008. Many aspects of Vista were excruciatingly slow even with ALL the bells ans whistles turned off. I used Vista for 6 months. Some of the new features are nice but none are compelling.

After what I assume to be something relating to an "update" I found I could no longer access certain web pages but my wife could access same on Windows XP. I confirmed that this was also the case on my colleague's laptop with Vista.

I have not been able to find any information as to what this problem would be.

Anyway, Vista came off and XP went back on.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

Photo1921 — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:33:32 GMT

unfortunately most business / enterprise computers do not get updates directly from Microsoft updates so that would not show how many users are moving to windows xp.

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

Uncanny — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:50:58 GMT

[quote]You could probably get more accurate "using Vista" numbers from Windows Update. I'm sure the numbers are no where near the "sold copies", especially with enterprise users.[/quote]

Why use real statistics when incorrect ones sound better?

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

Drazula — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:26:19 GMT

I am extremely skeptical of the Vista "sales/installed" numbers. I don't believe you are taking into account how many people wipe Vista from their PCs.

We have hundreds of HPs. All arrive with Vista. They are immediately formatted and XP is installed. Yet I think you count all of these that as Vista sales/installs.

You could probably get more accurate "using Vista" numbers from Windows Update. I'm sure the numbers are no where near the "sold copies", especially with enterprise users.

On Midori, Forrester, and my favourite recent MSDN Blog posts

Satisfy Me — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:02:29 GMT

A little news coverage on something called Midori, Forrester's comments/ response on Vista enterprise

re: Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista

guruparan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:34:23 GMT

I believe Vista is great (in our home all the 3 laptops & 1 desktop are loaded with Vista home premium), (2 preinstalled while we bought the laptop)..

Everything is fine...but for enterprise, they need compatibility...just integrate Virtual PC capabililties for older programs!...No need toooo much of versions...let it be 1 or 2..Vista home & Vista business like it did for XP (if wanted, some components can be installed on the fly by enterprise)... Make Windows 7 on the same hardware requirement like Vista is...No more increase in hardware requirement pls...but make utilize of the core processors, directx 10...allow users to have Vista theme in windows 7!! :-)

All the above, i know IE 8 is great...but allow developers to develop plugins for IE 8 easily..! (we dont need vc++...bring in .net or javascript codes!!)...give the PDC 2003 demo features to windows 7...and no way allow the windows 7 to RTM if you see the file copy progress takes 40 seconds in a 2GB RAM disk for a 2KB file :-D