To wait or not to wait, that is the question
Martin | Apr 16, 2008 | Comments 10
The press and users are highly critical of Windows Vista and while it is understandable that the public moans about features like the User Account Control that was specifically implemented to annoy them it is not as clear as to why the press is taking such a critical stance towards the operating system. It’s the same press that is full of praise for Windows Server 2008 that is critical of the client based product that is using the same code basis.
Users don’t like Windows Vista because of several reasons. The immense hunger for resources is probably the biggest complaint that users have. That in combination with the fact that Vista shines on the outside but does not offer that many valuable improvements when compared to Windows Vista is probably the main reason why so many users make the decision to keep Windows XP.
The majority of users who run Windows Vista have purchased a new PC with it. This group is growing over time and soon there will be no possibility to purchase computers with Windows XP installed. It’s Windows Vista or.. nothing ?
Microsoft is facing another problem. Talks about Windows 7, as marginal as they might have been are creating an immense reaction on the Internet. Everyone knows that Microsoft is having high hopes for Windows 7, that it will be the system to break with the old ways, that it will be faster, better. Everything that Windows Vista is not.
More and more users are convinced to wait with every tidbit that is released, with every screenshot, video or press release that mentions Windows 7. No one knows yet if this first hype, if you may call it that, is justified. The milestone 1 release was more an improved version of Windows Vista than it was Windows 7.
Microsoft is trying its best to stay closed lipped about Windows 7 and release only the information that are absolutely necessary. It’s not a coincidence that most information about Windows 7 have been leaked from unofficial sources, for instance from the testers of the milestone 1 release.
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I’m old enough to be from the days of DOS and have seen Microsoft release Windows 3.1, Windows 98 and 98SE, Windows Millennium, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and I have seen a trend develop where Microsoft releases an O.S. which bombs then shortly afterwards releases a better O.S. To me it looks like history is repeating itself again with Vista bombing and Windows 7 suddenly just around the corner. In my humble opinion It looks like Microsoft developed an O.S. (probably as best as they can) then released it upon us to get enough feed back to correct and release an improved O.S. shortly afterwards so I’m personally holding on to XP and will migrate to Windows 7 which I expect to be vastly improved over Vista when released.
History will *not* repeat itself, simply because Microsoft itself has changed. The Bill Gates Microsoft would never have released a piece of junk like Vista, nor persisted in defending it when it bombed in so many ways. The best people are leaving, and Ballmer is making bean-counting decisions that will bolster the company’s quarterly stock report, rather than technological ones that would maintain its superiority over the longer term.
Therefore, you can confidently look to ‘Windows 7′ to be an even greater disaster than Windows Vista. It will *not* be an improvement on Vista because: a) Microsoft has no idea what “improvement” would mean (better DRM, perhaps); b) Microsoft is dismissing all complaints about Vista out of hand, and is thus most unlikely to address any of them; and c) Microsoft is no longer capable of shipping a really innovative OS. (The last one was Windows NT, in case you were wondering. And the people responsible for it are gone.)
The suggestion that Vista was a ‘trial run’ of some sort is disastrously wrong; all the things that are broken in Vista are things that Microsoft will insist upon keeping in Windows 7, for ’strategic’ reasons. For example, the ghastly new menu-free UI; that’s not going away. Nor PMP. Nor UAC. Nor driver signing. The list goes on and on. (Can you name one thing that’s broken in Vista that Microsoft has *admitted* is broken?)
Worse, some of the things that Windows *must* do in order to evolve are things that Microsoft *can’t* do. For example, making the system truly modular. They can’t abandon their monolithic strategy; it would cost them too much (and I don’t mean in dollars). Or embracing standards. (Too late for that; it would give the game to open source.)
“To wait or not to wait?” The answer is: it’s a stupid question. Avoid Vista today, and give up the pipe dreams of Windows 7. Instead, go on using Windows XP as long as possible; there’s nothing around to make it obsolete, and its going down in history as the Last Great Version of Windows. Meanwhile, plan a graceful shift to GNU/Linux.
i am not a tech head etc,am just your average old pc user-eg had every op system around since win98,and found fault with all of them in one form or another.
Vista to me just seems like a prettier version of Millenium in as much as it is a different style,has some nice touches,but ultimately its a failure and would never upgrade to it as know there is too much incompatability and faults with it to be worth the upgrade…
i would not even like to guess as to the efficiency of the next op system since am sure at some stage,possably though unlikely the next,MS will finally stop basing an op system on the previous one and give us something radicaly different that at least works profficiently on its 1st release rather than see at a glance that its just a tweaked version of the op system before it…that said however my hopes are not high. Apple,which i have never personaly used solely because i am used to MS systems and cant be bothered to learn a new one when most of what i use are specificaly MS compatable, seems although not infallable a highly superior op system than MS. From a lay mans point of view it has none of the glitches MS systems have,runs and loads fast,uses less system resources to do the same things MS does,and has less than 1/4 the complaints MS does…
Now am not saying MS should copy Apple,but if they stopped hanging onto basing their op system on a clearly faulty design and actually came out with something radically different thats efficient i would trust them alot more than i do when bring out the rubbish they tend to every few years thats garranteed to need a million patches before works well enough to be adequate . (XP was no different from any other they released-it was buggy,incompatable with alot of earlier system programs etc,but it has over the years become almost decent just like most other systems they released before was actualy fully tested,and now that it is relatively working good enough to like it,they are suggesting we invest in another pre fully tested op system? i for one am not bothering and sticking to XP long as possable.)
Fungo said: “The Bill Gates Microsoft would never have released a piece of junk like Vista”…
Anyone remember Microsoft Bob???
To BiggAndyy: remember how quickly Microsoft back-pedaled on Bob? It became a forgotten option almost instantly when public opinion slammed it. Remember how quickly Microsoft abandoned “Cairo” when the Internet took off? Remember how they ditched OS/2 when it became clear that the public wanted something more familiar, with lower system demands? Ballmer doesn’t respond that way.
To david: Creating a new operating system (or any major software product) that’s NOT based on the previous one is a horrendously bad idea. See the excellent book “In Search of Stupidity” for a record of the major software companies that died as a result of trying to rewrite their key product from scratch. It takes years and many versions to get a product working really well. Code that’s been through that process is incredibly valuable, and should almost never be discarded.
XP was actually not particularly buggy, and was compatible with virtually everything that went before… mainly because it wasn’t actually a “new” system at all, but heavily based on Windows 2000, which in turn was largely the same as Windows NT, which had been around since the mid-1990s. That’s the right way to do it: slow, careful evolution. Of course, even that can fail if the evolutionary changes are just plain bad ones (as in Vista).
Very timely: I just spotted this story:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2286936,00.asp
So Ballmer is absolutely not responding to the enormous backlash against Vista. In fact, he’s not even admitting that it exists.
So wouldn’t a good Windows 7 not be based on Vista, but instead be based on XP? It would be really wise to maybe incorporate the shiny pretty useable pieces of Vista’s UI with the stable and more efficient XP system and create a solid foundation for a down-to-Earth improvement of XP, then add in some small improvements that will make 7 even more efficient than XP, rather than build on top of a poorly done Vista.
Fungo does not know what he is talking about. Bill Gates did release horrible operating systems such as DOS 4 and Windows ME. Vista is in the same vein.
Fungo was there, and lived with both DOS 4 and Windows Me. Those were flawed releases, for sure — but not *fundamentally* out-to-lunch in the same way as Vista. Vista is not just badly executed — it’s bad by design. What’s more, both DOS 4 and WinMe swiftly became irrelevant because of next-generation MS releases (Win 9x and 2000/XP). But Windows 7 is *not* a new-generation release that would make us forget Vista, and it will retain all of Vista’s most serious flaws (e.g. the hosed menu-less GUI; the the pervasive DRM).
A better comparison is OS/2. That’s the last time MS made a mis-step this big. Not that OS/2 was so bad in itself; but, like Vista, it was steering in a bad direction. MS realized it right away, and bailed out right away. They scrapped a monumental chunk of work and put all their efforts into Win NT/2000/XP — which was what the market told them it really wanted. Again, no sign at all that they’re going to do that this time. They’re *not* listening to the market at all, and Windows 7 is *not* a change of direction — it’s OS/2 2.0.
The difference is that bean-counters like Ballmer simply *can’t* build a good OS. Maximizing quarterly stock values is totally at odds with the required long-term thinking. What happened to Apple when Steve Jobs left is what’s going to happen to Microsoft without Gates. Only I don’t see Gates coming back…
People do not want to jump to Vista because it cost $189… Then you have to upgrade your RAM. After that, if you want to have a pleasant experience you have to upgrade your video card. So, just to get the new edition to Windows you have to pay about $500 total…Then later come to find out that half your software doesn’t work. It’s a toss up depending on if you get a 32-bit or 64-bit… This can become a problem when you have nearly $500 in USB peripherals that’s firmware does not yet support 64-bit. The drivers for an M-Audio Midi Interface didn’t support 32-bit till late March this year. I should have bought an Apple. For how much I have to pay in Microsoft upgrades I could have bought a Mac Book Pro and still come out ahead. Oh yea… Why is Windows Vista less expensive then Windows XP Pro Full?