Discussion on:

Prediction: Microsoft will leapfrog Vista, release Windows 7 early, and change its OS business

Original post:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=664

If you have rejected Vista, why did you make that decision? If you have deployed Vista, are you seeing any benefits from it? How would you feel about skipping Vista?

I support two small non-profits. We deployed Vista at one but not the other. The experience with Vista was not good. I had to find controls that were moved or changed without a coherent reason. The machines were noticeably slower and the users had to be trained in software they should have been familiar with - it's still Windows, right? Drivers wouldn't work and users now had to put up with an operating system that asked them about whether they really wanted to do something, over and over again. No, thanks. XP looks better and better.

The IT Manager for the organisation we support refuses to deploy Vista with one simple word.. "CRAP!". The only people we've helped deploy it for are our company directors at home and even with this small deployment, it's still a big head ache. The power machines that Vista requires could run XP with other virtualised systems and still have room for more! I don't even want to talk about the time wasted trying to install device drivers.

Faster and simpler would be nice. Maybe not even in that order.

MS would be better off releasing XP SP3 and doing a complete rewrite for W7 (or W8 if they've trashed 7 with Vista concepts already). I will not buy any computer that comes with Vista at all and suggest this to all my clients as well.

I should have counted how many times I've heard, "If I wanted a Mac OS I would have bought a Mac!" Vista is like learning a new route to get to work, which takes you through a new city that also seems to speak a different language that has no words for half of what you do. Don't ask me about Office 2007 where you sacrafice what you do for what you could do. Hmmm.

Vista is not anything like any Mac OS. It is exactly like every other Microsoft OS except they added a few frills (some completely useless ones, granted. I use both Windows and Mac and I have Linux on a second hard drive. The only problem with Vista is the driver problem. Microsoft should address that issue and should not have even shipped the operating system until it addressed the problem. I do like Vista over all and think with a few tweaks, it is far superior to XP.

I have never known an Os system change that people or enterprises readily accepted. Most like the same old ,same old. No need to think in this mode.
As far Vista is concerned I love it and for those who think XP is faster check out Ultimate side by side and then hand me that excuse again. I guess it is better to have a OS shot full of holes in security than to deal with some minor changes found in Vista that makes my enviorment a whole lot safer.
I hope Microsoft sticks to Vista. In a short while it will prove out and these so called PC OS experts can crawl back in there holes and run DOS till they are blue in the face. In a word stop ruining progress. Change is good!!! Deal with it.

Yes, if you have enough horsepower to run it, Vista is as fast as XP.
 
But if I even remotely suggest to management to upgrade ALL computers in my company just to run Vista... that would be the same as drawing my own pink slip.
 
So, the resistance is not that Vista is ugly/slow per se, it's more a plaintive wailing, "Why oh why does Vista need such UNBELIEVABLE resources just to run???"
 
No, thanks. I'd rather wait until Seven and upgrade my company THEN. Not NOW.
 

1) Not all change is good

2) Vista is NOT faster than XP in most benchmarks. Tomshardware did a great article on this.

3) The UAC Vista is irritating and not really great security.

4) Please explain the performance and security benefits in hard data rather than fluffy bunnies.

"Check out Ultimate", just buy yourself a $400 copy and give it a whirl, eh? Just be sure you've got a new, designed for Vista machine with thoroughly tested drivers and 2-4x the memory that you use with XP.

Even with UAC disabled (destroying much of the "security" advantage), on a 2GB designed-for-Vista laptop, I can directly compare performance, since I installed XP on another hard drive and can easily switch it. I did this with the intent of deciding which one really did what I needed, efficiently and with as little hassle as possible. Both of them run OK, but the XP installation is the one that's getting used. Every time I put in the Vista hard drive, I end up wondering why bother; it doesn't do anything better, and is slower to boot and run programs. Yes, Vista "learns" and improves performance over time, but not enough.

Mac fans may think the squishy appearance is nice, but that matters none to me, I don't care about fancy 'liquid' effects, just a decent-looking desktop is fine with me, and I can get that with XP.

As far as security, it's moot if people disable things to get usability. With the annoying UAC enabled, it's like locking yourself in the house to prevent anything bad happening, and waiting for an armed escort if you want to go out to check the mail. If that's what makes you feel secure and happy, fine, but I don't want a hovering babysitter getting in the way constantly.

There's just nothing there; the best I could say, on a perfect installation, is that it looks fancier than XP, but as far as usefulness or reliability, there's nothing there.

In hardware requirements and user confusion.

As far as UAC is concerned, if left in the default mode people will just "approve" everything as they do in products such as Zone Alarm since they know if they don't they may have problems.

The "bloat factor" of this OS is tremendous and is just a result of "putting more coats of paint" on an older OS.

I don't have all bad things to say about Vista though as the new IP stack runs tremendously faster than XP's does but MS could fix that in WinXP but refuses to do so.

Also for home users that want a multimedia appliance the experience there is more integrated than is XP's.

Neither of those two improvements make up for the lack of pep in Vista.

For us I think Vista will be a "skip" and we will wait to see what MS has to offer in the next OS and it had better be more nimble or they are going to find more people defecting from the Windows camp.

One last thing, Vista and laptops just don't mix...that is unless you have a discrete graphics board built in that has a seperate GPU and dedicated graphics memory. If you don't then you will get lackluster perfomance at best, if you do then you need a sizable battery and Vista has already proven that running Aero task for task Vista will not run as long as WinXP.

There is just nothing compelling enough to have to go through the hassle.

It got more. That's part of the problem to be honest. They promised the world, stripped it back and cut features, then realised they had a mess and hit the reset button before rushing an incomplete system out the door which failed to live up to the hype.

Ever go see a film that you heard so much about, and actually think it was a good film but come away disappointed because it wasn't as good as the critics painted it? That's a big part of the vista experience right there. Best Backup Software | Security Guard Training

I think that copy protection, along with restrictive licensing is what is killing Windows. Sure, I could complain for hours about how sucky Windows is in general (security vulnerabilities, HORRIBLE EULA terms, stuff that plain doesn't work right, etc., etc., etc.) the bigger reason for getting away from it is that it's a much bigger pain to deploy, experiment with, etc. than is the competition (Mac, Linux, etc.) due to its ridiculous activation and copy protection schemes.

Microsoft had a smarter vision many years ago when they said "If somebody is going to run illegally copied software on his machine, we'd rather it be our software than some other company's software." I can't remember which senior exec said that. But it struck me at the time that it was a very smart viewpoint from the angle of gaining ever increasing market share.

Now MS seems to be flailing constantly, trying to grab every dollar it can from those users who haven't yet abandoned ship, rather than posture in such a manner as to suggest that it isn't worried about market share.

Windows users from the vast small business market, home users who do their own systems support, heck even the guys at the corner PC store find it irritating beyond belief that they can no longer move a bootable Windows hard drive from one machine to another (even of identical configuration) without having to reauthenticate with microsoft.com And the policy of not allowing OEM licenses to be transferred to different machines is more than irritating enough to keep many users from buying it, and VARs from selling it.

I have been in this industry for a long time, and have seen many companies come and go. As a reseller, I have also been a pretty good leading indicator of sales trends. At my place of business, Macs and Linux machines now outnumber Windows PCs (although that's not true of my customer base yet).

I did NOT want to invest the learning curve time in either Mac or Linux, but eventually did so out of frustration with Windows' many irritating qualities combined with its restrictive licensing and copy protection mechanisms. Now that I have had some experience with both, I am no longer reluctant to move in either or both of those directions.

For the typical computer user, the Mac is an absolutely great choice. Now that the world has become more web-centric rather than local PC-centric, the issues of Windows compatibility have almost completely evaporated.

For anything like vertical market applications, Linux is by far a better bet than is Windows. Why would a developer want to have Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) dictate when he'll have to switch OS versions? Why would he want to be vulnerable to ever changing APIs, etc.? And why would he want to have to give Microsoft the cost of a Windows license for the privilege? Margins are thin enough these days that adding the cost back to the dealer's bottom line is very appealing for him.

For these and many other reasons (Vista's problems for instance), I believe Microsoft will continue to experience a decline in market share. The genie is out of the bottle.

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free". We just got set free!

> I think that copy protection, along with
> restrictive licensing is what is killing Windows.

No, what's killing Windows is the garbage they keep putting out, year after year, and refusing to address problems in a timely manner. The author of the article was exactly right, when he said that having 1000 different programmers working on separate pieces of code, and then stitching it together in the end, is a total nightmare scenario. That's why you have products like Windows ME and Vista. Copy protection has nothing to do with it. Other companies also employ copy protection/activation schemes, but you don't see THEM putting out garbage every other year, do you? This seems to be one of those games in which Microsoft is determined to be the sole player.


> Microsoft had a smarter vision many years
> ago when they said "If somebody is going to
> run illegally copied software on his
> machine, we'd rather it be our software than
> some other company's software.

This is still their philosophy. If you want proof, just go to their web site and see how easy it is to download practically ALL of their software for free. Well, technically, it's not "free" because it has a 120-day limitation...but seriously, how long would it take even a semi-competent person to find a crack for it and make it permanently "activated"? Microsoft doesn't give a rat's ass about copy protection, and I applaud them for that. Their whole "activation" nonsense is nothing but a nuisance, and I agree with you on that.


> Windows users from the vast small business
> market, home users who do their own systems
> support, heck even the guys at the corner
> PC store find it irritating beyond belief
> that they can no longer move a bootable
> Windows hard drive from one machine to
> another (even of identical configuration)
> without having to reauthenticate with
> microsoft.com And the policy of not
> allowing OEM licenses to be transferred to
> different machines is more than irritating
> enough to keep many users from buying it
> and VARs from selling it.

I really don't see why you're getting so worked up about it. I mean, seriously -- are you really telling me that if you needed to move a loaded hard drive from one machine to another, you're NOT going to do it because of some lame EULA "restrictions"? Are you kidding me? You already PAID for the software. You're not making duplicates and loading them on a hundred different machines. All you're doing is moving one drive from one computer to another. Why do you even have a smidgen of guilt about that?? If you've been in the IT business long enough, then you should know that common sense and the good of your company/clients trumps any idiotic EULA that you may encounter. Do you honestly envision somebody from Microsoft prosecuting you because you decided to move around a hard drive from one machine to another, and thereby "violate" their EULA? Are you kidding me? It would be the ultimate public relations fiacso. You'd be able to prove that you have a PAID license for ALL of the copies of Windows you're running, and Microsoft was STILL coming after you. Seriously, are you kidding me?

Good lord...some people never cease to amaze me. You know how much time I spend reading the EULA of ANY software package? About the time it takes me to rip it off the packaging. How many people do you honestly think sit there and read an entire VOLUME of text for every piece of software they install, just to make sure they're in full compliance of every idiotic provision and clause that some moron decided to put in there? Once I'd paid for the software, it's mine to do with as I please. Anybody who doesn't share that view is, quite simply, a chump.

Well no, actually it isn't the garbage, etc. that Microsoft keeps putting out. They've ALWAYS done that, and it hasn't kept people from flocking to buy whatever drek they put out year after year (it's even worse on their development tools side).

I don't have time to address your whole reply here. In a nutshell, I will simply say that I will stick with what I said in my original post. But briefly, your rant about EULA restrictions misses the point. It's not that it violates the EULA. It is the fact that Windows will stop working and require authentication before running on a different machine. We're not talking about smidgens of guilt. And no, I don't want to crack it to allow that to work (nor do most other IT people).

As for being a chump, tell that to the many IT professionals and resellers who have been prosecuted for EULA violations. By the way, If you are caught running a bunch of cracked copies of Windows in your organization, that will probably put all the nails in your coffin needed for a successful prosecution against you.

Your last paragraph reads like an example of the kind of thinking that could be used in a law school lecture talking about how moronic thinking can lead to jail time (although I'd bet that the presenter would smile and say something like "...Of course nobody would be as stupid as this. I'm exaggerating to make a point") Come on - "Once I'd paid for the software, it's mine to do with as I please?" You've got to be kidding! Go into court against Microsoft with that argument, and they'll evaporate your net worth before you even get to make an opening statement.

In the middle of fights when you submit comments to Internet forums
You may have a reading and comprehension problem

Or you may be trolling

Stop being an idiot and wake up

I like your enthuasm! However you seem to be just responding without much thought to the implication of what you post. Let me highlight a few of your comments. You read it over see if you believe readers get the "right or wrong idea" and then, I will comment on maybe a few.
>>>Other companies also employ copy protection/activation schemes, but you don't see THEM putting out garbage every other year, do you? Well, technically, it's not "free" because it has a 120-day limitation...but seriously, how long would it take even a semi-competent person to find a crack for it and make it permanently "activated"? You already PAID for the software. You're not making duplicates and loading them on a hundred different machines. All you're doing is moving one drive from one computer to another. Why do you even have a smidgen of guilt about that?? You already PAID for the software Once I'd paid for the software, it's mine to do with as I please. Anybody who doesn't share that view is, quite simply, a chump.
OK. So this explains exactly why you have those opinions. See now, you really should read the EULA. Because do not buy the software. In fact most propriety software you do not buy. You dont own it at all. You buy a license to use it. And that same EULA tells you cannot do as you please with it at all. SO reda that EULA the next time you install software.

Seems this thread is making tons of valid points against Microsoft. One being the copyright protection, I feel the TCG/NGSCB (trusted computing group) deal has taken things too far. I like having the feeling, or at least the illusion of control over my computer.

The alternatives are out there...

> If you had to go through the headache of
> having to call MS to reactivate 5 or more
> systems and none of the validations worked,
> plus language barriers, plus calls getting
> dropped repeatedly, you may have a different
> opinion. Then again maybe not.

Like I said...you're a chump if you waste so much ONE MINUTE of your life going through all that, just to satisfy some idiotic EULA that demands that you "re-activate" something which you ALREADY activated. I'd love to see Microsoft arguing that case in front of a judge. "Yes, your honour. We don't care about our customer's valuable time. We don't care if we make them waste 2 hours on the phone talking to some incompetent boob in India. We don't care if our activation process is completely flawed and the user can't re-activate his system no matter HOW many hoops we make him jump through. We don't care about ANY of that. All we care is that our EULA is upheld at any cost!"

Chumps. That's what you are. You buy into scare tactics by the big bad corporations who, of course, want you to be good little sheep who never question authority, even when that authority is utterly idiotic. "You don't own it", indeed. Give me a break. I have a box in my hand, with my own unique serial number, and my own CD/DVD of the product. I have all the proof in my hands that I OWN the product. If I decide to move it to a different machine WITHOUT wasting 2 hours of my life trying to "comply" with the EULA, then that's MY choice to make. And guess what -- my conscience is PERFECTLY clean. No guilt whatsoever. I've done nothing "illegal". It's not like I took my ONE disc and then installed it on 20 different machines.

Imagine ANY other industry in which this form of "you don't own it, you just RENT it" nonsense would be tolerated.

What's next? Is Intel or AMD going to have EULAs with their processors which will dictate all kinds of restrictions that will be placed upon users of those processors?

Imagine if you bought a car, and the manufacturer of that car put restrictions on what you could do with it...where you could drive it...what hours you could use it...how many bags of groceries you could carry in it.

Imagine if you bought a TV, and Sony tried to put restrictions on what you were allowed to watch...and how many people could watch your TV at any one time...etc etc.

Only in the software industry is this EULA mentality accepted as being "normal", and I'm here to tell you that you're a total CHUMP if you actually go along with it. You PAID for the software. It's yours to do with as you please, short of violating any reverse engineering laws that may be applicable under the laws of your country.

Why would anyone waste their time reading a bunch of nonsense lawyer-talk just to install software they bought?

Incidentally, when you take the box to the cashier and pay for it, they don't require that you agree to anything. After it's opened and that silly screen comes up, you can't return it anyway, so that "agreement" is not an agreement at all, and you have no choice unless you want to throw your money away and not hit the F8.

I can't believe people are gullible enough to buy this load of dingoes' kidneys...you pay for it, but then it's useless unless you agree to a bunch of stipulations after-the-fact? Yet I see the more brainwashed among us supporting that idea as if it's just fine.

What's next...some lawyer will be telling you that you have no right to breathe (because it's not your air) unless you agree to 20 pages of conditions that happen to be written out in Sanskrit? And you not only go along with it, but you tell others that it's the way it's supposed to be? Might as well line up for shearing.

Actually, I don't mind Microsoft's activation; I think they implemented it well, and I've never had an issue even when it was necessary to call. But I've never read the EULA, and never intend to; if you want to spend your time anal-retentively reading that stuff, help yourself, but I paid for the software, I'm using it, and I don't really care what some snakey lawyers say about what rights they think I do or don't have. I have other stuff to do besides read that tripe.

"Read the EULA" is something you might expect a Mac zealot to do, because they're followers anyway, and happy to be victim to the whims of one organization, and actually be thrilled when their next ration of technology is doled out.

Don't bother reading all that...buy it, install it, use it, if it won't activate give them a call, and unless you've foolishly bought an OEM version and are trying to put it on a different machine, you should have no problems.

What a boneheaded response.

I will only address a couple of points here, however your arguments seem to be completely off.
While many companies, while making good profits off of their SW, will overlook cracked products, others are not so lenient. In a business environment, a company like MS can put the company OUT OF BUSINESS for violating EULA and just installing at will or cracking the SW.

You claim this to be the only industry with regulations, however you are completely off track again! In your examples here you say that there are no restrictions on processors, cars, and televisions.
Yes there are restrictions for use with each of them, however you are too blind to see them. Overclocking processors and causing failure can void the warranty and take out your machine.
Have you heard of DMV? What about that manual that tells you how to operate it?
Ok, the TV ALSO has a useage manual. Just because you dont bother to read them does not mean that they do not exist dumba$$.

Now bring up the recording industry, are they not Sueing people right now for downloading illegally?

Wake up and join the world one day before rambling on about what you perceive as fact and what the actual facts are. You are a prime example of why companies have started targeting the consumer rather than just businesses.

The real funny thing about the MS EULA is it includes many things that are unlawful in most jurisdictions and thus totally unenforceable. There are some restriction by local consumer laws, such as one licence = one copy per machine.

The MS EULA says you can only install it once on one machine and you can't resell it. Australian consumer law says once you buy it you can use it how you like, within reason. Want to sell it on, you can after you uninstall it. Want to change machines, yes you can. Want to put it on three machines, only if you have three licences.

The EULA is NOT see by Australian law as a valid agreement or contract as it doesn't include and of the basics of a contract like offer - counter offer or negotiations nor can you read it prior to purchase. It's regarded more as a warranty statement, and that's all. This view is also held by a number of other countries and even some of the USA states, so why MS bothers with it is unknown.

The MS activation process is total rubbish as it takes a lot of time and trouble and once WGA starts acting up it causes major downtime. I've never seen a case of a pirate copy of XP being closed down by WGA, but I've seen hundreds of cases of legal copies being closed down because WGA doesn't like it if you don't have every single update on your system and haven't done an update for a while.

Adobe have an on-line activation system and it doesn't give the trouble that MS and WGA does. I recently reloaded some Adobe software after shelving it for two years. It activated OK without my having to ring them for approval because it had been activated once before - four years ago. Can't do that with MS.

I have been very pleased with Unikey which is a driverless dongle. You might be interested in looking at their website:

http://www.esecutech.com



They offer free Technical support and also Unikey price is reasonable.

I hope this helps.

That is many people thinking but have not the opportunity to voice it
Good analysis

I've read post after post of how slow, how clunky, how much power,non working drivers, wasted time, yada yada yada!! my question is, what are you people doing besides not reading system requirments and using COMMON since? I've been using Vista Ultimate for over a year, and the first thing I did was read the requirements and then added atleast a third more. I turned the P43.6 into a backup server, and built some dual core2duo machines with 3gigs of ram and atleast 200gig harddrives, vista compatible hardware, and took the results of the "Vista Upgrade Advisor" serious!! chuncked Alchol 120% for Damon tools, upgraded other software, and what I ended up with is a much faster and secure maching, that I've since upgraded to a quad-core and added another gig of ram. if you want to pour new wine in old bags, I can only guess you WANT them to burst!! stop blaming others for your low budget and being lazy!!

If you had to do the above for 100s, 1000s or even 10s of 1000s of machines would you be such a smug git?

Leaving aside hardware costs, new OS licenses, potentially up grading and licensing all your client software, dealing with all your 3rd party and inhouse apps, and the odd bits of kit that willnever be Vista cmapitible but which you need.

Have you any idea how much managing such an effort costs?

And for what, so you can update the dropping company share price in the sidebar more often in between clicks in a simple CRUD application?

And for what, so you can update the dropping company share price in the sidebar more often in between clicks in a simple CRUD application?

It really is just appalling that software can be written so poorly that 3 Billion cycles per second are not enough to record my keystrokes and mouse clicks and invoke a different set of algorithms to interpret those (switch among applications) without human-detectable pauses. I'm unable to believe anybody can defend that, except by being on Microsoft's payroll.

If you had to do the above for 100s, 1000s or even 10s of 1000s of machines would you be such a smug git?

Or even if he just had to do real work for the cost of the first one.

"It really is just appalling that software can be written so poorly that 3 Billion cycles per second are not enough to record my keystrokes and mouse clicks"

This would be even funnier if it werent so true!

You guys never cease to amaze amuse me.

I love it when geeks who only have to manage three machines at home or in a small business say " what are you guys complaining about, Vista runs great on my Octocore with seventy gigs of RAM and a liquid nitrogen cooled GPU!!". Wake up you guys. Many of us working in the small to medium business level have absolutely NO hope of convincing the accountants to pony up the capital for an across-the-board systems upgrade. None. I for one do not want to spend hours and hours of my day trying to get a Vista compatible print driver for a six year old printer. Nor do I want to explain to the sales rep that he can't print out a proposal because I've just put a new OS on his machine that is incompatible with the printer. Small things like this just drag the whole productivity of a business down. Attention geeks THIS IS THE LAST THING YOU WANT!!!!

Well as for me, I've spent the past 30+ years on the bleeding edge of system design. The low-end systems in my lab are all quad-cores with at least 4G of RAM. We are building mostly dual quad-core machines now, with 16G RAM. So no, actually we are not suffering from inadequate system hardware.

It's simply that Windows (along with all other Microsoft products) simply sucks.

If you have a few years experience designing hardware, writing systems software (ever written a driver for say, a hard disk subsystem?), or written some complex multi-user applications (I've done all of the above as well as much more), I'd be interested in discussing this further with you. Otherwise, I suspect that I know more about this subject than you do, and think that maybe you should talk less, and listen more.

this is what I mean, you constantly complain about microsoft, how crapy it is, how much better mac or linux is and how "smart" you are, yet you still use it, WHY???? it's like a dog taking a hot piece of meat off a grill, he's running and crying from the hot meat but still won't drop the meat. if it's hurting you so much, and it's so bad, and the others are so much better, THEN USE THEM!!! if you don't have the authority to make that move, don't come here complaining about things you can do nothing about, or have even tried to use(which is the case most of the time). STOP COMPLINING!!

People have died defending our freedoms, including my right to complain; I even spent 24 years defending your right to be as stupid as your post sounds.

Don't tell me, or anybody else to shut up. You have neither the right nor, in this case, the authority.

"STOP COMPLINING!!"

Nick: Wow! That was a pleasure to read.

this is what I mean, you constantly complain about microsoft, how crapy it is, how much better mac or linux is and how "smart" you are, yet you still use it, WHY????

I don't know what softy.123's reply will be, or if he will consider your smear worthy of a reply at all. I hope Nick & I will have covered it, and softy will not bother. I keep complaining because Micro$loth has kept promising to have the worst attributes of the previous versions "fixed," "overhauled," "re-designed," et al., but the next is always fundamentally flawed, and manifestly unsuited to its advertised purposes. It's like they learned software design from script kiddiez.

In the business, though, IT guys continue to use Microsoft because it's still considered the "bargain" by so many counters who include "turds" in their tallies of "beans." They describe Windows & Office as having "high ROI" and "low TCO" and conclude that their exchanges with Microsoft provide them "a lot for a little." Compared to the Free alternatives, what they get is "less than nothing," and what they pay, viewed in that natural light, is "not so little."

Your writing would be a lot easier to understand if your spelling and pronouns were correct. You type like a teen-ager, in which case you have no point at all. If you are at work, I have to wonder who/what would hire you.

Grow up. WE are mature adults here. If you can't control yourself, get lost.

BTW - you can blacklisted in these forums too.

I too work at non-profits. I recently left a small NP (about
50 employees) and I had decided not to deploy Vista there
for three reasons: 1) legacy apps were not Vista-ready, 2)
Vista requires more hardware resources, and the
computer literacy of the user base was too low for such a
dramatic shift.

Now I'm working at a private educational institution and
have much fewer qualms about deploying Vista. A better
hardware base and more savy user group help immensely.
Though I think this summer we'll uprade the Macs to
Leopard and wait till next year to upgrade the PC's -
especially if W7 might be on the horizon.

As for Windows 7, it's supposed to be released in the fall
of 2009 anyway. Microsoft wants to return to a three-year
release model and since Vista was released in '06... W7
will likely be more than Vista SP2, but it wont be a new OS
either. Think more of the change from Windows 95 to
Windows 98 and you'll get the idea.

I also disagree with Jason's prediction that UAW will go
away. I think it will be streamlined, but its an important
security feature that I'd rather keep around. I think/hope
they limit what triggers UAW rather than remove it
entirely.

Finally, last fall I moved to Vista Business x64 at home and
haven't looked back or yearned for XP. All my hardware
and software worked out of the box, and it was faster than
XP (using 4Gig of RAM, I confess that with half that or less
Vista is more than sluggish, it's nearly inert). In the right
environment I think Vista is a great choice.

Is 64-bit. 64-bit makes the bloat slowdown inert. With 32-bit, there's just not enough RAM allowed.

That being said, Windows 7 is to Vista as XP is to 2000. XP is 2000 with a coat of paint on it (at least when XP first came out). It sounds like Windows 7 will be that way as well.

I could not agree more! Microsoft continues to engage in "change-for-the-sake-of-change." Vista and Office 2007 have radically different interfaces for no good reason.

What is the purpose of eliminating the standard menu in Office 2007? It makes everything more difficult and time consuming. How hard would it have been to give us the option to choose their new interface or opt for the new one?

After 16 months one client is finally getting used to the new interface. I have never updated another client to Vista.

When you need to ask users to change just a small part of their regular procedure every 4 th user is calling helpdesk on the phone in order to ensure that it is ok,
Microsoft made fatal mistake and forget what made them No 1 in computer world, KEEP IT SIMPLE. They achived the success with user friendly GUI and that is it. When regular user tries Vista or Office 2007 nothing is the same. It seems that that the technology is too complicated. This is wrong, very wrong. All the applications have just ONE cause; to make the everyday work easier and more reliable. Imagine the hammer that is so heavy that two people has to lift it up. It can be made of gold but it is still heavy and you can work with small hammer made from ordinary steel and to DO THE JOB.

Part of my job is to provide helpdesk support for our staff. we tried deploying office 2007 with some of our most adventrous users and found that it was too much trouble having to teach to these self professed geeks. A simple task like printing has to be retaught. now thats sick. I think that the next OS should use far less resource than vista does. I want to use my processing power on application software not to runthe OS. XP does that just fine for me. If i have to retrain the entire staff to upgrade then i would rather choose LINUX. After all it is far more cost effective.

I've predicted 4-5 years ago already that customers wouldn't again step into the same mistake. They 'bought' it for the last time with WinXP.
And then came the WinXP security storm. That harmed the image of Microsoft even more.

MS made the mistake to try to combine Home and Business users into one OS. It confused both type of customers and it confused the channel.

The demands of both environments are too much different. So therefore the Vista 'home-experience' features (mirrors, chains and other bling-bling for the home users) are features you don't want to have in a business environment.
Just an easy -almost DOS like with a GUI- OS, with a great security model which is mean and lean would do.
And that is something entirely different than Vista Business.

I see some good developments directions in 2008 Server which can be run in a very smooth way. After all, a heavy GUI is only slowing down a Server. That's why Linux and NetWare are beating Windows Servers on performance.

And don't come with arguments that NetWare is old fashioned. NetWare is only 32-bits, and many IT Managers pitty the fact that they have to say goodbye in the next years.

The same counts for Desktop OS's. In business you only need a rock solid, lean and mean, without the bling-bling OS with a good security model and adaption to different network environments which will support a wide range of hardware.
Then you have a winner.
Look into that line where Vista doesn't fit...
And then you have your answer.

I don't know if someone already mentioned this before but 355 remarks is whole lot of reading.
I like Windows, but I'm confuses if I have to advise my customers in their future strategy.
The failures of Microsoft make it too easy for competition to gain battlefield.

in my circles. Our market has a lot of people who go to a high street retailer and buy a box off the shelf. They they put our software on it and find it doesn't work.

It says on our label it's not for home versions, but guess who gets the blame...

Which exactly proves my point!

Home users AND the Home Channel should only have access to Home versions OS (With bells and chimes as we say in the Netherlands).
Business users -and there is already a sophisticated pre-install business desktop channel through the PC vendors- can therefore be serviced with a typical Business version.

And yes, the OEM channel must start to provide good advice and service to customers to make very clear what type of OS you need for what purpose.

After all it is not so difficult.
You can by several kind of vehicles with 4 wheels. The buyer is already used to this kind of sales model. If you want a truck you don't go to a car dealer with sedans and cabrios in the showroom.
The customer has to be educated. And you can't blame Microsoft for ignorance of the customer.
Therefore we have invented the 'channel'.
You can blame MS not to inform the channel so we can't give clear infomation to the end-user.

It comes down to out-of-the-box-thinking instead of walking like sheep over the same path.

Home users should have access to only Windows Home versions.

No thanks. Uncle Billy has been spitting even bigger turds to home users than he does biz users. You can't pay me enough to use a home version of Windows on my home computer, from which I work -- a lot.

but it does allow you to view the whole thread, without re-loading.

I don't know if someone already mentioned this before but 355 remarks is whole lot of reading.

It's getting there.

on buying NetWare or Novell, instead of farting around with that ridiculous Yahoo farce.

When I bought a new computer last year, I decided to got for Vista Ultimate 32 Bit. After 8 months of living with BSOD's and the huge amounts of resources that Vista gobbled up, I bought XP and installed it in a dual boot. For the past three - four months I have not even touched Vista, relying solely on XP for my eXPerience. MS, as far as I am concerned, took my for a ride when I purchased their so called latest and greatest. MS has let all their customers down who were foolhardy enough to buy a complete dud. The question I have is, will I be forced to buy the Windows 7, or will MS give it to me as a free upgrade to Vista? If they want me to pay for it I will rather stay with XP for as long as possible, denying MS their blood money!

I bought two copies of Vista. One I still begrudgingly use since I have only one copy of XP. The Vista Ultimate (what a misnomer) system I upgraded back to my XP Pro. If they want to rip me off for new copies of Windows 7, it will be XP forever on one and Ubuntu on the other.