Discussion on:

Upgrade lessons learned from Microsoft Vista

I've gotten used to my laptop's Vista Home Premium OS and have no problem with it; I even upgraded my XP desktop to Vista Business. "Getting used to it" is key, because I had reservations at first. My first issue with the advanced releases was that my old 350 MHz machine runs faster on NT 4 than my old (late) 1 GHz ran on Win2K. But technology marches on.

I totally agree with you, I was a die hard XP user but then got Vista Ultimate and yes it took a time to find things just because they put another name on it but I love it now...I worked as a tech support for MS to help people make the transition from XP. I think the biggest thing was that programs they had would not work on Vista, but the truth of the matter is that the programmer's had a few years 'heads up' to make their programs compatible...so MS was not at fault here.

"Why Microsoft, of all vendors, would still be so obtuse as not to realize that users don't like their UIs radically overhauled is beyond fathoming. Whenever something is prettier, it may indeed be easier to navigate and may be simplified and objectively better, but it's different, and that pisses people off."

I'm looking at you, Metro.

"And - as always - wait for Service Pack 1."

MS Customer Rule #1.

MS makes WinME, gets nuked by the press. Fortunately Win2K is in the wings ready to go. It saves the day, not to mention the stock price, and its replacement is even better. XP kept things going so well, that MS got cocky again and made Vista. Burned, it tried to do better and succeeded with 7.

This pattern is present in other companies as well. After an outstanding release, a company begins to think they can dictate the desires of the customer. It's presented to the board as "leading the market", but in reality, they either didn't do a market study or dictated the expected results to the study group. We all know the symptoms... change for change's sake. Pretty UI with unstable code behind it. Entry into a market which their client base doesn't have a real interest in.

This all stems from poor decisions are caused by monopolistic thinking (it matters not if they actually are a monopoly), and no one is immune, not even open source companies. A "we're the best" or "we're the only (real) choice" will invariably lead to poor decisions unless their crystal ball is working particularly well.

Well, agree in certain points. So far Win Me & Vista is nightmare. In my opinion a better way to protect ourself is wait at-least 6 months to test it out before go to major upgrade. It's better to have after SP1 come out then only start to purchase and upgrade. Eliminate a lots of trouble.

I had/have no problems w/ Vista yeah its slow starting and closing but I usually leave it running all the time anyway. Windows 7 is the new improved look rename of Vista!