PC manufacturers seek shelter from Vista's drizzle

If you needed any further testament to the colossal failure that is Microsoft Windows Vista, just read this Wall Street Journal article detailing PC manufacturers attempts to design around Vista's shortcomings, shortcomings that no amount of marketing are going to fix.

...[S]ome PC makers are trying to improve that [Vista] experience by adding their own proprietary software to their machines. In some cases, they're creating new user interfaces intended to make Vista faster and easier to use. In other cases they're replacing applications from other software companies with their own....

Today, Microsoft encourages PC makers to build software "on top of Windows Vista that enhances the customer experience," according to an email from Lauren Moynihan, a senior product manager at Microsoft.

This is the problem: they can't. At least, not as much as they'd like. PC manufacturers are trying to stand out, but given that they've ceded so much power and control over the computing experience to Microsoft, the best they can provide is "Windows dressing."

For Sony, HP, or other PC manufacturers hoping to create an Apple-esque experience, forget it. Your best chance of doing so is with Linux. When you pre-install Windows, you pre-install Microsoft's view of the world, with all the bad (and good) that comes with that view. Dell can replace Skype with its own VoIP software, but it can't replace the look, feel, and experience of an increasingly all-consuming Windows experience.

Perhaps Dell, Sony, etc. should band together with Adobe, Google, and others to create Linux-based computing experiences for consumers and/or enterprises. Each of these companies arguably has the brand awareness to take the Linux out of the Linux desktop, and re-brand it as their own. Windows will never give them this opportunity, no matter how hard they try.

[KingBuzzo666]

They better include a Windows CD otherwise those cheap PC's will be useless!

[brianwolters]

I have Vista on 4 PC's at home and all are speedy, stable and a joy to use. I am tired ot the Vista bashers.

[sokapop]

Wow, I sure hear a lot of people ranting about how bad Vista is. I may be the only person in the world that likes it. I understand people have some hiccups, but new OS's always have problems in the beginning. I hope PC Manufacturers don't add more crap to the PC's, I think HP does that enough already. You practically need an extra gig of RAM for all of the crap they have running on your PC. I may have had some issues with Vista when it first released but I havent had any problems in a while.

[justint89]

no sokapop you are not the only one who like it, i also have Vista Ultimate 32bit on my pc
excellent once my hardware was all compatible,
just want to add another gig of ram and i am great for a few years..
security is excellent the UAC is great for alot of average users who i have worked with and click willy nilly!
VISTA IS AWSOME!!

[sokapop]

I would also like to see the whole email from Microsoft. I noticed the quotes from the email were "on top of Windows Vista that enhances the customer experience." That excerpt could mean a lot of different things. Why not include the actual sentence from the email.

[itguyaz]

I've been doing the IT think for ten years now, and I can't professionally recomend Vista to any of my customers. I did a 'downgrade to XP' for a client because Worst Buy sold her a Vista machine for her small business that didn't run any of her Apps. She tried to return it, but they wanted to charge her a restocking fee. Losers.

I think if the boys and girls at Microsoft weren't so greedy they would release a version of Windows that was 64 bit, but could run Legacy Apps. But they won't. Losers.

"VISTA: as pretty and compatible as a MAC, but without the stability."

[alt117]

What apps can't run on a "Vista machine" someone got at Best Buy?

[The_happy_switcher]

There's not enough turd polish in the entire world to fix the Vista problem.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Or your behavior.

[blueonionsoftware]

The only colossal failure is this article. The Wall Street journal article is mostly about how PC makers are trying to differentiate themselves from others, not the short comings of Vista. I'm surprised this made it past the editors at CNet considering how misleading it is.

I sure would like to fail like Vista. 40 million copies sold last quarter and 180 million copies to date.

Vista rocks.

[alGalli]

That is 180 million Vista licenses. A large number of those machines are actually running XP for obvious reasons.

[Vegaman_Dan]

It made it past the editors because this isn't an article at all. It's just a blog posting by a person paid by the number of web hits / traffic it gets. It's best in that case to choose controversial topics to generate those page views. You don't actually have to offer content, just get people to load the page.

Never forget that a blogger is no substitution for a professional news reporter.

[kaibelf]

I agree with Blue. Lifting pieces of the article to give it a completely different slant is tacky. It smacks of something we have to put up with every day with the out-of-context pieces of trash skewing that are part of this year's presidential campaign. Shame on you, Matt.

Furthermore, I know plenty of people who HAVE decided to upgrade after some tentative fears. You know what? We all like the system. No one crashes, no one has problems at all, so I am wondering what kind of things these people are trying to do that are causing these issues. All of my software also works (and I have a LOT of it). Seriously, give it a rest.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Matt Asay wrote:

"Perhaps Dell, Sony, etc. should band together with Adobe, Google, and others to create Linux-based computing experiences for consumers and/or enterprises."

That should be quite interesting to see happen.

Adobe: Nearly viral-like tendencies with Acrobat, hideously high prices for their products, and SS-like enforcement of all licensing.

Google: They already said you have no privacy- and that now extends to your data online. Do you want to have them in your computer looking at your data too? Pass.

It's an interesting idea, but not very realistic. It would be better to stay on the ground to deal with these issues instead of keeping your head up in a 'cloud..'

[gwdibble]

Matt, you forgot to mention Adobe's poor software quality (including a lot of issues around activation and that SS-like licensing), the fact that they release a new version without ever getting the old one functioning properly, and their predatory practices such as not supporting Acrobat 7 on Vista, requiring users to upgrade to a newer version.

People complain about Microsoft, but I find it a little difficult to justify the fact that Acrobat, essentially a one-trick pony, costs more than almost all versions of Office.

[michaelkpate]

Just to second some of the comments above, I have been running Vista on my home machine since February and like it just fine. Personally, I think the sturm and drang all comes from Microsoft trying to set the hardware requirements irresponsibly low. On a Q6700 with an 8800GT and 4 GB of Ram, Vista Home Premium runs smoothly (note: I couldn't even get XP to install on the hardware for whatever reason). The times I have seen Vista issues were when it was running on borderline hardware.

[rcardona2k]

I bought my mom a Vista notebook as that is all that is sold in retail today. I didn't have time to downgrade it to XP, find the drivers, etc. But I did make sure Windows Update was on tip-top and the lastest drivers too.

She also still uses XP on her desktop at home. After the learning curve on Vista, every call I get is some Vista problem: wireless flakiness, health care application compatabilty problems, and performance lagging (this is a 3 GB laptop!). I ask her about XP and she says, it just works. Sorry like Ballmer said, Vista is a work in progress.

[MaLvaDo39]

Get a Mac already!

[DimaV67]

I am wondering what would prevent Steve Jobs from "throwing a curveball" of OS X into PC market at this point? I believe number of enthusiasts as well as the recent PC hardware + OS X release by Psystar proves the fact that it is technologically possible. So the question is whether Apple would take a calculated risk and jump on this VERY unique opportunity to take over home and possibly some of the enterprise markets from MS, while giant is struggling. I would say this is something that's worth a try! It would potentially stretch the company into the territory they have not been to yet, but...this may be the one in a lifetime opportunity.

[alt117]

Apple has a hard time writing software for anything but OS X. Look at the bloated junk that is iTunes and Safari for Windows. How could they cope with all the different hardware combination's from Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba etc.
They are better off in their walled garden with OS X and Macs, making their ungodly profits.

[rapier1]

I have to say that this is a complete misrepresentation of the article. Its a stunning overwhelming display of reinterpreting reality to meet a personal agenda. I know bloggers *love* doing his sort of thing; drive up the page views, create some controversy, shout in to the echo chamber for a while, it just feels good. Unfortunately, its sloppy disingenuous writing that really doesn't accomplish any thing useful.

[conan3--2008]

What has been interesting to see is the marketing behind the new "Midori" , the next Windows--which is "a future without Windows". If you listen to the Midori team, Windows and Vista have all kinds of problems. If you listen to the Vista team, Vista is the greatest of all operating systems. The Midori talk is SOOO similar to what we heard when Vista was going to fix all the XP problems. At some point people are going to realize that MS is not the company it once was. Perhaps Midori really will solve things, but saying Vista is an improvement (like some comments here) is simply not true. It is no more usable or functional than XP. With few exceptions, everything people do with Vista can be done just as well in XP.

[rapier1]

Umm Midori isn't a new version of Windows. Go back and read the articles about Midori again.

[Robert654]

I've used Vista from the start and have not experienced any major issues. Like all new operating systems there will always be some items that need to be tightened up and Vista is no different. Everyone I know who has either upgraded or got Vista on a new computer loves it. I am sick of hearing all the Vista bashing by people who never used it.

I also use linux (Ubuntu) and have to rebuild or fix things on a regular basis if I install something that isn't from the Ubuntu repository. As stability goes - linux is where windows was ten years ago. No drivers, little choice in software and unstable.

[odubtaig]

That's funny, that's my experience with Vista. It's supposed to be this vast improvement in stability but after SP1 all I have to do is install Comodo Firewall Pro and for a joyous BDOS/reboot loop that never ends until I boot into safe mode and uninstall it. Isn't Vista supposed to be even more protected against 3rd party software taking it down like this? Clearly something's gone wrong.

Between that and a certain amount of software that just won't work (yes, I know about compatibility modes thankyouverymuch) I'm sticking with XP for Windows work. It's like the argument a lot of people have against Linux when compared to XP: my software doesn't work on it and it won't play all the games XP does.

[txsbaker]

I can't stand Vista. Every time that I sit down to do something on it, I find myself back getting the same head ache that I've been getting since Windows '95. I have to fish around for an hour trying to find the stupid control panel or menu that I need to accomplish a simple task. Often I have to wade through the most useless Help program ever, or should I say "Help me to purchase some add-on software program to get a feature that should have been included?" At least with XP I had finally figured out where they had hidden most of the features that I need to use! And I really don't need my computer to ask me every five seconds if I'm sure that I wanted to do something. Fix the security problems, don't lay it off on me to protect your flawed software MS! Oh, and when I change a setting, it's for a reason, and, no, I don't need your OS or your security patch or whatever other crap you're doing to undo or change my settings back! This is why I dumped my Compaq EVO two years ago and switched to Mac. OSX isn't perfect, but it's light years ahead of XP and it's in a different universe than Vista. I still have to help all the people I know that are running Windows (XP & Vista), but I always end up shaking my head, looking at them and saying, "This is so much easier to do on my Mac." I get ten times the productivity with my Mac than any Windows user I know, and I know some pretty proficient computer users.

[efraim7]

>> As stability goes - linux is where windows was ten years ago.
Yes? Ten years ago it was 1998. I don't remember any Linux distribution (or OS/2 or whatever) as unstable as Windows 98. This thing could crash from just being idle.
>>No drivers, little choice in software and unstable.
Oh, that's really weird. Have used Linux since 1999, from Slackware 4.0 to the newest Kubuntu, including experimental things like Fedora on hardware ranging from 80386 4MB to Pentium D and never experienced any such things. There are just people who can screw everything up and then put the blame on the manufacturer. (I can say this happens to Vista too, though to a lesser extent)

[myksomerville]

We have Vi$ta on two machines here, and XP on our NAS storage. Even through a Wireless-N network with Gigabit wired connections, Vi$ta struggles to break 2MB/sec throughput on the network. we have found it is easier and faster to burn the necessary files to DVD or two and transfer them that way; still faster than waiting for Vi$ta. This has soured our computing experience to the degree I doubt we'll buy M$ again - either Mac or Linux from now.