Windows Vista winning the ugly way

Like it or not, Vista is coming simply because its easier for IT to manage just one platform. Josh Greenbaum makes sense of this over on the Enterprise Anti-matter blog.

Enterprise IT has never run a popularity contest, and if you doubt that just look at the unbelievably crappy user experience that has dominated enterprise software since the dawn of time. IT runs an increasingly cost-conscious effort aimed at trying hard not to pay too much attention to worrying about how much its users are actually loving their software. IT wants efficiency above all, and will always opt for expediency over technical "correctness", which means that Microsoft's incumbent position on the desktop -- combined with the significant cost-differential between a Mac and a Window PC -- isn't going to be usurped just because Vista sucks.

[exxtraz]

Pretty much Micro$oft is making people use it. That's sad.

[pjskeleton]

Yes, it is. But for all you vista-haters out there, have any of you actually used vista for more than a test or demo? Or do you hate it because it's a change from something you have used for 3-4 years? I have had Vista on the computer I am using right now out of the box (I got the laptop in March), and I think it's great. The startup speeds are around 30-40 seconds, instead of the average XP startup of 60-90 seconds. The OS takes up less space on the hard drive, and I don't have to buy only plug-and-play devices anymore, because Vista will recognize the device and instantly start downloading the proper driver off the internet. Vista home premium comes with media center, something you had to pay another $150 for on XP. There is only one glitch I have found so far though. When running older programs or games, you do NOT use compatibility mode. Just pop in the disc and use the program. When compatibility mode is used, the program will not start properly. Windows Media Player is still a piece of crap compared to iTunes though, and it always will be. Internet Explorer is the same way against Firefox or Safari (which does now run on windows). Vista is really great for gaming, travel, watching movies, stuff like that, but it sucks baIIs at business and management.

[Welovelucy]

I have been using Vista on my Dell 630 for about a year now, and I think your assessment is turned on it's ear: Vista boots 3 times slower than XP, goes to sleep slower, wakes up slower, and is plagued by applications failing with run-time errors that force a hard restart of the app. I even installed SP1 thinking that would solve my problems and it did not seem to do much of anything at all. Vista does suck for laptops compared to XP. What I really wish is if Linux would start running the critical apps I need so I could switch to it -- I've never had these types of problems on any Linux distro in the past 3-4 years (Ubuntu, Fedora). Of course as soon Linux starts running Microsoft software, it will probably get the crappy software cancer from it, and start running crappy itself! Maybe I should try Mac...

[Welovelucy]

I have been using Vista on my Dell 630 for about a year now, and I think your assessment is turned on it's ear: Vista boots 3 times slower than XP, goes to sleep slower, wakes up slower, and is plagued by applications failing with run-time errors that force a hard restart of the app. I even installed SP1 thinking that would solve my problems and it did not seem to do much of anything at all. Vista does suck for laptops compared to XP. What I really wish is if Linux would start running the critical apps I need so I could switch to it -- I've never had these types of problems on any Linux distro in the past 3-4 years (Ubuntu, Fedora). Of course as soon Linux starts running Microsoft software, it will probably get the crappy software cancer from it, and start running crappy itself! Maybe I should try Mac...

[drfriday]

As an IT professional that uses and maintains both PC's and Mac's, it bothers me when a writer says that Vista "sucks". Vista does not "suck". It is a very good operating system, and gives the computer user tremendous power. It will continue to evolve and get better over time, just as XP and OS X have. The Vista OS will continue to be refined so inexperienced end users will have less configuration issues. I've been in the computer world since the CPM days, and what a Vista enabled computer can do and all the software and hardware it can run is nothing short of amazing. It is by far the most powerful OS to date...but what do I know.

[tekwiz4u]

drfriday - Vista DOES suck. And its not powerful at all. Bloated...but not powerful.

[rpwolff]

People..... I don't mean to be a prude, but, all of your problems with vista are quite simple to fix. Clean out your MSCONFIG file and turn off UAC (widgets are also not all they are cracked up to be. Turning off the sidebar is also a good choice.)