Microsoft e-mails detail Vista woes
As happens every year or so, some juicy Microsoft e-mails have surfaced as part of litigation that the software maker is party to.
In this case, Microsoft is being sued over a program in 2006 that labeled some PCs as Windows Vista Capable ahead of the operating system's mainstream release in January 2007. As part of the discovery process, a number of e-mails have emerged with Microsoft executives discussing various problems with Vista as it came to market.
In one e-mail, Steven Sinofsky writes to Steve Ballmer that three factors were to blame for early Vista challenges.
First off, he said, "No one really believed we would ever ship so they didn't start the work until very late in 2006." He added that his Brother home printer didn't have drivers until after Vista's commercial launch.
Secondly, he said, major changes to the way Vista handles audio and video caused headaches, particularly for those upgrading from XP. Finally, he said, many Windows XP drivers didn't really work under Vista. "This is across the board for printers, scanners, wan, accessories (fingerprint readers, smartcards, tv tuners), and so on," Sinofsky wrote. "This category is due to the fact that many of the associated applets don't run within the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver models."
Sinofsky noted that Microsoft executive Orlando Ayala had stuck with XP because there was no Vista driver for his Verizon mobile wireless card. "The Vista Ready logo program required drivers available on (January 30). I think we had had reasonable coverage, but quality was uneven as I experienced," he wrote.
One of the key issues raised in the e-mail exchange was the fact that by loosening the rules for one of Intel's chip sets, Microsoft was creating a class of machines that were allowed to be marketed as Windows Vista Capable, even though those same machines would not be eligible to even get Vista Basic logo certification once the software was released. I raised this issue in an article back in the spring of 2006.
Sinofsky notes this issue in his e-mail, as do several other executives. "The '915' chipset which is not Aero capable is in a huge number of laptops and was tagged as 'Vista Capable' but not Vista Premium (ready)," he wrote. "I don't know if this was a good call."
The e-mail exchanges also include a note from Mike Ybarra to Jim Allchin saying that "We are caving to Intel." In the same e-mail, he notes that Microsoft was "really burning HP" which had agreed to build its machines with graphics chips that had a Vista-specific driver that could take advantage of the operating system's high-end interface features, unlike the aforementioned Intel 915 chipset.
These e-mails are particularly salient to this court case, in which Microsoft faces a class action suit over the fact that machines labeled as Windows Vista Capable were nonetheless not capable of running many of the operating system's features.
But the e-mails also show clearly that Microsoft executives saw early on that customers were likely to have negative experiences with the operating system, particularly when it came to compatibility with existing hardware. Sinofsky expressed surprise that Microsoft didn't get more complaints to its support lines, but said that he did not take that as a sign of satisfaction.
"I think we have a lot of new PCs, which helps and the hobbyist people who bought (packaged copies of Windows) just know what to do and aren't calling, but I know they are struggling," he said.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
be ready for the next stage of an operating system upgrade is
that the people developing the software for the next generation
of devices aren't using the previous generation of devices during
development rigorously. They build in futuristic features using
futuristic products and almost never check for backwards
compatibility. This email scenario doesn't surprise me in the
slightest and whatever the fallout from it should be an excellent
eye opener for Microsoft. Falling flat on one's face is by far the
most useful way to learn. Right? We've all done it our lives.
I know I struggled with the upgrade from XP to Vista on an HP
DV9005us that was supposed to be ready for Vista Home
Premium, but...
1. DVD drivers and programs went haywire.
2. Built-in webcam drivers and programs ground to a
screeching halt.
3. Backup and restore functionality was a nightmare afterwards.
and the list goes on...
No, really... Damn!
I mean, look at some of these damnign comments... and note that these come from Microsoft execs:
[i]"In addition to some of the previously reported excerpts -- including executive Mike Nash's complaint that compatibility problems turned his $2,100 PC into nothing more than an "email machine""[/i]
...a $2100 email machine? I paid that much for my current Mac, and I can tell you for certain that it does a whole lot more than just email... :)
[i]"For example, OrlandoA [Microsoft executive Orlando Ayala] is not on Vista because there are no drivers for his Verizon card yet. Microsoft's own hardware was missing a lot of support (fingerprint reader, MCE extender, etc.)"[/i]
Heh - now mind you this is post-release... and a senior MSFT exec can't even get onto his own network...
[i]"Intel has the biggest challenge. Their "945" chipset which is the baseline Vista set "barely" works right now and is very broadly used. The "915" chipset which is not Aero capable is in a huge number of laptops and was tagged as "Vista Capable" but not Vista Premium. I don't know if this was a good call. But these function but will never be great. Even a 945 set has new builds of drivers coming out constantly but hopes are on the next chipset rather than this one."[/i]
So, err... one of the most popular chipsets out there (the 945 series), and Vista sucks mud on it.
...sourced from the Seattle PI ( http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/132891.asp )
Meanwhile, we see (speaking of Intel), MSFT flacks blaming hardware, where in reality software should always be written to the hardware, not the other way around. After all, Compiz/XGL does everything Aero does (and more), but it runs just fine on the named chipsets. Hackintosh folks report that OSX can run on it (even though it was never designed to)... so what's MSFT's problem?
--
I cannot re-iterate enough how damned happy I am that I have never had the curse of Vista RTM on any machines that I personally own... the betas and RC's were torture enough.
/P
/P
Buy a good quality machine and don't convert OS's (do fresh installs) and it works fine. Go cheap and you shoot yourself in the foot regardless of your OS.
notice the difference. They have stopped computing altogether.
basically show up in Windows 7. For one its a lucky number and
two all the kinks will be ironed out for this OS and it will probably
beat the pants off OS X - The King of OSes, to date.
Longhorn 1 was a test. Longhorn 2 all the way baby!!
negotiate the turn. :)
But Microsoft has really hurt themselves (or should have if they weren't so large) with this product line (Vista) in my opinion. There is no reason a product with so many defects should have been released. I have a Dell Core 2 Duo that came with Vista on it. Practically nothing that I buy has drivers that will make them work without a lot of trouble. In some cases, I simply give up and use my old XP machine. They are worse than Apple in making things so proprietary. Secondly, I consistently have failures out of the blue even when not using any new device or software. Statements telling me that something has caused Windows to shut down, when nearly every time the something is a Microsoft product. Print spooler errors even when no printer is installed, errors that suddenly appear after a Windows autoupdate that were not there before. Blue screens of death several times a week. By the way, I can't see how this could be a hardware issue since I have friends with the exact same model who have back-graded to XP SP2 and are loving the machine now (Dell D620). Also, I work on computers of many kinds every day from users. None of them that has Vista works correctly to do all that I would need it for. Almost all are totally dissatisfied.
Think about this Microsoft. You may have made Vista to capture some of the MAC market, but you are losing customers to the MAC faster because of Vista! I'm sorry to be so negative but it is a broken resource hog.
After downloading the latest Skype and doing this and that, we decided to put XP on instead, and what a difference.
Conclusion. Vista is a dog. I heard lots of bad things about it, but until this experience, I believe the stories now.
The finger print I D does not work on my new HPNOTEPAD HP support appears to know of the many problems but is vague in commenting suggest I call Microsoft for ($100) solution. This system is a ripoff and I want my XP back, fortunately I havw my old desktop.
But it's chiefly Microsoft Office 2007 that wins the annoyance prize. After spending countless hours becoming reasonably proficient on MS Word, I am constantly irritated that nearly every useful feature in Word 2007 has been hidden to such an extent that even after I figured out how to turn on the Help menus, I am living there trying to use the dang program. What's that all about? Was there a series of planning sessions to figure out how best to stymie the loyal users? Whose hand was on the wheel? Balmer? Some other sociopath?
- The UI looks like it came from Fisher Price
- It came out too fast after Windows 2000.
- People hated the product activation.
- No significant security improvements over 2000.
Beyond that ... it was a screaming success compared to Vista.
At least it worked. Also: It gave the poor saps who bought
Windows ME a place to migrate too.
So .. not "just like XP". At least XP had potential to be improved.
Unlike Vista.
The only advantage of one version of Windows to the next is that the new versions support more memory, larger hard drives, greater bit depth and more processors. When it comes to an operating system, less is better.
Microsoft, please remember, the only job of an OS is to load programs and manage resources. Using 100% of the resources is not good management.
pay back every customer who bought Vista the full price of the
software plus pain and suffering. I suffered more than many
time the cost of the software.
Too bad we cannot directly sue Gates for his crap. Gates took a
large chunk of his money and put it into his and Melinda's
Foundation. Now he is trying to buy a good name by doing
philanthropy work. Sorry Bill. Nothing can restore your name
for your heavy handed destruction of so many companies with
good products and good ideas, and your years of setbacks to
the effective use of technology in business. Just as IBM was
good in the beginning but used its monopoly position to place
roadblocks to the advance of effective use of technology so did
Microsoft. I just hope Microsoft and Bill Gates pays the price for
their destructive efforts.
So from wher I am sitting your claim of fraud is ludicrous.
Contrast for a minute Windows Vista, XP, or 2000 with a major Linux distro like Fedora, Ubuntu, or Suse. Except for the very newest hardware, I can boot a "Live CD" from any of these distro and be running on the internet in minutes. Or I can install on a hard drive with all the devices auto-recognized, and have a nice GUI system ready to rock and roll with exactly ONE reboot. And the lack of drivers for the very newest hardware is no different than the usual out-of-the-box experience installing Windows from scratch. Then, I can even take my hard drive with Linux on it, put it in another system and have it up and running in minutes with no pain. Compare that with the typical problems one encounters trying to move a hard drive with Windows to another computer when the first one fails. Ugh!
End of screed... Ben Myers
I used to think Linux was a possible alternative and tried it for 2 months without using Windows. I had mixed feelings over it and ultimately went back to Winders. In the end I can't live without my Battlefield 2.
Mac OS X could be a serious possibility, but I'm addicted to software availability on Winders.
I've been using pooters for a long time and I can't believe we have to go through so much pain and suffering every time we do an upgrade to a major release. Luckily for Microshaft I only use the products because work is paying for it. If it was my dime, I would find a way to make Linux and OO work or chuck all that crap in the dumpster. Nuff said.
Peace.
Nevermind. That's been tried before and I didn't work then either.
Oh well, back to work in Windows...
OTOH, time is taking its toll on the malaise-ridden giant, and while its marketshare shrinks, everyone else's is growing.
/P
Vista is becoming a bigger disaster than WindowsME!
- my family members who work at MS use Macs at home...
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by newhus
March 9, 2008 5:32 PM PDT
- Yup, my 2 family members who have gotten rich off their stock
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Reply to this comment
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(51 Comments)options at MS (and who both were senior level team managers of
Vista's programming) both use Macs at home. Although I have
seen them struggle to play DVD's on their work computers for
their kids (they ended up using an XBOX for dvd playback).
They are now working on Windows 7.
Obviously, Vista sucks.