Comments on: Vista's big problem: 92 percent of developers ignoring it

The OS certainly isn't helping Microsoft's popularity with developers. Can it repair the problem?

[Mark_Anderson]

ITT: Developers who know what they're talking about and fanboys who don't.

Incidentally, is this blog voluntary? I would hate to think anyone was actualy getting paid to write it.

[thomusvoo]

this article is biased. shame on you CNET for hiring people like this.

[The_Decider]

It is an opinion piece, duh.

[StuTheDog]

Could somebody please explain the reason for the visceral disdain, hatred even, against Microsoft? Is it because they have been successful? I've been in IT since the days of DOS 2.1, back then everybody hated IBM for pretty much the same reason. I have customers who can't upgrade to Mac OS X because there is no backward support for their graphic apps. Yet I hear very little whining about that, but when an app needs to be tweeked to run on Vista people act as if the world has come to an end. What's up with that?

Vista SP1 runs just fine if you have enough horsepower, remember all the whining when XP first launched? Memory hog, runs slower than Win 2000, buggy, I'm never going to upgrade, noise.

[The_Decider]

Because they produce crap and lock people into it? If you need it explained you are either lying about your background or are willfully blind.

[mikedgolf40505]

Not only is this a horribly dishonest article, it borders on criminal. Did Jobs himself author this? Most naiver people who read this will think if you buy Vista there are no apps available for Vista and none being developed. I just bought my first MacBook Pro to go along with my HP Vista laptop and so I am not that familiar with OSX; but from my experience I can truly say that Leopard is not better than Vista. Nor is Vista better than Leopard. People complain about compatability issues with Vista; well I have a Lexmark X9350 and tried running it through my Time Capsule as my network printer and was never able to print on my MacBook Pro but it printed fine on my HP Vista machine. I have both machines close to equally equipped (HP DV9000t 2.0 Intel Core Duo, 2G Ram, 100G 7200 RPM HD, NVIDIA 7700 512MB video card; MacBook Pro 2.4 Intel Core Duo, 2G Ram, 200G 7200 RPM HD, NVIDIA 8600 256MB video card) and I cannot detect any speed difference in actually running programs and apps. The Apple boots about 15 seconds faster than the Vista and they both shutdown in about the same time. The thing I hate about Vista just like I did about XP is having to run 5 different anti-spyware and anti-virus programs once a week. On the other hand I hate how Leopard installs new software and I also hate deleting programs on Leopard; much simpler with uninstall on Vista. The point is that there is an anti-Microsoft bias at CNET and it's sister sites and blogs. Wake up and get your head out of Steve Jobs (Macintosh) and Karl Marx's (Linux) collective back side.

[The_Decider]

Yeah, Linux is a multi-billion dollar industry and yet you try to drag out the tired nonsense of Marxism. At least you MS shills are consistently retarded.

[Urbane.Tiger]

Recent surveys from Code Project [5,228,848 members - 18,361 online, 90% developers)

http://www.codeproject.com/script/Surveys/Results.aspx?srvid=793
http://www.codeproject.com/script/Surveys/Results.aspx?srvid=795

These surveys (conducted with 2 weeks of one another) show how important is the phrasing of the the question. The author would do well to study these figures

90% of developers work for corporates, corporate developers have little influence on desktop deployment because that's managed by the ops/infrastructure folks. If the ops guys ain't deploying Vista then the dev guys ain't going to develop to it, at least not if they wanna keep their jobs.

If you suddenly started to write everything in Pali would anyone publish what you write - no - except maybe for some arcane academic Buddhist journal.

[fdunn3]

So are 92% (or close to) of Microsoft's Enterprise and Institutional IT Customers with Select and Assurance contracts. Other than to have a few around as test systems most are sticking with XP for the time being and about half of those don't have any migration plans in place.
I know that we have no plans on moving at this point and are still having Dell image our systems with XP.

[stevey_d]

It's hilarious how many posters don't understand the concept of "developing" as distinct from "using". Even more hilarious are those that bash the author, when he's reporting on a study published by another group. They call it opinion when it is in fact fact. (as reported by the study).

They you also have the semi-developers who say "it'll run .net programs". The whole point IF YOU CAN READ is that Vista doesn't allow easy access to device drivers. So any of the hundreds of thousands of scanners and various assorted bits of hardware that made XP so functional, won't play with Vista unless you turn off UAC, and maybe jump through a few more hoops.

AND the developers have no plans to go down this route. Why? because it is simply too darned expensive and hard, and market penetration of Vista is very low.

No matter how many times people say "well everyone will have to start using Vista soon", this doesn't mean it will happen. Most people's opinion is that it's a dog, and they get their IT guy (their son, their neighbour, the guy down the road) to scrub off Vista and put on a legal or cracked copy of XP.

[ulric2]

Every developer is checking their applications with Vista. Every one. The ones that are late to the game started when Vista SP1 was released. Most windows developers at larger companies are moving their main machines to Vista 64-bit. The published data is wrong because it calculates developers who would write applications that would only work on Vista, and not windows apps compatible with previous version of the OS. And it pits that against all versions of all other OS. It's a straw man made to make a point against Vista. How many apps are targetting only Leopart of the latest Ubuntu?

[Gorifyny]

Not being a developer, but merely a lowly home user, I see no specified advances of Vista over XP. All I know is that everyone I know who has started using Vista at home has hated it - many programs and accessories are no longer working, it runs slower, and it constantly harasses the user with its overdone content and management controls. I don't need or want such hassles. And .net means nothing to me nor do I care to know anything about it. I have bought new PC's and laptops recently just because they were still available with XP. It's just all the bloatedness that's driving me to Mac.

[softwaredesignengineer]

Matt, .Net is not dependant on any Windows version. Vistas and XP's runtime are not exclusive to each other. When I write a project, I target both XP and Vista. My home machine is Vista while my work machine runs on Vista. The sample code I test out at home works at work too.

PLEASE GET THE BASICS OF .NET DEVELOPMENT RIGHT FIRST.

[softwaredesignengineer]

Correction to my earlier statement:

>>My home machine is Vista while my work machine runs on Vista.>>

to:
My home machine is Vista while my work machine runs on XP.

[The_Decider]

No you don't. If you targetted Vista you would be using sys calls not available in XP. MS developers, it seems are as intelligent and knowlegable as its users. Here is a hint: reading C# for dummies doesn't make you a developer and just because an app will run on Vista doesn't imply it was targeted at Vista.

[softwaredesignengineer]

@the_decider,

Do you know what you're talking about? Can you give an example of what you're talking about? A .Net developer doesn't "target" Vista for accessing any system level resource. The CLR is on top. It's all in the framework. The only place where you would require more programming is overcoming enhanced security requirements in Vista which is remote.

.Net developers target the .Net framework. Not the Windows OS. It just shows you know absolutely nothing about .Net development. So like Matt Asay, you need to get the basics right too.

[sonounfrocione]

this news is written by incompetents!

[Bearet]

Don't try to get your mom to accept Vista. It took five years to get her to accept XP and she still used menus from Windows 98SE. So her old XP computer got hit by a power surge and died 9It was six years old anyways) and she has insisted, using language not usually heard from an octogenerian that I "fix" the new computer as soon as possible. The manufacturer says that reverting to XP from Vista will not void warranties, so guess what I am doing tomorrow?

[Dango517]

92% of the responses here disagree with you Matt. I didn't do the math so there might errors in that percentage. :D

[lbchief]

I just started using Vista and have found that the programs for some scan devices from a major manufacture fail to work with Vista using the companion software. Thanks to Microsift they have resident programs such a "PAINT" that will operate with the scanners. I still run XP on my other machine but find Vista superior.

[Benf]

This is exactly the kind of journelism I have grown to expect from the CNET staff. Windows / Micro$oft Bashing

[phoenixjn]

I don't dispute the facts of the article; unfortunately, for the most part I think it's right. But again I don't see any foundation for Vista bashing by so many people. In the past year, Vista has proven itself the most stable operating system I've ever used. I've even run programs not meant for vista (which are most programs) without problems. I still run Office 2000 and a host of other apps that are not even XP compatible. Is Vista perfect? No operating system even comes close to perfect. I agree, Vista's security could be toned down a notch, and we can only hope MS puts out a crowd-pleasing SP2, but Vista is about as stable as a mountain, and for the most part it's smarter than any other version of Windows I've used (going all the way back to 3.1, in addition to Mac OS X). I use Vista and OS X on a regular basis. The OS X machine is at work, and there are far more problems on that piece of crap than there are on my Vista machine. I guess the bottom line is that if developers aren't going for Vista, then they'd better get started. I think while Vista may not be the new Coke, I think it's at least the platform for MS's next great OSs. If we want to rip on somebody's new Coke, let me suggest eBay's.

[mikeschr]

My job involves developing in .NET, and we don't target a specific platform. That said, we also don't use any Vista-specific features, which I think was the point the article is making.
I bought a PC with Vista installed a while ago, and it's been horrible. I had trouble with even the most basic OS functions. Deleting a few files would take hours. The system would flatly refuse to move files sometimes. Writing to and reading from memory cards would often fail.
When SP1 came out and the system actually ran worse, I gave in and "downgraded" to XP. All the problems went away.
Of course, the MS fanboys who've been posting here will now count me among the people "bashing" Microsoft. It's sad, really.

[bigblubox]

I have noticed that EVERYTHING Matt writes leads to: MAC good, VISTA bad! stop trying desperately to convert people to MAC.. it's PATHETIC!!! is CNET sponsored by Apple!? seriously..

[RavenNeo]

Come on people... I don't think it matters if .net can be ran on Vista or not. THe main think is Vista SUCKS!!!!!! BIG TIME!!!! End of Story!

[bigblubox]

have you used it?! I doubt it.
most people who say it sucks haven't even tried it!

Vista + SP1 is very solid, and is getting better all the time.
Actual user here.