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Software maker says it has made progress on Vista's performance and compatibility. But it still faces an uphill battle to win over consumers.
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Now Vista...it installs beautifully, recognizing all of my hardware and wifi. It blow Linux and XP away in this area. But the bad is the DRM and bloat of it...hard disc churning all the time unless you know what to turn off...and there still is always a little more running that necessary. But here is what I'm getting at...decision tree of sorts:
Dektop or laptop computer with 5+ year old hardware and little memory = spare computer = Linux (Mint) or PCBSD
Desktop or laptop with 3+ year old hardware and supporting less than 2GB ram = XP
New desktop computer supporting 4GB ram or new laptop with wifi and supporting 4GB ram = Vista (it runs great at that level...just make sure you don't have Intel graphics).
Laptop supporting <= 2GB ram and user is a gamer = XP or get a 512MB Graphics Nvidia card and go with Vista.
DRM on Vista is another issue. But so far I've had no run ins with that.
Who is spreading this FALSE Vista hype? I CHALLENGE ANYONE to prove that upgrading to Vista is a positive experience for the AVERAGE home or business computer user.
When planned obsolescence is thrust on the consumer it is time for the law to defend that consumer.
How is taking a working XP machine and switching it to Vista going to reduce costs? In addition to the hundreds in outlay for the license, you have to deal with new group policies, training, service pack upgrades that are problematic, and at the end of the day - what benefit is there to be had? This make no sense...especially in light of all the other independant surveys out there that clearly show businesses do NOT want Vista and their is no ROI in doing so.
I love vista have installed it in an accounting office environment and I have used it my ownself with Positive results since 06.. I can give you a number of people's contact info that will back me up.
Good consultants learn new things when they need to, especially the day a new OS ships.. They support their users with this..
You can't believe it because you have problems..
When people complain about vista I send them here..
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
That page solves about 90 percent of anyone's vista woes that I have encountered so far..
In short, this is not a good representation of end users. This is a representation of geeks who are loud and obnoxious, pro and con about everything. They are a very small minority of the real end user database.
As for news- if it bleeds, it leads. People don't read stories about fluffy kittens and flowers or stories about how everything is working normally, no issues. Instead they want to read stories about problems, sensationalistic content that they can react to with strong emotion.
One headline: Child feeds lost kitten
Another headline: Child accused of hiding stolen animals from authorities
Both could be absolutely true about the same story, but which one will generate more page views/clicks?
Personally, I like Vista. It has been more stable for me than XP and as stable as OS X (which I also use on a daily basis - I started around 4 years ago). I see around as many kernel panics under OS X as I see BSODs under Vista - which is to say very few. Network speed is important to me and the autotuning TCP receive buffers is a big win for me. I like that the video driver has been seperated from the kernel. I like the sandbox for IE. The new presentation layer is pretty nice.
Could it use some work? Yeah. So could OS X, Linux, *BSD, and most any other OS you want to point out.
Anyway, I'm sure someone will accuse me of being a plant. I don't care anymore. This whole fight over operating systems has become (well, always has been) kind of sad really. Its as if people have nothing else interesting going on in their lives so they have to get in a twist about computers just to inject a little thrill.
Recommended for novice users because it has a much better security setup than any previous version of Windows. It is virtually identical to OS X in this regard.
Recommend for expert users because it's HUGELY configurable and has tons of new features. Anyone who takes a bit of time to learn it's new tweaks and improvements is almost certain to find something they really like unless they are blinded by hatred of MS.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but they did a good job on this one. Vista and OS X are far and away the best OSes out there if you ask me. OS X is a fine choice for those who want what Apple is selling and like the UI (I don't like it much, but that's a personal preference thing). Vista is great for everyone else.
So specifically what's your beef with Vista? Have you even tried it?
This isn't any worse and XP was ripe with complainers when it came out 5-6 years ago too.. People selectively forget it..
> Microsoft is able to pull these numbers from.
Just keep in mind that this is the same company whose boss just stated that we users can have XP, but only if we ask for it... and he claims that so far, we have not.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9927721-7.html
-RFH
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
Igiveup2 said, "Showstopper issues occur for common users with both Vista and Linux. It's a question of prevalence."
"I take it Ubuntu is not your preferred Linux distro. Which one do you prefer, and why?"
Equating Ubunto or any other "Linux distro" to XP or Vista is an error.
Windows XP/Vista is an operating system. You add Microsoft Office, Open Office, Word Perfect, Outlook, and other applications to it.
Linux distros are like looking at the whole package. With Linux distros, you get a distro that has the Linux Kernel (the OS) with Office applications, E-mail applications, Audio/Video apps, etc. all bundled together.
If you use Ubuntu, you get a different set of bundled application than you get if you get the Fedora distro. Kinda like Vista Home, Vista Business, etc.
You can delete and add applications in Fedora to make it just like Ubuntu and vica-versa if you want.
I have no preference for Linux distros as they can be modified to be anything you want.
As far as "prevalence" of issues with Vista vs Linux, I can not comment. My systems are capable of supporting both. The problems I've had with Vista and Linux are driver related. Neither OS accepts blame for driver problems.
I have to support Mac and Windows desktops. We are probably 75% Wyse thin clients at the user level.
Anyway, I only care about being able to support and run the pre-windows 2000 ERP system that 99% of my users have to use, along with making sure they can run whatever office applications they need to get their work done. As a volume license customer we have already decided to tell our workstation vendor to continue to give us systems with an XP image, as it works with what we currently have. (My overall mission is to keep systems up, and users happy.)
Now, just to be clear, I have had to support users using Vista (from the early days when people were getting systems from retailers with 512 MB of ram, to present day, where they have 2GB+ ram as standard.)
Most of the home users (that I have supported) who are winding up with Vista really just browse the internet, play with a spreadsheet, chat, and do yahoo! games or something similar. Doing such simple things does not require having much of an OS, to be honest.
However, the out-of-the-box experience for a Vista system with 512 MB ram and low quality embedded graphics is ... less than stellar, which leads to turning off all the fancy graphics features.
The initial user setup experience when installing rogue apps, that, of course, lead to system instability, but what does the average user care--they give all those antivirus and spysweeper guys some business sooner or later--leads to disabling UAC, thus greatly decreasing the overall system security. Any decent sysadmin knows that users value usability over security ... and if they're a home user, I have no corporate policy to dictate to them, it's their system, I warn them that I'll be back later to debug their system, but they're happy and I have repeat business, a win-win situation.
Of course, I have home users who are very happy on Vista (they have bought a newer PC recently, with better hardware).
Now, if anyone really knows, the majority of the Vista debacle is hardware related, especially with the stupid "Vista Capable" campaign, that was complained about even within M$ itself!! that was an effort to help sell Intel chips, that ultimately hurt the consumer... I'm sure that an enterprise i-net research can give us the full scoop on that one.
Oh well, I have been rather long-winded, so I'll end my post now.
You should enroll in the nearest community college and take an Econ 101, or similar course. Read about monopolies.
Microsoft CANNOT, WILL NOT, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT be measured by the same rules as companies which are in competitive markets.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Just start from that fundamental fact and the "strange" things will be clearly understood.
-RFH
I seem to hear a lot about the search features. The file search, the start menu search. We got that pretty much covered.
What are some other cool things about Vista. Could you talk about other ways the new UI has helped you get things done, or more organized. I'm tired of just hearing about search and the XP vs Vista thing. It would be nice to chat about other stuff for a minute.
Those are the hard facts, everything else is PR.
Having dealt with Vista, XP, and Ubuntu Linux 7/8 drivers for the same machine over the last six months, Ubuntu 8.04 wins. Vista comes in second despite instability in the latest video drivers for my hardware (which I'd downgraded to avoid data-losing crashes). XP just plain loses for being a prolonged, unpleasant chore. True, this laptop was never sold in an XP configuration, afaik, but that really just highlights how lame the driver system is for XP. [Why doesn't MS have the latest XP drivers for all hardware readily available for auto-download? They already have the system to handle it. Of course, it's so there will be services you can pay $30 to so MS doesn't have to do its job. :p ]
I'd bet that 80%+ of people trying out an Ubuntu Live CD on a desktop machine would be stunned at how good it is, esp. compared to Vista in responsiveness and performance.
Vista was MS shooting themselves in the foot. If Windows 7 is as inefficient as is Vista, or worse, they'll have shot themselves in the head.
DRM may also become a bigger issue for Vista and Windows 7 thanks to MS's poor handling of their music service shutdown---not quite the same animal, of course, but it may raise a question in people's minds about what they are losing by choosing a DRM crippled system.
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
I have no problems most people who complain about this are copying to SAMBA servers that aren't upgraded The kernel and security is completely new.. I have a bunch of machines and they are all on Vista, Mac OSX and others (no linux for me at this time) and they actually run faster..
Read this faq.. It will help on a number of things..
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
Where are the supporters, if it is all a matter of perception? Perhaps it isn't as completely bad as some would say, but when the flaws are so glaring and people are suffering from so much poor performance, something is wrong.
It's indicative that the CNET front page is full of stories of Microsoft's problems and the emergence of Psystar's OSX machines. Vista will need some very effective tools to improve it's performance and usability if it is to make the grade. It may even be a little too late for that already.
Microsoft's part.
That said, I do know a person who likes Vista: my boss. The
qualifiers are: she bought a top of the line new Vaio, she
bought Vista Ultimate, and she has tech support on hand to walk
her through everything. Plus, she is the type of person who
LOVES to tell everyone how SHE doesn't see what everyone is
complaining about, because it works "just fine" for her. (This is
a woman who called tech support because her keyboard "has
gone haywire!" when she accidently turned up the number
lock...) So she has a top of the line computer/OS, and when
people in our group have problems because of installing Vista
on their crappy old Dells, she says it must be their fault...
Explaining to her that our systems are way worse than hers is
futile, because she responds by saying things like, 'You guys
aren't going to ***** your way into new computers for the
section..." after which she does something like check her e-mail
on your computer, just to prove how savvy she is. Arg!
Xp is for straphangers who don?t want to change seats and who run scads of programs downloaded from modboards and purchased from fleamarkets and retail stores.
Linux is for geeks like to tinker and download and type in code in order to run Oblivion and Company of Heroes.
Mac is for old hippies and graphic artists who run Photoshop.
Vista is fine and marvelous, state of the art, an entirely pleasant experience IF:
? If only programs tested to be compatible with Vista are used.
? If only hardware (printers, scanners, etc ) tested to be compatible with Vista is used
? If one is willing to accept the idea if your program or hardware is not shown to be Visa compatible, and it doesn?t work, you really didn?t need it anyway.
? If one is willing to go back to ?school? to relearn Windows for location of commonly used tasks and system tools.
? If one is willing to get a new high end computer or rebuild their old one so Vista can run.
? If one does not mind responding properly to the frequent ominous warning dialogue box when doing various tasks in Vista.
Is that it?
Thanks muchly for posting that :)
/P
If one is willing to go back to ?school? to relearn Windows for location of commonly used tasks and system tools. ? If one is willing to get a new high end computer or rebuild their old one so Vista can run. ? If one does not mind responding properly to the frequent ominous warning dialogue box when doing various tasks in Vista. Is that it?"
Save the rant, just visit this page..
http://www.support4vista.com/vista-faq.htm
Oh and if one set his control panel window options back to Windows Classic it would work and you'd find all the same things in their old place..
How hard is that..
- Microsoft is a monopoly
- by RamonFHerrera May 2, 2008 10:24 AM PDT
- > does the U.S. government consider them a monopoly?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 2 of 3 pages (211 Comments)Yes. They hold monopolistic power over the market. They have made illegal use of such power, to influence other markets.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. They didn't even appeal that finding. Their only defense is that the remedies are too harsh. Europe gave them what they deserve.
But your question was: why are they treated differently. My reply was an explanation of why Microsoft is different to companies that act within the legality.
Do you understand now or you still don't understand that Microsoft is a should be treated differently?
Notice that the question is not whether you agree with Microsoft being treated differently. You don't happen to be a judge or regulator, so your opinions are inconsequential on that issue.
-RFH