Beyond Binary

Note: This is one in a series of blogs looking at the one-year anniversary of Windows Vista's consumer launch.

While many of you enjoyed "the Mom test," clearly there are lots more ways to look at how Windows Vista is doing. Here are three measures I typically use when trying to assess the impact of Vista.

• The "downgrade" / Stick with XP movement

The downgrade movement is an indicator of how the most disgruntled users feel about Vista. Most people buying a new PC will accept Vista because that's what nearly all computers come with at retail. So, the folks who are actively seeking out XP machines or downgrading their Vista machines represent a minority, to be sure. Still, it's a vocal and important minority worth some attention. What's more, this movement gained steam during the year, prompting Microsoft to make it easier for PC makers to include an XP disc in the box with Vista machines and extend Windows XP's stay on the market.

However, this effort is set to be further relegated to the fringes come June, when Microsoft plans to stop providing XP to large computer makers. Windows XP-based systems will still be available from smaller computer makers, known as system builders, and Microsoft has indicated the date might not be set in stone.

"No changes are planned at this point, but we continue to listen to our customers and partners about their needs," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mail interview.

Although computer makers will still be able to offer XP downgrades in the box, they'll have to buy those discs ahead of the June 30 deadline, according to the Microsoft rep.

Another option for those unhappy with Vista's performance, but not looking to make the dramatic step back to XP, is a little-known program called vLite, which strips out many of Vista's optional components. Microsoft, is of course making its own change to Vista, the Service Pack 1 release due out before the end of March.

• Sales numbers

There are three sales figures that matter: business adoption rates, new PC sales figures, and retail boxed sales of the operating system.

New PC sales and boxed copies are easy to track, but don't necessarily provide a direct indication about enthusiasm for the operating system.

Boxed copy sales have not shown nearly the jump seen with past new versions of Windows. Typically, enthusiasts snap up copies of the new version to upgrade older machines. Less than robust sales of boxed copies could be an indicator that hard-core enthusiasts are less jazzed about Vista, but there are other factors that probably are playing a role as large or larger.

One is the fact that both the absolute hardware requirements as well as the horsepower needed to really make Vista sing make an upgrade a poor choice for all but high-end or recently purchased machines. The second reason, which dovetails with this, is that PC prices are far lower than they were when XP debuted. A strong case can be made that if you have to upgrade the video card or memory of an old PC to run Vista, you are better off just buying a new PC.

PC sales have indeed been robust in the last year, allowing Microsoft to reach its much-touted 100 million mark for Vista licenses sold. Again, though, PC sales are not a true indicator of Vista demand.

It is hard to even guess at an estimate of what percentage of buyers for whom Vista was the reason, or even a primary reason, behind their purchase.

Shifting back to the realm of the anecdotal, in a year of writing about Vista, I have yet to have anyone tell me they bought a new PC because they wanted Vista.

Perhaps the most important indicator of true demand for a new operating system is how quickly businesses start using the product. There's no foolproof way to track this, with corporate surveys of deployment and intent to deploy probably offering the best indications.

Microsoft has said that Vista deployment has fallen short of its initial goal, an optimistic forecast that businesses would snap up Vista at they had Windows XP.

• Software/hardware compatibility

Microsoft executives have conceded that software and hardware compatibility, while numerically higher than with XP, wasn't where it needed to be when Vista debuted. This story has improved as the year has gone on.

What strikes me, though, is that even with 100 million Vista licenses sold, there continue to be darn few applications written specifically for Windows Vista. Ahead of the launch, Microsoft was touting the fact that application developers were taking advantage of things like Vista's new presentation engine and other features to create Vista-specific software.

A year out, we haven't seen much of that. One of the initial applications, a Vista-specific version of Yahoo Messenger, took months longer than expected to arrive in test form, while there haven't been any marquee announcements in recent months. Asked to offer some counterevidence, the best Microsoft could point to was DxO Optics Pro, a high-end photography application that uses Windows Presentation Foundation to enhance the photo-editing program.

Microsoft also pointed to a handful of Web sites that take advantage of Vista's presentation engine, as well as games like Crysis that support DirectX 10, which is built into Vista. Crysis also runs on XP, but without taking advantage of DirectX 10.

I expected more at this point. A few key applications that really sing on Vista would really help Microsoft's sell with Vista. Their absence makes the move to Vista less than compelling for consumers who are happy with their PCs.

Note: This is one of a series of blogs being published Wednesday, the first anniversary of Windows Vista's consumer launch.

Perhaps the best indicator I have on Windows Vista is what I scientifically call "the Mom test."

Last spring, my mom got a new computer. She really, really wanted an XP machine because that's what she knew and loved. Well, that's what she knew anyway.

But my mom also decided she wanted to buy it at retail on the weekend I was home visiting. I think it had something to do with having her own personal "geek squad" to set it up. I tried to assure her that only a few XP models were around, meaning, to get the other things she wanted, she really needed to go with Vista.

She was initially skeptical. She was worried it wouldn't work with her Palm handheld and also that it wouldn't work with a specific program she needed for her job as a geriatric case manager. After doing some research and assuring her that both would work with Vista, she grudgingly agreed to get a Vista machine.

After I set the machine up, she got to working on her new Toshiba laptop. Most of the things she liked had nothing to do with Vista and everything to do with the fairly standard keyboard I got her. I programmed a few function keys to open each of the handful of programs she actually uses--a big hit.

As for Vista, she was a bit taken aback by its new interface, but seemed reasonably able to navigate through things.

The real test, I knew, would come in the ensuing days and months. I waited for the phone to ring with news of a problem. It didn't. In fact, I've had zero support calls so far.

To make sure I had the right impression, I gave my top-secret source a call on Tuesday.

"Hello."

"Hi Mom."

"I was calling because I'm writing a blog on the one year anniversary of Windows Vista."

"Of what?"

"The operating system on your computer."

"Oh."

"So I wanted to see how it's going."

"I'm actually doing well," she said.

There were a couple things she explained. Sometimes she gets a message from Windows Live OneCare. "I don't get what they want me to do."

And there's this other message, she explained, that keeps asking her if she is at home or work. (That's actually Vista trying to automatically apply security policy based on the type of network). "I don't see why they need to know, so I just close the window."

But, overall, she said, she's been pleasantly surprised. "The things I've wanted to do on the computer, I really haven't had a problem with," she said. "I don't think I've had any true glitches or problems that I didn't have on the old computer."

So that's the "mom" test. I'll be posting a few other looks Wednesday at how Vista is shaping up, a year after its consumer launch. Feel free to drop me an e-mail with your experiences at ina dot fried at cnet.com, or sound off below.

Note: This is one in a series of blogs looking at Windows Vista on the first anniversary of its consumer launch.

Microsoft took Windows Vista in for a one-year security checkup and came back with, if not a completely clean bill of health, at least signs that the infant is healthier than most babies.

According to the report, Microsoft issued 17 security updates fixing 36 vulnerabilities in Vista in the 12 months following its commercial launch in November 2006. By comparison, the company issued 30 security updates encompassing 65 vulnerabilities in XP's first year.

The report's author, Microsoft's Jeffrey Jones, says those numbers compare with more than 100 vulnerabilities fixed in Mac OS X Tiger's first year, more than 220 flaws in Ubuntu version 6.06 in its first year, and 360 flaws fixed for Red Hat enterprise Linux 4 in its first year.

Jones does acknowledge that some might consider his research suspect, given his employer, but said he welcomes other researchers to look at his methods.

"That is ultimately my goal--to get people to actively question and dig into why the results turn out the way they do," Jones wrote in his report.

Jones is quick to say that his study is not a complete analysis of the operating system's "security," but rather a quantitative look at the number and severity of the vulnerabilities found thus far.

For me, the highest testament to Vista's security comes not from a comparison of patches or vulnerabilities, but from the grumbling praise given to the operating system by the hacker crowd at last year's Blue Hat.

"Vista is the most difficult mainstream OS to break into that I've ever seen," security researcher Halvar Flake told me at the time.