The Vista Saga just keeps playing out

[jdhurst]

When Vista came out, Microsoft said XP would be withdrawn.

Many Vista machines went back to stores saying "Put XP back".

Machines started selling XP machines again and Microsoft extended the date for withdrawing XP. There have been many variations of this.

I purchase my T61p Vista Business laptop in April 2008 and put it in production in September 2008 (almost a year ago now). It did not come with XP recovery CD's but I was able to readily purchase them.

I purchased a Lenovo Desktop for a client last week. I said I had to be able to load XP as the client has software that won't yet run in Vista.

So, two years or more after Vista was introduced, guess what I got.

A Lenovo Desktop with XP properly preloaded (just like since 2002) and it came with Vista Business 64-bit recovery CD's

So it has gone from Vista with XP CD's if you really need to, to XP with Vista recovery CD's if you might wish to do that.

Very clearly Microsoft has completely and totally written Vista off (or this never would have been allowed to happen). And that means, I purchased an orphan. ... JDH

[dr_st]

The problem with Vista was just that it came out when it was not quite ready. The resource usage was not optimized. It clearly was using more than needed, and the average computer at the time of its release was struggling to run it, causing frustration for a lot of users.

Compatibility problem with older applications and drivers happens with every new OS, and most of it cannot be blamed directly on Microsoft, except maybe the part that if the OS hadn't been rushed to the market, third parties would have had more time to adjust their software/drivers.

A similar antagonism (but with much lower amplitude) also accompanied the release of XP. Part of the reason was that on the kernel level, XP and 2000 were not _so_ different, so many things just worked.

Now the situation is that Windows "7" (really 6.1) is basically Vista polished, or "Vista as it should have been". The irony, is that nowadays, the average computer is plenty powerful enough to run Vista without hiccups, and third party support is much improved, and people have learned all the tricks of the trade to make Vista leaner. So "7" is not really a necessity at this point.

There are very few reasons to upgrade for someone who already has Vista working fine on his rig. Microsoft knows that, which is why they are cutting deals with OEMs offering free upgrades from Vista to 7, to get people to move on.

On the other hand, for those of us still running older machines, who want to benefit from the new features of Vista and not take a massive performance hit, "7" is a very welcome upgrade. And it's not like it doesn't have some new features that weren't present in Vista, there are actually a couple of niceties.

The thing is, Vista has been a fiasco for Microsoft in terms of the infamy it accumulated. Even know I see people buying laptops, which can run Vista just fine, and still they insist that they want to run XP, without any compelling reason. Just because of Vista's bad reputation.

Therefore it is natural that Microsoft wants to phase Vista out as fast as possible, and ditch support for it. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single feature in "7" that cannot be added to Vista with a simple service pack. But I doubt any of them would be, since MS will be shooting themselves in the leg by doing so.

[ZaZ]

How is an OS five plus years in making rushed? They dropped the ball. It was a dog when released. I actually kind of like Vista. SP1 helps a lot. The appearance is much nicer and I like the sidebar. I'd prefer to run Vista, but I'm running XP now. I've got some older games that don't play nice with Vista and I find Blu-rays work better in XP for some reason I can't figure. I do run Vista on one of my desktops. It runs quite well with a clean install to remove the crapware.

[dr_st]

How is an OS five plus years in making rushed? They dropped the ball. It was a dog when released.

Not saying that it wasn't MS's own fault for having spent so much time and still not finishing it properly. I never worked for MS, and don't know how things actually were going there inside, but it just seems that somewhere along the development cycle some wrong decisions were made, which caused lots of wasted time, and in the end they had to rush it.

I seem to remember that originally they wanted to write the kernel from scratch, and then realized they will never finish, and had to change their plan midway into the project, which always takes a huge toll on deadlines. Probably some planning faults took place, but we on the outside can never know what exactly happened.

The point is that Vista really felt that it could use more time in the oven, but due to the already long time spent, Microsoft could not afford delaying it longer.

[ajkula66]

FredGarvin wrote:

It was a dog when released.

Please don't insult our four-legged friends...

MS didn't feel like performing a late-term abortion on Vista, although they must have known that it was bearing significant defects.

Now they're shoving the unwanted product of their greed into the background so it doesn't spoil the family picture...pleeeease...

Whatever money/market share they've lost with this pitiful excuse for an OS (when first released) serves them right...

My $0.02 only...

[dsvochak]

And that means, I purchased an orphan

Don't forget there were millions of machines sold with Vista. I don't think MS will stop issuing updates for a long time. So "orphan" could be somewhat of an exaggeration.

For what it's worth, I'm happy with Vista on my T61. Oddly enough that machine runs better with Vista than with Win 7.

[jdhurst]

I am happy with Vista on my T61p as well (after I beat the living daylights out of it to make it work on my terms). Is "orphan" an exaggeration? I don't kow. It might be, but if Windows 7 takes off, I can see Microsoft telling us support will die and we need to move on. They tried to tell us this about XP, but there is such a huge installed base, public pressure prevented it. The Vista base is not so large (nowhere near as large) and there will be little public sympathy for us Vista owners. The script could work out differently, of course. ... JDH

[AlphaKilo470]

I've been happy with Vista when I used it. I even had it running nicely on a T23 with 1gb ram and a 1.13ghz cpu once (though I do understand not as many users are willing to poke and prod every minuscule setting before using the computer). I just don't find any of it's features compelling enough for me to go through the trouble of learning the new interface to set everything the way I like it. I've been using XP since 2001 when it was still beta and after using it for roughly 8 years now, I have everything memorized quite well and I know the OS still runs new software and performs past my expectations so why upgrade?

[mgo]

When Vista came out, Microsoft said XP would be withdrawn.

Many Vista machines went back to stores saying "Put XP back".

Very clearly Microsoft has completely and totally written Vista off (or this never would have been allowed to happen). And that means, I purchased an orphan. ... JDH

Yep, that crunching sound is those impossible to open boxes of Vista install discs being thrown under the bus by Microsoft. The kernel is good; as witness the speedy Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.

And for a real "kick" try Windows 7 on a solid state hard drive. Boots in 24 seconds, and is snappy as heck! (Vista takes 1:20 on the same drive)

[qviri]

.

[ZaZ]

With all the bad publicity Vista has received, I thought Vista might share the same fate as E.T the Extra-Terrestrial video game, buried in a landfill somewhere in New Mexico.

[hausman]

Bottom line: Win7 is what Vista should have been.

[t20user]

Bottom line: Win7 is what Vista should have been.

The strange thing is the Microsoft fails, and we are eagerly awaiting their next release. I want to be in that business! Imagine if there was one car company in the world, and they only produced one new model every 5 years. If their newest model was a lemon we would all be riding bikes.

[hausman]

The strange thing is the Microsoft fails, and we are eagerly awaiting their next release. I want to be in that business!

I'm not eagerly awaiting Win7. In fact, I'm quite happy with XP. There's nothing in Vista or Win7 that compels me to upgrade. (I have Vista installed on a couple of systems because it came pre-installed. Like jdhurst I've "dumbed down" Vista to make it look and behave like classic Windows.)

Microsoft's business model is predicated on getting people to upgrade because they charge for new release upgrades while providing maintenance to existing releases for free. That's why they rushed Vista and why they want to kill XP. Perhaps if their business model better reflected the needs of their customers they'd be even more successful in milking it. (And yes, that might mean charging for SPs, etc.)