Microsoft admits "Vista was a less good product"

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/351652/microsoft-admits-vista-was-a-less-good-product

 

Of course, now they want people to buy Win 7, so Vista will start getting damming reviews from Microsoft. I also expect critical vulnerabilities to start appearing in Vista with alarming regularity and with great media fanfare; with a p.s. that Win 7 does not suffer from the same vulnerability.

I don't much care for Vista but strangely, unlike others, I have not found it to be any less than WinXP.

 

Makes sense, I can't imagine a Microsoft rep making those comments publicly without an ulterior motive. I am no defender of any Microsoft product including Vista. With that said, I have not had any issues with Vista. Not any more issues that I had with any other Microsoft os. I started using it after sp1, and from what I have learned, there was several performance issues prior to sp1. The drivers were not developed well enough then either. But all of that has improved. 3rd party software and hardware vendors have developed and improved their drivers considerably since then. There have been 2 service packs released. I have been somewhat surprised by the criticism and vitriol directed at MS Vista. The only thing I could think of as a reason for the strong dislike of it other than the fact that it was the latest and largest os, is that a lot of users and pc manufacturers installed it on hardware that was great for XP, but not so good for Vista in terms of performance. Possibly a lot of users have not forgiven MS for arguably releasing it too early and having all of these driver and compatibility issues. From what I have read Win 7 is based off of Vista's Kernel, basically Vista paved the way for Win7. There is not near as big a jump between Vista and Win7 as there was between XP and Vista concerning software and hardware compatibility.

 

Vista was a less good product, XP is a more gooder product.

Kind of a unique situation when it comes to software, so many people would prefer to run an 8 year old software version instead of one just created or created just a few years ago.

I think XP users will become a real thorn in Microsoft's side, even with 7 i think they are going to have a hard time shaking users off XP. The usage of XP is still quite strong, for instance looking at one of my general sites stats, so far this month:

XP - 732,734 Users 58.5%
Vista - 347,069 Users 27.7%

So it's obvious most people think Vista is a less good product.

 

Windows Vista was the start of DRM infiltrating itself into the operating system. How can an operating system go from 1.5GB of available space to 15GB of available space for installation. It can't be all eye candy. More mouse clicks to do the same operations. XP is going to be around for a long time. Microsoft says support (security updates) will last until 2014.

 

Agree.
...Thats probably when MS stop updates.
... and I am not going to upgrade my hardware just so the OS can take more of it up - XP is working well without the need to suck it up.

I think MS shot themselves in the foot when they made XP because it worked well, so people do not want to buy newer products. Maybe they learnt their lesson, so made Vista

 

I have XP Home, XP Pro, Vista Ultimate on different machines, and tried Windows 7 for a week: Vista is still my favorite and Windows 7 is a lighter version than Vista. I agree with Raza0007, they need to sell Win7, so Vista has to be played down a bit. In the end, it is great to have so many choices available.

 

Interesting, why do you prefer Vista to Windows7?

 

I tend to agree with Osaban. I do like 7, but I can't justify the extra $200 price tag for the full version. I just don't think it's that much $$ worth better than Vista. I am using Vista x64 now and will probably just stick with that. I have never had any serious issues with it at all. Good experiences here.

 

windows 7 has sorted out tons of small things I wanted changed that have existed in windows for quite a few versions. for example being able to change the order of open applications and do the same for icons in the system tray. As well as finaly having trigger services. its annoying having services running that arent needed for my hardware setup such as bluetooth.

I really like windows 7. tbh there is no point in people buying windows 7 if they already have xp or vista and are happy. i got windows 7 for two reasons 1. cheap retail license £45 for home premium and 2. to help my clients.

 

Yeah... Win 7 is just Vista sp3. They have added some new functionality to Win 7 and have changed the gui, but under the hood it is still Vista.

Now granted there was a big difference between XP and Vista, under the hood, but from an end users point of view, Vista was just XP with a fancy interface. So unless you were planning to buy a new computer (like me), there was no valid reason to switch to Vista.

So once again, from an end user point of view, Vista is XP with a fancy interface and Win 7 is Vista with a new interface and some tweaks.

If you have Vista and you are not planning to buy a new computer, there is no reason to switch to Win 7. Win 7 is geared primarily towards those users who have not switched to Vista from XP. And personally I do not see any reason to switch to Win 7 from XP unless you are buying a new computer.

 

Re XP, that's why I'm using Linux (again). MS seems to be dropping support out from under XP, which frankly sucks, because Vista and 7 are both enormous resource hogs.

Ah well. When ReactOS finally goes beta... You konw what I'll switch to.

 

as far as im aware its now only security updates.

 

Windows, linux and Mac development is like a rabbit while the development of ReactOS is like a snail. I don,t expect ReactOS to be of any use practically, even after years.

 

Yep, pretty much the case. It's been around *forever* and look how far it (hasn't) gotten.....

 

It depends on what you consider "enormous". Maybe for older hardware, but Vista and Win7 were not designed for old hardware. I'm running Vistax64 with a 3G quad core and 8G of ram. Vista is not near enormous enough to hog my resources. We are not in the days of 256M ram and single core cpus any more. XP was a great os, but it's heyday is winding down now. Ram is cheap and there is plenty of multi-core processors priced low. I remember hearing the same complaints from people about XP when it first arrived. If you want the latest MS os you got to have the hardware to run it.

 

I'll downgrade to seven if it costs under $100.00, but my XP currently looks like seven with all the themes I added to it, and runs very well.

I do feel bemused that Microsoft has thrown "vista" under the bus, after all "vista" has done for them. Though "vista" will die a horrible death, it will have the last laugh when it lives again with a new moniker "seven".

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

I really didn't mean to say that I prefer Vista to Win7. I think they are very similar and Win7 is lighter. I agree with Kerodo in that I'm not going to spend money buying Win7 (my version of Vista Ultimate is the boxed one which can be installed on new machines).

Now, buying a new computer and having the choice of which OS to install, Windows 7 would be my pick.

 

Same here. It'll have to wait till my next PC purchase...

 

I have read again the article of this thread:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/351652/m...s-good-product

.

I'm not an expert in language but the quote used as the title of the article is misleading.

The journalist conveniently omits 'for Microsoft' which implies that sales of Vista did not meet MS expectations and not that Vista is inherently a bad product.

 

I dont think you can make that conclusion. The economy is down and people arent buying new machines as quickly.

 

Statistics are often an indication about the state of things but certainly not conclusive about the reality and the quality of products. My favorite MS OS is Vista out of XP Home, XP Pro, and Ubuntu which are all operational in different computers in my household. Now, I can just imagine other people preferring XP to Vista for all sort of reasons.

I've recently bought an Asus Eee PC which came with XP. I had no choice although it would be foolish to to try to operate it with Vista or even Win7. Somebody in this thread said that "Vista will die a horrible death", I'm still trying to figure out what it means and whether it is directed to MS or Vista users; regardless, I see clearly MS strategy which is to offer a "range" of OSs for different machines and different users who might be particular about one or the other. A winning strategy, if you ask me, imitating Linux with its different distros.

 

Osaban,

I'm multi-booting my Asus 1000HE. Ubuntu and Win7 run surprisingly well. Win7 seems a little "snappier" than WinXP.

 

What conclusion? The stats are real data based off over a million visits to one of my sites this month, and so many people have been vocal about their dislike of Vista right from the day it was launched. Vista's reputation has been less than stellar has it not?

It's not a conclusion, it's an observation.

As for the economy, new PC sales had slumped more in 2001 when XP was released than when Vista was. In the first year of Vista's lifecycle, new PC sales were up 10% over the year prior. The current economy will effect 7 more than Vista.

Well this thread is about "Vista being a less good product for MS", the adoption/usage rate of a random 1 million sample is an interesting look at how "less good" for MS because it closely correlates with sales.

I made no claim regarding Vista's quality, stability, comparability or otherwise.

On my laptop i run Vista Ultimate, desktop has XP SP3 plus a dual boot with Win7 Pro.