Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 01/11/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

A year since the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is cringing at the poor sales of the new operating system. It was initially touted as a landmark new development to reinvigorate the IT industry, prompting expectations of wide-ranging “Vista effects.” Instead, Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs, is stealing the thunder. Microsoft has hurriedly responded by developing a new version of the old XP.

◆ Windows Vista flops

According to market researcher Net Applications, Apple is enjoying the largest-ever share in the global operating system market with Leopard, the newest version. Since its release in December last year, Apple OS including Leopard have gained a market share of 7.31 percent, a record high. During the same period, Windows OS products including Vista saw a drop in their market share ? although their aggregate market share still stands at 91.79 percent. But Leopard is enjoying critical and consumer acclaim, which Vista has signally failed to win.

Major media outlets like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have showered compliments on the Apple OS, which they say is easy and fast. Consumer opinions about Vista have not yielded to Microsoft’s efforts. Tech product reviewer CNET’s UK division picked Vista as one of top 10 “terrible technology products” for 2007.

◆ Microsoft in Agony

Vista cost US$6 billion and a workforce of 8,000 to develop before making its debut in January 2007. It shows a handful of good improvements, especially better security features. But the bundling of too many functions into the OS takes up a considerable portion of the computer memory and causes unexpected hitches like a slowdown in processing speed. The IT giant faced a stream of consumer requests to change the operating system of their computers back from Vista to XP. In Korea, Microsoft failed to win a single corporate customer.

Kim Hyun-jung, an analyst with Tongyang Investment and Securities, said the Vista effect did not happen, and memory chip makers are “suffering from their miscalculation.” Memory producers aggressively increased investment in developing facilities in expectations of Vista effects, but they have yet to see a profit from the investment.

A Microsoft spokesman said XP was only in genuine demand one year after its release. His company, he said, has follow-up plans to boost sales of Vista like the release of a service pack in the first half of the year. But he declined to reveal exact sales figures of Vista in Korea. Despite Microsoft’s efforts, many IT insiders worry because there is insufficient supply of programs that run on Vista. One IT industry guru said the operating system market situation shows that “even the mythical Microsoft monopoly could break down if it fails to meet the demand of consumers.”

[reefdiver]

I love the Mac, Beautiful hardware, seamless operating system, Instant start up’s, support and training is almost unbelievable.
I will never go back.

[Monitor]

I want to hear more about installing Leopard on a PC.

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

[Netizen]

vista will either become good after sp1 like win 98. For those who remember win98 stunk to high heaven and was buggy as heck til sp1

Which is just another example of MS foisting a piece of junk off to the consumer. I was one of those that had to wait for the stores to open so I could spend another $208.00 for the sp, just so I could use my new pc without getting the blue screen all the time. Be nice if we could all get rich by ripping people off like that. Whatever happened to debugging software??

[billorites]

It is maddening.

My "state of the art" XP 1GB system is 6 years old and I have to upgrade.

I use memory intensive graphic stuff like Adobe CS3, Lightroom, printing utilities, etc. and would need at least a 4GB system with Vista. I'll need that much RAM anyway.

I have to stick with some version of Microsoft's offerings. It's very frustrating. I'm ready to buy an expensive multi-monitor system and I'm afraid to pull the trigger.

(I know, I know.... Buy a Mac, vote for Ron Paul, wear hemp-fibre clothing....)

[bcsco]

And has anybody seen Linux Mint? It’s free, and provides a Vista-like “experience” without the Vista headaches.

I've been running Ubuntu 7.4 on a small 7.4Gb partition in addition to Windows XP. Does Mint come with the pre-installed applications, such as OpenOffice, as Ubuntu does? I know Mint is built on Ubuntu. I ask, because the manual suggests a 10Gb partition because of future software. I really don't want to resize that drive at this time, but would like to try Mint. I'm impressed with Ubuntu, but really don't like the terminal/sudo experience for handling many tasks. I want to see what Mint has to offer.

[Riley]

What’s DRM?

Digital Rights management. Or, Die Roll Modifier, if you're an old-school gamer. :-)

[Netizen]

Based on everything I've read and heard from Vista victims that I work with, I was right to avoid it.

When we bought our new computers, at the end of 2006, we had the choice of XP or Vista. I made sure they we loaded with XP. They are Vista capable, but I don't anticipate ever using it. I learned from past experience to avoid MS's first generation OS's.

[blu]

Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs,

Correction: Mac's new OS does NOT work on PC's...but Windoze OSes do work on some Macs. I think the writer got it backwards.

And only a foolish Mac user puts Vista on their machine! Well, ok, only a fool of either stripe puts Vista on anything but their "to avoid" list!

[nralife]

“Has anyone tried to get a WinXP install verified based on holding a Vista license?”

I haven’t, but I’ve read that is okay (legal) to downgrade to XP if you have Vista Premium or Business. A Google search should return many hits. Best of luck. My new notebook (ordered yesterday) will come with XP. You can still get XP on a new machine if you order online through Dell. Or through a couple of other OEMs.

[Jim Noble]

OK, so I'm a Mac guy, so take it whence it comes...

On my Mac Pro tower, I run OS X (10.4.11), Win XP, and Vista.

XP isn't so bad compared to OS X. OS X has more eye candy and is somewhat more intuitive. You have to learn more about the OS to use XP, but once you do that, it's snappy and responsive.

Vista, OTOH, is ponderous and slow (8 core quad processor Intel Xeon, 8GB of RAM). It's like driving a truck instead of a sportscar. And it's always inserting itself into what you're doing, by connecting to the internet, or asking you if you really want to do what you are trying to do, etc, etc.

I would think, for experienced XP folk, that Vista would be a step down.

[nralife]

“I have to stick with some version of Microsoft’s offerings.”

Microsoft is allowing the installation of XP on new machines through the end of June. You just have to order them online, like through the Dell website. I believe you can do the same at the Gateway website.

[ekwd]

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3672_7-5021075-1.html?tag=bhed

This is a review of XP six months after it came out. Sound familiar? You could substitute "Vista" for "XP" and be right at home for today.
And if you think Leopard doesn't have its share of problems take a look at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom forum.
I run Lightroom, Bibble Lite, Photoshop Elements, Video Studio 11 (both video editing and DVD authoring) and it works fine.

[billorites]

"I would think, for experienced XP folk, that Vista would be a step down."

Read This. Guy "upgrades" from Vista to XP and review's the "new" operating system.

Pretty funny for Windows users anyway...

[btcusn]

Just bought a new Dell Inspiron 1521 laptop. Vista installed on it. Took a racehorse and turned it into a nag.
will be installing OpenSuse 10.3 today.
Jack

[Gorzaloon]

I HATE vista. I want to convert my newer vista PC to XP, but MS won’t honor the transfer of the license. I may try Linux after all. How much does Leopard cost?

I do not know about anything else but Debian, which I have installed on 4 machines so far. Some posting on here last year clued me into it...It is FREE.

Just plug in your ethernet cable and go to:

http://www.goodbye-microsoft.com

Then fasten your seatbelt.

[Gorzaloon]

What’s DRM?

Digital Rights Management. RIAA-like entities stand behind you watching and if you do something they don't like it deliberately degrades your drivers, among other things.

You end up paying for "licenses" to use some AV formats, etc.

[VanDeKoik]

“http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3672_7-5021075-1.html?tag=bhed

This is a review of XP six months after it came out. Sound familiar? You could substitute “Vista” for “XP” and be right at home for today.
And if you think Leopard doesn’t have its share of problems take a look at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom forum.
I run Lightroom, Bibble Lite, Photoshop Elements, Video Studio 11 (both video editing and DVD authoring) and it works fine.”

That’s the thing. These Apple guys who are running here to extolling the greatness of Leopard are basically pretending, or not telling the truth about how there have been zero issues with Apple’s new os. Apple users have been complaining about bugginess left and right, but I bet no one is going to write an article about it.

And the guys who are trying to pawn Linux like it’s paradise are even more off.

[Gorzaloon]

(I know, I know.... Buy a Mac, vote for Ron Paul, wear hemp-fibre clothing....)

I am old enough to remmeber when Apple treated its customers JUST as badly as MS does theirs, now. I have a long memory.

Intoxication by success infects any company eventually.

[Big E]

I just bought a laptop for my assistant, and I foolishly got one with Vista, instead of buying a Dell online with XP. How bad could it be... it’s newer, therefore it’s better, right? Wrong. It’s slow. All the buttons are in different places, so it takes a long time to do anything. The Vista computer won’t network with my other XP computers... still working on that one. So far I have yet to find one thing the Vista machine does better than my old XP’s.

[primatreat]

10.5 is the greatest. My company has been Mac since 1984. We were laughed at by my friends. I got the last snicker.