Bug fixes may help Vista, but let's hope successor is better

The love-hate relationship between Microsoft and its users has always centered on the performance of its operating system. And during the past year, Windows Vista has given us reasons to be both positive and negative about the future of the PC.

Before it came out in January, Vista got good reviews, though some critics complained Microsoft should have taken bigger steps to change the look and functions of Windows, much as it did with Office 2007.

But as the year wore on, there were reports about bugs and security issues. And then came the insultingly titled book "Windows Vista Annoyances" by tech writer David Karp.

Computer-industry pundits, including John Dvorak, Rob Enderle, Richard Doherty and Roger Kay, have criticized Microsoft both for not going far enough with Vista and for making it so bloated it was slow at performing various tasks.

"Even when it's working fine, it's noticeably slower than XP," said Kay at market-analyst firm Endpoint Technologies.

Microsoft even decided to extend the life of Windows XP, the earlier operating system, by six months. The critics ask: Did Microsoft get its money's worth from the work of 10,000 employees and the $6 billion it invested in Vista?

For all the criticism, Vista is selling well, says Neil Charney, general manager of the Windows client team. Vista has sold more than 88 million copies in the past year, mostly through new PC sales, according to the most recently reported quarterly results. Businesses are showing more interest, particularly now that a service pack, or bug fix, is due in the first quarter, Charney said.

From the article - "One problem is that, under antitrust rulings, Microsoft has to keep antivirus protection separate from the operating system."

No, the problem is that Windows OS is poorly designed. There is no antitrust ruling that requires Microsoft to produce low-quality crap, they just do it on their own volition.

The following paragraph to your quote is also telling:

It sells its OneCare protection and backup service for $50 a year, when it really should be included in the operating system. Imagine. They sell a vulnerable operating system for as much as $400 then get to sell you the antivirus software and other protections on top of that.

For all the criticism, Vista is selling well, says Neil Charney, general manager of the Windows client team. Vista has sold more than 88 million copies in the past year, mostly through new PC sales,

Translation: few people buy it on purpose. Most just get it by default when they order a new PC -- people wanted a computer, but not necessarily Vista. Thus the 88 million number is not an indicator of actual demand for the product.

He notes you can speed Vista up by going into the control-panel menu and turning off the "view thumbnails" feature, which presents a mini view of an open file as you hover over it with the mouse.

Yet somehow Leopard does live previews, including flipping through any documents, rather quickly, and not on the fastest hardware with a lot of memory.

He also says compatibility is getting better. At launch, there were 1.5 million devices compatible with Vista, he said. That was three times the number for Windows XP's launc

Uh, that's because the market for PCs, and thus peripherals, has grown tremendously since then. Couple that with almost everything being USB now and you have instant compatibility.

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