Vista at one year: Progress and painWindows upgrade fuels revenue and frustrations

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 1-30-2008 | Todd Bishop

[rom]

Also, Apple Retail Stores will give you a 5% Small Business Discount. I was prepared to show up with all sorts of documentation when I bought our first batch of Mac Pros.

But all they want is a business card.

Lots of people have business cards.

And I’ve used that discount at 3 of my local stores.

[Bookwoman]

My son gave me a Mac Mini a year ago. My husband gave me a “bottom of the line” Windows XP laptop last summer. There is just NO comparison. The contrast in dramatic.

I love my Mac and upgraded to Leopard when it came out. I LOVE Time Machine. It is a no-brainer and takes NONE of my time.

The Windows machine has SOOOOO much overhead in therms of things I have to do to keep it maintained (antivirus updates and runs, backups, defragging...) and it is SLOOOOOW because of the bloatware and garbage running in the background. I have it because my financial and database programs are not available in Mac versions and I didn’t want to put XP on my Mac.

Almost everything runs better on the Mac (I have some of the same programs on both). However, I do not like the mail program that comes with the Mac (HOW do I send something high priority?), nor do I like Entourage, which is part of the Microsoft Office suite for the Mac, nor do I like Thunderbird, which does not like some of my e-mail addresses. I could not easily import my addresses from Outlook into either one. I have a LONG history of saved e-mails in Outlook and do not want to lose it, which is my biggest issue right now.

If someone could suggest a better e-mail program for the Mac that would import all my Outlook stuff, I would seldom use the Windows machine once I finish the database project I am working on.

Intuit is working on better financial software for the Mac, so in the long run, I won’t need the Windows machine. I will never buy another one. My husband has to stick with Windows for his job, so I can use his machine for whatever odd things I might need Windows for.

I do not intend to own another Windows machine. I took all the extra work for granted and never really thought about it until I got a machine that didn’t need all the effort. How much is your time worth? I can spend my time working on my projects, not maintenance, or waiting for the thing to boot up.

There was a certain amount of a learning involved in the switch. I was not used to using keyboard commands. Even in Office, the shortcuts are different. Now that I am used to it, I find it easy to go back and forth between platforms.

It took me the better part of 2 days to set up my husband’s new laptop - and MANY reboots. Less than half a day to set up my new mac mini, install all the software, and transfer all my data.

How much is YOUR time worth to you?

[Tribune7]

But when I have, I have been very frustrated by the lack of a right mouse button and a delete key.

Sounds like the last time you worked on a Mac was about 1997.

All Mac mouses have scroll bars and right buttons, and the keyboards have delete keys.

[free_life]

I started with MSDOS and then down thru all the Win OS’s but not Vista. I am done with Microsoft. I will continue to use XP Pro while I learn Linux and may buy a Mac as a second machine, but MS and it’s buggy Crap with DRM can die the death it so deserves.

In less than a hour using someone else’s Vista PC I made up my mind, I will never have Vista in my home or office, NEVER. As for DRM, I do not need a spyware as my conscience. How dare Bill Gates and company assume I am not honest enough to be trusted with MY own personal computer and MY software and files.

May Microsoft disappear for good.

[LexBaird]

(HOW do I send something high priority?),

Open a new message window and draft your e-mail, then go to the Message menu --> Mark --> High Priority.

[Still Thinking]

Why not use XP as the host with Vis-duh and Linux in VM’s, thus keeping the Vista in a litter box where poop belongs?

[Still Thinking]

I bought my Vista in September. Since that time it has been repaired twice. The last time cost me over $300.

Why would you have to pay to fix something you've only owned for 4 months? Doesn't it have a warranty?

[ClearCase_guy]

Well, virtual machines depend upon emulators -- they emulate hardware (but not cutting edge hardware). I imagine you can run Vista in a virtual machine (it would, I'm told, violate the EULA with Microsoft) but you would not have features like aero or DirectX10.

If you run Vista as the host, you can get all the features. Something like Linux won't mind running in a virtual machine, and XP may be mildly inconvenienced running through emulators, but I can live with that.

Using Vista as the host OS would indeed be foolish if Vista were guaranteed to be unstable or insecure. But I believe that with good component choices and a good install, Vista can be a stable and secure OS. Obviously, some folks like it well enough.

[Still Thinking]

Well, virtual machines depend upon emulators -- they emulate hardware (but not cutting edge hardware)

Fair enough. I guess I'm not doing anything bleeding edge enough for it to matter.

I imagine you can run Vista in a virtual machine (it would, I'm told, violate the EULA with Microsoft) but you would not have features like aero or DirectX10.

Maybe, although I'd read that they fixed that. Even so, I consider agreeing to a EULA forbidding me from running it in virtualization and then doing it anyway as about as dishonest as standing at a COMDEX podium and promising to provide a state of the art OS and then writing Vista.

[Still Thinking]

Actually, I view it as significantly LESS crooked than that other thing, so long as you have one licence per install.

[Bookwoman]

Thank you. I’m not sure why I couldn’t find that. I already looked there!

[mware]

Yes, I had the warrenty, and they did not charge me for the first repairs. The second time it went for repairs, my warrenty did not cover parts of the damages.

[ChinaThreat]

Perl is a useful language. I’m not a programmer, but i don’t mind letting the pinheads write me a script :-)

[clyde asbury]

That's too bad. In Linux a single command will change ownership recursively for all files and directories within a larger one.

I had to go through and change permissions on every directory and subdirectory that I wanted to save files to, one by one.

[shorty_harris]

Ever look into hackintoshes?

Oh yeah, I've read about these. Looks like a fun thing to tinker with. I've already got about half the parts just laying around.

But what I really want is Mac hardware. I think the iMac would look great on my desk! Plus it would take up hardly any room, and would make no noise!

[The South Texan]

Going to Mac real soon. I bought one last summer, but had to send it back because I needed a laptop that would be compatable for some business applications and I needed it fast. So I went with this Vista laptop made by SONY that I am typing this on right now. The quality of the machine is good, but Vista stinks. The “are you sure” you want to do this crap drives me nuts. I bought a new printer with wireless capabilties and this stupid Vista software keeps on losing the driver so I have to reinstall it three times in the last two weeks. It’s driving me nuts.

So my my desktop XP puter here at home decided to puke out and this time I will get a new IMAC and stick with since I can use Bootcamp or Parrels for Windows stuff.

[XR7]

My son gave me a Mac Mini a year ago. My husband gave me a “bottom of the line” Windows XP laptop last summer. There is just NO comparison. The contrast in dramatic. I love my Mac...It is a no-brainer and takes NONE of my time. The Windows machine has SOOOOO much overhead in therms of things I have to do to keep it maintained (antivirus updates and runs, backups, defragging...) and it is SLOOOOOW because of the bloatware and garbage running in the background.

I do not intend to own another Windows machine. I took all the extra work for granted and never really thought about it until I got a machine that didn’t need all the effort. How much is your time worth? I can spend my time working on my projects, not maintenance, or waiting for the thing to boot up...How much is YOUR time worth to you?

You summed it up nicely.
Kudos to your son!
Thanks.

[TKDietz]

I know. It’s kind of a work of art. The Apple folks have style.

[TruthWillWin]

Most older printers/other devices simply will not work with Vista. No matter how hard you try.

??? I have two older printers, Lexmark & HP, and was able to download Vista drivers from the makers web site. Actually Vista did this automatically, or at least sent you to the appropriate web site, when I tried install these printers.

[ImphClinton]

How much does MS pay you.

Most older printers have no Vista drivers.

My brand new Samsung Color network printer works fine on the XP machines but Vista will not print to it. Even though it came with Vista drivers.