Microsoft issues

[Tony-S]

I came across this article (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5489335) and am curious what people think about it. Other than running Win XP on my "Mac" for a few apps, I don't know much about Windows. The article suggests that Microsoft has been manipulating numbers when it comes to Vista sales.

Any comments on this?

[Jon]

It's not really a surprise to anyone in IT. Microsoft had to extend the sales cutoff of XP due to major complaints. The new "ultra mobile PCs" (the ones that don't ship with Linux) can still ship with XP even after the June 30, 2008 "absolute cutoff date". And you can still find computers sold with XP, even from major manufacturers, if you ask. Microsoft's also pushed up the date for the Vista successor OS. Vista just isn't what they hoped.

[Moppie]

That article is nothing short of journalistic trolling, looking for issues that don't exist.

MS always faces bad press about its latest OS, I remember bad press about Windows 3.1.

Its too slow and won't run on my old out dated computer is a problem heard every time a new bit of software is released.


Vista is new, it needs a new computer to run properly.
Vista works. Yes, that's right it just works. I have yet to hear a single rational and legitimate complaint about its functionality.


Microsoft is currently under going the loss of its leader, and thank to some underhanded marketing that exposes how gullible the average consumer is, some more competition.
Add in all the usual negative media exposure they get by virtue of being a big nasty corporation and things don't look good. The reality underneath if that things haven't change in 20 years.

[440roadrunner]

That article is nothing short of journalistic trolling, looking for issues that don't exist.............. .

Well that IS your opinion. MY opinion is, your opinion is incorrect. The FACT is that there are thousands of disgruntled consumers, who weren't able to get their new DellHells, their shiney Grateways, or Comcraps to work properly with Shista, and finally raised enough 'ell that Microshaft finally agreed to drop them back to e X tra Putrid, if they so desired.

At the time that Vista beta came out, I downloaded two separate beta versions, and tried it out on 4 nearly new systems I have kicking around my piece of ground. Unlike the Pink Floyd piece, I hadn't allowed ten years to get behind me, most importantly, this hardware. Out of the 4 systems, and with some rather imaginitive hardwars swapping, I had trouble with the hardware on at least 3 of them, and only after playing with a couple of different video cards on the 4th, did I get a workable system.

This situation above was VERY near the Vista release date, and I was frankly pretty disturbed to see the problems on such a "nearly" finished product.

The other thing YOU need to realize, is that some of us, meaning, the work we do or did, sometimes have some pretty specific hardware needs, not found on the average porn downloader. This can include everything from special hardware communications interfaces having to do with such things as the EW911 telco / radio systems I used to work on, video/ audio surveilance hardware and software, and special programming equipment for other specialized radio/ telco and other needs.

At one time, for example, I had an RF wave analysis program and card, which allowed one to 'fingerprint' an RF radio transmission in cases of such things as jamming.

Microsh*t hasn't done anywhere near the job they SHOULD have done on some of their software in terms of keeping up with this equipment. Worse, they have successfully turned every single one of us into a criminal with no trial. I can think of NO OTHER piece of anything one buys, rents or owns, where you are expected to first prove that you did NOT steal the thing before you can use it.

[bohdank]

Most of this "special" hardware worked around or bypassed the OS. It's no wonder when an OS changes the stuff doesn't work.

Not MS's fault. At least they are trying to prevent stuff like that happening in Vista with signed drivers.

I don't run Vista... just last week built a new PC and bought and installed XP. There is nothing in Vista that I want or need.

Next OS I upgrade to will be 64 bits..... might do that very soon although it's becoming very hard to find XP 64.

[Moppie]

Well that IS your opinion. MY opinion is, your opinion is incorrect. The FACT is that there are thousands of disgruntled consumers, who weren't able to get their new DellHells, their shiney Grateways, or Comcraps to work properly with Shista, and finally raised enough 'ell that Microshaft finally agreed to drop them back to e X tra Putrid, if they so desired.

So computer manufacturers sell under spec machines which up sets consumers who failed to check what spec was needed to run Vista first?
That is Microsoft's fault how?
Buyer beware.


At the time that Vista beta came out, I downloaded two separate beta versions, and tried it out on 4 nearly new systems I have kicking around my piece of ground. Unlike the Pink Floyd piece, I hadn't allowed ten years to get behind me, most importantly, this hardware. Out of the 4 systems, and with some rather imaginitive hardwars swapping, I had trouble with the hardware on at least 3 of them, and only after playing with a couple of different video cards on the 4th, did I get a workable system.
This situation above was VERY near the Vista release date, and I was frankly pretty disturbed to see the problems on such a "nearly" finished product.

Beta being the operative word here. Have you tried it since?
I have installed it on 2 machines so far, with zero issues, and will install it on a 3rd tomorrow and also expect zero issues.
And just how much of that hardware really was up to date? Just how higher quality was it?
Nothing like playing with bad hardware, swapping it around in ways that might cause conflicts and then blaming a beta version of the OS.





The other thing YOU need to realize, is that some of us, meaning, the work we do or did, sometimes have some pretty specific hardware needs, not found on the average porn downloader. This can include everything from special hardware communications interfaces having to do with such things as the EW911 telco / radio systems I used to work on, video/ audio surveilance hardware and software, and special programming equipment for other specialized radio/ telco and other needs.

At one time, for example, I had an RF wave analysis program and card, which allowed one to 'fingerprint' an RF radio transmission in cases of such things as jamming.


Again, the inability of your niche market, low volume, hardware and software developers to develop patch's and drivers for Vista is Microsoft's fault how?
There will always be the odd bit of hardware somewhere that will not run on the latest and greatest OS. Chances are it was built to run on what ever OS was current when it was designed, and then gets sold in such low volumes the developer can't be bothered making updates.
There is still hardware out there that won't run on anything later than windows 98, and there is still software out there that won't run on anything later than DOS 6.0.
Again, this Microsoft's fault how?
Vista still supports more hardware configurations than any other OS out there.


Microsh*t hasn't done anywhere near the job they SHOULD have done on some of their software in terms of keeping up with this equipment. Worse, they have successfully turned every single one of us into a criminal with no trial. I can think of NO OTHER piece of anything one buys, rents or owns, where you are expected to first prove that you did NOT steal the thing before you can use it.


Yes, I honestly don't like their DRM stuff. But, I do know that they removed a lot of the stuff that was in the Beta version simply because of the bad feedback from users.
As for the prove its legal first, well I honestly don't have a problem with, but then I have a legal version of Vista, which seems to be most affordable OS I have ever seen.
It's cheaper than XP.

[Woolburr]

I've had a ton of issues with Vista...my system far exceeds the requirements to run Vista and it still crashes, freezes and does bizarre things when you least expect it. I will say that it seems a bit more stable since the release of SP1....but this is by far and away the crappiest OS since Win ME. Most people are looking for a computer they can just turn on and perform the tasks that they hope to accomplish for the day. They aren't looking for crap like Aero...that is nothing more than a resource hog, they just want an interface that they can understand and adjust to suit their personal preferences without having to have a PhD. in computer science.

[bew406]

For a lot of us, it's location, location, location.

For a lot of companies, it's marketing, marketing, marketing.

And then there is always greed, greed, greed - the I want it all syndrome.

I started using MS when it was only DOS 3.1. About two years ago I tried out Mac OS X Tiger on someone else's computer, and that prompted me to get a Mac Mini. I haven't looked back, and I now have a 24" iMac that is a speed demon and a pure pleasure to work with under Leopard. I do have Parallels installed and under that I have a copy of Win2K and XP Pro, along with a few different ports of Linux.

The reason for this is to have the different IE browsers to examine the web work I do. I have IE5, 6 and 7 along with a combination of Firefox releases, and just in case, Opera also. And if needed, I can always fire up Office and use those products there. It seems that MS didn't do such a good job porting those to the Mac platforms. I have no plans or needs to get Vista as of right now. And, eh, I do have the odd PC still running with XP Pro ready to take on IE8, if and when.

[Moppie]

I've had a ton of issues with Vista..


How much of this is Vista, and how much is simply bad hardware?
It is possible there is something else wrong,

I have just spent today being frustrated trying to rebuild an old PC.
I could blame the OS (XP Pro) for its constant crashes and lock ups, or I could blame the mother board which has a dodgy ram slot (its has 4, but only 3 show up).

[Woolburr]

Hardware isn't the issue...virtually all the crashes are software related...MS Outlook 2007 is a frequent cause and victim. My favorite crash message is the one that says...this was caused by a program that is incompatible with your version of Windows....and yet Outlook 2007 is designed for Vista...hehehe...yep...it is one sweet OS.

[Moppie]

John and I have had to do some work on this thread, please lets keep it all rational and stay away from the name calling :)

[Moppie]

Hardware isn't the issue...virtually all the crashes are software related...MS Outlook 2007 is a frequent cause and victim. My favorite crash message is the one that says...this was caused by a program that is incompatible with your version of Windows....and yet Outlook 2007 is designed for Vista...hehehe...yep...it is one sweet OS.


Really?
I have to admit I have not used Outlook 07 yet, but the rest of the Office suit runs fine on my PC.

To have one program only crashing means you might just be first person I have ever meet who has a legitimate and rational problem with Vista
(there is a remote chance a file has been corrupted by a failing HDD though).

Have you tried contacting MS about the problem?

[bieber]

Really?
Have you tried contacting MS about the problem?
Haha, that's a good one. A mere mortal like one of us, try to get hold of someone at Microsoft?

[Colorblinded]

I've got to agree with Moppie, Vista is fine and has received an undeserved bad reputation. Many of the problems people claim to have with Vista seem to come largely from manufactures providing inadequate specs to run it, as well as software not updated to support Vista. Of course some of those manufacturers just make crappy hardware, and people often don't recognize the difference between an actual OS problem and bad hardware.

I don't personally believe that article either, I'd rather see such reporting from other sources (and on a different date) before I give it much credence.

I've never used Outlook 07, in fact I don't like outlook and avoid using it at all costs (currently I use Thunderbird on my computers: Mac, PC or Ubuntu).

[Jonathan]

I'm not sure I'd accuse this article of "trolling" but it is fairly clear that this chap is biased and the article is poorly researched, and before anyone quotes that the guy has "covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years" I'd like to add that my wife is a travel writer who gets lost with monotonous regularity. :)

Vista bashing has become a bit of a sport these days but the participants frequently don't fully understand the issues. Let's examine some of Mr Malone's wisdom:

"60 percent of the administrators it surveyed had no intention of ever implementing Microsoft's year-old flagship operating system Windows Vista". Administrators are not the ones who make that decision in the sector that MS most cares about (Fortune 500, FTSE 100 companies etc). CIO's make that call, admins just install the product.

"And that was only half of the bad news, because at about the same time...Forrester Research came out with a report that announced that, more than a year after the introduction of Vista, its acceptance by enterprise (big company) users was "still in the single digits." This is an amazing statement to make. MS makes the vast majority of its money from the big corporates and in general from companies signed up to Enterprise Agreements as they are called. These allow the company to use any MS product and upgrade to any version (or not) that is covered by that agreement. The company for their part pay MS a fixed fee every year based on the number of "seats" covered. So, if these big companies choose not to deploy Vista, MS still get paid the same annual fee. How this could be "bad news" or "chilling" is beyond me.

I could go on about this poorly written article but this post is already getting too long. However, on the technical side I would make these comments. The company for whom I run technology will not be using Vista because there are still a number of applications that we run that are not yet compatible with it and that is the fault of those specific software vendors, not Microsoft. The limited number of Vista machines we have deployed run no better and no worse than our XP boxes - they just need better hardware.

All 4 machines I have at home run Vista without problems. However, they were installed properly (fresh install on formatted disks) rather than being upgrades. Believe me when I say this make a difference. I have also assiduously sought out the correct manufacturers drivers for each component and peripheral that is in or attached to these machines.

Like most companies, Microsoft have done some things well and some things poorly but it is to their immense credit that through the operating systems that they developed, computing has come out of the labs and universities and into the homes of the non technical. Housewives and children now have access to computing power that was once the preserve of the geeks and brainiacs. The technology did not get easier to understand - rather the interface to it made it more accessible.

/Sermon ends :D

[Tom W]

I have Vista on my desktop, and it runs with no significant issues. But, I built the machine from the ground up with Vista in mind. Compared to my old Pentium 4, it's a rocket, or should be, with an E6750 Duo CPU, 4 gig of ram (should have gotten 3), a couple of fast drives, and respectable mid-range graphics.

The only weakness for me so far is that Vista is a resource hog. It boots slow, much slower than my XP laptop which is lightning-quick since I put a new hard drive in and reinstalled everything. But once it's up and running, programs generally load quickly.