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They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.
gnomexxx
Member Posts: 2,920
So, all those people who think we, the consumers, are a bunch of whiners and don't know what we're talking about, can now say the same thing about the senior executives at Microsoft themselves.
This is a really sad story. I'm so ashamed I bought Vista. I was happy with XP. Now, I'm fighting with this piece of garbage every single freakin' day. And to think that they were warned from their internal staff. You want to think this kind of stuff doesn't go on, but it does!
Very sad, indeed.
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They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.
By RANDALL STROSS
ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”?
Microsoft says high prices have been the deterrent. Last month, the company trimmed prices on retail packages of Vista, trying to entice consumers to overcome their reluctance. In the United States, an XP user can now buy Vista Home Premium for $129.95, instead of $159.95.
An alternative theory, however, is that Vista’s reputation precedes it. XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that have gone badly. The graphics chip that couldn’t handle Vista’s whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista.
Can someone tell me again, why is switching XP for Vista an “upgrade”?
Here’s one story of a Vista upgrade early last year that did not go well. Jon, let’s call him, (bear with me — I’ll reveal his full identity later) upgrades two XP machines to Vista. Then he discovers that his printer, regular scanner and film scanner lack Vista drivers. He has to stick with XP on one machine just so he can continue to use the peripherals.
Did Jon simply have bad luck? Apparently not. When another person, Steven, hears about Jon’s woes, he says drivers are missing in every category — “this is the same across the whole ecosystem.”
Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.
It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.
Their remarks come from a stream of internal communications at Microsoft in February 2007, after Vista had been released as a supposedly finished product and customers were paying full retail price. Between the nonexistent drivers and PCs mislabeled as being ready for Vista when they really were not, Vista instantly acquired a reputation at birth: Does Not Play Well With Others.
We usually do not have the opportunity to overhear Microsoft’s most senior executives vent their personal frustrations with Windows. But a lawsuit filed against Microsoft in March 2007 in United States District Court in Seattle has pried loose a packet of internal company documents. The plaintiffs, Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen, bought PCs in late 2006, before Vista’s release, and contend that Microsoft’s “Windows Vista Capable” stickers were misleading when affixed to machines that turned out to be incapable of running the versions of Vista that offered the features Microsoft was marketing as distinctive Vista benefits.
Last month, Judge Marsha A. Pechman granted class-action status to the suit, which is scheduled to go to trial in October. (Microsoft last week appealed the certification decision.)
Anyone who bought a PC that Microsoft labeled “Windows Vista Capable” without also declaring “Premium Capable” is now a party in the suit. The judge also unsealed a cache of 200 e-mail messages and internal reports, covering Microsoft’s discussions of how best to market Vista, beginning in 2005 and extending beyond its introduction in January 2007. The documents incidentally include those accounts of frustrated Vista users in Microsoft’s executive suites.
Today, Microsoft boasts that there are twice as many drivers available for Vista as there were at its introduction, but performance and graphics problems remain. (When I tried last week to contact Mr. Shirley and the others about their most recent experiences with Vista, David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesman, said that no one named in the e-mail messages could be made available for comment because of the continuing lawsuit.)
The messages were released in a jumble, but when rearranged into chronological order, they show a tragedy in three acts.
Act 1: In 2005, Microsoft plans to say that only PCs that are properly equipped to handle the heavy graphics demands of Vista are “Vista Ready.”
Act 2: In early 2006, Microsoft decides to drop the graphics-related hardware requirement in order to avoid hurting Windows XP sales on low-end machines while Vista is readied. (A customer could reasonably conclude that Microsoft is saying, Buy Now, Upgrade Later.) A semantic adjustment is made: Instead of saying that a PC is “Vista Ready,” which might convey the idea that, well, it is ready to run Vista, a PC will be described as “Vista Capable,” which supposedly signals that no promises are made about which version of Vista will actually work.
The decision to drop the original hardware requirements is accompanied by considerable internal protest. The minimum hardware configuration was set so low that “even a piece of junk will qualify,” Anantha Kancherla, a Microsoft program manager, said in an internal e-mail message among those recently unsealed, adding, “It will be a complete tragedy if we allowed it.”
Act 3: In 2007, Vista is released in multiple versions, including “Home Basic,” which lacks Vista’s distinctive graphics. This placed Microsoft’s partners in an embarrassing position. Dell, which gave Microsoft a postmortem report that was also included among court documents, dryly remarked: “Customers did not understand what ‘Capable’ meant and expected more than could/would be delivered.”
All was foretold. In February 2006, after Microsoft abandoned its plan to reserve the Vista Capable label for only the more powerful PCs, its own staff tried to avert the coming deluge of customer complaints about underpowered machines. “It would be a lot less costly to do the right thing for the customer now,” said Robin Leonard, a Microsoft sales manager, in an e-mail message sent to her superiors, “than to spend dollars on the back end trying to fix the problem.”
Now that Microsoft faces a certified class action, a judge may be the one who oversees the fix. In the meantime, where does Microsoft go to buy back its lost credibility?
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Comments
Anybody who buys an OS and expects it to be as stable as the last iteration is an idiot. I mean no personal attacks on anybody but it's true, and I won't be easy on anybody who thinks that. It's the 21st century, there is no reason why people should expect such things.
Do you expect a game to ship without bugs?
What about your favorite MMO?
So why did you all expect Vista, on day one, to be so f-ing great? Who cares if Microsoft told you that it was, you were a sheep lured into a wolves den then. Game companies hype their games the same exact way. . .
Anybody who knows anything about computers should know this. When Vista came out I held off on buying it for about 8 months, and you know what? It works great for my gaming PC now.
Bottom line is that people expected Vista to be the "wonder OS" to save them from their computer troubles, which is perhaps Microsoft's fault for hyping it too much. I'll be straight about this 100%, there was no fucking way that every driver for every hardware/software/etc. was going to be available on Vista's release. There were just damn many things for the platform, which is actually part of the allure of the Windows-based platform.
The whole sticker thing is a different issue altogether, and Microsoft should definitely feel some repercussions for it. That said, however, I am so sick of hearing people complain about Vista.
"Ohhh Vista won't do this."
"My Vista is so slow compared to XP."
That's the price of change and expansion! Sure XP was a stable OS, but it's old. It had two SPs under it's belt with numerous upgrades and fixes before that. It did not come out as the "wonder OS", although Windows 2000, and ME definitely helped XP's image. Vista, on the other hand, was offering something truly new to the Windows platform since Windows 95. It was birthed out of the legacy that XP built and when it wasn't as fully functional on day one as XP was at 4 years people through temper tantrums, like bloody school children. Well guess what? Vista is better than XP, if for nothing else than the mere fact that it's change and it's different. The OS today is not as buggy as this "writer", who fails miserably in his sources by the way, wants you to believe it is.
Technology advances differently from most other things. When a new technology that is replacing something else comes out it is usually not as good as it's predecessor. Actually sometimes it can seem downright horrid in comparison. What people don't realize is that the predecessor is a base for the new technology, a goal for the designers to bring it up to that level. Usually this comes pretty quickly and then theya re able to build upon it to make it even beter, something that was impossible with the previous technology. XP was great, but, as a technological society, we could not use it forever. Vista is out now, and it will eventually become better. . .
Oh, and for those who are waiting for Microsoft's rumoured 2009 OS to come out, I wouldn't hold my breath. For one, that's probably gonna get delayed by at least a year. Second, and this one is really my main point, the next OS will not be a "wonder" OS on release eitehr. Expect it to ship with the same shitty bugs that Vista and XP were shipped with. . .
Welcome to the 21st century.
Eternally mine,
Keebs
The MMO gaming blog I write for.
Anybody who buys an OS and expects it to be as stable as the last iteration is an idiot. I mean no personal attacks on anybody but it's true, and I won't be easy on anybody who thinks that. It's the 21st century, there is no reason why people should expect such things.
Do you expect a game to ship without bugs?
What about your favorite MMO?
So why did you all expect Vista, on day one, to be so f-ing great? Who cares if Microsoft told you that it was, you were a sheep lured into a wolves den then. Game companies hype their games the same exact way. . .
Anybody who knows anything about computers should know this. When Vista came out I held off on buying it for about 8 months, and you know what? It works great for my gaming PC now.
Bottom line is that people expected Vista to be the "wonder OS" to save them from their computer troubles, which is perhaps Microsoft's fault for hyping it too much. I'll be straight about this 100%, there was no fucking way that every driver for every hardware/software/etc. was going to be available on Vista's release. There were just damn many things for the platform, which is actually part of the allure of the Windows-based platform.
The whole sticker thing is a different issue altogether, and Microsoft should definitely feel some repercussions for it. That said, however, I am so sick of hearing people complain about Vista.
"Ohhh Vista won't do this."
"My Vista is so slow compared to XP."
That's the price of change and expansion! Sure XP was a stable OS, but it's old. It had two SPs under it's belt with numerous upgrades and fixes before that. It did not come out as the "wonder OS", although Windows 2000, and ME definitely helped XP's image. Vista, on the other hand, was offering something truly new to the Windows platform since Windows 95. It was birthed out of the legacy that XP built and when it wasn't as fully functional on day one as XP was at 4 years people through temper tantrums, like bloody school children. Well guess what? Vista is better than XP, if for nothing else than the mere fact that it's change and it's different. The OS today is not as buggy as this "writer", who fails miserably in his sources by the way, wants you to believe it is.
Technology advances differently from most other things. When a new technology that is replacing something else comes out it is usually not as good as it's predecessor. Actually sometimes it can seem downright horrid in comparison. What people don't realize is that the predecessor is a base for the new technology, a goal for the designers to bring it up to that level. Usually this comes pretty quickly and then theya re able to build upon it to make it even beter, something that was impossible with the previous technology. XP was great, but, as a technological society, we could not use it forever. Vista is out now, and it will eventually become better. . .
Oh, and for those who are waiting for Microsoft's rumoured 2009 OS to come out, I wouldn't hold my breath. For one, that's probably gonna get delayed by at least a year. Second, and this one is really my main point, the next OS will not be a "wonder" OS on release eitehr. Expect it to ship with the same shitty bugs that Vista and XP were shipped with. . .
Welcome to the 21st century.
Keebs, it's not that we expected it to ship with no bugs. But there is a line that is crossed. A line of tolerance that, obviously, even the Microsoft executives knew was there. That's what this is all about.
Look, it's like I said, you guys can call us consumers idiots all day. But it's real hard to put that up against these open emails that have come out. These are messages from the heads of Microsoft. They knew there was a problem and they chose to try to weasel their way around it. That's why it's costing them now.
I can tolerate a lot. I have stuck with some pretty danged buggy games. But Microsoft went past that on this release. Especially when they put things on hardware that say it is ready for Vista and it absolutely is not!
===============================
I never upgraded,vista is bad news
Trade in material assumptions for spiritual facts and make permanent progress.
I personally am waiting till next year before actually deciding on vista - Hopefully by then the major bugs will have been smoothed out.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
I've never had a problem with XP, so I would be an idiot to upgrade. I'll wait until games -I want- REQUIRE DX10.
See you next year vista!
as for an OS being resource heavy, that OS can die in some boneyard or another. I'll have nothing to do with that. The things I found attractive are all the places you can dock tools, and the search in the tool bar(even does super handy stuff like when you type in Iexplorer.exe or CMD it brings up the relevant tools). Those are the only attractive things about it.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
For a few months last year I worked as a Customer Service Technician at an ISP. Everyone that had Vista hated it. So I have never upgraded. Though, I probably will get Vista when I get a new computer and when the 9800 cards come out.
Your mind is like a parachute, it's only useful when it's open.
Don't forget, you can use the block function on trolls.
So right now Vista is just an option [and a inferior one too]. So untill a percentage of good games are DX10 ONLY vista isant really needed.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Vista is really a joke...When you have your own staff saying that they don't like it, you know they have a problem.
“Customers did not understand what ‘Capable’ meant and expected more than could/would be delivered.”
That's a load of crap. They should never have had that there in the first place, because when I read capable, I expect that to mean that I can do just as much as anyone else. They should say "works less affectively"
__________________________________________________
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
XP is still faster than Vista for 3D games, and isn't as much of a resource hog, but Vista isn't a bad operating system for new PCs. It's just not worth upgrading from XP to Vista, for the price.
My laptop has Vista and I have no complaints, but I do regret buying Vista Ultimate for my main gaming rig.
<- Twenty something with large disposable income. Will I never learn?
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Don't know what all the fuss is about, im running Vista and having no problems with it at all.
Anybody who buys an OS and expects it to be as stable as the last iteration is an idiot. I mean no personal attacks on anybody but it's true, and I won't be easy on anybody who thinks that. It's the 21st century, there is no reason why people should expect such things.
Do you expect a game to ship without bugs?
What about your favorite MMO?
So why did you all expect Vista, on day one, to be so f-ing great? Who cares if Microsoft told you that it was, you were a sheep lured into a wolves den then. Game companies hype their games the same exact way. . .
Anybody who knows anything about computers should know this. When Vista came out I held off on buying it for about 8 months, and you know what? It works great for my gaming PC now.
Bottom line is that people expected Vista to be the "wonder OS" to save them from their computer troubles, which is perhaps Microsoft's fault for hyping it too much. I'll be straight about this 100%, there was no fucking way that every driver for every hardware/software/etc. was going to be available on Vista's release. There were just damn many things for the platform, which is actually part of the allure of the Windows-based platform.
The whole sticker thing is a different issue altogether, and Microsoft should definitely feel some repercussions for it. That said, however, I am so sick of hearing people complain about Vista.
"Ohhh Vista won't do this."
"My Vista is so slow compared to XP."
That's the price of change and expansion! Sure XP was a stable OS, but it's old. It had two SPs under it's belt with numerous upgrades and fixes before that. It did not come out as the "wonder OS", although Windows 2000, and ME definitely helped XP's image. Vista, on the other hand, was offering something truly new to the Windows platform since Windows 95. It was birthed out of the legacy that XP built and when it wasn't as fully functional on day one as XP was at 4 years people through temper tantrums, like bloody school children. Well guess what? Vista is better than XP, if for nothing else than the mere fact that it's change and it's different. The OS today is not as buggy as this "writer", who fails miserably in his sources by the way, wants you to believe it is.
Technology advances differently from most other things. When a new technology that is replacing something else comes out it is usually not as good as it's predecessor. Actually sometimes it can seem downright horrid in comparison. What people don't realize is that the predecessor is a base for the new technology, a goal for the designers to bring it up to that level. Usually this comes pretty quickly and then theya re able to build upon it to make it even beter, something that was impossible with the previous technology. XP was great, but, as a technological society, we could not use it forever. Vista is out now, and it will eventually become better. . .
Oh, and for those who are waiting for Microsoft's rumoured 2009 OS to come out, I wouldn't hold my breath. For one, that's probably gonna get delayed by at least a year. Second, and this one is really my main point, the next OS will not be a "wonder" OS on release eitehr. Expect it to ship with the same shitty bugs that Vista and XP were shipped with. . .
Welcome to the 21st century.
Unless they buy a mac.......
Im not a mac guy but in fact i hate them but i give macs that fact.
98% of the teenage population does or has tried smoking pot. If you''re one of the 2% who hasn''t, copy & paste this in your signature.
XP and Vista are both troublesome.... but Vista change the way that hardware works, the drivers and everything else programming, it is probably slower in crappy computers and even good ones... But that is the new way to do things, like the complete revamp of the sound system...
Just listen to this small hint.. whatever you like Vista or not... Get use of the fact that from now on, everything will be different and this new architecture is the way of tomorrow... Good, bad.. Doesnt matter is the new way...
Dont like it, too bad.. then you are going to have a hard time pushing it inside you then.... Want to stay in XP... yeah right, maybe until 2010 and nothing will be good in xp... Lets see how much time you will stay there, show me someone using DOS or Basic yet... Got the point....
lesson learned
i always thought that people hated microsoft because of the corporation hate thing some people carry, well, i hate 'em for being greedy asshats now.
chips, dips chains & whips.
I wouldn't worry about getting Vista next year or so since I have heard through the grapevine that Microsoft is already working on its replacement. From what I've heard it will be out in a year to 16 months. Until a better OS comes along I think I'll stick with XP.
It's only about six months since I've upgraded Win2K to Windows XP. When Vista becomes a dominant OS in the business world I'll upgrade to it. That's still a long way off.
Some time ago there was a rumor around the next Windows, call Windows Vienna... Which is probably going to be Vista 2, new features in the new architecture... I mean.. why return to Windows XP architecture instead of making this one better?