Microsoft admits Vista is a failure

[»X«]

In my book if it stops me doing what I could already to on XP it?s not worth me upgrading and that?s fair enough. You can only blame the drivers so far. I agree it?s not all MS fault, by a long way but still. When my webcam refuses to work, my scanner isn?t recognised and my DV camera freezes up, the phrase "its new, give it time" can only calm me down so much.

[iconboy]

lol i cant believe all the vista haters. The way i see it, Vista is FAR from ME and honestly it took XP a long time to get to where it is now and Vista is AT LEAST as good as XP (if not better IMHO)

[BriFi]

Vista is great! MS obviously did something right for me to completely stop using iTunes (since v4 thru v7) and use its WMP11. It's great, and sounds better too.

Not that I had any problems with iTunes or anything. ;)

[PaulCabby]

I swear Vista isn't that bad?

Everything works for me. It's rather fast and it looks pretty.

[ranasrule]

this article is a joke....Vista is by far the most stable,fast ,prettiest and secure version of windows i have used....not to mention the great new features it has added.....i would upgrade from XP to Vista for the totally re-written new audio stack in Vista

[notuptome2004]

I would like to congratulate Microsoft on this wonderful new Theme in Vista, i was so thrilled they gave me the chance to buy this new Theme for $200 OEM i could ant agree more this new windows Theme kicks some serious Ass WoW. <<<<< that is me being a smart ass.

i run vista on my system somewhat older and the damn thing is at least 10 to 34% faster then XP at around 99.1% of everything . that last 0.8% means nothing so hey vista runs great.

[thugilex]

buuuh !

[tomwarren Veteran]

Oh dear the inquirer again...load of crap that site.

[The Right Guy]

Oh dear the inquirer again...load of crap that site.

+1

[redfish]

i think everyone who says Vista = Me II, needs to be able to list every major new feature in Me and every major new feature in Vista. Otherwise they just look ignorant instead of looking foolish

Jeese! Talk about jumping the gun. Microsoft has not 'admitted Vista is a failure.' I've read the Inquirer articles, and that is primarily their (and admittedly some others') opinion. All this 'MEII' stuff is really obnoxious. There are some SERIOUS differences here. For example, ME looked and felt very, very similar to the OS preceding it, whereas Vista is actually a grand improvement over XP. Perhaps there are some arguments against that. Let it at least be said that there have been significant changes. The UI, if nothing else, prooves this. There are definitely annoyances in Vista. I'm not disputing that. And it took way too long to finish. That is all true.

But I think all of you are wrong in bashing Vista as hard as you have been. It's not that bad.

I know I'm not the only one that believes this, but I just thought I'd reiterate the sentiment.

Me was never even intended to be a major release. It was just a marketing release. The reason not everyone switched to it, was because Microsoft never cared if they did, it wasn't the point.

[nekrosoft13]

Oh dear the inquirer again...load of crap that site.

very true

for me vista is more stable and performs just like xp, in some cases faster.

[goatsniffer]

I see no need to be so hard on Windows ME. Windows ME was a 'special' operating system. Because of that it had 'special needs'. We shouldn't outcast it because of it's 'uniqueness'.

Seriously guys, we should be equal oportunity users. We can't have these predetermined notions of what is an acceptable OS, because if we do we could be isolating and outcasting a 'beautiful' 'unique' 'piece' of 'software'.

Have some sensitivity for the matter...

[7Dash8]

Windows ME has been given a bad name by the kiddies, most of whom probably never used it themselves.

I used ME when it came out, installing it over my Win98, and I had no problems at all with it. The only valid complaint about ME is that it wasn't a new OS, it was in reality just a service pack for Win98. But noone was forced to upgrade to WinME, there was no major software that required WinME as a minimum.

WinME also introduced several new features, including System Restore, which are standard features now.

In any case, Windows Vista has so many changes, it's ludicrous to compare it WinME. Have you noticed how every time a new game comes out everyone complains about how it's buggy and crap. Well it's the same story for new Windows versions. People refuse to accept that the problem may be at their end, or that something as complex as an OS might actually need more than a few months to become mature enough to run perfectly on all systems.

[goatsniffer]

Here is the deal, all of it. Vista is a potatoe, and some people just don't like potatoes no matter what you do to them whether it be baked fried or mashed. If you don't like potatoes, or maybe you are even allergic, you should stay away from them and keep to your tomatoes especially if you are perfectly happy with your tomatoes. If you are on the fence about your newly aquired potatoes, you should try some butter or chives or even some sour cream.

There ya go, potatoes.

I won't come into your tomatoe patch with my potatoes, and you'de better stay outta my potatoe patch with those darn tomatoes. If you don't I'll throw some militarized bees at your face.

I hate Vista though, it sucks. Three-fold increase in resource usage, zero-point-five-fold increase in usefullness.

[Flummery]

I agree with a lot of posts here so far, I have had Vista Business since February and I love it.

I have a mediocure machine (P4, 3.4ghz, 2gig ram) and Vista zips around much better than XP ever did on even a fresh install. Vista feels like it gets quicker as time goes on.

Sure there are a few annoyances, mostly in regards to setting the state of "Windows"(size, view) and that I can't pull off my "Quick Launch Bar" from the task bar anymore :(

Other than that I love it, here are my favorite parts:

Aero - It's sleek, elegant and just what I wanted on my windows.

Speech Recognition - I tend mumble but Vista Speech Recognition still works great for me. (though a tad slow on the system)

Instant Search - Thought searching for an application everytime would annoy me but turns out I love it.

New Icons - Simply Elegant

Renaming - As amazingly simple as this is, I think this was one of my "WoW" moments. The fact that when you go to rename something it only selects the word you are renaming and doesn't select the extention. Simple but so very nice.

IE7 - Though not just for Vista

General Reliablity and speed. I only restart if I have to do updates or I install software. OS doesn't slowly get slower the longer you leave it running.

Sidebar has potential but as of yet I don't really have the need for it, and it's slow over remote desktop.

And for those saying that Vista is just a new theme over XP, here are some Wikipedia links telling some of the updates/additions to Vista, this list certainly isn't complete and doesn't really dive into the backend changes at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_vista

Here are the feature that were new to XP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_XP

[Rudy]

It's funny to see all the ms fanboys deffending Vista but most "regular" consumers are hating Vista. I did tech support and i remember the endless calls we use to get about customers asking if they could get rid of this Vista and get regular XP....and I would tell them to call their OEM (even though they won't do anything.....I was doing tech support for an ISP so we didnt do that)

[xpablo]

I wouldn't go as far as saying Vista is ME2, but Vista does need improvement especially drivers support, I think MS released Vista too soon.

I have 3 devices that aren't supported by Vista (Scanner, Webcam & Laser Printer) Logitech and HP have stated that my devices will no longer be supported with Vista, the printer okay it's almost 7yrs old, the webcam is not even 2 yrs old.

Vista runs slow on my machine after a few days without being rebooted.

Vista is badly in need of a service pack.

[Flummery]

I wouldn't go as far as saying Vista is ME2, but Vista does need improvement especially drivers support, I think MS released Vista too soon.

I have 3 devices that aren't supported by Vista (Scanner, Webcam & Laser Printer) Logitech and HP have stated that my devices will no longer be supported with Vista, the printer okay it's almost 7yrs old, the webcam is not even 2 yrs old.

Vista runs slow on my machine after a few days without being rebooted.

Vista is badly in need of a service pack.

Umm, not one of those issues you mentioned is a Vista problem, it's a driver problem which is created by "Logitech and HP" get upset with those companies for not wanting to support new technology. If your printer is 7 years old I can only imagine how old the rest of your machine is, does your machine meet the recommended Specs to run vista? If not then I don't feel sorry for you because you should have known going into it that your system was sub-par.

If your machine is up to date, then that sucks that you are having speed issues.

[TomHall]

I'm not pleased with Vista and will be choosing very carefully between XP and Vista when I come to build my HPTC.

Currently for me it runs rather slow in comparison to XP... and NTBACKUP, where has it gone?!??!

[»X«]

^^ Not so sure on that. If you have a 7/10 year old scanner and it now doesn't work because the company isn't going to/doesn't exist/or cant release drivers for vista then its a tough call. Either fork out more money for new hardware or stick with xp. Because who are you or anyone to tell someone that their 5 year old printer which does the job perfectly needs an upgrade because an OS asks for it? I know people aren't forced to upgrade, but "The Wow Starts Now" campaign just pushes it in our faces and people are bound to try it only to find out their favourite printer or webcam doesnt work. My Sony P900i refuses to be recognised by Vista. Want me to fork out ?xxx for another phone?

Genuine question here but does it actually say anywhere on the Vista box that certain products wont work with it? Im not talking min requirements im talking about scanner/printer/webcam brands? Because I seriously doubt it.

[Flummery]

MS doesn't produce drivers for hardware outside of their own hardware. So MS isn't "not supporting" this person's hardware, HP and Logitech aren't updating THEIR drivers to work with the new architecture in Vista. I'm not suggesting he buy new hardware, but obviously if he wants to continue using Vista and if 3rd party companies aren't going to support their own hardware then he doesn't have much else of an option. But either way it's not a Vista problem.

MS worked very hard to support many older applications and drivers. They released something like 10,000 drivers at launch, thats a ton. My printer is 6 years old (PC is almost 2 years old) and all of my hardware and software work like it's supposed to.

If your phone doesn't work with Vista then get on Sony's butt to work on new software for it so it will work. People are setting up a Class Action Lawsuite against NVidia because of lack of Driver support and quality vista Support.

Technology changes, things break, that's the way it works. Without it things will never progress and get better. Look at OS 9 vrs OS X and all the hardware/software issues they ran into. XP Architecture was old and out of date, Vista was rebuilt to build a better framework to allow for more secure and better flexibility for advances in future technology.

Of course Vista box doesn't say that some products won't work, but they also do not say that all applications will work. MS has stated in other places that they tried to support as many older applications and hardware as possible, but not all will work.

[MrCobra]

^^ Not so sure on that. If you have a 7/10 year old scanner and it now doesn't work because the company isn't going to/doesn't exist/or cant release drivers for vista then its a tough call. Either fork out more money for new hardware or stick with xp. Because who are you or anyone to tell someone that their 5 year old printer which does the job perfectly needs an upgrade because an OS asks for it? I know people aren't forced to upgrade, but "The Wow Starts Now" campaign just pushes it in our faces and people are bound to try it only to find out their favourite printer or webcam doesnt work. My Sony P900i refuses to be recognised by Vista. Want me to fork out ?xxx for another phone?

Genuine question here but does it actually say anywhere on the Vista box that certain products wont work with it? Im not talking min requirements im talking about scanner/printer/webcam brands? Because I seriously doubt it.

True. My uncle purchased a new PC a few months ago with Vista Home Premium. That PC came with a printer and a scanner. Neither one worked out of the box nor were there drivers available for them. If a new PC bundle is going to be certified Vista Premium ready then the whole damned package should work. I think Microsoft is a bit more responsible for the driver situation than the H/W manufacturers. For years everyone used administrator accounts. 3rd part software and drivers were written assuming admin rights. Microsoft's own drivers and software were written as such. Now all of a sudden everything's completely changed and H/W manufacturers are having a hard time getting through the red tape of the driver subsystems.

[7Dash8]

The driver issue isn't really about admin vs. standard usage rights. The driver issue is due to a new driver model which is trying to untangle drivers from the Kernel, which results in less crashes and problems due to driver issues. So Microsoft is trying to actually do what we've all been asking for - make the OS more stable. Vista is much more stable precisely because of this, but it's the hardware manufacturers who have been dragging their feet in getting proper drivers out. MS has worked with them, but at the end of the day there's only so much you can do.

I don't particularly like (or hate) MS, but it seems they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. The only good part of all this is that in due course all the Vista haters will have to upgrade to Vista, and that's that. There is no way on earth XP will last another 2-3 years, so best start actually learning about Vista isn't of taking the easy route and constantly making fun of it because it's cool to trash M$.

[Guest sirghost]

OK Vista is not like ME at all. It's stable, and it works ok. But it's not amazing or great.

I actually find idea of Microsoft using the "Wow" starts now as a dodgy campaign. After reading iWoz I realised that the whole "Wow" experience was Steve Wozniak's catch cry and I think it was unfairly used by Microsoft.

The problem with Vista is that it's got plenty of problems, drivers, interface "wtf's" and general bugs (http://www.vistasp1.net/). There is also disappointment with the bundled apps such as Windows Mail, Paint etc. And that to ship Vista Microsoft cut features right, left and center.

So overall Vista does feel like a ME V2. Enough so that I feel I wasted money upgrading hardware just for Vista. It's just not worth it.

You say vista has alot of bugs, granted it has some bugs, but not has many has XP had when it was first released...Took almost a full year for them to fix things, and took that long for people to stop bashing it. Took even longer for people to adabt to windows 2000. So people, please stop bashing vista, its not as bad has you all make it out to be. So STFU already..please!

[Berserk87]

The Inq is windows me of websites.

LOL.

ill get vista when i know my pc can run it at 100% and when better drivers come out.