You may think me a Johnny Come Lately posting about an OS that was released 18 months ago. But, there really was no need for me to post at the time about my opinions on the OS as they fell inline with so many others that were writing about the new OS at the time. I think now that we have come to a point after Service Pack 1 for Vista and some of the new hardware on the market that we can make a more fair assessment of what Vista is and is not. And why it has gotten a bad start in life.
You may have read through some of my blogs on Windows Server 2008, and all though I haven't commented on it directly; comparisons to XP, my comments on Vista would lead one to believe that I essentially think Vista is bloated. This is a true statement but only in the context of comparing the whats and wherefores to which one is using any particular OS. So here's the thing, Windows XP Service Pack 3 is the finest Microsoft (no need to get into the whole Linux and Mac 10 thing as you have to consider it a niche market) operating system you can run on a machine that has a single core processor @ 32bit. And for the fact that you would be hard pressed to find any OEM (original equipment manufacture) that is still selling such a machine, coupled with the fact that it looks like Microsoft has reached the end of the development/enhancement cycle for XP; this is likely to always remain true.
So what about Vista? Vista is the next generation operating system. It has gotten a lot of bad press and I'm sure we have all seen the Mac talks to PC ads and have gotten a chuckle out of Apple exploiting the "unhappiness" of The Old XP-Guys' experience with Vista; count me as being among The Old XP Guys. We have seen this all before with Windows 3 replacing DOS; Win95 replacing Win3, Active Directory implementation in Windows 2000. "Why must our would change!?", we would demand. The easy answer would be $$$ marketing $$$ and while I would agree the Microsoft has had it fair share of products that enjoyed I a single life-cycle just for marketing sake the advancements in the OS do not fall into this group in my opinion. I will save you the history lessons here on what was so great about one generation over the other but here is a place to start if you are interested in such things. So what is to blame about all the bad press and feelings toward Vista? It is $$$ marketing $$$ of course!
It is not that we do not need a new operating systems with uber, glamour, shiny desktops with super cool features, most of which have not been explored by those that complain about Vista; no it's that Microsoft even choose to market to the The Old XP-Guys. In other words Microsoft should have never released a Vista Upgrade version nor Vista 32 bit version. Yea it really is that simple because if you own a state-of-the-art modern multi-core 64bit CPU rig with big roomy RAM (2 gig seems to be a good working min from my experience) then Vista is the is the finest Microsoft (no need to get into the whole Linux and Mac 10 thing as you have to consider it a niche market) operating system you can run on a that machine. So if your only experience with "Vista" had been equipment that could actually run it properly your first and lasting opinion on "Vista" would be: I like uber, glamour, shiny desktops with super cool features and been inclined to leave the XP machine doing what ever ancient thing that shall forever remain undone when old operating systems are shutdown for the last time.
We may want to point a finger here too at hardware manufactures. I'm not sure what the cause and effect of who pushed who here in Microsoft's decisions in releasing a 32 bit version of Vista but I suspect it had a lot to do with hardware manufactures. Vista débuted in a market where tech sales had continued to decline and from my own observations offered little in the way of innovation. New OS, new hardware sales; uber, glamour, shiny desktops with super cool features for everyone and everyone is happy. But they still needed to get rid of all those machines that weren't selling for that last year. So pull Windows XP of the media centers and tablets, slap on the one-size-fits-all Vista OS, and move it out the doors. And for the junk that wasn't worth the price to ship to a third world country Vista Home Basic; which is better described by what it won't do, but described by Microsoft as "If you only want to use your PC for tasks like browsing the Internet, using e-mail, or viewing photos"; you can find a comparison of versions on Vista here. Now the thing is; people buy a new machine and they get the Vista basic then they find out that they want the glamour, shiny, cool features from the OEM fresh from the box they have to upgrade... yea, this didn't sit well with some folks and in my opinion gave some room for consumer pricing abuse by OEMs.
So Vista has gotten a bad rap for a bunch of different reasons that can be contribute in almost every way to The Old XP Guys saying: "How has this OS made my machine better?" when the answer most likely was that if it was a last generation machine it has not. Unfortunately for Vista The Old XP Guys write blogs, and articles for tech magazines, apparently work for ad agencies for Apple, and I'm guessing some are even lawyers. Now Vista has to fight to redeem itself in the marketplace to overcome these stigmas. The short term effect is one of trust by consumers and whether they will give up their hard earned cash in this buyer beware consumer tech market. The long term effect maybe one of people asking themselves do I really need this and the OEMs and Microsoft may not like the answer.
While I don't see a current viable alternative to the WinPC it may continue to loose it luster as the "anything you want it to be" machine over devices with specific tasks, cell phones, console game machines, and other hardware for niche markets. There are a lot of things weighing down the old "anything you want it be" machine and I'll be posting more on that later. There are already rumblings in gamming circles about PC games being dead for example. And, if you get all your mail on your cell phone do you need Outlook? This idea makes me a little uncomfortable because it means that we are looking at true tech consumer as opposed to tech users, innovators, implementers, and producers. This means you get what's in the box, and you don't turn the box into what you want it to be. Over my next few postings I hope to demonstrate and document some of cool stuff about Windows Vista and not just the shiny, glamour stuff. However, I hope that you will forgive me if I do bring up Windows XP every once in a while.
