To Vista, or Not to Vista, that is (still) the question!

[Ken-L]

S'more fodder for the mill.....fuel for the fire about Vista.

I belong to the camp that will NEVER install, or buy a system with, Vista. I think of it as another debacle like "Windows ME" was!




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Will Businesses Skip Windows Vista Altogether?

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service2 hours, 1 minute ago


It will be one year that Windows Vista has been available to businesses on Nov. 30, yet many companies still are waiting until the release of Vista's first service pack to upgrade. But with Microsoft planning to release the next version of Windows, code-named Windows 7, in late 2009 or 2010, there remains a strong possibility that companies might skip over Vista altogether in favor of the next release of Windows.

Microsoft on Wednesday provided an optimistic update on the state of Vista now that third-party companies have released more drivers and applications for the OS, smoothing over compatibility issues that plagued early adopters.


According to Mike Nash, a vice president of product management for Windows client, the experience of running Vista on hardware that is certified for it "is a lot better today than it was a month ago and certainly a lot better than it was [last November]."

Microsoft has said it will release a roll-up of updates for Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, in the first quarter of next year, in the same time frame it will release Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is hoping businesses upgrade to both products simultaneously, and it's expected that many companies that have factored Vista into their enterprise planning budgets will do just that.


Nash said that Microsoft signed the highest number of enterprise licenses for Windows desktop ever at the end of fiscal year 2007, a fact he said bodes well for Vista enterprise adoption. "They wouldn't be licensing Windows desktop if they didn't have the intent to deploy Vista," he said.


But despite Microsoft's rosy view on the future of business adoption of Vista, users of the OS said there are still enough problems with it that some companies may opt to wait until Windows 7 to update their worker desktops. Microsoft has said little about Windows 7 except it's in the works and should be out about three years after Vista, which was released to consumers in January following its business rollout.


Users complain that Vista doesn't run well with older hardware-- either on PCs or with connected devices like printers that are a year or two old. Even on PCs that are supposedly meant to be optimized for Vista, there are still odd performance and compatibility issues with certain devices, applications and OS features that make using it a less than optimal experience.


For this reason, one East Coast IT consultant who specializes in Microsoft products said that unless Windows Vista SP1 really smooths over the problems people are having with Vista, "there's a good chance many people will hold on to XP until the next version of Windows."


"They're just so many little usability issues," said the consultant, who asked not to be named, but who has nearly 20 years of experience with Microsoft software. "I can just imagine when the next one comes out, Microsoft will actually get it right and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief."


Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft who said he has experienced his own frustrations with Vista's quirky performance issues, agreed that if Microsoft releases Windows 7 on schedule, there may be "less of a need to upgrade to Vista" for businesses that follow the typical "every other release" rule for Windows.


In Cherry's opinion, Windows XP Service Pack 2, a major security release for XP, was less a service pack than an upgrade to Windows. Businesses running this version of Windows may choose to bypass Vista and opt to install Windows 7 instead if it is released in the next few years, depending on where they are in their hardware upgrade cycle. The release of a third service pack for XP, which Microsoft has confirmed is in the works, supports this theory, since it adds "a couple more years" to the viability of XP in the enterprise.


Still, one Microsoft partner thought that the possibility that businesses won't be adopting Vista in droves until 2008 means it may be Windows 7 that will be skipped over, not Vista.


Brian Randell, a senior consultant with MCW Technologies in Los Angeles, acknowledged it was initially rough going with Vista because of hardware incompatibility problems. However, he said that these issues were more the fault of hardware vendors not preparing their products for Vista than Microsoft doing anything wrong.


"Microsoft delivered a really solid OS," he said. "The fact is, for as long as Vista was in beta, the hardware vendors didn't seem to have their act together."


Randell said that even companies that work closely with Microsoft have heard little about Windows 7, and that most are concerned more with what effect Vista SP1 will have on business adoption of the OS than on any future releases.










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[JDArt]

XP is still my main OS.

Did you read this?

Windows Vista's dirty little secrets

[Freezframe_2]

I perfer to wait until vista the second edition comes out....When all the bugs are gone ofcourse.....

Brady

[Ken-L]

Originally Posted by JDArt

XP is still my main OS.

Did you read this?

Windows Vista's dirty little secrets

Read it just now.....and you are absolutely right!

When I bought my new system (Dell XPS710) I opted to have XP. I will never own Vista. My three home systems are XP and they are very happy together!

[Ken-L]

Originally Posted by Freezframe_2

I perfer to wait until vista the second edition comes out....When all the bugs are gone ofcourse.....

Brady

I'm gonna wait too......until ...."the next version of Windows, code-named Windows 7, in late 2009 or 2010".... And, perhaps MS will get it out sooner!

XP will be "supported" until then, even if that wasn't Microsoft's intention they will be "forced" to by the business and private user communities.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Ken-L

XP will be "supported" until then, even if that wasn't Microsoft's intention they will be "forced" to by the business and private user communities.

Consumers don't drive OS adoption, regardless of what the marketing seems to be aimed at through the media. Enterprise licensing is M$'s main income stream. When I was running an IT department for a 125 person company, our annual Microsoft licensing bill ran $50,000+ for all servers, server applications and workstation licensing on Software Assurance (upgrade protection).

So who do you think Microsoft is going to pay attention to? A home user with $250 invested in an OS and maybe $200 in Microsoft Works? Or a business community spending billions per year on licensing?

Vista is slowly being adopted by the enterprise. Most "safe" IT organizations (it's a relative term, okay?) opt out of OS migrations until the first service pack is available...which is scheduled for first quarter of 2008 for Vista. The plans are already in place for many companies to make that move after the release is tested.

Vista SP1 beta weeks away; final due in Q1 '08

That said, yes, XP will be supported for some time to come. Heck, NT4 was still supported until a couple of years ago and that was released in 1996. With XP coming out in 2001, I suspect we'll have another 3-5 years of support.

And I'm not thrilled with Vista either. From a pure consumer/home user point of view, I really haven't had many issues. Running my network apps on it, though, has been a pain in the butt. Changing IP addresses to jump different networks is amazingly complex for what used to be a simple operation in XP.

[ohenry]

I don't know any details, or even the validity of this, but a friend of mine who is an IT for a large company says that XP SP3 will be released soon. Again, not sure if it's factual or just talk, but I'm in no hurry to abandon an OS that has worked well for me to one that others are having issues with.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by ohenry

I don't know any details, or even the validity of this, but a friend of mine who is an IT for a large company says that XP SP3 will be released soon. Again, not sure if it's factual or just talk, but I'm in no hurry to abandon an OS that has worked well for me to one that others are having issues with.

"Soon" is a relative term, I guess. It's actually scheduled for Q2 in 2008, AFTER the release of Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (aka Longhorn). It also won't be much more than a collection of all of the hotfixes that have been released since SP2 almost three years ago.

http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/xp_sp3.asp

[TonyK]

We just purchased a new system for my wife, to replace her G5 Mac (I know, I'm toast) and it has Vista Home Premium on it. Aside from a "bad" patch, which is well documented on the web, she has had no issues with her Vista system.

Me? Sticking to XP. Some of my programs won't migrate and I'm not ready to pay $$$ to purchase new versions. Not broke, not going to break it so I have to pay to fix it. LOL

[Naturalist]

My computer crashed and burned (literally) when some capacitors fried in the mother board and everything got way too hot.

So, as of MAY 2007 I have been operating on a new system using Windows Vista and, yes you have 30-days to activate it but, I did, so I have not had any problems.

Vista has been working great so far (knock on wood) and I have zero complaints.

[FTOeire]

I'm using Vista Premium 64bit. No major probs, and everything I've thrown at it seems to work just fine. I can't see what all the fuss is about really.

[notsotechie]

My Main one is OS Xp Pro or home.
But I belive that Vist is like the Mac hardware properity in some what way.
I remember long time ago that IBM was the same way. Hardware proparite too but they lost the battle. Will Vista end up like the IBM.
Now I May or not install Vista yet but my Son has Vista seem to be ok so far other than some software issue with Vista mainly Antivirus.
Vista has other issue on some hardware & Driver issue.
other than that I don't know yet if I will or not. But they are working hard on it to improve and resolve the hardware issue. In some way seem that the hardware manufacture in some way are not improvising uptodate code to run on Vista but then again Microsoft is not an open source.
So they won't share all the codes.

[TonyK]

Vista will run on the standard P4 systems. It does much better with Core Duo systems and of course it needs at least 2 GB of ram. I've seen an older P4 system running it with 1GB. Usable but slow at times.

[Bunny N]

Oh man, I'm still using a P3 @ 866mHz. 98>ME>XP & PS7. It has a noisy fan and a wimpy pwr supply. At least I have 2 hard drives. 1 40g and a 100g. Sometimes it is a tad slow but its faster than my daughter's .

[270weatherby]

I just installed Vista ultimate 2 weeks ago. I've had a few glitches with video and sound drivers, but overall it's been good. I no longer have the latency issue I had with XP, even after doing a clean reinstall. Vist on my machine is actually fast than XP so i'm happy so far.

[W.Smith]

Is that 'still' the question after this?

Computerworld is reporting that Windows XP Service Pack 3 runs MS Office 10% faster than XP SP2 — and is 'considerably faster' than Vista SP1. XP SP3 isn't scheduled to be released until next year, but testers at Devil Mountain Software — the same company which found Vista SP 1 to be hardly any faster than the debut version of Vista — were able to run some benchmarking tests on a release candidate of XP SP3, says the report. While this may be great news for XP owners, it is a problem for Microsoft, which is having trouble convincing business users to migrate to Vista.

Windows XP SP3 boasts speed boost. Leaves Vista in the dust.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by W.Smith

Is that 'still' the question after this?

Computerworld is reporting that Windows XP Service Pack 3 runs MS Office 10% faster than XP SP2 — and is 'considerably faster' than Vista SP1. XP SP3 isn't scheduled to be released until next year, but testers at Devil Mountain Software — the same company which found Vista SP 1 to be hardly any faster than the debut version of Vista — were able to run some benchmarking tests on a release candidate of XP SP3, says the report. While this may be great news for XP owners, it is a problem for Microsoft, which is having trouble convincing business users to migrate to Vista.

Windows XP SP3 boasts speed boost. Leaves Vista in the dust.

Sigh. I really wish they hadn't publicized that. Now MS will throttle it just to make Vista look better.

In Microsoft's defense, though, it's not Vista itself that is particularly slow. Adding Aero is a HUGE performance hit compared to running Vista with the older interface.

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

Sigh. I really wish they hadn't publicized that. Now MS will throttle it just to make Vista look better.

Well, with those tests as benchmarks that will be easily visible won't it? And would be too suspicious. Even for Micro$haft. No, I think publicity is good. It opens the general public's eyes to how they are being taken to the cleaners by the corporations peddling their often below par wares.

[Ken-L]

Quite some time ago there was an article from one of the computer mags on a test that was done between XP and Vista that showed Vista was slower (and that was before SP3) and the tests specifically included Photoshop..... I don't know about the rest of us, but I sure wouldn't want to have PS run slower! I'm very happy with the speed I get using XP with my Dell XPS710.

[jfrancho]

Vista? Not to be for me. But that's only because I am not setting up a new PC anytime.