http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/come-back-xp-forgiven

Is it just me, or are all these complaints about Vista the exact same 
things we heard about XP when moving from Win2k?

Ie, it's too slow, it uses too much memory, the graphics are pretty but 
slow your machine down way too much, it has features under the hood that 
noone notices, my peripherals don't work with it, etc.

Yet now, people love XP, and have written off Vista.

Personally, I think that 5 years from now, we'll see people complaining 
just as much about how Windows Next isn't nearly as good as Vista, and 
how MS is the devil because they want us to switch again away from our 
sleek, efficient and beautiful OS to a bloated, slow and incompatible 
new version.

...Chambers

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> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/come-back-xp-forgiven
>
> Is it just me, or are all these complaints about Vista the exact same 
> things we heard about XP when moving from Win2k?


I was wondering that too, but I think the problems are more widespread and 
more "real". It seemed to me that the xp complaints came mostly from 
experienced users who were upset about losing features, having it break with 
old hardware, being slower, etc. Vista, however, seems to have problems even 
on new computers that come with it installed. My mom bought a laptop with 
Vista and has had to run system restore many times, and says it locks up 
frequently, plus other major problems. It sounds completely unuseable to me. 
That's only one case out of many, but I think there are deeper problems here 
than there were with XP.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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Chambers wrote:

> Is it just me, or are all these complaints about Vista the exact same 
> things we heard about XP when moving from Win2k?

Probably.

> Yet now, people love XP, and have written off Vista.

Nooo, I *still* think Windows XP is rubbish. :-P

Still, it's either that or Linux...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Ie, it's too slow, it uses too much memory, the graphics are pretty but 
> slow your machine down way too much,

And yet, if MS released a much lighter OS than ran perfectly fast on 
everyones machine, you'd have some people immediately complaining that it 
didn't make enough use of their hardware now, let alone in 5 years time.

> Personally, I think that 5 years from now, we'll see people complaining 
> just as much about how Windows Next isn't nearly as good as Vista, and how 
> MS is the devil because they want us to switch again away from our sleek, 
> efficient and beautiful OS to a bloated, slow and incompatible new 
> version.

Of course.  With a product that is used by so many people, of course there 
are going to be a lot of people complaining, no matter what MS does.  The 
funny thing is, if you ask the complainers what they think MS should do 
instead, they never can come up with any idea that will actually make MS 
much money.  They often say something like "they should just concentrate on 
making XP better" (ermm, isn't that called Vista?) or "they should just give 
up writing software" (and sack everyone?).

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scott wrote:

> The funny thing is, if you ask the complainers what they think MS 
> should do instead, they never can come up with any idea that will 
> actually make MS much money.

I guess that's the problem then. Producing a superior product isn't 
profitable...

[Kind of like curing the common cold isn't profitable.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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I have complaints about XP, but it's my understanding
that very few of those issues are addressed in Vista,
instead there are a bunch of new issues.

Only 8% of developers are even working with Vista
as a target OS. 49% are still building for XP.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9969231-16.html

The reason to use XP was because that's what most
people were using. It's a trend thing, the longer that
people have been using an OS the harder it becomes
to switch. Switching costs more money, takes more
time, and more effort. The OEM path is the only
way for MS to force adoption of Vista.

Trying to force the market is risky. Linux is free,
so there always will be a price incentive for OEMs
to sell bare-bones computers, or to install Linux.

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Slime wrote:

> Vista, however, seems to have problems even 
> on new computers that come with it installed. My mom bought a laptop with 
> Vista and has had to run system restore many times, and says it locks up 
> frequently, plus other major problems. It sounds completely unuseable to me. 
> That's only one case out of many, but I think there are deeper problems here 
> than there were with XP.

FWIW, my dad bought me a brand new laptop as a graduation present. At 
the time, XP was still quite new. The laptop crashed within 14 SECONDS 
of being turned on for the very first time. This was not an isolated 
event either.

As the years went by, somehow the laptop seemed to crash less and less 
often. My newest PC runs XP and I don't think I've ever seen it crash at 
all. Apparently the result of all the billions of bugfixes M$ pumps out 
daily is that eventually, after many many years, the OS reaches a point 
where it will at least run reliably.

I *still* think it wastes far too many resources though... And let's not 
talk about security. [That one at least isn't 100% the fault of MS.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:

> 
> FWIW, my dad bought me a brand new laptop as a graduation present. At 
> the time, XP was still quite new. The laptop crashed within 14 SECONDS 
> of being turned on for the very first time. This was not an isolated 
> event either.
> 

Sounds a lot like the crapware they load on the computers before they're 
shipped out. The XP updates may have overwritten a driver, or added 
stability fixes for known third party issues.

I used to do support for Compaq a long time ago. Now I don't trust 
bundled software. ;)

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Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/come-back-xp-forgiven

> Is it just me, or are all these complaints about Vista the exact same 
> things we heard about XP when moving from Win2k?

  There's one difference, though. When MS discontinued Win98 support in
favor of WinXP, there was no petition signed by over 200000 users sent to
Microsoft to keep the Win98 support going on. I think that's rather telling.

  Also I have the feeling that this time MS rushed the discontinuation of
the previous version of Windows in order to artificially boost sales of
the new version. IIRC when the Win98 line of Windows's was dropped, XP
was already quite stable and popular. Not so with Vista.

  (Btw, am I just being paranoid, or is one of the reasons for MS to so
quickly stop support for XP that the music and film industry is pressuring
MS to do so, in favor of the DRM technology in Vista? For some reason this
oppressive DRM technology caused a furor years ago, but nowadays nobody
remembers it anymore or talks about it. Why has everybody forgotten it?)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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And lo on Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:36:59 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
>> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/come-back-xp-forgiven
>
>> Is it just me, or are all these complaints about Vista the exact same
>> things we heard about XP when moving from Win2k?
>
>   There's one difference, though. When MS discontinued Win98 support in
> favor of WinXP, there was no petition signed by over 200000 users sent to
> Microsoft to keep the Win98 support going on. I think that's rather  
> telling.

But XP did everything that 98 did only better, the changeover was  
virtually seamless.

>   Also I have the feeling that this time MS rushed the discontinuation of
> the previous version of Windows in order to artificially boost sales of
> the new version. IIRC when the Win98 line of Windows's was dropped, XP
> was already quite stable and popular. Not so with Vista.

As I think I said elsewhere I think the problems are that Microsoft  
managed to produce an OS that really hit the mainstream when it was  
stable, worked with the majority of programmes already used, and didn't  
look much different from the previous version.

They then let it marinate in the user pool until everyone got used to it  
and are now 'forcing' people to switch to something that seems to fall  
over constantly, doesn't run any of 'my' software properly and  
everything's moved from where I want it to be.

>   (Btw, am I just being paranoid, or is one of the reasons for MS to so
> quickly stop support for XP that the music and film industry is  
> pressuring
> MS to do so, in favor of the DRM technology in Vista? For some reason  
> this
> oppressive DRM technology caused a furor years ago, but nowadays nobody
> remembers it anymore or talks about it. Why has everybody forgotten it?)

I think it's more shock therapy to get the markets moving.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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