How Vista Disappoints

MCSEBear writes "Writer Paul Thurrott has given Microsoft a verbal dressing down for what has become of Windows Vista. He details Microsoft's broken promises over the years since Longhorn/Vista was first previewed back in 2003. He demonstrates where current Vista builds fail to live up to Microsoft's current hype of the much reduced feature set. From the article: 'I don't hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don't hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn't even come close to meeting its original promises. I'm sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future ... It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, Windows Vista will do what so many other Windows releases have done, and simply offer consumers and business users a few major changes and many subtle or minor updates. That's not horrible. It's just not what was promised.'"

Sounds like an apologist

[thewiz]

'I don't hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don't hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn't even come close to meeting its original promises. I'm sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future ... It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, Windows Vista will do what so many other Windows releases have done, and simply offer consumers and business users a few major changes and many subtle or minor updates. That's not horrible. It's just not what was promised.'

Hmmm... Sounds like something I've heard before from a sister-in-law:

'I don't hate taking care of the kids, and I certainly don't hate my husband for disappointing me and the kids with his actions that don't even come close to meeting his original promises. I'm sure I learned something from this debacle, and hopefully he will be more open and honest about what he can and cannot do in the future ... In some ways, my husband actually will exceed other men, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, he will do what so many other husbands have done, and simply promise us a few major changes and many subtle or minor ones. It's not so horrible that he misleads me and the kids. It's just not what I was promised at the alter.'

Both sound like someone trying to apologize and explain away someone elses bad behaviour.

I still waiting.

[jellomizer]

Heck I am still waiting for MS to give us what they promised us in Windows 95

PSSSSST!!

[goldspider]

It's not done yet!

Re:I still waiting.

[Pharmboy]

Are you kidding? Install Windows 95 on any 3ghz box. It does run faster than any Windows 3.1 box I have ever owned! At least 30%!!!!!1one!!

So just for perspective...

[cgreuter]

Can anyone here name any Microsoft product that lived up to its hype? Anyone?

And no, Freecell doesn't count.

This just in...

[Kohath]

This just in:

A product's performance doesn't live up to the hype.

I know we're all shocked that he unthinkable finally happened.

My Vista sucks

[VAXGeek]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Vista fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Windows Vista PC (Pentium 4/3000 w/64 bits of power) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than Windows Vista, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Firefox will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Windows Media Player 11 is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Vista PCs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Vista machine that has run faster than its XP counterpart, despite the translucent interface. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 3000 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Vista is a superior operating system.

Vista addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use Windows Vista over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

They've missed the boat

[Nybarius]

the days of bloated client-side OS dominance are over. Google will probably unveil google OS concurrently with Vista, thus completely crippling Microsoft, which they will subsequently buy out.

exceeding OS X and Linux

[kaan]

"In some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux..."

For example, with Windows Vista, you will get more:
- system instability
- viruses
- application crashes
- lost data
- maintenance time
- security patches
- bug fixes

But it doesn't stop there! In order to take advantage of all new features in Vista, you will also get to spend more money on fancy hardware, including juiced up graphics cards to render the fancy new user interface.

Easy

[MarkByers]

Can anyone here name any Microsoft product that lived up to its hype? Anyone?

Word 2007 will easily live up to the hype. I've heard it's going to be absolutely amazing.

Re:My Vista sucks

[eln]

The GP is an old Linux troll re-worked to apply to Windows Vista. I thought it was kind of clever, actually.

Re:My Vista sucks

[Penguinshit]

Wow.. according to your UID, you've been around since this troll was first crafted!

Bravo.

Never Been So Glad...

[The Lost Supertone]

Never been so glad to be a Mac user...

Re:My Vista sucks

[AceCaseOR]

Aahh. Well, it worked on me (and normally I'm pretty good at spotting trolls.)

Re:So just for perspective...

[tehshen]

Halo?

Hi!

Re:exceeding OS X and Linux

[mrchaotica]

...But wait! There's more! The system even has built-in DRM, so you can get that nice cozy jail cell feeling all the time instead of only after bashing someone's head in because you were too frustrated with XP!

Re:I still waiting.

[besenslon]

And what is that? The only think they promised was more networking ... and THEY DID IT - with all their products they let the whole world network in your machine :)

Re:Sounds like an apologist

[run4ever79]

but not to the depth we were promised.
Interesting double entendre.

Re:Here we go again..

[twofidyKidd]

Yes, it's true. The world might love Vista. And it's very likely that Vista will love up on the world like a prison inmate on a cheap hooker, but toss aside the butt sex and black eyes, and you're still left with a mediocre product.

That's where other products like OSX and Linux comes in to show you what the good lovin' is like. That's when the world will wise up to their bad relationship, and leave it for the hot piece of action that knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

Re:It'll exceed OSX and Linux eh?

[m50d]

95% of the world computer users say so. They all can't be mindless lemmings.

I envy your faith in humanity

Re:Filesystem

[Jugalator]

This is correct, and *I* thought WinFS was therefore short for Windows Future Storage.

Re:Vista will dominate

[Phisbut]

And who's to say in 2010 Vista will be "current" anyway?

Vista probably won't be "current" in 2010... it'll be "coming soon"...

Re:Insightful

[telbij]

Ironically, enough the part that still hasn't been introduced is Winfs.

Far be it from me to be a grammar nazi, but even so I gotta say:

"Worst... Comma... Placement... EVER!"

Not the first time they haven't met expectations

[Locke2005]

Imagine how poor Melinda Gates felt on her honeymoon, when she discovered what Bill had been promising her for years was going to be "the greatest thing ever" could be summed up in two words -- "micro" and "soft".

Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft

[Ohreally_factor]

You know, I could be a new computer if I wanted to, but what for?

Don't you need to run BeOS if you actually want to BE a computer?

Re:Insightful

[skingers6894]

If only Microsoft could learn from the comma and deliver earlier rather than later.

Texas Hole'em???

[HaydnH]

From TFA:

"Among these missing features are the various Vista Ultimate Extras (features and services), including a Texas Hold-em game that was developed by the people behind Windows Calendar and Sidebar, Virtual PC Express, Media Center support for the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender, automatic hard disk defragmentation, themed slideshows, Windows Movie Maker HD, and so on."

I know a lot of people only use Windows for games... but stating the first missing feature to be a Texas Hold'em game is hardly important!