I don't care how well Windows Vista is selling. Really, I don't. I give advice to friends and random strangers about the new OS all day long--sometimes it's "you don't need Vista," sometimes it's "you might want Vista," and, once in awhile, it's "you definitely need Vista." But whether Vista is a hit or a dud is Microsoft's problem, not mine.
Or so I tell myself. Actually, here's the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop with, fittingly, an intelligent post on Microsoft's claims this week about how well Vista is selling. I read, and I cared...at least sort of.
Microsoft says that Vista is selling at twice the rate that XP did in the wake of its release more than five years ago, with 20 million copies out there in the first month of availability. That's Vista in all its incarnations--as an upgrade, as a standalone product, as an OS installed on new PCs. Impressive, no?
Well, maybe not. Bishop links to several other sources that point out that the personal-computer market has doubled since 2001. Which would mean that a Vista that sold twice as well as XP would just be keeping up.
And he points to a long post by Joe Wilcox at eWeek's Microsoft Watch that raises, at least, additional questions about Microsoft's bragging on Vista. I'm not an expert on operating-system sales cycles, so I'm not sure if Wilcox's item is devastating or simply intriguing reading.
I don't apologize for being curious about how many PC World readers are using Vista; we gotta keep tabs on that to know how much attention we should devote to the new OS. I don't have hard numbers, but I can tell you this: In the month of March so far, about five percent of PCWorld.com visitors have come to the site via a Vista PC...and about 81 percent are still on XP.
Which is a meaningless figure unless you compare it to something. Thanks to the magic of Web analytics I can do just that: Back in 2001, during the comparable period after the release of Windows XP, eleven percent of PCWorld.com visitors were already running XP.
That would suggest that for PC Worldly folks, at least, Vista might be off to a slower start than XP's rollout. But I repeat: I really don't care how well how well Windows Vista is selling....
In our house hold there are three of us all professionals.
Between us we have 8 PCs --- 4 desk tops and 4 laptops all running Wndows XP.
Only one of our computers is suitable for Vista and it wrfequires more memory and graphics upgrade.
If we change one PC to Vista we will have to change all --- in our case that means 7 new computers.
Thanks, but no thanks. We will stay with Windows XP.
Urban Mullen
Let me see, you are Editor-In-Chief of a prestigous PC magazine. You have a duty to your clients who buy your magazine to keep them informed of PC related business; whether or not you care is irrelevant. If I was the owner of PC World I'd have fired you for that comment. How does the sale of Vista affect your clients? Did you do any research? Operating systems are the heart and soul of every PC. It is 'your' responsibility, both personally and professionally to adher to important PC events and business. PC World just lost a client, and I'm cancelling my business subscriptions to your magazine as well.
I'm the informal techie for five households of family and relatives. Between us we have five PC's and two laptops. All of them operate behind up-to-date software and hardware firewalls. And I update the anti-virus and anti-spyware software on a regular basis.
So I don't feel we need the "improved security" features of Vista. The only other Vista feature I've seen mentioned regularly as a "must-have" is the fancy Aero visuals on the desktop. That's a "don't-need" feature, as far as I'm concerned. Balance that against doubts about how well Vista would work with our existing suite of apps, inclduing shrinkwrap, shareware and web apps, and the cost-benefit ratio just isn't there.
Our existing PC's run well on XP. Only three of our machines are suitable for a Vista upgrade, and they would require doubling the RAM and new graphics cards. So we'll wait until the upgrade is forced on us by new machines and/or the end of MS support for XP.
Why isn't there as strong a surge of customers wanting to upgrade to Vista compared to those who wanted to upgrade to XP? It's because XP is currently a pretty good, pretty stable, pretty mature operating system, and there's not much of a need to upgrade right now.
Now think back at what Windows version preceeded XP. For most, it was Windows ME. You WANTED to upgrade out of ME, it was such a flaky unstable platform.
Many want to point to some weakness in Vista as the reason it's not being adopted so quickly. It's not Vista; It's that XP has turned out to be THAT good.
This is a pretty pointless article. Take a side. All I can say is I've tried out Vista and there are really no "gotta have it" reasons to buy it. Add to that it's hardware hungry needs, large HD footprint, and harder to use user interface ....I think I'll call it "Bloatware." All the services that it was supposed to have at release are missing.....stay with XP SVP 2
As an IT Administrator for several large firms, I can state we will not be sailing off with Vista and jumping the "XP Ship". Too much cost. In the "Real World", where you have to answer to money-conservative CFO's, Vista is not cost-justified.
Also, I work with multi-lingual (Japanese and German Windows), to make matters more.... "challenging". Keeping up with all the licensing as one user outgrows one laptop and moves on to another is a big head-ache.
While I do admit the two newest laptops to join one of our firms came with Vista, I've had other departments shun certain brand laptops to stay on the XP they are comfortable with. And, I actually have those who are perfectly happy on Win2k and Win98SE, and have no intent on upgrading. I keep them behind firewalls and use a 3rd party patch to bypas the M$ 4000.00 fee for the Daylights' Savings Patch.
Lastly... with support for Windows XP recently extended into 2014, alot of people will see no reason to change. Just My $ .02.
'Are You Sure'
I bought a new laptop and was 'forced' into using Vista.
My advice is to avoid it as long as you can!. Fortunately the machine came with 160 gB disk and 43 gB were used already by what was preloaded.
The MS File Transfer programme supplied didn't work and neither does the latest version of Laplink. The lack of Vista drivers is a real issue - but this will get better.
What I hate are the endless 'You need permission to do that' type prompts which isn the end become meaningless as the enter key is pressed automatically on seeing the message - harking back to the days of 'Are you sure?' type prompts. This is not added security it is a backward and unnecessary step! Aero is eye-candy - but doesn't improve productivity and there is nothing else of note except that File explorer is a lot more difficult to use.
I think that this whole question is moot.
If, on the one hand, one is happy with one's current machine, it's relatively recent, well configured, reasonably fast FSB, good DRAM, decent CPU, etc. DVD burner, then there is absolutely no reason to upgrade to Visa.
If, on the other hand, one is no longer satisfed with the machine, then one should buy a new machine as soon and as well equiped as one can make it. That now can mean some version of Vista.
Some machines are still available with XP, but does it make sense to buy a new machine with XP?
I always spend a lot of money for a well equipped machines and plan to keep it a long time. This is ultimately cheaper than buying less well equipped machines and replacing them more frequesntly.
So, I just bought two Vista machines to replace 2 PIII's from about 5-6 years ago, because of the now slow 133FSB. That was my reason for buying new machines. And, I do not ever want to upgrade an OS on an exiting machine.
I'm included in the group who bought Vista. I was offered a "free" Vista CD ($10) with a PC I bought in November. Why wouldn't I take advantage of that offer--which expires in a couple of days?
But have I installed Vista? No. New XP machine is working great. I don't want to wrestle with quirks and bugs of a new OS.
I bet I'm not the only person who helped pump up the sales figures.
I've got Vista Home Premium and hate it. I've turned off lots of the fluff and it still runs slower than my former xp-pro. Changes were made to the file system within windows explorer and it is now harder to find and do things from within. Microsoft has added their own brand of antispyware and it can be disabled, it cannot be uninstalled. IE7 is also another problematic program. It constantly crashes. To me, Vista is another Windows-Me. Junk...nothing but pure junk.
Their boast is irrelevant. The IRS doesn't boast about "selling". The DMV doesn't boast about registrations sold. You either HAVE to use Vista (becuase it was bundled) or you don't. There's no freedom in this anymore.
We might as well be honest and admit that the price of Windows is a tax for doing business in the US. It should be socialized - it's not like the gov't could do any worse than MS, and we might not have to "upgrade" to slower OSs every few years.
One thing that is a must to understand is that Vista is a DRM/CRM nightmare. If you think to Apple, you'll realize that DRM locks you into a platform. With content creators making content specifically for Windows, with the HARDWARE manufacturers forced to comply with Microsoft's way of doing things, it leaves little room for competition. In the end it results in a system that locks you into a product. That product is Windows in whatever incarnation it will become. This is another predatory monopolistic practice. It is OK for Apple to do it because they were not ruled a monopoly nor convicted of illegal business practices as Microsoft was.
So, to buy, to support, to create, and to consume content with Vista, you are allowing Microsoft, to further their monopoly and to lock you into it and then to create another monopoly. That kills Linux and Apple's chances to compete with creators of the content because they will not produce for multiple platforms.
I have bought a copy of Vista Ultimate upgrade from an MVP for ?20. I have not used it to upgrade my existing PC because I am worried that I will not have the correct drivers. I currently use XP service pack 2 and also have a MacBook pro running Mac os10.4.9. I have been using PC's since Windows 3.1 and the days of MS-Dos. I am sorry but i now prefer my Mac over my PC , I have Parallels running XP on my Mac. I am probably not going to upgrade to Vista Ultimate and will only use Vista once it is unavoidable to use XP. I am hugely disappointed with Microsoft's new OS, I used to get excited at the thought of having a new OS to learn and support, from what i have seen so far,well let's just say it doesn't light my fire.
I must be nuts, because I'm a Linux fanboy (my fave flavor these days is Ubuntu) but I've always dual booted with Wndows XP. That is....till I upgraded to Vista recently. I LOVE Vista. It's a vast imprvement over XP. I also bought an "overpowered" box 2 years ago for this very reason...
All this discussion about moving forward to Vista has motivated me to jump into the fray.
About a month ago, my XP desktop failed in a cloud of blue choking smoke. I built that desktop in 2001, from scratch, by myself, with components which I had researched. I used the latest motherboard and best processor I could find, plus I had the top of the line sound card, video card, network card, power supply, disk drives, all the best, and price was not a factor. It was a robust little machine, and it served me well. I think the ultimate failure was due to a series of power outages from bad storms. I lost my USB hub around that time, also.
I was never that thrilled with XP, but it grew on me, and although most users say it is stable, the way I hammer on my system, I never thought XP was synonymous with stability. I was also a little peeved at Microsoft for releasing XP and letting the user community debug it.
XP was notably better with SP-2, but I lived the nightmare of driver upgrades. Let's face it, Micorsoft is no cake walk.
Since I am a techie, I cannot be without a usable system. I fired up a dusty little Toshiba laptop, running Windows 2000, and only 1/2 gig of memory (my desktop had 3 gigs.)
After fine-tuning the laptop to improve the boot time and performance, and upgrading all the firewalls and virus protectors, etc., I am amazed by its performance. The only time I've had to restart the system is for upgrades. The only time it's crashed on me in the past month, is when I got up to feed my cats, and I threw the headset on the table. The headset tapped the reset button on the side of the laptop causing a reboot. I now keep the sliding door to the reset button closed.
I went backwards and I am loving it. The sound card on the laptop isn't as robust, but overall, even with a lot of apps opened, I am amazed at its performance.
Plus it's so quiet (without the roar of the desktop's 5 fans.)
I was actually going to build another desktop with the latest and greatest and install Vista. But the salesmen at the electronics store told me to wait ... they are having a lot of problems with Vista.
After reading the user comments here, that cemented my conviction to sit and wait. But for how long? And how long will it be before Microsoft phases out XP and crams Vista down our throats? If I spent the money now on building a brand new system, how long do I have before yet another revamping?
I think I am done with PCs. The Windows 2000 laptop can serve all my current Microsoft needs. The uncertainty of what is going to happen with the XP/Vista debate puts me in a quandary. I do need to do upgrade now, but I'm on the fence. Under the given circumstances, I am seriously considering a nice Apple notebook as a viable alternative.
All my PC-to-Apple converted friends talk about the Apple experience with the glassy-eyed reverence of a religious rebirth. After being to hell and back with Microsoft, it just might be the right time the time to join them.
Sorry this is so long - I wanted to express my MS experience.
I did read the prio post about Linux/Vista - never throught of that alternative. I need to research this more - and may go that avenue!
Valerie
I personally see no need to upgrade right now. I owned windows ME for a long time and it was horrible. I was very glad to get rid of ME. I am perfectly happy with XP and I will have the OS for as long as I can.
Great OS - Much better that XP - Awesome interface..Like it or not its here and will be around for a long time and in five years 1/2 the planet will be using it so get with the program. Some say Mac like OS .. who cares Mac copied Xerox Star in the begining. I cannot see myself going back to XP. Time to upgrade to a fater PC to get full use of Vista. But if your thing is chatting and just sending emails no real reason to upgrade. But if you are a power user you know what Vista can offer. I also own a Mac but with 90% of all computers being PC's and all the great software for PC's Vista was god sent ... But for 5 billion and 5 years of R&D its a great OS not a perfect OS.
Real focus on this issue would be to choose or not to choose, sad to say a million dollar worth of corporation stiill havent pull the real plug yet, is a bit embrassement, using their hackers, programmers, technicians and other kings of IT all they can pull is WINDOWS VISTA!, yes in a long run you would be running vista, because in pc there is either LINUX or WINDOWS, seeing on how the more source you deliver to public i would say is WINDOWS, but come to think of it we are just manipulated in choosing the latest because we dont want to get left out, but it sucks to know that year by year you are downloading more bloody patches and anti-whatever to just suit the bloody software until it comes to that edge, the question is until when? DO YOU SAY MICROSOFT has only expertise on making patches after they make their WINDOWS and tons o upgrade all through out the years. DONT THEY UPGRADE!!. My dear friends this is the big picture.
Forgive my little frustration but should not MICROSOFT demolish the MAC quote "there are millions o viruses in a pc and a mac not?", So many years and still MOCROSOFT in a loop and can't get out of its room. IS THERE NO OTHER NEW PROGRAMMING BESIDES MS THEY CAN CREATE?. If other operating systems runs on different OS why can they make a new OS and make it in perfection. IS THIS THE ONLY TECH THEY HAVE? THE "OWW" starts with "WOW".
I am not helping Microsoft's sales of Vista. I have never had so many problems with an OS since ME. I am sure that Microsoft will work out the kinks, but Vista is not ready for prime time as of yet. The number of drivers that are not available, programs that don't work, and other misc. issues is too great to share. I was even asked for drivers for a flash drive. I was flashing back to Win 98, except I had far less problems with that OS and there were always work-arounds. My laptop was bought with Vista in mind and so has the hardware to run any version in its fully functional mode, but there are still many problems for me to recommend it to anyone. Their sales should be poor.
I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu (a very popular Linux desktop operating system which is, of course, completely free) on my 4 month old Dell laptop. I have a 160GB hard drive. I dedicated 120GB for Ubuntu and 40GB for Windows. As you can see, Ubuntu is my primary OS. I only use Windows for gaming.
I upgraded Windows from XP to Vista Home Premium about a month ago for free using a voucher. I chose to do a fresh install. I'm glad I upgraded. I like playing with new technologies and Vista is.... pretty.
But one thing did stand out just as I was told it would. While Ubuntu uses from 18-20% of my 1GB of RAM while idling, Vista uses at a minimum 45%!!! That means that if you have only 500MB of RAM on board you are pretty much out of luck, at least if you want all the bells and whistles... and why wouldn't you if you're going through all the trouble of upgrading.
So, I come away from my experience with Vista more impressed with Ubuntu (www.Ubuntu.com). Did I mention Ubuntu is free? Hmmm....