The Microsoft Translator

I'm already seeing the "Darwin" effect take place in the oddest of places: my in-laws.

My mother-in-law, generous woman that she is, is not exactly compuer-savvy. XP gave her fits as a user. Questions I never thought I'd hear asked ("Can you teach me how to google?") have come up.

So when they annouced they'd bought another computer, I was wondering which OS they chose - XP or Vista - and what headaches I would now have.

Turns out, they chose neither - they chose a Mac. It does everything they need it to do and it's not confusing for them.

Many users are asking themselves - if I need to change my user experience anyway, why not get a Mac?

The timing of this shift in UI may not have come at a worse time - a time when Macs are already gaining ground, many users are up for an upgrade, and the transition to Mac looks so intuitive.

It has me asking questions, too...

Isn't it clear??? The objective of Vista was to increase the revenue of the various support groups within M$... Think of the Millions they are making daily from all the Joe Noob's out there who can't figure out how to get their shiny new copy of Vista to print...
BTW... I will say it looks really pretty when it dies on my new laptop...XP never looked so pretty when it crashed.

Microsoft always says that the features added to Vista (and its other OS'es) always come from "user feedback". I have two questions: Just who ARE these people, and why do they hate us so much?

Microsoft rushing to promote Vista reminds me of Intel trying to push Itanium. Microsoft should repackage XP with IE8 and the latest security fixes, and call it "XP Evo", and encourage retailers to preinstall it on all computers. Then it should gradually phase out Vista since no one wants it.

Philip Dixon had it pegged soooooo accurately 40 years ago in his Book of Rules when he gave the "First Rule of the Rural Mechanic: If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Well I can say that Vista is not that bad. But then again I am the IT geek where I work and I eventually found a few things to make Vista work much better long before SP1 was available. Even before SP1 the two Vista computers we have equaled XP SP0 in stability and speed.

- I turned off IPv6. It is not needed for most home users. It caused network instability.

- I set Vista to maximum performance. That got rid of much of the Aeroglas interface (with its tremendous overhead) and made it look like Windows XP.

- We have an adequate amount of RAM. 1GB is not enough. 2GB works much better. I cannot understand why computers with inadequate RAM are even sold.

- We try to wait until the boot up is complete before doing anything.

- We do not run any of those little background goodies that many people like to download (we did not do that under XP either).

- I made sure that all of the drivers and software were Vista compatible before the upgrade. If not we did without until we could get an upgrade.

Last night I installed SP1 on the two Vista machines we have at home (a desktop and a laptop). So far it is nothing to write home about. Things seem a bit snappier and more stable, but the two major issues I hoped it would cure were not. One is on the laptop where the user gets a lot of "wheelies" when working on files pulled from the other Vista computer. The other issue is a Corel Word Perfect X3 issue where WP crashes if you close the last document when Outlook 2007 is running.

I was surprised to hear that you have yet to receive any feedback form a reader who actually liked Vista. So, here I am. Like yourself, I have heard nothing but complaints about Vista since it appeared on the horizon. I, however, must be the only one who did not have a major problem with it and I am writing to say that I actually liked using Vista. I liked the audio architecture. I thought it was great that I could independently control the applications that were using the sound card. I could now listen to music and not have the sound of another program interrupt an audio, or video, track. I also enjoyed the new buttons used in Office 2007. I really like how I can attach keywords to files and this has greatly helped organize my picture collection. I also found it much faster to use the windows key, type the name of the application, or file, that I was looking for and it immediately appeared. I did not have to dig around my programs list or documents and I found that I became more efficient in my work.

At first it took some time to get used to the changes, but so did my experience with Linux, Mac OS, Windows, etc. Like some users, I was frustrated at some of the new interfaces but learned to work with the new OS. I feel that too many times the complains are solely based on "Well its just not the same" and I do not feel that this is a valid complaint. My 2006 Saturn Ion has the instrument panel in the middle of the console. So what? I also hear many complaints where the user has never even used Vista but was simply regurgitating information they came across. I have since converted my parents, who are not computer savvy, into using Vista.

I do not disagree that Vista does have some problems, but I feel the same about a lot of operating system that I deal with on a daily basis. I just wanted to drop you a line and say that I feel that Vista is "not that bad".

After reading your column I'd like to let you know that the new group policy functions that are available with Vista and Win2008 are huge improvements for us as a small business trying to provide better configuration and resource availability assistance (drive mappings, shared printers, etc.) to users. The new interface is truly the hardest item to overcome, but the reality is, it provides a ton of new device support, power management, wireless security, etc. that make the migration worth it for us anyway.

googling "vista problems" as the article suggests is akin to sticking your head in at the emergency ward and concluding that all humans are flawed to the point of being disfunctional. Google OSX problems and i am sure the list will also be impressive.

Currently using Vista SP1 and have not had any problems.

Well, let me be the first to say then that I too kicked and bucked about upgrading to Vista here at work- but having used it at home for 1+ years and here at work for about 3 months (on my computer for beta testing), I've grown to prefer it to XP. Sure there is a learning curve and things are not where you always remember them but from an IT perspective I find the increased control and granularity refreshing. Plus, instead of messages that say "Application Error in memory block 0x00000xyz to the 3rd power located in some alternate universe " you get "This appears to be malfunctioning, do you want me to fix it? Look for a solution online? Wait for it to respond? Or just give up and shut the darn thing down?"

Plus searching for network printers, loading programs faster with SuperFetch, built-in support to play DVD's (no 3rd party codecs here!), Offline files that work well, slick user interface, Windows sidebar (I use it all the time for RDP, Weather, news, XM radio via the internet, and most of all monitoring dual core CPU and memory usage). I even loaded Vista on one laptop, pulled the hard drive and stuck it into a completely different laptop (not one piece of similar hardware) and it actually booted and ran! Try that with XP!

Les we forget getting used to XP from 2kPro, such as a whole new start menu, new themes and graphics, better recovery options, better management tools, etc. Took a little time to get used to, but we all managed.

Do I particularly care for Microsoft? No - they are overpriced, smug, and their software is far from perfect. Fact is they do produce a lot of decent software titles that play well with each other and they have become the de-facto standard in business. If you want play with others, your best bet is to go PC and Windows. Are they counting on that mentality? Sure are- else they'd be fighting for their lives against Mac and (more recently) Linux.

In summary, it's always about growing pains. It's the price we pay to evolve - sometimes you have to change the way you think and do. And all 3 of the Vista installs I use are x64 installs - which makes getting it to run perfectly in this still very highly x86-centric world even harder! If I can do it, then perhaps there is hope for mankind yet.