Scot Finnie, Computerworld’s online editorial director, takes readers on a tour of Windows Vista in his article “Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista.”
“It boils down to this: The software giant is favoring security and IT controls over end-user productivity. Don’t get me wrong, security and IT manageability are very good things. But some of the people actually using the Beta 2 Vista software describe their experience as akin to that of a rat caught in a maze,” Finnie reports. “Business and home users will be nonplussed by the blizzard of protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and ‘Continue’ boxes required by the User Account Controls feature, for example. Networking functions and settings are scattered all over the place. The same is true of what Windows XP calls Display Properties. By default, the main menus (you know, File, Edit, View, etc.) are turned off on Windows Vista folders, Internet Explorer 7 and several other programs and utilities that come with Vista. Listing 20 things you won’t like about Windows Vista was unfortunately all too easy. The question is: Why couldn’t Microsoft see this coming?”
“Make no mistake, the new Windows lacks a gotta-have-it feature, unless it’s the increased security that protected-mode browsing, built-in spyware protection and the new User Account Controls provide. To my way of thinking, security shouldn’t be something you have to pay for. What’s more, it seems like Microsoft is building some of the most ambitious security components of Windows Vista not for its customers, but for itself,” Finnie reports. “Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It’s hard to beat Apple’s top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn’t to say that the user interface wouldn’t gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It’ll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X. Meanwhile, I’m placing Windows Vista as a distant second-best to OS X. I see Linux and Windows 2000 as being roughly tied another notch or two below Vista, with XP being only a half step better than Win 2000.”
“So, why is the year-old Mac OS X Tiger so much better than Windows Vista, which Microsoft won’t even ship before January 2007? It isn’t that Apple has put more effort into its operating system; Microsoft has mounted a gargantuan effort on Windows Vista. It’s that the two companies have very different goals. I’ve come to believe that Microsoft has lost touch with its user base,” Finnie writes. “Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X… More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials… I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple’s or any other company’s best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What’s really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.”
Finnie writes, “After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn’t just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.) Windows Vista has plenty of good aspects to recommend it. In a future article, Computerworld will make plain the many good things about Windows Vista. When the product ships, we’ll also make some final recommendations on the new operating system.”
Make sure you haven’t eaten recently and then go see Finnie’s 20 things users won’t like about Windows Vista here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “vitaboy” and “MacDragon” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Another great review for Microsoft’s latest bloated mess, er… Windows Albatross, sorry… Windows Vista. By the way, Apple’s “so much better than Windows Vista” Mac OS X Tiger is already over a year old right now (released April 29, 2005) and will be over 20-months-old by the time Microsoft currently says they plan to inflict Vista (early 2007). Of course, many expect Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to debut around the same time as Windows Train Wreck, leaving Microsoft’s “new” OS even further behind on the day it finally ships.
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Uchendu Nwachukwu:
So your “mature” argument boils down to “M$ has sold more copies of Windows than Apple has OSX, therefore Windows is better so everyone should buy it”.
And that after you insult Mac users as being Steve Jobs’ “sheep” and that we should “grow up”.
Thanks for the sage advice, but I think we can get along in this forum just fine without your type!
Please?!
>When Apple builds an operating system that runs on hundreds of millions of computers worldwide…
It wouldn’t matter. Macs are made by Apple. At any given moment, Apple just needs to support a few dozen different Mac configs with their latest OS, not a few tens of thousands (perhaps more) like MS. That’s Apple’s advantage… and a key reason why Windows Vista sucks.
But I don’t care WHY. WHY is not important. What’s important is the current one-year-old version of Mac OS X being superior to a future one-year-from-now release of Windows.
The OS for Macintosh computers has come a long way…
Uchendu Nwachukwu:
So your “mature” argument boils down to “M$ has sold more copies of Windows than Apple has OSX, therefore Windows is better so everyone should buy it”.
No, that’s not my argument at all, and if you weren’t so hell bent on finding ways to bash Microsoft and congratulate Apple, you would have read and understood the second paragraph of my post where I said “They… have their strengths and weaknesses.”
Of course, when people cite marketshare as a reason why Windows is better than Mac OS, you are quick to jump down someone’s throat. But in almost the same breath, you’ll cite marketshare as a reason why iPod is better than everything else. Just like a good macolyte.
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You’ll notice that Microsoft (and Windows users in general) don’t go around saying “Windows ROCKS! Mac SUCKS! 90%! In yo face!” Yet Apple and Macolytes seem to shout the opposite from the highest rooftops at every opportunity. It’s not called “Cult of Mac” for nothing.
To all you Cult of Mac members, I say again: grow up.
And just so you know, I’m typing this on a Mac.
I dual boot Win/Lin on my PC and I use a Mac for work.
It’s called “keeping an open mind.” Maybe you should try it sometime.
I took the bait, Im still a wanker.
I must appologize for my rude behavior, my wif..eh-hum..boyfriend just owned me….
—JUST YOUR RESPONSE SHOWS THAT EVERYTHING GETS TO YOU—BRRAAAAADDD…Just like the rest..A Cow getting slaughtered at the crApple house.
MW Down, as in, put ur penis down…And shut down the computer..;P
I took the bait, Im still a wanker.
I must appologize for my rude behavior, my wif..eh-hum..boyfriend just owned me….
—JUST YOUR RESPONSE SHOWS THAT EVERYTHING GETS TO YOU—BRRAAAAADDD…Just like the rest..A Cow getting slaughtered at the crApple house.
MW Down, as in, put ur penis down…And shut down the computer..;P
Is this supposed to make you feel better about yourself, somehow?
Brad, If you knew me at el, You know id say it straight to your f’ing face, i dont give a shit if youre bruce mothafackin lee…
Im a scumbag for using the best tool (whatever it may be) for the job?…I think you’ve lost your sense of reality..Have you been kicked in the head or sumthin?
Uchendu Nwachukwu: I am switcher and if you actually know both OS’s architectures it becomes kind of a second nature to bash MS. I am in the XP support business and thus are known with the absurd costs to support XP, it irritates me a lot that the disaster called XP has such a large market share based on ignorance, IT conspiracy and abuse.
I’d LOVE to see OS X on a teeny-weeeny Viao… I for one want to see Apple licence OS X to a few decent hardware companies – Sony for one.
I’m torn between a MacBook or keeping my PowerBook G4 1.67Ghz… any thoughts?
“the absurd costs to support XP”
Are you spekaing of the cost of the product.?..Cuz Im in the support business too and support costs are as low as a mac if not lower…Maybe you should point the finger at admin competence, and fire your pathetic IT dept. I support 600 PC’s and 180 Macs. Sad to say but I get 100 times more calls about Mac OS X funk than XP.
Proof is in the pudding. Dont believe me? I dont care..its still the truth..
The fact is the mac doesnt come without its own querks and kernel panics and pinheels…
Ok low life morons, back to the quote:
“Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X”
That’s a fact. A tiny little fact. To me as both a Windows and Mac user, just an insignificant little fact, with so many more important things going on in the world.
To all you M$ weenies, who have nothing constructive to say (typical) who are pretending it is INSIGNIFICANT to you but significant to the rest of us, but who for some strange reason are kicking up a fuss in a MAC FORUM and are childishly insulting everybody while claiming to be morally superior, deal with it.
Your cover is blown.
Congratulations! You are Bill Gates’ butt monkeys.
I’ll just stick with first place, by choice.
Most of the world’s personal computers use Windows, so the saying goes this is “proof” of the “dominance” of the Windows OS over OS X. How many of these Windows users have a real choice of which OS is installed? Most people at work in business, academia, and government have little to no control which computer or OS they have to use. Obviously, being force fed shit sandwiches doesn’t make feces taste any better nor establishes caca as the “dominant” taste treat of the epicurean.
“”Sqeeeze Me” may have the dumbest quote I have ever–ever–read on this board.”
I bacon powder!
HAW!!!!
@Brad
I am 100% for Apple and MacOSX. Yes, my personal feeling is that you can not even compare them at the same year. That is how much better MacOSX is that any windows incarnation whatsoever. And were since MacOSX 10.3.0 or so. And will be in the future as well. My early (shameful) backgorund is that I used to “hussle” Win-PC’s in an eariler life. So, a very early convert (1988).
But Brad? Please shut up until you sobered up for now, OK? Rude talk gets us nowhere. And sorry to say, but you are making a prize jackass out of yourself right now. Rest for a while, OK? You are right in facts, but the presentation needs a bit of polish….
Thomas
Thomas
Defending oneself does not make oneself an aggressor, and it does not make the aggressor a victim.
Thanks for the insults. You are not rude and you are not a prize jackass. However, apparently were I to return the insults I would be.
Bored now…
Indeed hard to believe.
In corporate world where Mac is tolerated the main reason is that Mac users go along without adding any additional workload to the existing IT infrastructure. If the 180 Macs were causing 100 times more help desk calls than the 600 PCs the Macs would be out of the company in no time.
Here there are some 8000 PCs and some 2400 Macs. And some 30 PC IT support staff vs 2 Mac support staff.
’nuff said.
And it looks something like this.
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This forum needs some moderation desperately. We’ve seen so much trolling and flamebait. Everyone seems to bite at the trolls, which is, of course exactly what they want. If they were modded down, then it would all be a bit more interesting.
There is also obvious fanboy stuff, which is a bit annoying to read, and very redundant.
From: maczealot
Most of the world’s personal computers use Windows, so the saying goes this is “proof” of the “dominance” of the Windows OS over OS X. How many of these Windows users have a real choice of which OS is installed? Most people at work in business, academia, and government have little to no control which computer or OS they have to use. Obviously, being force fed shit sandwiches doesn’t make feces taste any better nor establishes caca as the “dominant” taste treat of the epicurean.
I don’t know how to explained that statement about world market share.. but yes I already knows Windows has larger share of the market for windows… but also .. to remember they ARE people still uses old macs that is 10 years older to more at home…. so it hard to predict the actual market share on people already have…
if you saying selling OS to marketplace then yes Windows is large marketshare
so I won’t buy Vista.. .Microsoft have bad reputation already for aleast 10 years or more
and OS X is way to go.. and OS X is easy to learn to operate compare to Windows…
windows makes things too difficult….
@Ronin
You are right, mostly… Vista will sell well, and it may outsell XP. But the market is larger today than it was when XP was launched. In percentage terms it is possible that Vista will trail XP: the market has changed and OS/X is a viable alternative today in a way it simply wasn’t when XP was launched
Even if Vista outsells XP, I believe this is Microsoft’s last gasp. There will be a replacement for Vista, and perhaps a replacement for that. But there will not be a new “from the ground up” Windows o/s, and Vista and its descendents will have less and less impact.
The end of the Microsoft era is upon us. I know this sounds like Mac fanboy fantasy but I am a windows man – MCSE certified with 30yrs in the industry. And I really believe that this is the beginning of the end of Microsoft, just as I lived through the decline of IBM as the industry behemoth…
The Microsoft departure lounge is crowded…