Windows sufferer spends six hours trying to ‘upgrade’ to Vista, says: ‘I should’ve bought a Mac’

“Among the initial gripes are trouble installing or activating copies, as well as reports that the operating system isn’t working quite as they expected. In addition to the sporadic reports of bugs and upgrade issues, other people are discovering that hardware and software incompatibilities are impeding their path to Vista,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News.

Fried reports, “Michael Cherry, an analyst with research firm Directions on Microsoft, said he doesn’t expect a lot of major bugs right out of the gate for Vista, but said that smaller hurdles like incompatible software or missing hardware drivers can still make the move unpleasant. ‘When I buy a Mac, I’m like a kid at Christmas; I can’t wait to take it home,’ he said. ‘When I buy a Windows machine, I wonder what kind of issues am I going to have to fix. Right from the beginning, I almost have buyer’s remorse.'”

MacDailyNews Take: “Almost?”

Fried continues, “‘In the pantheon of OS releases and Windows releases, I think we feel pretty good about the customer experience we’ve delivered,’ said Greg Sullivan, a group product manager in the Windows unit at Microsoft.”

MacDailyNews Take: Sullivan ought to have limited that statement to Windows releases only. If Microsoft feels “pretty good” about Vista’s customer experience compared to other OS releases, they’re nuts, lying, or have unimaginably low expectations for their products.

Fried continues, “For those who are making the move to Vista, one trouble area has been properly activating the new operating system. Cartoonist Mike Cope spent hours trying to get his Windows 2000-based system to move to Vista. Initially, he tried to upgrade from within Windows 2000, but that didn’t work. Next, the Stoney Creek, Ontario, resident tried to do a clean installation of the software on his PC. The software installed fine, but when time came to do the product activation–a mandatory step with Vista–the process failed… Cope wasn’t happy with the more than six hours he spent getting to Vista. ‘I should’ve bought a Mac,’ Cope said.”

Fried reports, “Brent Wasserman, a New York-based technology consultant, is still stuck on XP. He recently bought a Lenovo Thinkpad with Windows XP, making him eligible for a free upgrade to Vista. However, he has been unable to register at the fulfillment site for the offer due to a glitch with the site.”

Fried reports, “In some cases, software that doesn’t work is an annoyance, but in other cases, it can be a deal-breaker.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tim” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: Software that doesn’t work should be a deal-breaker in every case. Get a Mac.

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49 Comments

  1. Other news?? or is it related,lol

    Home Land Security reports this morning that a large amount of traffic overloaded 3 0f the 13 computers that handle the WWW, they think it was a deliberate cyber attack.

    uhhh, maybe more than 10 people were trying to down load Vista upgrades at the same time,

  2. What a load of BS, that take! You idiotic Macsterbators are to dellusional to see that Microsoft’s Windows Vista ™ offerings are far more superior than anything Crapple has to offer. See for yourself at Vista’s official site, and read the 100 reasons why this superior operating system will bring clarity to your world and change your life. Score another one for Microsoft.

    Welcome to the social.

    Your potential. Our passion.

  3. I assisted a switcher; wihin one hour the Mac Mini worked, most of that time I was explaining Mac things, that you have to approach a little different on Windhose .. His face was indeed like opening a X-mas present !

  4. I feel sorry for everyone who buys Vista, I know what it feels like to buy a brand new product, thinking it will be awesome, and then finding out it’s a pile of crap when you start using it.
    Guess people are finding out it’s a pile of crap even before they start using it…

  5. to Zune Tang
    The listo on tne official Vista site? Give me a brake. Does it go like this?
    1. Vista is pretty goog
    2. Will let you play new games
    3. Gives you freedom to choose from 10 versions
    4. Will let you play modern games
    5. Is pretty good
    6. many options to choose from
    7. Will let you play games

    Are you getting it?

  6. Hey Zune Tang,
    I write code for both Mac and Windows platform everyday… I get paid for it. I have been using Vista on a regular basis along with VS2005… I do admire VS2005’s capabilities for its target platform and I do admire Vista’s superiority over previous Windows.. (which is not much but at least it looks better). I certainly see that this man who spent 6 hours upgrading to Vista is an idiot as it did not take me anything close to that to upgrade. However, I think you should take it easy and face the facts… or else you might just have to live in your world of ignorance and self-love.
    Those 100 reasons for Vista upgrade were the reasons of the past versions of Mac OS X upgrade. I think you need to do more homework… not to mention that Mike Cope should do the same for his installation skills.
    Have a great day.

    “Once you go Mac, you never go Back”.

  7. ZT, you should’a said something like “…and read the 163 reasons why this superior operating system…” – it’s always funnier with an odd number.

    …The CIA doesn’t even torture people in secret prisons for that long… – depends on how you define torture. I’ll accept that the CIA rank and file are smarter than most, but I think you should watch “The Road to Guantanamo” to see how the system otherwise works. Yeah, yeah…you probably said it in jest.

  8. I installed Vista using Boot Camp. Most things worked just fine using the Apple supplied drivers, although I did need to go get nVidia’s video drivers to get City of Heroes to run properly. I then installed Matrix Online to find that the sound was really buggy… created another partition, insalled XP and all things worked fine… I guess having a perfectly good copy of OS X running w/o fail each and every day makes me less tolerant for dealing with driver issues, etc. Plus, whenever I boot to Windows on my Mac, I can’t help but feel infected by it… 🙁

  9. This pretty much sums it up regarding Vista. It was an excerpt from Amazon’s Vista product reviews. Great reading.

    30 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

    “WOW” Vista ruined my computer, February 1, 2007
    Reviewer: Christopher Sheldon “Chris” (New York, NY) – See all my reviews

    “WOW” Vista deletes Windows XP
    “WOW” My Vista installation failed
    “WOW” My computer doesn’t start up anymore
    “WOW” MS tech support does not know how to use Vista
    “WOW” I can’t re-install Vista upgrade because the 1st install deleted XP
    “WOW” I have to reinstall windows XP, then SP 1 + 2, then Vista again
    “WOW” MS tech support has no back up plan for failed installations

    “WOW” “NOW” I am a mac user….

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