Okay, we already know why the vast majority of MacDailyNews readers (we do have some WIndows-only readers, believe it or not) aren’t “upgrading” to Vista: because for Mac OS X users, it would be one hell of a downgrade. Shiver.
But, presumably for the Windows sufferers, Yahoo! Tech’s Christopher Null tries to sort out why those on Windows XP and older aren’t rushing to “upgrade” to Vista:
What’s turning people off of Vista? Here’s my take, in order of importance:
1) Price.
2) Nothing new to see here.
3) It’s annoying.
4) Tons of stuff is incompatible with Vista.
5) It’s confusing. Everything that XP could do, Vista can do.
6) It’s busted.
Full article, along with 2400+ comments, here.
Related articles:
US DOT, FAA ban ‘upgrading’ to Windows Vista, Explorer 7, Office 2007; looks at Macs – March 02, 2007
Gates: ‘Windows Vista’s had incredible reception’ – February 21, 2007
The Register reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Don’t buy it’ – February 20, 2007
Forbes: ‘Windows Vista utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune’ – February 09, 2007
Digit: Don’t buy Vista; Microsoft may be driving millions to stick with XP or move to Apple Mac – February 05, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Digit: ‘Microsoft’s Windows Vista may be the best reason yet to buy an Apple Mac’ – January 29, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Windows Vista disappoints, so get a Mac – January 29, 2007
CNET Reviews Windows Vista: Is that all? Clunky and not very intuitive vs. Mac OS X; warmed-over XP – January 24, 2007
Mossberg: Microsoft’s Windows Vista offers lesser imitations of Apple’s Mac OS X features – January 18, 2007
Windows Vista disappointment drives longtime ‘Microsoft apologist’ to Apple’s Mac OS X – January 17, 2007
InformationWeek Review: Apple’s Mac OS X shines in comparison with Microsoft’s Windows Vista – January 06, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard is 64-bit done right, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista kludge – August 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
I use an HP laptop running Windows daily. I’m a software developer in an all-MS shop for a large research company (40,000+ employees).
Obviously, outside of work, I use Macs.
The reason I have not upgraded my work machine to Vista is that there’s no way it would run it properly. Oh, and, we’re expressly forbidden to install it.
Because whenever I see the Wow! ads, I hear the voice of Ben Stein from the Visene commercials in my head.
Wow.
7: All of the above.
8: I have a Mac already.
9: Steve Ballmer scares me.
10: Vista is cracked already.
“Even more surprising, and refreshing, was the total absence of ‘Mac sucks’ comments from mindless Windows fanboys. (Mind you, they weren’t being provoked by mindless Mac fanboys either.)”
Now that the link has been posted here, this is obviously about to change…
In my capacity as IT & Web Services Manager for a fairly high-tech ~100-user commercial printing company, I sent this official email to our employees on January 27. It’s good to be in such a position to influence people.
We have a number of mission-critical vertical market apps that are presently Windows-only, especially on the server side. I have to support Windows, but I make it known to our vendors and developers that we would enthusiastically support Mac versions. It’s starting to get results.
—
Good morning,
On Tuesday, January 30, Microsoft will ship the consumer version of its new operating system, Vista. If you haven’t heard of Vista yet, you will — Microsoft has launched a massive marketing campaign suggesting that Vista is the most important new software to be released in years and a must-have upgrade. It is neither.
(Our Company’s) official policy is that we will not deploy or support Vista for production use for at least another year. We will not support users who choose to upgrade their home computers to Vista. At present we have no plans to support Vista in any shape or form. Company computers used in a production capacity are not to be upgraded to Vista under any circumstances.
Vista is an unknown, unproven operating system. There are are many, many changes and there will be many, many bugs. Some programs won’t run under Vista, requiring upgrades to new versions. Some third-party hardware may not work under Vista until drivers are rewritten. There are changes in networking that may cause Vista to not work well on your existing network. In short, Vista is the last thing anyone would want to introduce into a production environment where known performance, consistency and reliability are desirable.
Recommendations regarding personal home computers
My personal advice to you is that at the very least, you refrain from upgrading your home computer to Vista until after Microsoft releases Service Pack 1, probably around the end of this year. If you’re currently in the market to buy a new Windows computer, I recommend that you insist it be delivered with XP Professional (you’ll get a coupon for upgrading to Vista).
Consider Macintosh
If you use your home computer mainly for web browsing and email, I highly recommend that you consider getting a Mac instead. I have no reservations about recommending a Mac — it’s a fantastic home computer that I’d like to see gain share because it means less support headaches for me. Think about that. I’ll be happy to talk with you if you’re interested in learning more about Macs.
Thanks,
xxx xxxxx
IT & Web Services Manager
Our Company
Vista will dominate. Doesn’t make it the best but show how far Apple is behind.
@Greg
Survey: Vista Used Less than 1 percent of PCs
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129525-page,1/article.html#
Here’s the breakdown from February. According to Net Applications, Inc., who collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of more than 40,000 Web sites:
Windows XP 84.3%
Windows 2000 4.8%
Mac OS X on PowerPC 4.3%
Mac OS X on Intel 2.1% (total Mac 6.4% AND RISING!)
Vista 0.93 %
“In related news, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated today that Vista has achieved nearly 20% market share since its consumer market launch on January 30. When pressed with the disparity between Microsoft’s figures and the above figures from Net Applications, Inc., Ballmer allowed that networking remains broken in Vista and therefore the 20% installed base is unable to reach the Internet to be counted in these surveys.”
Wink wink nudge nudge
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MW Let: Let the facts speak for themselves
Didn’t need all of the eye candy, XP works very well, I have a very stable system. Its interesting how many Mac heads are SO excited to put windows on Macs, it’s still a Windoes world. 3.1 was the dominate business OS until the business world was forced to upgrade to Windows for Y2K. XP will be just fine until they release Vista 2. Face it, long time window users have a hard time with change, since most IT departments are ran by long time Window users, your chance of Macs or OSX taking over the corporate world will be a slow battle.
I only boot WINDOWS XP up only when I have school work that requires the use of it, and Oddly it has been working fine. So theres no need for me to upgrade. But the look of Vista is much better than of XP. So I downloaded a Free System theme that changed the look and feel of everything and gave me some Vista Feature and 75% of the look of Vista.
It’s the Vista Transformation Pack 6.0. It’s free and you can easilly trick people that you have vista. Only thing it doesn’t hav is the Clear Transparent sheme on window screens. And that useless Fkip 3D is missing but who will use it?
I’m not kissing A*s about windows but this does give a better look and feel to it. MAC OS X Tiger still rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can get it here: http://www.windowsxlive.net/index.php?page_id=15
Went back to Mac.
Went back to XP.
Funny isn’t it. If you are a regular reader of this site you’d think the BBC was anti-Apple and pro-Microsoft. However, the BBC published yet another anti-Vista article yesterday, on their front page, and MDN ignored it. I even emailed them the link and got an acknowledgement. I guess it doesn’t suit their agenda to show that the BBC is actually providing a balanced coverage…
I looked online and discovered that Dell’s not completely idiotic. Many of their models offer a choice of XP or Vista. =)
Dear Toast Titanium,
A NEWS FLASH!!
My client ZuneTang was electrocuted whilst using a Dell computer and was taken to hospital. Once there they put him on a heart monitor and the damage to his heart was so great they had to put him on life support.
Unfortunately, the life support system was using a variant of Windows Vista. Instead of giving slight electrical jolts to ZT’s ticker it started giving him larger and large electrical pulses. He is now in a critical but stable condition.
If he survives he’ll be considering legal action against Microsoft and in particular Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer over their claims about Microsoft Vista and life support systems.
U.O.M.E. Cashman
Cashman & Cashman
Attorneys at Law
There are many things Vista does better than OSX:
1.
2.
“MS made a better OS – Win95 dominated the landscape”
What planet is this dude living on?
If Vista turns into a Zunedenburg, some mighty big companies are going to go bust.
If you combine wha? (phonetic) and OW!, you get:
wow
Vista. Because it’s better than plunging rusty knitting needles deep into both eyes.
Polgas,
Now that was a funny post!
Hahahah
UPDATE ON ZUNETANG’S HEALTH:
ZuneTang, a moderately well-known Microsoft troll has been moved to another ward at the insistence of his next of kin.
The ward he is now in uses Apple computers and at last count his health was steadily improving. His condition is now listed as being serious but stable.
if we know vista sucks 5 years ago to now;lets talk about other things,like M$ lawsuits,thats fine to me because when M$ gets a lawsuit the world gets more apples than before,i like that phenomenon
@Zoop the Troll
“Its interesting how many Mac heads are SO excited to put windows on Macs, it’s still a Windoes [sic] world.”
Not for this Mac head. There is no excitement to include anything Microsoft for my computing needs. Why ruin a good thing?
MacDailyNews blocks Zune Tang’s posts.
7. Absolutely no must-have features. Windows Defender and the 3D angled windows gimmick are NOT must-haves.
8. It won’t run on most existing PC hardware.
9. Serious peripheral driver issues remain.
So if you need to do a complete hardware (and significant software) upgrade, you might as well take the opportunity to switch to Mac.
Case closed.
Look up the words: “then” and “than” … they are NOT interchangeable.
@Zoop the troll,
The only reason Mac users were excited that Windows CAN be installed on a Mac is because it breaks down the fear of the unknown barriers (clinically known as learned helplnessness) which potential switchers from Windows face.
I don’t know a single Mac user who drools over being able to run Windows, when OS X is so much superior.