Mike said:
Paul
I remember people saying that they couldn't find anything, that they
didn't like the look of it, that their old printer or scanner wouldn't
work, that some of their old games were freezing on screen..
Upgraders complained that it needed too much memory, and that their
video cards and peripherals were not supported, that it filled up their
6gb drive...
People were asking how they could put Win 98 back because it was faster
and they felt that they had more control over it.. that XP sucked..
OEMs were supplying machines that could only just handle XP up until the
end of 2003, mainly to keep the price down and catch as many buyers as
they could..
People were walking out of stores with complete systems only in as much
as they had bought printers, keyboards, webcams and joysticks along with
the main bits.. unfortunately, many of the driver CDs contained drivers
up to Win 2000, and some of the stuff was never going to work unless
they visited websites to get XP drivers which may or may not be there..
We have heard all of the 'Vista' complaints before..
Isn't that all the more reason to ship a functional product this time? I
have some of the best hardware available so don't blame the hardware
manufacturers for everything. Sure, drivers can be a nuisance but the
fact is nobody is going to invest time and money writing drivers to
interface hardware to an OS that isn't written yet, and they obviously
hadn't finished writing Vista when they released it.
You complain about people's reaction on changing from 98 to XP but let
us not forget even Microsoft quit supporting XP when SP1 came out, why?
Because SP1 was a complete re-write of a POS released as an OS. I went
from 98SE to W2000 and there were no issues where things had been moved
for the hell of it, just some new stuff that wasn't there before. From
2000 to XP there was little change except XP seemed leaner and cleaner,
until that is the security problems surfaced and SP1 was released which
replaced just about everything in XP with a more bloated but more stable
version.
So your suggestion that this is a typical scenario is actually
reasonable, not because it is the right way but because it is the
Microsoft way with consumer products, release a half assed OS that's
cobbled together, expect people to use it and endorse it and then
release the proper thing a year later. XP now has the best support or
all for hardware, but that was not the case with pre SP1 and for the
same reason Vista is having problems. Please do NOT persist with this
"Users are stupid and do not understand" garbage, would you expect
people to be happy buying a car they cannot drive because the lights
don't work and be fobbed off with excuses that the fault is with the guy
who fitted the wheels?
W2000 was a huge leap forward over 98, and XP despite it problems was
less of a leap forward but a major feat in retaining compatibility.
Vista is neither, it is more of a leap into nowhere. The marketing
method was flawed, if you think ordinary users shouldn't be using it
because they will complain then you shouldn't try to push it onto them,
and you obviously don't think ordinary users can handle it because you
said as much above.
.... remember the