I am no MS fan, nor do I anti-MS, I simply use whats best for my jobs, and
advise our customers on whats best for them, 2000/XP and Office 2003 had
been some of the best came out from Redmond, and frankly, its diffiuclt to
beat, sadly Vista and Office 2007 destroyed what were once good, in the past
12 months, I have ran into problems after problems with Vista and Office
2007, software wont work after upgrade, or simply wont work/works really on
brand new top of the range Dells.
I read some of the earlier posts, one poster stated that its not MS's fault
theres no drivers, its partly true, but Microsoft is the OS maker, they have
overall responsibilies to ensure their products should work by working
closely with closely the manufactures, whats the point of releasing a OS
where its not compatiable with previous OS (XP) drivers, and no new drivers
are avaiable ?
When I had a large installation to do one weekend, trying to copy 2-3GB of
data off each workstation estimated a time that so far ahead, I would be
dead and buried before it finish. When I searched the net for help,
Microsoft apparently had a patch to fix this, but I had to email and
'request' this patch (and wait for the reply) ? Pardon me ? theres a problem
with the OS, a patch to fix it should be waving at me waiting to help. The
list of minor faults can go on and on, but my biggest grunt with Vista, is
that idiotic interface, moving the functions around and renaming them to
something else doesnt help anyone, may be I am old fashion, but what once
were a logical and clear interface is now a maze, yes, things do change
while they progress, but I cant really see this as progress.
I am sure 99% of the users around the globe would just want the following :
A stable kernal
Smaller and faster OS by clever programming
Clear and easy to understand interface
Low to medium hardware requirement with good support for everyday hardware
At the end of the day, most users simply want to turn on their PC, do their
work with the minimum fuss, and enjoy it while doing it, if they needed
more, just like XP, they could buy the latest Graphics card and play the
best games on the planet, need to make music ? buy the latest hardware and
software etc.
Another user posted earlier, Vista Basic SP1 runs fast because its without
all the extras, wouldnt a plain XP do a better job than Vista Basic ?
without the fancy graphics and UAC, Vista is not much more than XP, with the
graphics, we are talking of a machine that needed a lot more powerful
hardware, and at time, is slower than XP and from my own personal
experience, less productive.
Call me an idiot if you like, few months ago, I installed Ofice 2007 on a
batch of machines, no kidding, it took me almost 5 mins just to find the
'print' icon, when I spoke to another technician last week, he laugh and
said he did the same thing, and we have both been fixing and training for
almost 20 years, somehow I think Microsoft went too far with their 'vision'
without actually talking to real users. If they had, we wouldnt be looking
at Vista and MO2007 this way we do today.
I am not trying to bash Microsoft or Vista, overall I do find Vista to be
stable, we in the office just cant cope with the speed and the strange
interface, hardware drivers is a lot better today, almost 80-90% of hardware
we and our customers use are supported, how well they actually work is
another story, think of it as a chain reaction, we deal with around 700+
workstations, and we advise companies on how to IT, if we are not happy with
the product or how it can be supported, we simply advice them to stick to XP
only.
And to the people who keep posting 'GO GO UBUNTU', yes, its a good and
stable OS, but its not for the average Joe, take this example, a 30 year old
mom with Windows Vista and shes not totally happy, she now heard Ubuntu is
great, so she downloads a copy, burn ISO, start PC, Ubunti starts, if now
during installation some hardware on her PC prevents the installation, shes
now stuck with nothing, and where do you get help for Ubuntu ? Yes..... on
the internet, but how will she get online and get help ? Try asking her
neighbours to help with You-Bum-chew ? they may even smack her for being
rude.
At least with Vista or any other Windows, help is not far away, next door,
down the road, newspaper advert, local computer store, it may not be the
best OS, but it is by far the best supported by miles.
Without main stream support, Linux is like Cinderella, all dressed up but
nowhere to go, I do hope companies like Dell or IBM could give it the final
push, once Dell or HP start to ship mainstream and provide proper support
for Linux, it should be like a steam train without stopping, what Dell is
doing with Ubuntu now is like a gimmick or just for marketing
purpose/exercise.
I have not spend much time with Macs so cant comment of it, but it is by far
one of the most beautifullt designed interface, the icons are so pleasing to
look at, everything just seems to fit together, its a shame I havent a clue
on how to make full use of it
But I have seem a number of customers changing to OSX after hearing stories
about Vista, yes, they have not even tried Vista.
