Should Microsoft Dump Vista and Keep XP?

May 28, 2008

If you’re a Microsoft Windows PC user — and most of us still are, despite the Mac’s rising market share among high-end machines — you’re probably as irked as I am by those snarky Apple commercials that taunt us about the numerous shortcomings and imperfections of Windows Vista, the latest version of the Windows operating system. For example, here’s the “yoga” spot:

OK, we get it. The typical Mac user is totally into the business casual look and has the unflappably serene, slightly bemused countenance of a Zen master, while the rest of us are insufferable coat-and-tie-clad poindexters. That hurts a little, you know? But what really sticks in our craw is how the Mac world isn’t even bothering to conceal its obvious schadenfreude toward those of us who’ve switched over to Vista, and thus spend our days tormented by incessant Vista Permissions, searching for new drivers for our suddenly inaccessible old printers and scanners, and endlessly tweaking third-party software programs with which Vista doesn’t seem to want to play nice. And don’t even get us started about the ordeal of trying to upgrade an old computer to Vista. All this for something that, regardless of all those gadgets and graphics special effects, can’t help but coming off like a clunky knockoff of Mac OS X.  The venerable Christian Science Monitor has dubbed Vista “The New Coke of the PC Age ,” while Chicago Sun-Times technology columnist Andy Ihnatko opines:

At this stage, the best thing that you can say about Microsoft's attempt to transition its users to a new, next-generation operating system is that nobody was actually killed. Even so, it might be appropriate to have a bronze plaque installed where the first copy of Vista was sold, so that visiting dignitaries will have a place to lay ceremonial wreaths.

Nevertheless, we’re not about to surrender, march down to the local Apple store and hand our credit card to a shaggy-haired dude in skateboarding attire. Maybe we’re masochistically stubborn. Maybe we’re too cheap to shell out $1,000-plus for a Mac, when PCs go for considerably less. Maybe we actually believe Esquire magazine’s “Five Reasons Why PCs are Better Than Macs”. Maybe the thought of owning a white computer sort of creeps us out, the way that, say, spotting an albino possum in the moonlight would. Let’s just say we have our reasons.

That’s why a few firebrands in the PC-using community — notably, CNET News blogger Don Reisinger — are actually calling upon Microsoft to dump Vista. Others want the software giant to at least continue selling and supporting Vista’s seven-year-old predecessor, Windows XP, which is officially slated for oblivion on June 30, 2008. (A loophole allows PC manufacturers such as Dell to continue installing XP on machines until January 2009, as long as they buy a Vista license also.) The techie publication InfoWorld is sponsoring a Save XP petition, which so far has attracted an astonishing 202,557 signatories.

Digital de-evolution of this sort would have some advantages. To be sure, XP has problems of its own, but by now, most of us have gotten pretty good at tweaks and work-arounds. It also would give our old no-longer-obsolescent XP-capable PCs an indefinite lifespan, saving us the expense of hardware upgrades. On the downside, we’d have to accept a simpler, no-frills user experience — but if we wanted all those bells and whistles, we would have switched to the Mac OS by now anyway, wouldn’t we? We would have to give up the one truly clever Vista gadget. But hey, we’ve managed to get along without Clippy just fine, too.

So what’s your opinion? Feel free to join in the debate below.

Comments

[Ike Austin]

I hate Vista's pop-up windows always telling you to do something, I have the excessive RAM it requires, I hate the way flash applications crash because of it. I hate the updates that never work right. I say get rid of it once and for all, even if we have to go back to Windows 3.1.....

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

I like the idea of Linux, because it's open source, but I'm concerned that it might be too complicated. Maybe I'll try it if one of the computer makers starts offering it instead of Windows.

[Mike Brown]

Just get over it and switch to a Mac. I think there's a Mac version of Microsoft Office, if you absolutely can't do without it. There also are plenty of Mac-only programs that are really excellent and can do stuff that you can't do with a PC. The Mac browsers are way better than clunky old Microsoft Explorer, too.

[French Chick]

I'm a happy Mac user! hahahahaa

[Skeletor]

MACS ARE OK BUT WINNDOWS IS WAY BETTER FOR GAMES!!!!!!!

[Henik]

Sadly is Windows the only platform for games.

If you a gamer and have more then 4GB of RAM, then you need to run Vista 64bit to use it.

If you have less the 4GB of RAM, then run Windows XP.

If you not a gamer, then run Linux, or OSX

Linux can run on all hardware, is free and getting better all the time.

OSX. You need to buy a Mac and power useres have to learn how to tweek the OSX.
It's a simple to use OS, nice interface and will do anyting that normale users want it to do out of the box.
No need to install 20+ programs to protect you computer and be able to do the most simples tasks (Like in windows)

But if you want to play around whit the core of the system, you have to learn to work whit unix, OSX is baset on BSD (a unix kernel, just like Linux)

So
-Windows as longe as games are only made for Windows.
-Mac OSX for the one that do not care about playing the newest hottest games (or play games on a X-Box, PS, Wii)
But want a system that works whit no problems, and easy to get support if anything is wrong.
-Linux Same, if you don't play games, but wan't to beable to controle more core service then on a Mac, or if you don't wan't to buy a Mac.

Linux is getting better and simpler for the common guy to use.

[Linux Gamer]

Linux is a lot more stable than Vista and there are plenty of games.
http://www.linux-gamers.net/

[Joey]

OK, Microsoft is satanic, but Steve Jobs gives me the creeps too. Life was much simpler back in the day, when I had my trusty old Kaypro with CP/M!

[John Brisker]

I think this whole debate about operating systems will be moot in the very near future, as we move toward a world of ubiquitous broadband access and web-based, open source applications that will run on any OS. Basically, the browser of your choice, not the desktop, will be the interface that you deal with. I can even envision a day when PCs as we know them will become obsolete, because all your data will be stored online, where you'll be able to access it with whatever device is convenient at a particular moment.

[Nathan]

This all happened to start collapsing when Bill Gates started leaving.

Vista seemed like an attempt to appease Mac users, but it absolutely drove away all the windows users, even to XP, and probably in some cases 2000.

[Mac Attack]

This is from the Fake Steve Jobs blog
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-word-vistaster.html

FWIW the definition that's going around at the Borg campus is this:

VISTASTER. n. a giant cluster-[expletive deleted]; a colossal mistake; a turning point, inflection point, or event that, in retrospect, turns out to have led to the doom and demise of a once-powerful company, person or organization, eg., "Have you seen Speed Racer? It's a total vistaster."

DERIVATIVES:
vistastrous. adj.
visastrously. adv.

[Mac Attack]

This is from the Fake Steve Jobs blog:

VISTASTER. n. a giant cluster-[expletive deleted; a colossal mistake; a turning point, inflection point, or event that, in retrospect, turns out to have led to the doom and demise of a once-powerful company, person or organization, eg., "Have you seen Speed Racer? It's a total vistaster."

DERIVATIVES:
vistastrous. adj.
visastrously. adv.

[Mac Attack]

Blame that redundant post on Typepad, not me. Agggh.

[Rollo]

The previous three posts are further evidence of Apple's marketing strategy of targeting the most irritating 10 percent of the population.

[Obamarama]

Think of the election this way: Obama is Mac OS X, McCain is...DOS 2.0

[Vista user]

I got a new HP laptop with Vista Premium in December, and it's been running okay for me. It boots up faster than XP did and it hardly ever crashes. XP was awful in that respect, especially as it got older. I've had two problems with it. One is that it won't connect with a printer hooked to an XP desktop on my wireless network, because it claims that it needs permission to do that. The other is that I had to go out and buy all new Vista-compatible software to go with it, which really adds to the expense of upgrading and still doesn't totally eliminate all the compatibility problems anyway.

I guess that I'm semi-satisfied with Vista, but it should have been way better, considering how long it took to develop. Honestly, if you look at how much Macs have improved over the past five years, it's no contest. I've contemplated buying a Mac next time, but I run some apps that only come in Windows versions, and the prospect of installing and running Windows with Boot Camp or whatever on the Mac sounds like an awful lot of work.

[GScully]

I've been running vista since it's business release, the only real issue was a lack of drivers and its new memory usage (meaning it doesn't start at 0x0 but uses it seemingly randomly. Vista is fussy about having good ram and crashes often if it's not 100%.

I have no desire to backtrack to XP, I'm too fond of DX10 and the ability to play games, to the comment "plenty of games on Linux" I say those are not the games I am playing NOW, and linux isn't really fun to use either.

If MS could control the hardware in the systems as MAC does, I dont think we would see any issues with Vista. I'm looking forward to Windows 7 and all the comments about it to come, should be fun.

Also helps to disable UAC on Vista, what a joke.

[Happy XP User]

I think XP is best. Vista requires so much more memory that it's still as slow as XP, and in some cases, slower. I run mostly freeware, and I'm not really sure how much of it would run on Vista. I know Photoshop CS3 works on Vista, but I think it would be faster on XP. Also, I have 19.6 Kbps DIAL-UP!!!! It would not be possible to download updates for Vista!!!

[wonderboy]

19.6 kbps dialup? I was going to ask if you lived in a cave in Afghanistan, but then I checked and discovered that even they have broadband. http://www.liwal.net/broadband.html

[Sharon]

Regarding all these comments--the generation to come that will erase all the existing platforms/environments/explorers will be nanotechnology. So, put on your sun glasses and relax and give it about 5 years for the first nano-pc to arrive on the horizon of your life.