Not just bad publicity
By Charles Miller

Since before Microsoft released its new Windows Vista operating system almost two years ago, Vista has received tons of bad publicity; and a lot of criticism in this column. The harsh criticisms have led some readers to erroneously believe I am saying Vista is a dud. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Without question, Windows Vista is reliable, robust and well worth the extra money it costs. In spite of these facts, the buying public has been much slower to buy into Vista than with previous versions. The reason for this is rooted in three facts.

Perhaps without intending to do so, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President Bill Veghte summarized two of those three: “The architectural changes that improved security and resilience in Windows Vista led to compatibility issues with existing hardware and applications.” English translation: “Vista would not run on last year’s hardware.” The cost of buying an all-new computer, a very expensive computer, was the primary drag on public acceptance of the improved operating system and still is.

Veghte continued to the second reason: “Many hardware drivers and applications needed to be updated…some key applications and drivers were not yet available.” Translation: “Microsoft jumped the gun by releasing Vista before the hardware makers were ready.”

And finally, Veghte’s statement concludes, “Since then, Microsoft and its industry partners have been hard at work to address compatibility issues and now the situation is fundamentally different.” No translation needed, that is thankfully the truth now.

The third and final reason for the resistance to Vista is simply that Microsoft is a victim of its own success. In 2001, when Windows XP made its debut, it was not without problems either but the public was eager for something better than Windows 98 and Millennium.


In 2007, when Windows Vista was put on sale, its competition was Windows XP that by then was tried, true and had all the major bugs worked out of it. Ignoring the “switch to Mac,” and “switch to Linux” critics who make up perhaps one to two percent of desktop users, Windows XP is arguably the most dependable, reliable OS ever installed on the desktop computer.

That being said, rest assured that Vista is even better. And to use it to its full potential, all you need to do is plunk down two thousand dollars for a top-of-the-line computer.

As prices for new computer hardware continue to come down, as is the historical trend, a computer with the necessary resources to run Vista will become more affordable and this is going to significantly aid Vista’s market share.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see that all of this was thoroughly predictable. The marketing folks at Microsoft do their darnedest to hype the newest and greatest product, but their customers continue to buy as they always have. Except for those techies who are always out there on the leading edge, everyone else buys a new computer as part of the replacement cycle (when the old one wears out).

That was true in 2002 with XP, it was true in 2007 with Vista, and it will be true in “late 2009,” which is the announced target date for the release of Vista’s successor named Windows 7.

Let us hope that with all of the negative press Microsoft has received over Vista that they will not tarnish the reputation of another good product by repeating the same mistakes again next year.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.