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XP marks the spot for a better Vista

January 23, 2008

Remember the date: June 30 2008. That’s when Microsoft plans to sell its last ever Windows XP licences. From that point on it’s Vista or bust for the Redmond gang.

(Well, not bust exactly. Having a few billion lying around does mean you can light all three bars through the winter regardless of how well your latest OS is doing.)

But Microsoft may be hedging its bets. Rumours abound that it’s frantically pulling forward the release of its next consumer OS - snappily titled: Windows 7 - so it can quickly consign Vista to the great Recycle Bin in the sky. And it has form: Windows Me (Mistake Edition) was pitied even by fruit flies, so short was its miserable, lonely life.

Vista is no Me. It does, after all, do its job tolerably well (even if it sucks the life out of your PC to do so). And it looks shiny.

But just as I don’t know anyone who loves Vista, I know no-one who fully loathes it. Vista provides an interface between geek and hardware, and that’s what it’s there to do.

Unfortunately, no-one let Microsoft’s marketers know. As a consequence, we were told to expect Vista to change our sad little lives. And nothing bites harder than promise dashed (sorry Mum). Despite claims of record sales, Windows Vista is on the verge of being labelled a dud. As I write, more than 60,000 people have signed one petition to save XP - and by extension, bin Vista. So what’s their beef?

Most gripes seem to boil down to three issues: promised features are absent, system overheads are too great, and it costs too damn much. Or, to put it another way: Vista’s over-hyped, over-blown and over-priced.

Will Windows 7 fare any better? The portents are decent. After the glacial speed of Vista’s painful birth, Microsoft can’t afford to make us wait too long for its next OS. Windows 7 should entail a few targetted tweaks to Vista with all the kinks ironed out. So it could be that a vote today for XP is a vote for a better ‘Vista’ in the near future.

See also:

Windows Vista review

Posted by: Matt Egan

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Comments

Posted by Gary on January 23, 2008 :

You write nothing but truth and reality Matt.
However, if you posted "Vista’s over-hyped, over-blown and over-priced " into the PCA Forum you would be ridiculed and attacked by the vomit voicing crew and their leader.

I am totally fed up with the creepy views from the man in charge here. He acts like a school girl who returns with an American and MS accent after having a 2 weeks holiday there.

We all know that he is mutton geoff and cannot hear a word said against Microsoft.
I am so pleased that the rest of the PCA journalists are more in touch with it's educated on-line and print readers.

Posted by HadItWithThatLittlePan'sPeopler on January 23, 2008 :

got to say that i have stopped commenting on anything negative on vista in the forum since christmas. too much grief back.
good piece man.
pierre.

Posted by birksy on January 24, 2008 :

Oh how I miss XP! My OLD computer is much faster than my new computer, with superior hardware and 2Gb Ram.
512Mb RAM slower hardware, and XP is still faster.
And what the hell is Vista doing, when I'm doing nothing, and the hard drive sounds like it's downloading a film?
Taskmanager says nothing is happening, but the hard drive is still very busy.

Posted by anskyber on January 24, 2008 :

"I don’t know anyone who loves Vista" Oh come on, do not let a snappy writing style get in the way of balance. You know me now and I'm very happy with Vista thank you.

I think Peter Thomas is happy too. Kill XP and let more share in the benefits of Vista and the Luddites will fall by the wayside.

You see others can engage in hyperbole too.

Posted by Matt Egan on January 24, 2008 :

Pleased to meet you anskyber!

I'm resolutely not saying Vista is a bad product, but it's not as good as it could be. That's my opinion, and you and the Forum Editor are 100% entitled to yours. Long may that be the reason for PCAdvisor.co.uk's existence.

I think you'll get your way with regards to XP, as it goes, so Vista's future is bright.

Mind you, the Luddites were right you know. Much good it did them!

Matt

Posted by Roy Harrison on January 24, 2008 :

Since when has microsoft released a good product? ALL it has ever done is launch a product, find a few thousand buyers, make it better, get it useful, THEN BIN IT for another partly developed product.

Posted by Demonblade on January 24, 2008 :

Some of the us "Luddites" are so cheesed off with even the thought of more MS OS changes that the word "Linux" is cropping up more and more over a beer in the local (we really should get a life...)

Posted by Blues Breaker on January 24, 2008 :

I really dont know what the problem is with Vista, I suspect people are trying to run it a cheap system and it WAS never meant for that.....I know not everyone can afford to upgrade, so XP still exisits, but I also know people who still use 98SE.........I have been using Home Premium edition since early October, it has NEVER crashed and runs everything without a hitch, even the latest games, and I ony have a 2Ghz core 2 duo, the secret is 4 gig of ram......simple as that, it brillaint and I will be sad to see it go if Microsoft try and replace it

Posted by Alistair Mackay on January 24, 2008 :

Windows Vista is too darned slow in many respects to Windows XP, So much so I could write a book on the subject

Posted by Alistair Mackay on January 24, 2008 :

Windows Vista is too darned slow in many respects to Windows XP, So much so I could write a book on the subject

Posted by PurplePenny on January 24, 2008 :

"I don’t know anyone who loves Vista"

You do now! I love it! I never got on with XP, nothing worked in a way that made sense to me. Vista, on the other hand, is intuitive.

I still have to use XP at work and I spend a lot of time getting frustrated with it.

Posted by Matt Egan on January 25, 2008 :

Purple Penny, anskyber and me. We've all properly met today. Ace.

My only substantial point is that Vista could be better. But it is true that one of the issues with Vista is that it requires a heady system to run it properly.

Is it possible that Vista was designed to stretch the minimum spec required, and therefore push PC sales? It doesn't make Vista a bad OS, but it does make it a bad OS for a lot of ordinary folk who, well, don't care about technology for its own sake.

And under those terms, killing XP is unfortunate.

That said, it's post pub time and I may feel differently in the morning...

Matt

Posted by Harry on January 25, 2008 :

I run XP because it came with my computer. I've had to set up some Vista laptops for others recently and dreaded the stage of setting up the wireless network. The CD didn't work, so I rang the helpline. They said: take out the CD, turn the laptop off, connect it to the router, turn the laptop on, start IE. Then they said goodbye, because that was the sum total of everything I had to do. Does it work that way with XP? Vista works differently, sure, but to say XP is easier or better is simple lunacy!

Posted by anskyber on January 25, 2008 :

Me again.

"Is it possible that Vista was designed to stretch the minimum spec required, and therefore push PC sales?" Perhaps, or maybe in common with OS systems before there will always a push on system spec for new a OS. Of course the response is usually that good machines cost too much and outside of what "ordinary folk" can afford. I think initially that is very true.

However, consider this. A dual core with Vista Home Premium, 320GB HD, 19" wide Flat Panel, and 2gigs of RAM. The machine will walk it with no problems.

Oh yes the price? £349 delivered from our friends at Dell.

Posted by LastChip on January 26, 2008 :

We agree Matt!

Somewhere in the distant past (prior to Vista's launch) on the PCA forums, I wrote it was bloated, over-priced and over-hyped.

Nothing's happened to change my mind.

Just happy that I'm writing this via Debian Linux and now have very little need of Microsoft products. I only use MS for one specialised application that I can't find a Linux alternative for; yet!

Apparently, at least 60,000 others agree with us, but I wonder what the real figure is?

Posted by GatesFanNOT on January 27, 2008 :

I'm Sick of being dictated to by Gates trying to rule the tech world with his hyped up expensive ripoffs, sometime back I tried Linux and was quite happy with it and now it has improved considerably, as I am not a gamer I will be going over to it when Gates stops supporting XP, Here is a tip for games designers get working on quality games for linux and you will make a fortune

Posted by Matt Egan on January 27, 2008 :

anskyber, I can't argue with you. But then, I suspect we agree on more than we disagree on anyway. My only argument with Vista is that it isn't enough to make me want to upgrade my hardware.

Matt

Posted by Von Herr on January 27, 2008 :

The Blogs do appear to be a exciting platform where one can express a full and honest opinion on Vista without being lectured or scolded.
In recent times, we do seem to have lost many of the forum's quality, albetit, outspoken performers.

Observing that only 4 threads have been locked within the last two months, stikes me as the new evangelical meeting rooms.

For,it is obvious that many of the happy clappy Vista followers have never owned a decent spec XP computer.
If they did, then they would see Vista as very "over-hyped, over-blown and over-priced" .

Some people buy shoes, some buy the latest bull from MS.

Posted by KateB on January 28, 2008 :

My cat still loves Vista.
Oh, and spam_a_lot.

Posted by PurplePenny on January 28, 2008 :

"For,it is obvious that many of the happy clappy Vista followers have never owned a decent spec XP computer."

Yes, I did. The PC that I built for my husband to game on was just under top of the range when I put XP on it. The PC I am currently running Vista on is near bottom of the range - a budget model with similar specs and price to the Dell quoted by Anskyber.

Posted by Sir Alex-Weed on January 28, 2008 :

It may be an operating system or a forum but when the barriers are engaged to totally defend and constantly ending up with very poor results,this could be decribed as the Vista effect.

We normally then hear the famous quote- "with the manager losing the dressing room" .
Therefore, dictatorships are a game of two halfs!
Half-wits Bill and Ben.

Posted by Jack Fuller on January 28, 2008 :

This super Blog was nearly overlooked by me due to being posted on the 23rd Jan.
A solution would be to show a small league table which hi-lighted the last reply to any given Blog.

I'm sure that many readers will surely just read the recently posted Blogs and, in many cases some, dull Blogs.

Just an idea Matt!

Posted by Matt Egan on January 28, 2008 :

And it's a very good idea Jack. Now passed on the appropriate authorities!

Thanks,

Matt

Posted by Alex on January 29, 2008 :

A lot of the mistakes people make with Vista is keeping its "gloss" (erm, glass/Aero) enabled.

If you turn off Aero and choose a Vista Basic theme instead its much more like XP only with the benefits of Vista (and yes, there are some, mostly mundane improvements to do with renaming/moving files).

Granted you still need about 4 times the HD space to install it than XP and at least 1GB of RAM for it to be comfortable. Once you have done that its about as responsive as XP for most stuff, although theres still a lot more HD curning when exiting from games than on XP.

Posted by itisi on January 31, 2008 :

When will M/soft realise that not everybody wants all the fancy interfaces (aero or otherwise) we just want a simple efficient inexpensive
o/s that works.If it aint broke dont fix it.

Posted by Forum Editor on February 1, 2008 :

"we just want a simple efficient inexpensive
o/s that works.If it aint broke dont fix it."

I rermember much the same thing being said in our forum, way back when Windows XP was launched - no doubt by some of the same people who are waxing lyrical about how wonderful it is.

What goes around comes around, and of course we're all (even me) entitled to an opinion. Vista is far from perfect, you'll not hear me saying otherwise, but to speak about it as if it's the very spawn of the devil is silly - it's a good, stable system with a lot going for it. Microsoft has to release new software or die - no technology business can survive without new products - and I know that the company recognises the feeling in the userbase that modern Windows versions are a tad bloated, to say the least. They are currently working on that, and perhaps we'll see a smaller footprint for the next release, whenever that is.
In the meantime I'll continue to enjoy Vista, and so will a lot of other people.

Posted by MP on February 1, 2008 :

Being a rabid political beast, I get the distinct gut feeling that the right, honorable gentleman has appeared before the right honorable members inorder to explain his actions?

Or has he just been forced out into the open?

I have to agree with Matt's take on XP and Vista.

Posted by MP on February 1, 2008 :

Posted by toni on February 1, 2008 :

the web is getting stickier by the day.

i love my vista lappy.

PC Advisor staff
Blogger Daily news, views and thoughts from the PC Advisor staff as they put together the magazine. Collectively the PC Advisor team has over 100 years of computing experience, so as you'll imagine they're never short of an opinion or two.
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