Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

JQ from Upstate New York — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:01:50 GMT

When I heard that Micro Soft would present its new OS to the world, I was as sceptical as the next guy. At the time, my old computer was ancient and about to have the Big One. I purchased a new Dell desk top with more power and memory than I could afford, but bought it anyway. it came preloaded with Vista Home Premium and It hasn't let me down yet. I've had it since Vista came out and it automatically loads all the new updates and everything when needed. I think as long as you have the machine for Vista, you shouldn't have a problem. I use my machine extensively, daily.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

R Dextraze, HHI, SC — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:36:48 GMT

As an unsatisfied Vista user, I am not surprised. I own a small business with a network and several workstations. I own a laptop with vista and last year upgraded pcs with Vista pre-loaded. What a huge mistake!!! Printers, scanners, fax software all claimed to have compatible drivers, but nothing worked. I was fortunate to beg my hardware supplier to provide me with a disk to rollback to XP. Otherwise the cost would have been thousands for replacements. It was not pretty.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Justin, Houston, Texas — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:10:24 GMT

I watched the videos on the Mojave videos. What's really interesting about it is how accurately the subjects reponses were with my own. I installed Vista on my computer at home in February, and I've loved it since. Sure, some things are annoying, but they're easily handled. As I recall, many (myself included) had the same reservations about XP. While I run both OS's on my machines, I do have to admit that I find it annoying that Vista gets such a bad reception by way of media outlets. I love the Mojave tagline, "See for yourself. Decide for yourself." Good stuff!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Underwelmed — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:24:10 GMT

Here is a novel approach . . . . why don't they just fix the damn problems? Just an idea?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, Seattle, WA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:13:42 GMT

It's sad that with Microsoft's great wealth and knowledge pool and experience, this is the best they can come up with to justify Vista, if they would just stop trying to please and do 'everything' and focus on trimming the fat off the OS and making it do what it's designed to do, we would jump onboard, just how they went from Windows 2000 to XP. 2000 was a great nice operating system, yet the managed to make it better.

The other thing they botched is their pricing table.. why have so many flavors when a 'business' version and a 'home' version would do??

Microsoft: Are you 'REALLY' listening to us customers, how long do we have to 'YELL' for you to listen to us and stop pushing us to go the Open Source way??? Cpme out of the 90's already. PLEASE!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, Seattle, WA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:16:49 GMT

One more comment:

Microsoft: When WILL you start optimizing your code.. the fact that storage is now very cheap, doesnt justify the fact why you 'need' 6GB of free space to install the OS. Why in the world do you need 6GB of space to give us an 'layer' to the web and programs, when XP and 2000 took less than 2gb and did just fine.. is AEROGLASS really that heavy?

Stop making us feel like we're yelling into the ocean, you have enough money and resources to do better than this PLEASE.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tom Leonard — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:26:17 GMT

What a clever approach to challenging the stigma Microsoft faces with Vista. The Mojave Experiment excellently highlights the plain and simple fact that while few people are actually aware of the real problems within Vista, most people claim to dislike it having had little or no experience using it. I know, I sound like a Microsoft fan-boy now but honest I’m not. I even use Apple monitors 

I've tested Microsoft products since the DOS days. Early beta and pre-release versions of Windows Vista are not among the finest memories Microsoft has shared with the technology community. I, like many others, were concerned that initially its hardware demand would require many people upgrade or replace their existing PC just to run it, while offering little tangible return other than a little bit of eye candy. Even then, much of the appearance-based enhancements in Vista were already available as third-party add-ons to Windows XP which ran fine on that decrepit Pentium III. This small return on a large consumer investment was only made to look worse by the fact that the big names in the computer industry were slow or reluctant to release launch-date drivers in support of legacy hardware. Basically, what Microsoft was telling the world was that they were replacing XP with a new and exciting operating system and that they expected everyone to be willing to replace everything they had in order to enjoy the cool new look of the "Start Bar". To the average user the sparse new features of Vista did not warrant such an upfront cost in hardware replacement due largely to driver unavailability. I can certainly understand the complaints and the cause for so much trepidation concerning the adoption of a new operating system, but in today’s computing world things are different. Even the entry-level offerings from major computer boxers boast hardware hefty enough to support Vista and the demand for drivers has been met too. Many PC component and peripheral manufacturers have caught up so well that they are now going back through their catalogs to write new drivers for their older equipment. I’ve recently replaced my old PC with a new one running Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 and I have been thoroughly pleased at its performance. I use the heck out of my PC too; handling tasks like filtering a multi-layer 1,000MB image in Photoshop and then printing it on HP’s latest Large-Format Z3100 printer. The software and hardware play nice all day. My productivity has markedly improved, thanks largely to the hardware, but all that to say that Vista has not brought down my computing world leaving me to tear my clothes and dump ashes over my head in shame.

The PC market is constantly changing. Each year brings bigger (or sometimes smaller), better, and faster hardware. To remain cross with Microsoft because the average system at launch could barely handle the new operating system is not exactly fair. With so many cogs in the clock, I hardly consider it fair either that Microsoft is solely to blame for the delay in support from the manufacturers for delivering drivers for their own products. Think about the task Microsoft faces! Who else has been willing to provide an operating system that can support open-ended acceptability of multi-vendor hardware? Steve Jobs put your hand down; it’s always easy to make the best hand when you hold all the cards in the deck.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mike in San Diego — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:54:57 GMT

The only way I will buy Vista is when they lower the price. I cannot see why Microsoft expects the public to pay $150-$300 dollars for a system that is not stable, and will cause a lot of personal stress when it crashes and looses all of my personal files and photos.
I use Windows XP Pro, and do not have any problems with it, as it is stable.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Peter B, Scottsdale, Arizona — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:04:45 GMT

Yup give MS Windows OS another 5 years and they're done. Mac will rule once again. Bye Bye gates and Balmer.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Russ, Warwick RI — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:03:57 GMT

I have Vista on 3 computers a Sony, an HP and one I built, I only have issues on the Sony, but it seems to be Sony software that's doing it. Bottom Line is I'd rather have the occasional blip than get locked into a black box approach to a hardware software synthesis that's not upgradeable.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Charlie, Mobile, AL — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:23:02 GMT

I was always very satisfied with XP myself, and my attitude was, 'Why change if what I've got is working fine?' Then somebody else in my household bought a new Dell notebook off eBay, and it came with Vista installed, and I fell in love with its looks, as it really is a prettier-looking interface, and I liked its new sounds. There are also several other, more technical things I like about it now that I'm actually using it, but before I could install it, my 3-year-old HP Pavilion notebook's memory had to be upgraded to 1GB, which cost me about $130. After I did this and installed Vista, I discovered that the kinks still hadn't been worked out of it well enough yet for it to run completely without any problems on my computer. I only had one minor problem with it, but I was paranoid because of all the rumors, and I was afraid other problems might crop up, so I went back to XP. Then, just recently, within the last two months, I discovered Vista Service Pack 1 has been released, so I cleaned off my hard drive, reinstalled Vista, installed the service pack, and I can tell you, I absolutely love Windows Vista now. Looks matter, and its physical appearance alone is reason enough to want this operating system... but its technology is newer too, and it's a much more security-rich system than XP ever was. If your computer can run XP Professional, and if your memory can be upgraded to at least 1 gigabyte, you can run Vista Home Basic, and don't let that name fool you. "Home Basic," still tops "XP Professional."

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Ken — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:38:07 GMT

Vista seems to be the new Windows ME, which was probably the worst operating system the world has ever seen.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Wayne Wagner, Rochester, NY — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:58:15 GMT

As a consumer who is considering the purchase of a new computer, most of which now include Vista, I would appreciate a link to a source that includes an evaluation and comparison of Vista both good and bad, to assist me in deciding if this purchase with Vista is worth making.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

derek fiedler, annapolis, md — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:06:37 GMT

Over a year and a half ago my wife and I bought her a laptop. A free version of Vista came with it as it was the transition period and my wife didn't want to be left behind in a technical waistland.
I installed it in 8 hours with online help from Microsoft. Make a long story short: its been a nightmare. I'd heard it was a memory hog, but I had no idea how much or the constant video card conflict I'd have.

Can XP be reinstalled with confidence by a geek at Best Buy? or should I do what my wife origionally wanted and get a Mac?

The software I use is best operated on a PC, but I'm not buying another one till I know Vista is long dead, not just resusitated and given some lipstick.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Scott Durrett, St. Louis, Missouri — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:21:44 GMT

It's all media hype! I've been a software developer for over 14 years and I have converted all of my computers over to Vista without ANY problems. In fact, I love the new features of Vista and run a complete photography company on Vista! More people are bitching about Microsoft because others do. We can find issues in EVERY product on the planet. People pinpoint Microsoft because Microsoft has lots of money, nothing else.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Chuck Kelly, Yuma, AZ — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:20:21 GMT

I have a Compaq XP Home system and an HP Vista Ultimate system. Side by side. I had hoped to leave the XP behind. Do not kid yourself: Vista is really bad. Most, repeat *most*, of my product software will not work under Vista. I need to buy new versions of these?! I bought extra RAM just to make Vista work: Vista will not work on the 1GB that came with the HP. 500MB on XP is much faster than 4GB on the Vista. On XP, DVD movies play just fine. On the Vista, fast parts get skipped. With Vista Service Pack 1, the HP video driver crashes, and crashes, and crashes. I need the XP. I do not need the Vista.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Texan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:11:22 GMT

Vista Home Preminum is A-OK with me. My old computer came over with the Pilgrams so a new purchase was a must. 3G Ram and 250G of memory.....Vista is working perfectly. Bought this at Best Buy (tower,large flat screen, keyboard, mouse and the package was a free scanner-printer. $539

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

D , Virginia — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:32:47 GMT

I had Windows XP then built a computer and put Vista on it, so that I could understand how it works. All of my friends come to me to help them out with there computers, so I needed to know. Knowing that all PC computers would have Vista on them soon enough. I don't really see what everyone is complaining about or why you would keep using an out of date product to conduct your buisness or personal matters on. Security is the first thing that comes to mind. Windows XP has been around long enough for "Hackers" (people who know the software better than the developer) to manipulate everything in and around it. As for the stability of Vista, I believe its just hype. I have had no problems from Vista! None. Don't be scared... Learn the software, embrace Vista... :-)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dave Reading PA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:49:16 GMT

I've been using Vista since release and it certainly has come a long way. I will not argue that when it was first released it was a horrible experience, although that wasn't Microsofts fault entirely. Many device drivers from 3rd party companies were not working even though they were "Vista compatible". Now it has been awhile since the OS was released and after SP1 I have no more complaints. The slow file transfer issues have been resolved and I've not had a crash in many moons. It's a great OS; it's just a shame that too many people have written it off after seeing a couple of Apple commercials.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

munkyxtc PA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:56:19 GMT

@Chuck Kelly, Yuma, AZ

Don't blame MS because HP cannot update their drivers to work correctly with the OS. If you should be mad at anyone it should be HP

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Kevin Bradford, Haines, Oregon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:01:26 GMT

Only one comment about Vista...
S L O W...
S L O W...
S L O W . . .
S L O W . . .
Need I say more?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Walker Veliz — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:12:02 GMT

All this talk cracks me up. I have been using Windows XP and a MAC simultaneously for years. Finally, I just gave away my Windows machine because I was almost NEVER using it. I'm not one of those cultic Mac users who say "Mac or nothing" - but I have to give the devil his due... My mac is a SUPERIOR operating system - period.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jacob Bertenthal, Los Angeles, CA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:14:29 GMT

Vista is great if you have no idea what you're doing on a computer with internet access. I, on the other hand, like to do things like play games and run high res videos on my computer. Vista can't handle it. The graphics and processing power the OS sucks require me to set graphics to the lowest setting possible if I'm even going to get a passing speed for my games and high res vidoes jump and skip all the time. Stay away from vista.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jacob Bertenthal, Los Angeles, CA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:18:15 GMT

Oh, and Peter B, Microsoft has been angling to buy out Mac as soon as Google puts out its OS (which I will immediately replace Vista with).

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Carol, Ontario Canada — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:30:46 GMT

I'm still rolling on Windows 2000 and hanging on very finely, thanks alot. I do need a new system, but Vista is holding me back.
MS has rushed to push out every new Windows before it's ready. Then has to scramble with patches. What's wrong with having something WORKING before selling it ???

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

D Copeland, Columbia, SC — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:33:23 GMT

Mac is the smart choice people. Unless of course you have nothing to complain about; therefore, keep windows machines and you'll have plenty complaints for the rest of your life.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

J. Emerick, Dundee, OR — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:39:34 GMT

The "Mojave" campaign is a hoot! Especially when you learn that each of the "converts" was introduced to the "new" OS for all of about 20 minutes with their own personal Microsoft engineer standing over their shoulder to "help".

No word on whether or not UAC was turned off or Aero was tweaked so screens actually came up with some speed or if the device drivers were previously checked or how many hours had been spent by Microsoft "debugging" the new machines before allowing civilians to see them.

In other words, this "test" was decidedly fixed - sort of like the old days when the car companies used to supply fully shaken down (and in some cases hand-built) vehicles to the car magazines as "typical production vehicles" for testing. Now the car magazines generally get their test vehicles by ordering them using blind fronts to stop such practices.

Mojave was a good cover name - since any pretense of objectivity (or honesty) on Microsoft's part was a mirage.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Joseph, Monsey NY — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:43:20 GMT

I'm an IT professional. I suffered with my brand new Lenovo (X61t - preinstalled with Vista Business) for a couple of months before asking my hardware administrator to 'upgrade' it back to XP. Instant relief! I don't know a single person who prefers Vista to XP and that includes the full demographic range of family members, friends and professional associates.

------------------
Money Quote:
... it’s one thing for a paid expert to walk people through a demonstration on a high-powered computer, with all the bells and whistles installed and the latest components added. It’s quite another to try to play your favorite, 5-year-old computer game on the machine, import your family photos or hook up that ancient printer without the benefit of tech support.
------------------

Exactly! I'd love to see a documentary three months from now, from the exact same individuals, telling about how their real-world encounter with Vista compares with the optimized and sanitized dog-and-pony show which was demonstrated to them during the 'Mojave Experiment'.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dr Micro America, Germantown, MD — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:54:02 GMT

I have Windows Vista on my laptop (64-bit) and desktop and love it. No compatibly problems - all my USB devices fired up just fine.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, NJ — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:14:15 GMT

Vista is the best thing ever. Most people that complain about vista haven't used it or tried using it on one of those bargain $200 pcs that would have trouble just surfing the internet on windows xp. Every computer in my house runs windows vista with the except of my work laptop that I can't upgrade. I have vista business on my personal dell laptop, vista home premium on my wife's laptop, and vista ultimate on my desktop that I use for online gaming. Yes if you want to do high demanding tasks like online gaming your going to need at least a core 2 or core 2 quad processor and 4GB of RAM, but those in the gaming world expect and know that. If all you are going to do is web surfing and word processing 2GB of RAM will work fine. I had no issues installing Vista on my older Dell Laptop with a Pentium 4 processor and 2 GB of RAM. If you have good quality hardware and software you can get updated vista drivers and patches without problem.

The only issues I have is that certain features are disabled/removed in certain versions. Business lacks native dvd playback support and home premium isn't capable of joining a domain. If you want all the bells and whistles you will need to buy ultimate.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Eric, Tulsa OK — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:20:01 GMT

This may sound like an appeal to authority. I suppose it is...

I have a master degree in CIS, have scores of certifications, including MCSE, and have worked (in a heavily-technical aspect) of the computer industry for over 15 years.

I've loaded Vista on a half dozen computers now, and frankly I'm disgusted. It is mired with sluggish performance, irritating security features, and a bloated code base. Honestly, XP required 1.5 gigs , and now we need over 6 gigs for Vista. What on EARTH is in this monster? How could it NOT be an absolute pig for resources? As for drivers, who can blame companies for not wanting to commit resources to build drivers for an OS that no one (relatively speaking) wants?

I tell everyone I know. Stay away from Vista, even if it means putting off buying a computer. We also wont be upgrading where I work.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Brandon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:32:53 GMT

I'd love Vista too if all I did was use it to do simple tasks like email, internet and office.

Vista when in the arena of using it for high-end performance, such as gaming, video editing, graphic design or multi-media above low end youtube videos, the issues begin to pile up. Performance, incompatibility, stability, cost and market adoption all become a very key factor. Totally agree with the Author here.

I'm not kidding myself by saying XP is perfect, it has a good share of issues still but that's just it. I had Vista and went back to XP because my performance suffered when using Vista due to crashes, software not being compatible, sluggishness despite upgrades, etc. I don't care who's fault it is, that's not my problem. If it doesn't work with what I need it to work with, then why use it regardless of who's to blame for it's problems?

That's why MS isn't addressing. I'm not obligated to them, but this new campaign makes it seem that it's ME that's the issue, not their poor release, low adoption by the software market, their building an OS on top of a crumbling software structure or their lack of combating marketing when they should have.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, Huntington Beach, cA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:36:03 GMT

I work in I.T., so I upgraded to Vista on my desktop a few months after it came out. No problem whatsoever with my peripherals or software, but file copying was slow, and there were crashes - although far more gracefully handled than with XP.

I also upgraded my 5 year old laptop (which was a little sluggish with XP) shortly thereafter. It bogged it down and made it completely useless.

Then Service Pack 1 came out. My desktop machine is super-stable, and relatively speedy (it's 4 years old w/ 1.5GB RAM). When I applied the SP to the laptop, not only is it useable again, it's faster and more stable than it ever was under XP.

They had problems with Vista early on, but the SP seems to have addressed every problem I've seen. I don't blame people for not wanting to upgrade, but they should take another look before they write it off completely.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Larry, Memphis, TN — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:51:16 GMT

I bought my mother a new DELL Inspiron laptop. At the time, Dell didn't offer the choice between XP or Vista. (Dell has since re-instated) so I was forced into buying Vista for her laptop. I had it loaded with the Dell recommended RAM (512Mb Ram)and from moment one, I was astonished at how painfully slow the system was. Came with plenty of HD space, really nice ATI video card, but you could retrieve a fresh cup of coffee while waiting for system folders to open. Finally after 6 months I bought and installed the maximum RAM allowed. Finally, after further graphics preferences tweaking, her new system was running comparable to my trusty XP laptop. All this to say...VISTA is a major technology miscalculation. MS should rethink and develop a stable, usable platform that compliments it's users, not shame and ridicule the intelligence of their users, as this whole campaign appears to do.
Nice effort MS...Thank you for not fixing the problems that are NOT imaginary so you can turn a blindeye and blame your users instead.
Pathetic....

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jodi Papineau — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:57:06 GMT

I love Vista! First computer was Win 3.11. You need to grow with your computer. New computer, more power etc. means Vista is a great choice!

Now what I don't like it that damned digital cd/radio in my jeep! Er, give me back that dial the station numbers options :)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Brandon, Texas — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:07:34 GMT

"Yup give MS Windows OS another 5 years and they're done. Mac will rule once again. Bye Bye gates and Balmer. "
-Peter B, Scottsdale, Arizona

Wow, are you clueless. Mac never did rule, for one. Two, they run on controlled, overpriced hardware that requires extensive, extensive, extensive testing before any software can receive the Apple logo. Does it work well? Yes. Do you pay 50% more? Yes.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

SAM, Idaho Falls, ID — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:14:12 GMT

The only problem I have had with Vista is not having drivers for older equipment, like scanners. I have 3 computers running Vista and have NO problems with the system, especially with speed. I do very intensive graphics (movie and photo editing) with Adobe Creative Suite CS3 with NO problems. On my one remaining XP computer, it will occasionally hang.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Wes, Orlando FL. — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:27:49 GMT

I am a college student and I talk to people all the time who are exactly like the ones shown in the "Mojave Experiment" ad. They have preconcieved notions about Vista without actually having any hands on experience. Here's what I run Vista on: Compaq presario V5000, Intel Celeron M 1.46 GHz, 1GB RAM, Intel 945 integrated graphics. Basically, my laptop is old and the hardware is basic, yet I run Vista on it without any problems from the operating system. I've never had the system crash, I haven't had any driver issues, and I certainly never "lost" any of my personal files, media or any such thing. I do a lot on this pc including web design and development and while I do have problems because of the hardware (i.e. multitasking is a no go because of the processor) I haven't experienced any of the horror espoused by some people. I'm glad microsoft put out this commercial. Although I'm not sure that showing people they are stupid is the best way to convince them to use your product, it's refreshing to see an ad that reflects what I experience on a daily basis. Seriously people, take the time to pick up a book and learn how to make your OS more stable through proper maintenence, and I would wager that 80% of your problems would go away.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Erik Eberhardt, Hemet, California — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:43:09 GMT

I have a dual boot setup - allowing me to still stay with my XP Pro and yet learn Vista. Software and hardware wise, if the developer has not made the product Vista ready - I just go to my XP Pro configuration. As for the Vista ready products - that's what keeps me exploring and pleased with something new. Vista hasn't made me into a Mac guy - I already use a Mac, too. Collectively, what I like the most about Vista is my 64-bit installation complete with drivers. That's a plus for me and the new games coming out for that platform.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John Doe, Yucaipa, CA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:05:33 GMT

Vista has been awesome. On my little laptop with one gig of ram it runs very fast. Yeah, its a little tweaked out, a lot of the bloat's been removed. Do a google search on how to tweak vista, and it will run a lot faster. I still have the eye candy on and I can run a virtual machine, and test the games I write under visual studio, and iTunes all at the same time. It runs pretty much the same as XP, it just needs a little work. It's been an easy to use system and all of my programs run just fine on it.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dean Allsopp, Seattle, Wash — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:10:32 GMT

I also dual boot with xp pro and vista. Other than the fact I have to replace my printer and scanner AND the retail price for vista is outrageous, I find myself choosing vista more often than not. The biggest con is permissions and security. I'm the administrator, damn-it I should be able access my own files and not have to fight the OS for control.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tomas Cruz, Birmingham AL — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:21:13 GMT

Fact:
The First Release of Windowd Vista was Bugged and the support Driver wise for old peripherals was dismal at best.

But After Service Pack (1)one and more than One Year of MFG's delivering drivers for new equipment and retro engineering drivers for older hardware it is a very good and stable Piece of Software.

The only part is find annoying and it goes away after a while is the Security questions when youre loading new software into the pc. Once youre not installing stuff every 15 mins the system is very pleasing.

Regarding Security questions Microsoft could make it so that a setting will automatically allow all security questions but generate a log of all actions being taken so that if something goes wrong you could unde the actions by going through a Log manager of sorts. (Idea Copyright Tomas Cruz)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

James Hamm, Ottumwa, Iowa — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:33:35 GMT

I have used every version of windows since Dos days. I currently have 3 versions of Vista. I do encounter problems with Vista, but not any more than with any other version. The benefits of this system far outwiegh any difficulties I've encountered. I'm looking forward to the day when windows compatable programs can fully utilize the multi-core processor technology that is currently the new wave for the future.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Carl — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:33:42 GMT

I'd just like to comment on the nature of this Blog in general. This piece like all the others I can find here is overwhelmingly negative and short sided as any piece of journalism so I won't call it that. Instead even as the plain opinion piece it is it's cynicism and derision don't make up for it's overall vaporishness I did however find this entry ironic since it's it's just like Vista, it is a whole lot of unnecessary fluff added onto something that was solid to begin with and just needed to be optimized. MSNBC ditch this Blog and post real news with out feeling or interpretation and Microsoft ditch Vista and give us an stripped down simple version of XP with modern performance coding for new hardware that's 64 bit. Do that and all those trust fund jobless wonderkinds from the Mac world will switch their adds from "Switch" to "please come back! You can use your new ipods as Wii style mice for our new wana be half Linux underperforming OS...if you pay is $40 bucks a year!"
Grrr less slackers more hackers!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

The Grumbler, USA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:47:20 GMT

I got Vista when it 1st came out. Does games and video better than anything out there. Now to the reality. I do a lot of programming for the web and development and find my Vista collects dust while I use my Linux box. 10 years from now it won't be MS or MAC but opensource.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Seth, Tulsa, OK — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:49:57 GMT

didn't Microsoft announce last week that they have made sixty billion in revenue for vista and sold over a hundred million copies. I don't think they hurting when it comes to Vista Sales.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jeff, Colorado Springs — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:59:41 GMT

Vista is a memory hog, kinda slow and very stable. I have absolutely NO PROBLEMS.

A new computer every 5 years or so will keep you from complaining so much. My 6 month old computer is old now. Come on.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dennis, Daly City, California — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:07:04 GMT

Why should I upgrade to Windows Vista when everything is working smoothly on Windows XP? Back in 2002, I remember the nightmares of Windows XP: I wasted a lot of time on XP because there were compatibility issues when XP made its debut, and everything got crushed. Oh God, don't bring my old memories back.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jake, Phoenix, AZ — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:09:01 GMT

As an early adopter of Vista I can't say I am very happy with it - in fact I hate it. First I did not buy cheap computers. The first computer was pretty wiz bang with Vista Home Premium, which I upgrade to Vista Ultimate 32 bit; the only problem is it kept killing mother boards. I had my XP computer refurbished "just in case," which turned out to be fortuitous as the first Vista box ate 4 motherboards before HP supplied me with a brand new computer. The new computer uses Vista Ultimate 64 and it is beyond sluggish. I can literally count to 10 any time the user account control is initiated, and then count to 10 again slowly while the machine comes back up after my response. How often do I wind up doing that, well how often does one install an update? It even requests my persmission to run system programs.

Why am I using Ultimate? I decided it would be nice to encrypt my computer to protect my client's data. All in all the head ache sure has not been worth it.

My other complaint is that old software and some old hardware doesn't work with Vista, so if anybody tells you it will - they are selling you a bill of goods. It has cost me thousands of dollars to upgrade my software, as for the hardware - thank goodness I refurbed that XP box. Even new software doesn't work well on the 64 bit version, including Microsoft Software. This operating system is just plain buggy.

Save often and save early has become my mantra, lest you lose everything to the spinning blue ball of death.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Fester, Arlington, VA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:25:25 GMT

Ho-boy, looks M$ has sent some their shills over to pump up Vista's bad image again. I guess this happens whenever a major story on Vista appears in a national publication on the internet.

I've had nightmares with Vista from day one doing an upgrade from XP to Vista. I ran Microsoft's Upgrade Tool to tell me which version of Windbloze would work best on my 2005 machine, and it determined that Vista Business Edition would be the best version for my particular hardware. It also mentioned some drivers that I needed to upgrade for my ATI card and sound drivers (which I found) and my printer driver (which I didn't).

After spending three or four hours installing it, I finally got it to the desktop and it crawled just opening IE7 or a search window. File transfers from USB sticks had about the same performance as the old USB 1.1 ports. Pathetic.

Fortunately I Ghosted my HD with my previous version of XP so it was a snap to restore, but I remain unimpressed.

A couple of questions I have to ask is this; Does Vista make your computing experience more productive?
and... Is there anything I can do in Vista that I can't do in XP?

Once you decide that, then you'll know which way to go

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Liz, Moline, IL — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:17:17 GMT

I work on Windows XP all day at work and have Vista at home. I like both of them and have no problems with either. Change is not always easy, but people really need to learn to adapt.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

RtB — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:21:49 GMT

Microsoft has their nerve! There isn;t a day that goes by that I don't curse the damn thing. I have been using Windows since its inception and how Microsoft ever got to be king of the mountain beats me. Compared to the Mac, Windows was a joke. Over the years it inched it was toward some semblance of stability and then along came Vista. Fr the first year it crashed every single day, no lie. Now it only crashes twice a week. I still have compatibility problems with nearly everyhing and I wish someone would launch a class action lawsuit against those bastards. What Microsoft has done with that operating system is nothing more than outright negligence and perhaps fraud. The have a knowingly defective product that costs ever single use lost work and much frustration - that's negligence.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Elaine, Minneapolis, MN — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:03:31 GMT

It won't matter how many ads Microsoft runs, I am not giving up my XP. I have Vista on my laptop and I hate it. It is so slow. Species go extinct faster than that thing loads. It won't run some of my son's games (he's 10 and we are talking low key games like Clue Finders) and it wouldn't even run some of his movies. I would like Microsoft to explain to me how running the dvd of a kids movie is a security threat on Vista. My desktop computer runs XP and will be until Vista is dead and buried.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Zack, Ashburn, VA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:29:10 GMT

I just built an enthusiast PC and bought myself a copy of Vista 64-bit. I must say at first I was worried, I had played with OSX and it was well-rounded with amazing features that ran perfectly. Well after using the 64-bit version of Vista for the past two months I have to say I've had little to no problems using it and the OS itself is blazing fast since it runs everything (in terms of using Vista itself, other programs have to be written to take advantage of a 64-bit processor) 64-bit.

I will say I think OSX has more organizational features in terms of your desktop and windows (Spaces and Expose) and the OSX dock is vastly superior (you can stack files, folders, and organize them neatly with ease with the dock) to Vista's task bar that hasn't advanced much since XP. I do have to say the Aero interface is beautiful, but you need a decent amount of RAM to use it - same with the 64-bit version. I have 4GB of RAM and just running the interface costs me 1GB of RAM.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dave, Seattle, WA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:31:52 GMT

It's amazing to me why vista's hated so much. Personally I have one machine at at work and four machines (laptop + home server + desktops) with variety of vista installed. All working fine and snappy.

On a second thought, I guess you can blame the variety of hardware you can throw at Windows system. You can't really say that for mac. People are talking about mac being fast and stable. Well, if they had used the older iBook, just before they switched to Intel, they wouldn't be complaining too much.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Lyn, St Geo, Ut — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:38:17 GMT

I have three laptops, two with window XP (which I love) and a new one with Vista which I detest. I let my hubby use the new one with windows Vista. I cannot stand it. It's terrible. I put it on par with the the operating system that came before windows XP. That's so bad I cannot even remember what the hell that's called. I gave that one to my son!! I have had windows 98, that was great. Why do they keep messing with them and screwing them up???? Vista sucks!!!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Andra K, Attleboro MA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:52:52 GMT

2 years ago Microsoft Emailed me that Win98SE is no longer supported. XP would be supported 2 more years.
I waited for Vista until Jan.30'08 and bought Home Premium pre-installed in a new desktop HewletPackard Pavilion a1730n. It kept freezing and wouldn't sleep. The back-ups I was prompted to make kept failing (HomePremium doesn't have backup feature). I only learned I could have gotten free Microsoft help AFTER too-short Vista warranty period was over. I was "recovered twice over the phone, then had HewletPackard send be their Recovery Disks. I spent countless hours on the phone with HP's outsourced overseas help (they have same training but not command of English language) until 9-29-07. On 9-29-07 a competent phone technician in CANADA fixed it so that I actually got to like Vista.

A month ago I tackled the failed SP1 update and had first crash I had to pay to have fixed. Microsoft System Restore failed (could not go to earlier date). HP's Recovery disks failed: "Boot manager missing," and HewletPackard also failed - when I called I was told that this computer is now TOO OLD to be helped.
I took it to Geeks in BestBuy store with the disks. Geeks recovered faulty Vista (in need of 52 updates) for $130 overnight but it rarely sleeps, 22"monitor's resolution is now a lower 1280 x 1024, I get prompts to backup again and many of the 52 needed updates failed again. A year ago I spent 3 weeks Emailing a Microsoft Windows Update professional to fix updating. This time I rooted around Ms KBs and luckily got Service Pack 1 to work and to heck with the rest.
Old Dell with Win98SE still works offline. I should have bought Vista on a Dell.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Andra K, Attleboro MA — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:56:43 GMT

Vista is great when it works.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Gary, Ellicott City, Maryland — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:15:08 GMT

The Gateway computer I bought came with Vista and as we don't have a lot of other software installed on it, Vista seems to work with MS products. The other software I purchased had all sorts of issues, ex the Norton Anti virus didn't work with my email. Very clever of MS make an OS that only works with MS software.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tina K. Weiser, ID — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:42:18 GMT

My answer to Microsoft operating systems problems. By a Mac. The only time I use a PC is at work, and not by choice.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tom M. Doylestown, PA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:59:25 GMT

Vista is just a piece of junk. I have had more problems with it than I did with 98 and XP. I have gotten no support to fix my issues and all microsoft wants to do is point the finger at everything else. It all comes down to the same thing that every big company has in common. GREED. I am working on the best fix for vista that is available. I'm buying a MAC.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Arcadian Duran, Los Angeles, CA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:30:14 GMT

Vista Sucks, plain and simple!

BRING BACK THE XP!!!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Andrew Walker, Monument, CO — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:06:48 GMT

I'm a CEO of a multi-million $ corp and operate several e-commerce sites. Vista is a NIGHTMARE. I'm running a 1 year old HP Pavillion Laptop with an extra gig of ram.. bringing it to 2 gigs total (ya- 1 gig from factory- i'm pissed that HP would even try to do this). I know what I'm doing when it comes to this stuff, and i've NEVER seen a computer run SO SLOW. This thing runs outta memory constantly. I'm only running a suite of macromedia products, email and web browser and it either tells me the memory is full -or- just doesn't open new windows (extra frustrating). I ran the same progs with an older, "slower" XP machine and NEVER HAD THESE PROBLEMS. THIS IS SO ANNOYING! ARGHHHH!!!! I HATE VISTA!!! I WANT XP!!! >: (

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

justthinkinoutloud. — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:30:52 GMT

I wiped my pc 3 months ago and decided to give vista a try, this is what I discovered. Nothing worked, but no problem there, just had to download new drivers for printers, video etc. After a 3 month trial I discovered you can't bun dvd's with vista withou buying even more expensive software. I already had nero 7, but it is not compatable with vista. I decided I was not going to buy nero 8 just to keep vista happy. I also had a warning that everytime I started vista that the video driver stopped responding, but it recovered itself, annoying, but just doesn't need to happen. After trying several dvd free burning programs, which wouldn't copy a dvd, I came to the conclusion that vista sucks, so I wiped my harddrive again and reinstalled xp. Now everything works again and I can copy dvd's. I too would like a new operating system, and I have tried them all, including a mac. With a mac you will soon discover that it is a windows world, and mac is fine for emailing and making your kids party invitations, but nothing else. I also tried all the major brands of linux, but the problem with linux is there is no easy way to install programs like in windows. Face it, windows is the way to go, and for now xp fills the bill. Maybe the next version will not be as bloated as vista, an operating system just doesn't need to be that big, that is a warning sign right there.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Sam, Ventura, Ca. — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:05:31 GMT

It doesn't do anything for an average user like me that XP didn't do and caused me problems and expense to replace programs and hardware I was perfectly happy with. I wish I had read more about Vista before I bought a new computer. I think Microsoft has gone the way of many large companies (e.g. GM, Chrysler) and is just a bunch of committees and special interests not competent to produce better products for consumers. No wonder Bill Gates bailed out;-)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jim, Minneapolis,MN — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:56:36 GMT

I'm a pc tech...I've been fixing computers for awhile, so I have lots of experience repairing and using all operating systems, except Linux...I have both a newish Mac and a 3 year old system retro-fitted with Vista Home Premium...I setup new computers and diagnose problems with old ones...currently I think Vista is the system I like the most...since they issued SP1, Vista has run significantly better and most of the new Vista computers I've setup lately have had SP1 pre-installed and they run very well and have had little or no problems...I like the User Account Control feature which helps prevent STUPID users from installing spyware...most Mac users are familiar with this same type of procedure that requires an extra step when installing software...lately I've repaired quite a few XP computers that have had the latest and best security software get wrecked by damage from spyware/virus...even though a lot of companies can't switch from XP to Vista because of software or driver issues, I think that most home users should use Vista instead of XP because of security...I think that we've turned the corner in terms of what is the best OS and I frankly think that Vista is better than either Mac, XP or Linux...Mac is still expensive...Mac has less software available...Mac is still trying to be compatible in a Windows world...XP is getting very dated...XP is quite vulnerable to virus/spyware damage...XP has more quirks related to the age of the design...Linux is just not sophisticated enough for people used to Mac or Vista...

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Debbie, Seattle, WA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:13:27 GMT

I think Scott Durrett nails it: "I've been a software developer for over 14 years and I have converted all of my computers over to Vista without ANY problems. "
Bully for Scott, but for the rest of us, Microsoft products can be extremely problematic. The key thing is that we are not all programmers and we don't enjoy dealing with the software and we don't know what those error messages mean and we don't want to spend our time futzing around with our computer. Computer programmers may enjoy that sort of thing and know what they're looking at, but most of us do not. Sure, I can change my oil and pump my own gas too, but I'm not an auto-mechanic and I don't want to work on my car, either. Computers, like cars, are a tool that we want to just work -- turn the key and it starts. Period. Microsoft needs to understand that about its customers.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Edward, Redmond, WA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:37:23 GMT

News Flash **** Vista really is not bad. In fact it is 1. Easier to use than XP for non techies, 2. Faster, yes I said FASTER than XP. 3. Does not slow down like XP does, 4. Has a better updating process 5. Family controls. 6. I can go on and on!! SO SHUT THE ^$%#$#%^ hell up about VISTA not being good! IT IS GREAT!!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Montreal, Canada — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:52:25 GMT

I'm a software engineer.

This time I made a right choice, I bought an IMac, it has 1gb ram and 200gb hard disk, I even use LogicPro/FinalCut and have multiple apps open at the same time, Mac has not let me down yet.

I do have Parallel installed with XP in my mac - I just wanted to use programs like DBArtisan/Toad/XmlSpy that are available only for windows.

I indeed find VISTA very very slow, I advised 4 of my friends specifically to ask for XP while buying DELL, but they did not, and now they are living with the consequences.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Larry Zukerman, Weston, Florida — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:50:27 GMT

Get over it people. Two points.

Fist, I'm sure that there were people who liked Windows 3.1 at one time. Does that mean we should still be using Windows 3.1? I don't think so. Yes, Windows Vista is different from Windows XP. Duh!!! Well, move on and get used to Vista now.

Second, I really get ticked off by people who compare Windows with Mac OS. Let's think about that a second. Mac OS works on how many different computers? Yes, that's right. Just one. Now how many computers does Windows have to work on? That's right. All the rest. You try to make an operating system that works with all the rest and see how good a product you come up with.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

don beihai china — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:38:37 GMT

Hewlet packard and vista, what a matching pair turds

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Bruce, NH — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:53:45 GMT

Vista s*cks. Period. I have machines that run both XP and Vista and I can tell you that I only use the Vista machines when I have no choice. It's much too difficult to find stuff or get anything done with Vista, while XP is much more intuitive. And it's not just because I know XP better than Vista. I've been with Windows since V3.0 and this is the first new version I have absolutely hated rather than cheerfully embraced. To Microsoft: Vista smells! It's a nightmare! When I get my new laptop in a few months, the first thing I plan to do is wipe Vista off the disk and install my old verion of XP, and good ridance to Vista!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dan, Ft. Worth, TX — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:55:17 GMT

I have Vista on three machines in my house - two have Vista Home Basic, one has Home Premium. The other users in my home are not the most computer-savvy, so they are happy with the fact that Vista seems to do what they want it to do. I have SP1 on my laptop, and made the mistake of trying to install it through Windows Update. After that debacle (and restoring the machine to its previous state) I downloaded SP1 directly from Microsoft and burned it to a CD. After turning off EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything - even most services that were running at the time), SP1 installed and ran flawlessly. It's a very stable machine now, on a par with XP. I've also played with Linux, and while it has made great strides on the desktop it's still not capable of doing what I want it to do (among other things, a stable wi-fi connection and VPN). While I think Linux will continue to improve, I think Vista is going to be the de facto standard for the foreseeable future, and will probably even prevail over Windows 7 (which will be nothing more than a re-hashed Vista).

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Andy, North River, NY — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:40:55 GMT

Look, the Mojave thing is right. Everyone thinks Vista stinks, but if you've used it, it is much, much better than XP, particularly running Outlook. Crashes are far less frequent--about the same as on my home mac--and everything is easier. The search component is not a memory hog and integrates easily with Outlook. The anti-Microsoft backlash has gotten to be "popular" so everyone does it... People need to relax about Microsoft and evaluate their products like they do everyone else's.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Bruce Williams — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:45:39 GMT

Vista has SECURITY, at least compared to XP. What you get is a system that isn't red meat for virus hackerd. When Vista was being developed, everyone was ranting about virus and worms destroying desktop computing. Microsoft respomded with MAJOR under the hood work. You just don't see it. So they added a little eye candy to give you something you did see, that is not the reason to switch, the reason to switch is your computer and data is much safer. I don't know about you, but restoring from backup scares me, I have had a few bad experiences with "foolproof" backup software. I would much rather never have to do it.

Oh, by the way, Vista runs fine with me, printer, external drive, sync with my Palm, bluetooth headphones, everything just worked, including an old joystick that never worked right on XP.

I do software development on Vista and Linux, run a two different web servers on Vista, no problem, they run fine while I am watching a Netflix Instant Movie coming off the web.

Not saying everyone has had the same experience, but that is mine.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Gary, Oklahoma City — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:56:22 GMT

I, like Eric from Tulsa, am STILL telling my customers to stay away from Vista, if they can. The problem now is that Microsoft has essentially forced hardware vendors to stop offering XP as an option. I handle software support for 1,000 business customers. We are part of a HUGE public Corp. There isn't a day go by that I don't get a call from a customer who just bought a new machine with some form of VISTA on it. It's always the same. I can't get this to work or that to work. I tell them to call Microsoft, knowing that won't help. And my support calls have increased DRAMITICALLY with Vista machines, even after SP1. Even internally we have to turn off the UAC to get most of our software to run correctly. Even then I still get calls from employees saying something to the effect 'it's telling me that some software is trying to do something, do I want to allow this?' In a lot of cases it's Microsoft's own software asking for permission to run itself. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Vista is the worst OS since ME. Vista is also the first thing Microsoft has done to FORCE me to SERIOUSLY consider getting a Mac for my personal use. Corporate is stuck with Microsoft, can't help them, but I can sure make my life easier and it won't be with Vista.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Victor Lopez, Columbus, Indiana — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:20:50 GMT

Please be aware that Microsoft has a lot of money and resources. They pay companies to go into blogs and comment areas and praise Vista. The fact of the matter still remains: Vista was a horrible mistake. Also if these people were given just a regular computer from Best Buy or Circuit City, unmodified without an expert to guide them through, they would have been sorely disappointed.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mike, Boston, MA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:50:12 GMT

When my XP laptop died I was truly scared to buy a new machine with Vista from all of the negative advertising (mostly by Apple). I have yet to have apsingle problem with Vista. The laptop I bought is by no means a powerhouse and runs Vista Home Premium flawlessly. I have heard upgrades to be a problem, but really think most of Vista's bad press comes from clever, trendy Apple ad campaigns.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Deva, Cedar Hills, UT — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:53:55 GMT

The one thing I hate about Microsoft O.S is the rut they build up over time. Your OS right out of the box is not the same after 6 months of use.

I was using Vista Business in a MacBookPro using Boot Camp. Windows explorer had a bug which drove me nuts(it would show all files in c:\ as Photo images and I had no way to fix this mess). Even if I reset this, it would change its mind the next time I boot up, it would revert back to the photo image layout.

The amount of memory it took to do the day to day stuff was getting idiotic at some point, that I went back to OS X, installed VMWare Fusion and XP Service pack 3. I have allocated only 512MB for the XP VM and its 10 times faster than Vista running native.

Also Vista seems to have some power management issues with Macs. The MacbookPro gets super hot when using Vista, while running OS X, the battery and heat are well under control!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dave D, Saint Louis, Mo — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:43:20 GMT

There is something wrong with Vista? News to me. 15 machines all running fine and secure.

Mac? With chili or cheese?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:06:17 GMT

Might just be time MS scraped the nt kernal and started from scratch instead of recycling a 25 year old core!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Bob Doyle, Toronto — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:07:12 GMT

Every Vista "nightmare" has to do with drivers that should be supplied by a third-party; how is this Microsoft's fault? Also a laugh to see the Mac fanboys claiming that MS releases products before they are ready; try using MobileMe from Apple recently???

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

J. Todd Rash, Scottsdale, AZ — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:49:34 GMT

My company loaded Vista on 99.99% of the computers. They didn't work as they needed to for weeks. They didn't get the network working correctly until they "down" graded to XP. There was one computer (0.01%) in the company that worked flawlessly during this mess - mine. My MacBook Pro with OS 10.5.4 didn't have a single problem.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jose, Northern VA — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:10:44 GMT

I don't think the software itself is a major issue I think the pricing you pay and then have to deal with all those headaches is what bothers a lot of consumers. Why pay a hefty price only to get something that doesn't work properly. I think if they lowered there prices a alot they would get more conversions over to it. For me I am not paying 300 to 400 hundred dollars for an OS thats testy at best.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Steve — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:15:38 GMT

It amazes me that sensible people can't think logically to see right through these Microsoft bashers who flood every forum they can find. Here's the formular for those who can't figure it out; Fact 1...Each package of Vista (Home Premium, let's say) is identical, no matter where you live or where you buy it. Fact 2...Half the responders have no trouble with it at all and thinks Vista's great. The other half have all kinds of problems with it, and therefore say Vista sucks. Fact 3...What does that tell us about the other half? Either they have no idea what they're doing and frankly shouldn't even own a computer, or they actually do know what they're doing, and they're lying just to bash Microsoft.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

BWS, Lorton, VA — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:47:05 GMT

Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works for everybody.

I truly believe M$ has enough deep pockets to pay people to come on blogs like this and tell everybody how great Vista is. Shilling is commonplace among corporations that want to pump up their image and hype the latest thing. Vista is no exception.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Green Minivan Driver, NJ — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:40:25 GMT

Very few problems with Vista so far... only issues are not being able to use my older Handspring Visor, and UMAX scanner. I've retained an older Win98 PC for the scanner, and installed a version of Vector Linux (vectorlinux.com) for coding, surfing and using the Visor. VL runs some Windows programs (even some newer games) better, too, with Wine 1.0 installed!

It really bothered me when I had to look around for a Vista Recovery CD image on the web! The bloody thing didn't even ship with the computer... a bad setup for OEM users. Not a good move, MS.

Oh yeah... I also use the 64 Studio Linux (64studio.com) distro in a partition. I highly recommend it if you're looking to get your hands dirty with some very powerful multimedia apps, without wasting hundred$ of dollar$ on similarly powerful commercial versions. I can use the money saved on appropriate outboard hardware instead, which is more important when audio/video production is involved.

So folks, don't worry... if you love running several OS's like me, you can still do so with Vista on the same PC. Just make sure you have the Vista Recovery disk!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Michael F, Grand Junction, CO — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:13:22 GMT

Down with Vista! I am no computer genius-my skills are mostly elsewhere. It would be nice to have a system that works easily and is easy to navigate. Like my Windows 93 that I sometimes long for. I now have a Lenovo with Vista pre-installed. No defrag option (unless you buy it), S-L-O-W to boot up, play games, shut down, & start programs, multiple mysterious processes working all the time to tie up system so much it often locks up on Age of Empires (a game with official Microsoft ties)! Hard to find files, can't download anything from jpg's to exe's, poorly arranged file system, oh yeah and Lenovo screwed me out of a $300 rebate, too (admittedly not Microsoft's problem, but it was all a package deal). Sometimes I miss the stone age.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Ken, Centreville VA — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:27:46 GMT

Vista might work fine for most people with the appropriate hardware, but it still has a stigma. I remember how Radio Shack had to rush to meet the demand for the original TRS-80, and quality was low. That gave them the nickname Trash-80. Even though all their other models were great, they never overcame the stigma.

I think Vista is Microsoft's Trash-80 moment. No matter how great the operating system really has become, it will never shake the stigma.

Since Microsoft is headed by a salesman, I am not surprised to find that Microsoft thinks it can solve the Vista problem with a sales campaign. They need to do something with the product, even if it is just discontinuing it, tweaking it, giving it new icons, and reissuing it. The problem with the advertising campaign is that it conveys the message, "we aren't fixing it, we are just advertising it differently."

There is no reason why it should be so expensive or so bloated. I also don't see a need for all those versions. One version would be fine. "Home" and "business" are kinds of buyers, not kinds of users, and a person's needs don't depend on how they buy it. Going home from the office doesn't involve a lobotomy. It shouldn't result in a reduced feature set, either.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Elder Norm — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:31:59 GMT

I love reading this comments. I also get a kick out of the ones that are either written by Microsoft shills/trolls (I just love Vista and never have any issues, ever, honest. signed annon. LOL)

Seriously, I see a lot of people that like Vista, but they usually indicate that they are techs. Or at the very least, very into computers.

Me, I am an engineer, but my focus is else where. I just need my systems to work. :And work easy. My older computer has enough trouble running XP with all the virus and spyware apps that keep hogging the cpu (making it run at 100%) thus stopping everything else. Even Microsoft does not seem to be able to fix these issues.

I don't dare move "up"? to Vista. Maybe by the time "7" comes around, I will be ready. ???

Just a thought.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mike — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:51:13 GMT

It's funny to me that alot of the people who complain about operating systems have bought computers from garbage companies like Compaq, HP, and Dell that are loaded with tons of extra junk that are not from Microsoft. They are also such "experts" that they need the Geek Squad to install RAM for them. If thet aren't capable of something as simple as opening a case and popping RAM into a slot, how can they justify making technical opinions on any operating system?

Suggestions:
1) if you can't build your own machine, get one from a local dealer that will confiqure the computer for you. (as well as save you alot of money)

2) Stop pressing "yes" or "continue" without reading what process you are about to start

3) Stop looking at free porn and stealing movies without thinking of the consequences of navigating to shady sites or downloading peer to peer software

4) System restore is not a substitute for a virus scan or regular system maintenance

5) NEVER EVER call yourself an expert in computers. There are always people who know infinately more than you

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Hoby, Seattle WA — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:38:11 GMT

I think this is a horribly deceptive campaign and MS should face some kind of public embarrassment in the form of forced disclosure or unfavorable news reports. From the very premise right down to the way the subjects appear on screen.. I'm sure the people who engineered this campaign think they did such a clever job but what they've made is an example of how not to make ethical promotions.

If Mohave was actually a distribution of Linux or something, then it would be fair game. As it is though, it's yet another case of "advertising" at its worst.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Rob Mendick, Omaha, NE — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:41:47 GMT

Microsoft is obviously at the point of no return with Vista. Too many promises, over budgeted rewrites and not enough results.

If you can afford to own a system with a 200GB HD, 3GHz processor and 4GB RAM, you SHOULD be fine. In reality, your screen should crack from the data breaking the sound barrier flying onto it, not just perform "fine".

Trim the fat. You can't be everybodys friend. A Vista home and pro edition would help minimize the sparse problems. I stopped counting Vista versions after five, because theres only five Starburst flavors and they seem to be doing ok. We want a cheeseburger and fries, not a pan seared tilapia with a strawberry glaze, that ends up tasting like fish sticks.

I find this campaign silly, but necessary, from a company that bullied its way to the top, got cute, and now is falling behind.

Empires crumble eventually. Vista is just speeding it up. And the sooner Microsoft acknowledges it, they would scrap it, and the better off they would be.

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it"
-Windows ME

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Don Syracuse NY — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:18:06 GMT

I think Microsoft is missing the point that one of the biggest reasons to hold back is not wanting to shell out for better components to run it. My better machine has Vista on it, my lesser machine doesn't. Not until I get around to ugrading the hardware.

I think the haters are missing the point as well. The compatibility issues are not MS's issue, but the vendors issue.

People just cannot see the forest for the trees.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Martin Suddsberry, The O.C. California — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:27:28 GMT

I find it interesting how it has taken Microsoft practically 20 years to come up with an OS that is as stable as XP, because this is the first reliable OS that MS has had.

Apple did it in 1984 with the Mac, so why should we all be so excited? Relieved is more like it.

Forget Vista, it doesn't do anything more useful than XP, so why shell out the cash?

Further, I like PCs' better than Apple products because I don't like Steve Jobs telling me what is going to be under the hood, or making me send back my ipod to the "center for re-programing" just because the lousy battery needs replacing at the cost of $200.00.

Thats why Apple will never gain market share.

Sure they make great "toys" but high school kids don't actually earn the money to buy that crap, so the demand will always be limited.

Mark my words, "Microsoft's days are numbered" because they no longer have any "killer app."

Sell your stock now while its worth something. Once Balmer sells his, too bad.

Even MS Office is passe, my copy from 2000 works just fine and I see no reason to replace it for $1,000.00!

Moreover, everyone I am swapping documents with on a daily basis has copies of Office that are of a similar age, or older.

Once someone comes out with an office suite for Linux, MS will be over, unless they can sue someone.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mike Porcellana — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:57:49 GMT

As a legit systems admin for a small company in NJ, I support 40+ desktops in a simple 4 server single domain environment. Eric from Tulsa "supposedly" has all these certifications, but I for one doubt it highly. Why? Well, I have no certs, but many years(20+) of experience in the field, plus, for someone with an MCSE, I would think he'd be clearer on the 1.5 gig vs. 6 gigs debate. Why? Well, with disk space at incredibly low cost, why care how much space Vista takes? I mean, c'mon, you can buy a TERABYTE (1000 gig) drive for less than $200...I paid $239 for a 1.6 gig drive in 1997 (still have the receipt). Disk space is meaningless. In reality, what slows down ANY computer is the bloated software that computer manufacturers insist on installing on every machine they ship.

I recently built a Vista machine with a 3Ghz Core2Duo processor, 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM, a RaptorX 10k rpm 150GB drive, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB video card, DVD drive, 600 watt power supply, Zalman CPU fan, and case for under $900. Compared to the utter garbage that Dell sells for twice the price, this machine smokes running Vista. (Disclosure for the geeks who get it: yes, under 32-bit OS, Vista will only see the first 3.28 gigs of RAM, but with 4 gigs costing under $70, who cares?)

If you have reasonable skills, any person can build their own system and install the OS themselves and save a bundle. Make no mistake, it's the junk that all major computer mfgrs. install that slow down your computer. Uninstall the junk, or run msconfig to keep it from starting up. Funny that the Apple brigade has chimed in...let's not forget that you pay a massive premium for a pretty case. Mac OSX isn't exactly Speed Racer, either...plus, Apple's own Quick Time software is a memory hog, and, no matter how many times you try to prevent and disable Quick Time from running TSR at startup, it keeps putting itself back in the registry to run at startup. Thanks, Steve Jobs! Lastly, I don't like someone like Mr. Ultrahip West Coast jackass telling me what I can and can't run/install on MY purchase.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Keith Conner — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:49:29 GMT

I use XP on a desktop and Vista on my new laptop. I like Vista much better but when I tried to upgrade to Vista on the desktop, I found I'd have to upgrade the CD/DVD player and the video card. It seems unusual because the desktop was only about a year old. No problems with Vista crashing as with XP. Much easier and more efficient to use too. I like Vista better than any version of XP by far.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Paul, Saint Paul, MN — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:04:33 GMT

"didn't Microsoft announce last week that they have made sixty billion in revenue for vista and sold over a hundred million copies. I don't think they hurting when it comes to Vista Sales."

This also includes sales of Vista that are rolled back to XP. So you can buy a new PC, say you want XP on it instead of Vista, and due to their roll back licensing, it still counts as a Vista sale.

I have 5 PC's, 2 came with Vista, and they're both now dual booting XP and Vista. I have not seen any performance improvement at all. None of the games I have played (Battlefield 2 and 2142, Doom 3, UT3, Crysis, Quake 4, WoW, Civ4) have higher frame rates in Vista than XP. UAC enabled by default just shows Microsoft did not want to patch their security holes with actual security, just verification prompts.

Looking back, this Vista release looks a lot like their Windows ME release. Everyone had 98 (or 98 SE) and were very satisfied. ME came out and barely anyone jumped because of ease of use, security, driver support, and the fact that 98 was still suiting the computing needs of the time, just like XP is now.

The problem Microsoft has selling Vista is that Vista offers nothing new in terms of computing for most users. There is nothing that I NEED to have Vista for, outside of its downfalls.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dave — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:42:08 GMT

Oddly, when I saw the commercial, I thought they called it Windows Mohammed. At the end, I was wondering what the Mojave project was. Of course, you could tell from the way the people were sitting that they weren't using the computers, just looking at them.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jon E, Anaheim, CA — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:20:14 GMT

Everyone has a point as to why Vista fails. You either are going to get a new computer that can handle the OS and it's essentially free - you don't notice you're paying anything for it. Most people aren't running out to buy new computers just to have a new OS and the price is crippling for most average people that don't make $30+ an hour. Also, the promised discounted price was a sham as you had to look really hard to find this as they didn't explain to people where the discounted Vista is/was. Also, any new OS should have compatibility with any legacy hardware built in - scanners, printers. There should be no problems. ALSO, Mac's OS's are nice and people aren't bent on hacking them and they keep the price at $100, not $150 for an upgrade that doesn't even look nice. It's supposed to be a new sleek OS, yet you have to pay $200 for "premium" just to get the sleek looking Aero - why bother? When people upgrade they want a nice look and not have to pay extra for it in a new OS. $69.99 is all it's worth since most people will have to pay more and more for memory, printers, scanners, etc etc etc.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

D Nelson, Denver, CO — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:17:50 GMT

Wow... Microsoft has pulled out all the stops. Do they actually pay people to post here or are these just their employees? Several mention that Vista is worth it for the new functionality. What new functionality exactly does Vista provide? I used it for several months before giving up on it and the only thing I miss about it is the new Freecell game.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Bill — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:25:47 GMT

Keep in mind that all these glowing reviews from "techies" are probably from MS partners that get paid big bucks to re-sell Microsoft software.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Keith — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:38:28 GMT

I have Vista on my PC at home and I agree that it has issues, but I had just as many issues when I upgraded from DOS to Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

RE Cloud Yoch — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:46:45 GMT

I bought a cheap HP laptop with Vista (in classic mode) and haven't had any problems. i'd like more RAM for gaming, but that would be completely cosmetic. all my devices, camera, pen tablet, and scanner, etc work as they should with no compatibility issues.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:00:02 GMT

I thought an objective point of view might help...

I have Vista Ultimate installed on a pretty recent laptop (about 1 year old). Dual 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM,200 GB 7,200RPM HDD, 128 MB NVidia Quadro 135 video card. The OS runs fine, and finally most drivers have been updated. My old HP printer works, SonicWall Global VPN client works, it's all good. There are a few good features compared to XP, memory management seems pretty good, search indexer is not as painful, and there's enough eye candy to feel like your using a modern OS. I wouldn't shell out $200 for this, but if it's pre-installed I don't understand why anybody purchasing a new machine would downgrade.

I like the new security features. I see plenty of people bitching about the frequent prompts, but I personally don't mind it, and it's pretty easy to turn off anyway (see Mac comments further down).

As a software engineer, I absolutely love IIS 7, and anybody developing for Windows Server 2008 (which is a very good OS btw) pretty much has to upgrade to Vista, so that's a no-brainer. Office 2007, VS 2008 Team System run well on it, too, although those probably work fine on XP as well.

If like 75% of home users all I needed from my PC was a web browser, image / music management software and an office suite, I'd definitely go with Ubuntu / Firefox / Picasa / OpenOffice. It's free and works pretty damn well. I have several flavors running as virtual machines, I must say I'm really impressed. GUI is nice, and yum is one of those great, elegant features you can only find in open source software.

As for Mac, I own one as well (a MacBook I bought a month ago). I've actually been a Mac user since '94. Why people consider Mac OS X superior to Linux or Vista is beyond me. Seriously, I just don't get it. I guess it's the whole Steve Jobs man-crush thing.

- Security prompts are constant, way more annoying than Vista.
- Try connecting to your IPSec VPN server. Enjoy.
- System preferences are just as confusing as Vista's control panel. Try creating a PPT VPN connection.
- Productivity software is scarce. Mac's proudest moment in inter-operability was the release of Office 2008 for the Mac. Talk about irony.
- iWork is a nice toy, makes pretty graphics and all. But extending it is virtually impossible, it doesn't natively support any standard format (OOXML and ODF support is there but you'll lose some effects), the Apple file format is not documented (they pulled the XSDs from their web site after v2). I started working on supporting Keynote for one of my app and gave up after digging through it for a couple days. Case in point: try emailing a keynote file without zipping it. Surprise - you'll find out it's actually not a file but a hacked folder structure. How's that for great design?
- Try upgrading you hard drive on your pretty MacBook. It took me 90 minutes and 40 screws on my old PowerBook G4. I'm not kidding. The most painful hardware task I've ever experienced.
- You can't create a MacOS Virtual HD without hacking the OS and breaking the Apple license. You want to develop for the Mac? You'll have to buy a Mac. No wonder nobody bothers dealing with it. That right there is worth a boycot by the entire developer community.
- Overall a Mac is the most closed system you can find these days. No real developer support to speak of. No extensibility points. Scarce public APIs. Not that I have a problem with it, it's been Apple's strategy for 25 years. But to see the Mac platform getting so much support from the open source community is unbelievably ironic.
- Vista's biggest problem was lack of driver support and incompatibility with legacy systems. Macs have been plagued with the same problems forever.
- Price gap for equivalent PC system is preposterous.

I can only see 1 reason why anybody would pay 30% more for an apple logo: status symbol. And a free apple sticker you can put on the back on your car.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Roger, Dallas, TX — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:57:37 GMT

OK, not a computer guy, but I know a few .. when it came time to build a new computer, one of them suggested going the open source route .. scared the hell out of me, but he was persuasive ... new machine; core 2 quad, 4 gig 1066 ram, nvidia video w 256 mb ram, 500 gig hd. Installed Linux Mint Daryna, and everything else I need from the open source repository, and i couldn't be happier .. nary a crash, virus or spyware. Maybe the answer to MS would be to UNCOMPLICATE things.

Just my 2 cents,

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Scott, San Diego CA — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:09:33 GMT

Are you guys smoking crack? Windows vista is a complete joke. Why? Efficiency, simplicity and ability to perform instantaneous actions or speed, it cannot keep up. My AMD Duron 1.3 hz XP 5 years old with 1 gig of ram smokes my brand new AMD dual core with 3gigs of ram. I know this because when I click a task on vista I see the Blue circle Icon spinning before it does anything, it is always thinking, the blue circle is always spinning (it is too slow)however my old XP duron instantaneous performs tasks without the thinking. I want a refund, Microsoft is a Fraud, I cannot even install XP on the new computer because of the firmware!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Adam, Seattle, WA — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:16:03 GMT

Vista is Microsoft's ever-so-tardy response to OS X. The problem is that while Apple figured out ages ago how to make plug-and-play and generally high stability along with a gorgeous interface a reality for their users, Microsoft has only managed to get one or the other or neither into any of their operating systems at any given time. Closest call was XP, and even that left some to be desired. I don't mean to go all fanboy - but to the person who said Microsoft was positioned to buy Apple... keep dreaming. No way do those two companies synergize. Completely different cultures, and no way that gets past the anti-trust regulators.

The Mojave Campaign wouldn't have been needed if Microsoft would engineer a good product. Their success in general is only based on a strong business model - partnering with boxers. They got ubiquity - and that's how they made their money. Had they not had this strategy idea, MS would long ago have withered and died.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Nick Taulbee — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:56:31 GMT

Now hold on folks...............Sorry had to wait for Vista....................Oh there it goes again..........Hold on just let me copy and paste....................Oh gees can't get that to work either...............Oh how about ..............Excel............Nah that doesn't work........IE just froze while I was writng this. Is there a mailing address that I can send this to??? Hold on that's right word may or may not find my docs and I forgot my printer drivers have to be re-installed again first, My disk is getting worn maybe I'll e mail for another copy....Hmmm... back to the IE issues.
Well with that said...sort of, Vista is an inferior troubled operating system any way I have looked at it.
Maybe my mistake was buying a new system with Professional installed.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, Etna, Maine — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:55:38 GMT

Ok, I can see the upgrade complaints regarding the requirements needs, lack of drivers, etc. as being issues. But for any newer systems, I do not understand the complaining that I have read re: Vista. I have a rather middle of the road system that I purchased last year (AMD X2 5000, 3 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8500) that runs extremely fast with Vista. I don't ever "sit and watch" the blue circle, as some people have commented. If you have a somewhat recent computer you should not have any trouble running Vista. I will say that RAM does matter, and if you are running the Aero "skin", having a decent 3D graphics chip also does matter. My initial setup only had 1GB RAM and the onboard graphics chip, so I dropped about $100 to get the upgrade the system and it works beautifully. All told, the system still only cost about $700 a year ago - it could be easily built for $500-600 now, which is really a pittance when it comes to a new system.

Features-wise, I do prefer Vista over XP. To me its a no brainer - it has everything XP had, plus more features. The interface is much nicer - that does matter. I like that I can have my regular OS, and still have Windows Media Center built in. Would I spend money to upgrade an XP machine to Vista? Probably not. Would I prefer to be using Vista over XP, all things being equal? Absolutely.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

hu k — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:39:08 GMT

Maybe MS shouldn't have changed the video and other driver stack at the last minute before release, forcing vendors to REWRITE drivers for a second time.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Salah — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:36:00 GMT

Vista is an excellent OS. The problem is not the OS rather it's the un-educated users (We are talking the masses here) whom does not have a clue.

I see people all the time installing junk software without ever knowing what is going on, and once the OS starts to slow down or crash it is now Windows fault. A bad OS!!!!!

Please people. Stay away from PC's and stick to your TV's it's much safer and does not require much brains.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Andy, Sharon, PA — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:39:51 GMT

I work in tech support. In my experience, 99% of the time when someone complains about Vista, the problem is actually caused by something else (usually user error). Vista has become a convenient scapegoat for people who don't know what they're doing and would rather blame someone else than admit their own ignorance.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

David Shawver — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:04:05 GMT

I would rather have windows 95 or 3.1 instead of Vista. It is not compatable with any of the hardware I own. SUB harddrive does not work. DVD Digital camera dont work. This system Sucks.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Li, FL — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:43:19 GMT

I recently purchased a Dell with Vista Home Premium. After turning off the annoying user account control and Windows "Defender," I haven't had many problems yet, but the laptop is only a week old.

Keeping XP is a short-term option, anyway. Sure, right now there are lots of products and drivers that are XP- but not Vista-compatible, but as time goes on, that trend will reverse, and XP users will not be able to find apps or drivers for new devices. Microsoft's next OS is apparently going to be the next generation of Vista, too, not a completely new platform, so while I miss XP, I know that change is inevitable.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Rob Verkest, Sydney, NSW (Australia) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:02:58 GMT

I had a disastrous driver (nvidia on XP) install shortly after arriving overseas. Our cds were still on the ocean, so my move to Vista wasn't planned. Still, it's been fantastic.

I recently started a job where I have XP on the desktop and it's painful.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Rod — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:51:25 GMT

Same noise as always.
Whenever a new Windows system comes out, there is a lot of yelling and screaming about how upgrades were scary and the new system had bugs and you should stay with the old one...then when the next edition comes out the same people who were complaining about that system don't want to give it up.

Relax, people Vista works just fine. There is a learning curve as you get used to a few new features and changes in old ones, but otherwise it works just fine.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jeffrey, New York, NY — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:36:49 GMT

I dont see any reason for this campaingn. In my opinion vista is a very capabale and honest operating system.

I dont see the must to upgrade from XP, but it does have a lot of important changes that help out, especially in navigation.

Compatibility with old programs? You stupid?
There are always work arounds, figure it out.

Ease of use? Ya duh.

Security? So far so good, no viruses no hacks.
Couldnt say the same for past windows systems.

Looks? I love the look, thats one of the prime reasons I got it!

I'm not "pro" microsoft per say, but it was a little expensive for ultimate even the upg version. They did miss some things I wanted in the OS and even sent the as suggestions. But other then that I'm happy with the OS, and cant wait for 7.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Michael, Grand Rapids MI — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:30:15 GMT

Am I the only one that thinks this "blog" would be better served if the images of the ads were actually clickable links to the ads or--God forbid--embedded videos? The way this is set up doesn't promote actually SEEING the ad in question. I'm a crybaby, right?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Hugh, Alaska — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:21:09 GMT

WE should be able to use whatever system is comfortable to us. If it's XP then fine, or Vista fine. But we should bot be forced into something we do not want. Some people are fomfortable and want to stay with XP Microsoft leave them alone. Fix Vista and maybe we'll all come on board. In June I purchased a new desktop through Dell about 2 weeks before the Microsoft schedule July 1 date of no longer making XP available. I am fine with XP and will probably give Vista a try when I purchase a laptop this month for my son for college. The system we choose to use should be our choice and not forced into using something that is eating up our systme memory and frustrating us. Vista has a bad name because people have tried to used it and been forced into spending extra to beef up their systems. As long as that is the case Vista will continue to be cursed and hated for many years to come.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tim Adams — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:33:18 GMT

I was a beta for Vista, didn't like it, spent part of my time this summer changing government owned laptops back to XP for the elections office. Vista works pretty well, but quite frankly, for the money I pay, I expect a lot better. An example; "Why does my window constantly collaspe when I click or scroll?" That's a first year HTML writer's mistake.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

John, OKC OK — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:09:23 GMT

It seems like every other Windows OS is a dog. Windows 98, then the pig, ME. Windows XP, then the HOG, Vista. I see no real improvements to Vista to justify upgrading to it. Software hasn't gotten THAT much more complicated. I don't see why I should give up XP yet. And Vista caved to the RIAA and MPAA by locking out direct access to the audio hardware, and other junk that slows my system. Microsoft should care more about who buys their software, not the music labels.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Liz, Hemet, CA — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:27:28 GMT

For those of you who read this, like Vista and have printed things from it, please help. How do I get my computer to not automatically 'print to file' and explain to me what the purpose it serves other than saving your file/webpage/other to print from another network?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Maurizio Pescatori, Rome, Italy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:39:42 GMT

I'm 48 and do not "love" major change in the working environment.
The GUI on my PC belong to my working environment, and I cannot afford to invest days and days just to nuderstand what the OS expetcs from me, before I can finally get what I expect from it.
So, when Win3.11 evolved to Win95, I griped and groaned, but learned the new OS.
Then came Win98, and I was pleased with its stability.
When WinXP came along, the first thing I asked was "does it look like Win98? And I liked the affermative reply, WinXP can be made to look like Win98.
When I tried Vista, I was not pleased.
Is it really that difficult to engineer a GUI that resembles the previous GUI?
I'm not talking about extra bells and whistles, I'm talking about a basic GUI anybody can feel comfortable with.
After all, how many of us would be willing to drive a car whose steering wheel and foot pedals respond in a more "creative" fashion?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Cate, Atlanta GA — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:13:27 GMT

Upon the recent demise of my last remaining PC, I was looking for a replacement. After thinking about the fact that pretty much everything comes with Vista, and looking at that future, I replaced my last PC with a 24" iMac.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

MIT74grad, Atlanta, GA — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:48:19 GMT

Personally, I have had no problems with Vista (although the amount of storage required could be a problem on older machines). I started at MIT writing Fortran on punch cards and machine language for old Wangs; graduated to an Apple II with only a floppy drive; made the transition to Windows when Apple decided to destroy itself by refusing to license clones in the '80s; and have been through all Windows versions since. I now run XP on my office machine and Vista on my laptop. Both work extremely well, although Vista is definitely more visually attractive and user-friendly. I've never had a single problem with device drivers on Vista. Although it is not significantly different (to me) from XP in performance, it is more attractive and (to me) user-friendly. On the other hand, I'm not sure it is worth another 4+ gigs of hard drive space for its small improvements, although such storage space is unbelievably cheap now). But until we get reliable open source operating systems there isn't much point in complaining about the owner of the monopoly...

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Clint Burton — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:34:57 GMT

I am a sys admin for a small company and I have no plans to upgrade to Vista in the near future, the way I see it is that if the PC is new vista will work well with it, but if the pc is 1-2 years old you will have some troubles, I have also noticed that if you run the upgrade from xp to vista it has all kinds of problems but if you take the same hardware and do a clean install it can work like a charm, I run both XP and vista in my home, the vista machine is a home grown machine that I built and runs vista ultimate have never had any issues with it but getting a driver to work with my hdtv card, I dont see this has being a stopping point cuz that wasnt MS issue, I did get past the issue and the Pc works great. MS will at some point stop making updates and service packs for XP then is when the fun will begin and everyone will get on the Bus to vista lets just hope its not the short Bus.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Scott, Grand Rapids, MI — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:11:19 GMT

XP works very well, that's all I want. Where's the incentive to forgo time spent using my computer for the frustration of relearning the most basic tasks?

In casual conversation I have yet to find anyone that sees an improvement in Vista and the office suite is most often viewed as a "dumbed down" replacement with less functionality. A friend who is a college professor teaching the Vista office suite views the product as a step backwards.

Why do I want to spend money because Vista may not be as bad as I think? (I've used every operating system, except ME and several early Windows Shells, since the IBM PC began with DOS.)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

walt, Hoosick Falls, NY. — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:19:39 GMT

I have run XP and Vista from the pre-release beta versions and found more problems with beta version of XP that beta version of Vista. I have a Acer laptop with vista that runs great. I will say that the hardware is important. The laptop started out with 512 Mb of ram and a AMD Sempron, it was a bit slow. I replaced the processor with a turion 64 bit processor and added another 512 megs of ram, and this unit runs great. I also put a AMD dual core system into service that has 3 Gb of ram and this has been the most stable computer I have had to date. I also have a system with XP, it is a new dual core system but its not quite as stable the vista system.
As for drivers for printers and scanners, they worked as soon as the USB cord was pluged in. I have one HP ink jet I got in the days of Windows ME, it started with no problems, my newest printer is a HP lazer color again no problems.
How ever the 64 Bit versions have had issues with drivers, these would do best on a business network.
I think of the people with problems must have been misinformed by poorly trained sales people. When you buy local from a Microsoft listed partner, you dont have problems and can get all the help you need, and the best information.
The little guy can only offer customer service to make a living. The big guys make it on volume no matter how customers are treated.
Both XP and Vista are great systems, I am now a big Vista fan.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

none, none, still none — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:53:29 GMT

I've read all the messages and there is one common denominator. Money! Yes Vista will work very well, but at what cost. The average home user has no desire to waste hunderds of dollars on new hardware. Make it compatible with older hardware and the selling issue will dissapear.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Tim Jones — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:19:04 GMT

If mac had any sense they would start making it able for people to buy their os software independent of the hardware. I want a a windows alternative but i dont have the $2000 to buy a computer. Vista is an epic fail. Even today with all the updates and ms has the nerve to be working on follow up os??? Are they that cocky they think they will be bought even if they put a turd on your hard drive? MS wake up, Mac rescue us!!!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Matt, Syracuse, NY — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:08:49 GMT

it is interesting seeing the specific microsoft employee comments in this comment list. no one likes vista. i tried three new machines at stores while thinking about buying one, and decided not to buy at all and stick with my two xp-pro machines. vista is a stupid down-grade. bulky and over crammed with d.r.m. protections unnecessary...

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Holly, Cape Coral Fl — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:52:56 GMT

Honestly, Microsoft....?! Stop trying to be Apple. It's just weak and embarrassing. You want something to work well, and look good too, buy a mac.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Max H, Northern Colorado — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:21:16 GMT

Interestingly enough, the problems I have seen with Windows Vista occur with software designed by companies such as Toshiba rather than independent software publishers. I recently purchased two Toshiba laptops which both displayed out-of-box errors immediately on boot up due to problems with custom software designed to enable specialized features for their laptops.

How can Microsoft expect the average consumer to purchase Windows Vista if hardware vendors such as Toshiba can't seem to get their systems to work as they should. This tends to make MS look very bad when the fault really lies with those shipping systems that have not been tested enough to verify all is working as it should.

Microsoft should not be the only company to be held accountable for Vista woes.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

William Knipp TN — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:29:42 GMT

I hear the next campaign will comprise of a Jedi waving his hand and saying "This is not the OS you are looking at."

Seriously, I don't usually get caught up in all the tech hype, I keep up at a distance and don't really take sides. I use what works best for me and my hardware... I am using Windows XP as of now btw. Anyway, I see this stupid commercial come on the TV and I can't stop laughing! It's so desperate! So, now sadly I am caught up in the hype only because of this insultingly stupid Mojave commercial. Ty M$

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Merkhi Kroecht — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:11:46 GMT

From "f"

"Might just be time MS scraped the nt kernal and started from scratch instead of recycling a 25 year old core!"

What in the world are you talking about?

25 years? MS first 32 bit code began in 1993 with Win NT V3.1. The code base changed fundamentally with Win 2000. There have been other code changes since then?

XP/Vista CAN run a "command line." The command line is NOT DOS. Perhaps that is the mistake you have made. The command line is the only component that could even remotely be viewed as decades old.

The command line in XP/Vista is more like the all-powerful command line in Unix or VMS (know anything about those???).

Please do not comment about things you know nothing about...

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Lancaster, CA — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:31:24 GMT

My new Dell Inspiron 1525 came with Windows Vista and I have to say ...

that it works brilliantly, having removed Vista and replaced it with Ubuntu Linux.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Cheryl Ashland KY — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:30:22 GMT

When I saw the new commercial for "Mojave" my head nearly exploded! I hate Vista! It was infuriating to see that after creating such a bothersome product as Vista, Microsoft is trying to convince us we're all hallucinating problems with it! If we "really" knew how to use it, we would be as happy as the people in the commercial with it. I bet they didn't have to ditch nearly $500 of relatively new peripherals because of incompatibility.

Vista does not recognize DSL correctly and we had a heck of a time getting an Internet connection going with Vista. This is the first time I've had to finagle settings to get a basic connection since Windows '98. Now, even though we're online 24/7 with DSL, we still have to "log in" ever time we boot or change desktops.

My 2 year old HP printer and scanner are both incompatible and on a list that HP says it does not plan to write Vista drivers for. We pulled out an old, beat-up all-in-one HP from the shed and tried it. It will print, but the scanning/copy/fax functions are available.

I could go on, but this is already too long. Did I mention I hate Vista?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Michael Kent Oh — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:49:01 GMT

I dont get what the big deal is. Yea,there were some problems when vista first came out,just like there was with XP,but now,it works fine. I certainly would not suggest upgrading older computers with it,but then again,I would not suggest upgrading win 2000 computers with XP. Every new version of windows has required a faster computer than the last. Windows Vista is no exception. I do find however that it has better security than XP,but then again,thats not a big deal. I run security software on XP that works almost 100% of the time anyway. There were driver problems early on,like with all new operating systems,but thats pretty much been fixed. As for running an obsolete printer,who cares. Buy a new printer,it will be better than the old one. Guess what,that old CGA monitor does not work either. Get over it.

The biggest advantage of Vista is the 64bit version. If you want 3 gigs of ram,you should run a 64bit OS. If you run 4 or more,you NEED a 64 bit OS. There is a 64bit version of XP,but the driver support is very bad. This used to be the case with x64 vista as well,but thats largely been taken care of.

The long and the short of it all is that computers are now limited at about 2 gigs of ram without a 64bit OS. (I have a system with 3 gigs and only 2.5 are visible under a 32bit OS) 4 gigs is very cheap now,8 is even relatively cheap. Many systems are now coming with memory now that is not even accessable unless you upgrade the os.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Bob Trabosh, Media, Pa — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:04:49 GMT

I stared with Vista Premium on my Dell 531 with a AMD 5000 Processor with 3G of ram and updated to Ultima. I did have a few glitches until I installed SP1 and then Ultima. My system now runs like a clock. I have a Dual boot with Linux Heron and I love both.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Joe, Sidney, NE — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:29:43 GMT

Come on people Vista is only a resource hog in relation to old technology. The system requirements look like a big jump from XP but you have to remember XP was the latest OS for 3 times as long as any previous one.

Win98 - 16MB memory realistically more like 32-64MB for good experience.

2 yrs later Win2000 - 32MB realistically 64-128MB

less than 2 yrs later XP - 64MB realistically 512+ for good experience 1GB minimum for serious usage.

6 yrs later Vista - 512MB minnimum 2GB for good experience, 4GB for serious usage.

Every two years double your minnimum memory requirements and get about 4 to 8 times the minnimum for a really good experience. By that rational Vista is a logical progression.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

JustAnotherPost — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:38:01 GMT

Heres a hint, if Vista runs bad on your computer, your computer sucks. Go out and buy a new one. Suggestion, get something modern. Just because you used it to run Windows 98 and XP and you still are too cheap to upgrade, doesn't mean it is a bad OS, you are just cheap and stupid. If your 5 year old scanner doesn't work, buy a new one, if your printer was used to print from Windows 3.11, buy a new one! Stop being so cheap that you think you can get by with a "Windows XP ready" PC and use it with anything new!

Make sure you have at elast 2 GB memory, thats the new standard, sorry to tell you...
Make sure you video card is newer than 2 years old and is designed for windows Vista, same with your printer and scanner and other periphials. No your cheap Canon Bubblejet formy uor old Windows 98 machine that you used years back to surf the web on AOL will not work, but then again, there are 1000's of products out there that are cheaper, better built, and better quality.

STOP BEING CHEAP AND GET WITH THE TIMES!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Michael M. Rochester, NY — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:28:10 GMT

I think everyone that seems to be blaming Microsoft for the current issues with the new Vista OS needs to get off their high horse and look at the real issues. Though I do not yet have Vista, I have used it and plan on upgrading very soon. I think it is a big step forward for Microsoft and if everyone would look at the real problem, we could get past all the bickering and discover what a real benefit this OS really is. The real problem sits with the manufacturers of all the products that seem to be giving us so much trouble. These companies have known for a very long time about this new OS as well as when it would be released. However, what have they done to prepare for it and assist us, the consumers? "Nothing” that is what they have done and there is a reason for that. They have developed all the required drivers for the new products that they want us to buy but have done absolutely nothing to make the old products compatible. The answer for this is quite simple. Money, it‘s all about the money. Why make the old stuff work when we have the opportunity to make tons of money selling the new stuff? Eventually they will release all the drivers needed for the old products but you can bet they will not do that until they have milked the cow dry. It is easy to let people point the finger at Microsoft and in many cases help it along by pointing a finger themselves but they should remember that every time they point a finger that there are 3 more pointed right back at them. All it takes is for one person to point that out. Microsoft cannot point these simple little facts out to you but I sure can and I just did.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

David Weigant, Redmond, Oregon — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:09:29 GMT

I guess Vista may be good, or it may be bad??? Who has time to take a chance with a new operating system. If I decide to roll the dice, I will buy a Mac.

Bottom line, if you gave me a free copy of Vista 64 and $200 bucks, I would sell the Vista on e-bay and pocket $400 bucks! Although I would create a new e-bay account to avoid any negative feedback!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Rochelle Mitchell, Bethlehem, PA — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:20:34 GMT

Has anyone figured that Vista simply isn't compatible with a network? And maybe this network included new PCs installed, and networked by, the Geek Squad? Our new network, a simple 3 pc system, hasn't worked effectively since we purchased it in March and had it installed by the Geek Squad. Seems in reading other comments, the network issue need resolution.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mr XP from LA — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:27:41 GMT

Vista....where should I begin bashing the NEW O/S? Rather than another comment about Microsoft and the engineers that know what we need "before" we determine that we need it let me say this.
The "MOJAVE EXPERIMENT" is aptly named as Mojave is home to "Death Valley" where slow moving creatures meet their demise due to the harsh environment.
Hmmm could this be the ultimate anology given the harsh climate of the software world? Where a slow O/S lumbering along under the noonday sun until it is either rescued at great expense or simply dies?...or is true life stranger than fiction and Microsoft will ultimately rescue poor Vista before it withers? Karma? Fate? or should we just run XP until the wheels fall off? I vaguely remember the Windows 98 diehards when XP came on the scene with its 100 plus patches and updates. What did I do with all of my 5 1/2" DOS disks????????

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Mark Brooks Cookville Texas — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:17:53 GMT

Why not give people a little bit of each.
Combine features of xp into vista and throw
a big mac into it as well.
When minds work together, anything is possible.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jack, Mesa AZ — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:14:52 GMT

A piece of junk by any other name is still a piece of junk

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Carol - Security, CO — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:18:42 GMT

Give me a straight DOS command screen where I'm the one actually communicating with my computer instead of a fancy guie overlay that is a memory hog and slows everything down. Moves files around without my authorization and decides what programs it wants to run on start up and makes me jump through every conceivable hopp it can create to change something.

Windows has bred computer illeratcy because too people don't know how to do simple computer maintenace on their systems to keep them running properly and thing they have to jump up and buy the latest thing on the market just cuz.

Bill Gates is a marketing genuis. The man appropriated a guie system, rewrote it slightly - sold it to IBM, who decided to not market it - bought it back and managed to convince people they weren't smart enough to communicate directly with their computers so they needed his interface system to do it for them.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jack Williams, Pittsburgh, PA — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:56:51 GMT

I've tried Vista for the type of work I do, and went back to XP. I like the new interface, and some of the built-in file browing and search tools. However, a simple free program like Sketch-Up! chokes in Vista (and yes I've got dedicated video memory.) Revit 2008 & 2009 feel a bit sluggish as well. My other programs work fine, and Vista even recognized my ANCIENT HP laser printer.
I move between several programs for architectural work and rendering; if one or two don't work my process is broken. For now, I'll continue to use XP Pro.
(I'd love to use a Mac, but many programs (This means you AutoDESK!) are Windows only - so why buy a mac to run Windows?)

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Jeff Davis — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:29:01 GMT

These were some of the very same problems faced by XP users when it was first released. That OS is up to service pack 3 now. The original XP was so dangerous that if you hooked up to the internet before service pack 1 someone could seize control of the system before you could install the Service Pack 1 update from the download.
Buy a new system get more and faster RAM, go quad core for the price of single core CPU when you bought your old dinosaur. If your machine is more then 3 years old in the home environment you are in ancient equipment.
I have been computing since DOS, TRS-DOS, and my Commodore 64 and tape storage and punchcards. The memory in my PC today would have cost me $3/4 million or more back then(1981). All the code I wrote was streamlined and elegant. That 3 year upgrade cycle has been a constant in the home. Businesses are entrenced in OS's for longer cycles due to cost.
Want a laugh read this :Prediction: The cost for 128 kilobytes of memory
will fall below U$100 in the near future.
Creative Computing magazine
December 1981, page 6
http://www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/winchest.html

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

W. Hall, rural Colorado — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:47:05 GMT

Forget about the new computer, with 4GB's of RAM, Quad-core processors, 1TB hard drive, etc. What about the DRM schemes and your computer spying on you? Microsoft is the General Motors of the software industry now. Do you really think that MS can develop and release a great product anymore? Do yourself a big favor and start learning Linux, BSD, or Mac.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Confuseddude,jackson,MO — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:56:51 GMT

I have more problems with this thing than i do while battling King Kong.wait...what?

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Amanda, WV — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:31:17 GMT

I loved XP. It was fast, reliable, and offered enough customizable options to keep it interesting. When Vista came out, the whole network on my uni campus made the switch and it. was. a. mess. The computers which just days before had worked perfectly with XP became horribly slow, glitchy, and all around useless. Add to this the double shock of simultaneously attempting to deal with the Office 2007 redesign and you had several thousand students up in arms.

That was spring/summer 2007. Now, in mid-fall '08, things aren't quite so bad. The system's still pitifully slow if you're running on a network, but on my personal laptop it runs smoothly and has never given me any trouble (maybe thanks to constant updates).

Bottom line: Yes, it's a beautiful system if you're just in it for aesthetics. If you're running it on a network, be prepared for many headaches. It's much better suited to individual use.

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Dwight Thompson, Richland, Washington — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:36:10 GMT

I think there may be a lot of people out there like me. I don't care what OS my machine has one it as long as it works and doesn't crash. I know nothing about computers and don't care to. All I want to do is turn it on and click on an icon on the screen and bring up my program(s). I don't care if it has any eye candy. I never use windows for anything else except browsing to my photo sites. I want a machine to work when I press the button. I don't care what kind of video card it has I just care if it runs all my printers, scanner, and my wacom. Make it simple!!!! Not everyone is into computers. And to all of you programers - When I purchase software and install it many times it will ask all kinds of stupid questions like, do you want to install all of the program, or where do you want to install it. Of course I want to install all of the program, I purchesed all of it!! And how the hell do I know where I want to install it and why would I care!!

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Search Torrent — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:33:25 GMT

I think vista is a decent operating system - good for playing games. I prefer Mac OSX for everything else. though. I can't wait to see how Windows 7 hopefully fixes some of the issues with vista - and gives us a Mac OSX like task bar to boot (which is a nice improvement over vista).

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

Cass, ME — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:15:21 GMT

Heh, I can freeze/crash a recent Mac. They take a lot longer than Windows though. And the Macs we had in high school crashed themselves.

Vista looks a lot like Classic Windows-ed XP and behaves closer to it once you shut off all the unnecessary stuff and put on Windows Classic mode, actually. But then you're making it pretty much a more expensive and much more fussy reinstall of XP.

There are still enough issues with Vista to make XP a much safer, stabler OS option.

And with these newer Windows, why's it taking more and more install space and higher specs to do the same things slower? You'd think it would get more streamlined as they got better with the coding. Argh...

Microsoft’s new advertising Vista

JM Phila PA — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:39:12 GMT

Commerical is propaganda. Hey, Microsoft is paying so that can say whatever they wish right? Us realworld users don't bite. I'm a tech guy, at the office we use XP, NO WAY we will allow VISTA in our offices. At home, five MACS all running 10.5.x and running 24x7 with NO PROBLEMS. Bye Bye Vista...
What garbage -- even more so than other Microsoft OS's