[Schneb]

Im really excited about how enthusiastic everybody is about Vista
Really, Mr. emBalmer? Who? Where? Everything I see is pretty tepid or hesitant.

[MacTel]

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Careful; someone might point how much time Apple spent trying to develop a next generation OS before giving up and buying NeXT - and the time they spent pounding THAT into shape.

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That was one time with Apple. This is the second time with Windows. Ever heard of Cairo? That was to be the successor to Windows NT 3.51 then 4.0...etc. It never shipped.

[hagen]

I only remember hearing MS say there will be huge sales. Everyone else said: nope, not interested, go slow.
Ballmer and gates: examples of bad bafflegab. They must think their poo doesn't stink.

[bigpics]

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What a joke. A company that makes that kind of money can't put together a stellar OS in six years? What a pathetic joke. But they are all billionaires, so good for them.

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Careful; someone might point how much time Apple spent trying to develop a next generation OS before giving up and buying NeXT - and the time they spent pounding THAT into shape.

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Awww, let 'em crow, let'em crow, let 'em crow!
More seriously as an old personal computing hand, I remember how cocky WordPerfect (and others, e.g., Lotus and Ashton-Tate) were when MS's first intentions to horn in and then take over their markets were released in their clumsy early iterations.
And we all know how well that worked out.
For MS.

Whose first releases always suck.
Remember that Apple and Adobe are the last original PC dogs standing and Google and Yahoo the only early net software providers that are still a major tech industry force.
Even MacWorld is owned by a primarily PC-centric publishing house.
I'm just hoping Leopard is all it's hyped up to be, and if so, things will start to get really interesting. If not, and if the irrational forces attacking the iTunes DRM for not being compatible (while not attacking MS for not releasing X-Box 360 games for the Wii and Gillette for not selling blades that fit in a Shick razor, etc. ad infinitum) prevail, we could be back to living in a niche, even if it's a nice neighborhood.
But I don't think that's all gonna happen..... ...do you??

[Grendelmon]

Yeah... I agree. I'm not going to let my gaming PC touch Vista with a ten-foot pole for at least another year.
Beware!

[feefer]

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I don't know about anyone else, but to me this constant harping on software piracy is starting to sound like a lame excuse for crappy products and less than expected sales.
I know piracy is an issue, but they are beating it so hard that at this point, it just seems designed blow smoke over Microsoft's desire to control everything at any cost, with complete disregard for the end user's experience.

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The ultimate irony is Ballmer is blaming piracy for poor sales of Vista, even though they were quite willing to sacrifice the Vista end-user experience in the name of protecting software developers from pirates!
There's nothing like instituting ineffective security measures that don't do what they're supposed to do, while placing a burden on ALL users!! Brilliant, but then again, that concept probably IS incorporated in Microsoft's mission statement....
Chris

[VeggieBeefcake]

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Do you imagine NOBODY would buy the crappy Vista?
And M$ going out of business?

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Unfortunately, anyone who purchases a new PC at retail will also (necessarily) be purchasing a copy of Vista. As previously stated, MS thrives off of the automatic sales of its Windows operating system. Poor retail sales or not, Vista will sell so long as new PCs sell, regardless of what the consumer actually feels about it.

[UpQuark]

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"Seriously we've even diabled GUI functions in XP to get better performance and from what I hear it's worse in Vista."
If you have disabled GUI libraries and APIs in XP "to get better performance," you must be using grossly antiquated hardware -- either that, or your organization is involved in a highly specialized scientific application and you are using clustering.
Life is short. Get new hardware!

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I concur -

[chesterdad]

I have been watching Vista development for the last couple of years and the thing that astounds me(beside MS's inability to get a product out of reasonable quality), is the fact that they have not sold ANY BENEFITS to the consumer to spend the large sums of money to upgrade. FIX Security problems? Fancy Eye Candy? The first is embarassing, the second doesn't help you do your work any faster or better?
Doesn't anyone in Redmond marketing have a clue about selling customer benefits? Where is the innovation that people care about?

[hillstones]

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Vista has been much-delayed in coming to market as the company tried to avoid releasing a product with defects and security flaws that plagued previous Windows versions.

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That is a joke. Didn't they try to claim XP was the most secure OS 6 years ago? Yet there are thousands of security updates for that POS. From what I have read, Vista is pretty defective and I am sure it won't take long before it is found to have thousands of security flaws.
And the prices! Ouch! I agree with the others, the piracy excuse is just getting old.

[Sloggeth]

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That is a joke. Didn't they try to claim XP was the most secure OS 6 years ago? Yet there are thousands of security updates for that POS. From what I have read, Vista is pretty defective and I am sure it won't take long before it is found to have thousands of security flaws.

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I don't recall Microsoft ever claiming XP was the most secure OS. They DID claim that it was more secure than Windows 98, and it is.
The "thousands" of security updates for XP are an example of how XP is more secure than previous Windows operating systems. XP incorporated automatic updates to keep your OS up to date with these security upgrades without the user having to even think about it. It has been further streamlined but it has worked quite well. I have never had a virus or a security issue with XP. Ever. I had many with Windows 98. So I would say that XP's biggest security weakness is the user... just as it is with every other OS on the planet.
Your assumption that Vista is "defective" is pretty far off base. Vista is functioning just fine and is a very good operating system. I've been using it for about a month now and I am greatly impressed with the quality of the product. I'm using it right now and it's working flawlessly.
Will it be found to have security flaws? Yeah, I suppose it will. That's a simple fact of life in the evolution of any OS. I don't expect there will ever be a flawless operating system. I propose that concept is an impossibility.

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And the prices! Ouch! I agree with the others, the piracy excuse is just getting old.

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I purchased Vista Ultimate at NewEgg for $199. That's a fair price if you ask me. The GUI has been upgraded and now includes some very intuitive tools for managing multiple applications and open windows. The Media Center has been bundled into the install and really makes managing and interfacing with media quite nice. DVD burning has been incorporated into the OS and functions as easily as CD burning with a drag and drop or a right click. Movie Maker now has HD capabilities and is bundled into the install. The user has been given much more control over the GUI and personalizing your installation has had so many options. The new "User Account Control" features really do make the system much more secure and harder for new users to accidentally make changes to the system that will open up security holes. I'm also learning that Vista has included some really detailed control over permissions for files, drives, folders and such that are much more robust than even XP was. This is excellent when it comes to networking managing and sharing files and data while remaining secure.
These aren't all of the new features, but these alone are well worth $199 to me.
I'd say that Microsoft did it's consumer base justice with the release of this operating system and it will sell quite well because of that.
I do think that early sales will be slow for one reason. XP has proven to work quite well for most of it's users so they're not in a rush to change.
Businesses, such as mine, are not in a rush to upgrade because of this as well, but they will slowly adopt Vista because it will slowly be introduced into their networks each new PC purchase the company makes. Mine has done so flawlessly and I have had absolutely no problems on my work network...
So, that's my opinion. You're welcome to yours.

[jdb8167]

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I don't recall Microsoft ever claiming XP was the most secure OS. They DID claim that it was more secure than Windows 98, and it is.

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"Microsoft is always focused on improving the reliability and security of Windows for our customers [...]" said Jim Allchin, group vice president for the Platforms Products Group at Microsoft. "Windows XP is the most secure and dependable operating system we have ever produced[...]"
Microsoft Presspass on Windows XP SP1
I'm sure I can find more claims about security if I try, especially from SP2. Microsoft is never shy with the hyperbole.

[Sloggeth]

"Windows XP is the most secure and dependable operating system we have ever produced."
Ok, now allow me to elevate your reading skills. Are you ready?
Hang on because here goes: (sigh)
"the most secure operating system we have ever produced"
Reading is fundamental, my friend, but comprehension is what counts.
Your reading skills have been fairly evaluated.
Your score = -1.
Please try again.

[tallscot]

I have never had a virus or a security issue with XP. Ever.
Listen, you aren't dealing with a crowd that doesn't use XP every day. Most of us here use XP every single day. We are quite familiar with all of the things you have to do to avoid getting malware, spyware, viruses, worms, etc.
For example, here is a worm that doesn't require you to open an attachment nor does it require you to be foolish enough to be using IE with ActiveX, and Vista is vulnerable.
It's great you personally have never ever ever evar had a virus or security issue with XP, but most PCs do. In fact, 2-year old viruses run just fine on Vista

Your assumption that Vista is "defective" is pretty far off base. Vista is functioning just fine and is a very good operating system. I've been using it for about a month now and I am greatly impressed with the quality of the product. I'm using it right now and it's working flawlessly.

Yeah? I've been using it for quite some time too and it's garbage. The user interface is still crap. The problems that existed in the Task Bar (truncated task buttons "Adobe..." "Adobe..." "Adobe..." and chronologically ordered so you can't gain muscle memory) hasn't been changed except for the mouse over feature to get a thumbnail, which is an admission that they have a problem but patched it with a useless feature.

Flip3D lets you see one window at a time. This isn't any better than just using CMND TAB to cycle through your windows. It's actually worse because CMND TAB gives you the whole screen and Flip3D gives you a tilted 3D graphic.

Windows still has the retarded MDI and SDI behaviors. Can I Flip3D with my Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Adobe anything documents? No I can't. Why? Because those applications are MDI, not SDI, so I don't get each document presented to me in anything. Bad bad bad bad.

Vista still requires some form of Registry cleaner/fixer.
I still have issues with uninstalling applications and being asked if I want to delete DLL 09804098x. The end user shouldn't be making these decisions.
I get harassed way too much any time I make simple changes to my system.
Vista isn't fully supported by machines sold in 2006.
A lot of my software is incompatible with Vista. I recommend anyone considering buying Vista run the compatibility checker first.
Media Center? Even Thurrott said Media Center on Vista is garbage.
Vista is definitely an improvement over XP, though. But that's not saying much, really. Windows still has this problem of lack of consistency and vomiting user interface buttons all over the place. Windows Vista is still a plethora of tabs buried under Properties buttons buried under Advanced Property buttons.