A friend of mine purchased a Dell Inspiron notebook with Vista. Quicken would not work, Palm can't get the Treo to Sync, and the way Office was set up was a disaster. Dell support could barely communicate with her. I finally told her to send the computer back to Dell and get a refund. We spent yesterday afternoon wiping the hard disk clean with a Linux install program. The computer is on its way back to Dell this morning. A few months ago, I bought a Dell notebook and had many problems - pre Vista. Never again with Dell, never.

Oh gimme a break, Cringe...

I'm not averse to tossing a well-earned barb in Microsoft's direction, but I think we're losing sight of something here: MIcrosoft does NOT affix stickers onto PCs that tell the user what it can/cannot run. Microsoft PROVIDES the stickers to the computer manfacturers whose responsibility it is to determine that information. With the astronomical permutations of hardware configurations out there, lay the blame where it belongs - no one, except the builder of that particular PC, will be able to give you any assurances of Vista compatibility. If the ball is being dropped, it's the PC manufacturers who have the butterfingers.

Don't forget to "SuperSize" your hardware with that order.

I just purchased a Dell XPS wide screen for my personal assistant (We are a video production company). I ordered it with Vista Ultimate but the drivers don't exist to support the software provided; at least yet. Even the state of the art Wireless card and router (N) had to have new drivers down loaded as the PC did not come with the proper Vista versions. I have bought upwards of 25 Dells in the last few years and I will continue to in the future. We all should remember that even real world testing never finds all the problems but I would hope Mircosoft would do a better job in the future.

While I agree that is up to the manufacturer of a Windows PC to assure that it is compatible with the operating system, these Vista problems are still Microsoft's problem. My company is not touching Vista until these issues are fixed. Both our hardware vendor (Dell) and Microsoft are going to lose sales. Whether the fault is with Dell or Microsoft is immaterial to us.

And, as a friend of mine likes to say, 'What do civilians do?'. I bought a brand new Dell two weeks ago with Vista Premium. Some things worked out of the box (including my Treo sync), but Vista itself warned me not to install the drivers that came with my two year old HP multi-function machine, then threw up its hands next. Fortunately I know how to wander round a website (in this case, HP's) and found the Vista-flavored driver. But what would my 86 year-old father have to do?
Then there's the streaming wireless appliance I got from Linksys--they're still working on the drives for that...

I have a friend that has a new Dell with Vista. It doesn't work. Dell is sending someone to his house to see if they can make it work. This is his 1st computer. I'm pretty sure it's Vista and not the hardware.

He's retired mortician. I told him to think of it as a decrepit old body on one of his slabs. Just send it off to the incinerator, and get a Mac.

The only reason I have a PC and not a Mac, is because my corporate clients have PC's. I'm not going to waste my personal time on Linux. I do Linux application software, but I don't have one as my desktop machine.

Linux desk tops are not going to happen until Linux comes preinstalled. And there are adequate consumer and business applications available.

So far the Linux killer app's have been servers and super computers

The desktop needs a couple of killer app's but I don't see it happening.

Cheers

Hasn't anyone learned that you don't get a PC with the latest Windows OS for 6 months to a year after it has been test driven over the back of home users?
Check Dell's website: Home users are only offered Vista, business users can still get XP. Even penguins know that you wait to see if the first one in the water gets munched before you jump in yourself.

Well I think MS and McDonalds should just do a merger and get the dam os problem over with.

McWindows with fry's --- now you know who the
happy clown really is !

I'll keep my current 600MHZ machine to run Windows 2003, so I can run office stuff if I have to. But my next personal workstation will be a Mac. Why bust my (ahem) over basic stuff if I don't have to...

I have been supporting Microsoft stuff for 25 years now. Vista is the end. I'm done. I'll dig ditches rather than support that memory/processor hog. It's waste of my time and my clients' money.

Frankly, OS-X on a Mac running Parallels or just Open Office 2.2 is more than enough to just get your work done.

For app developers, maybe that's not the case, but for 80-90% of the worker bees, more than enough.

Vista: The visual perception of a region.

Windows Vista: Microsoft's view of what the world wants.

RM's Vista: Why would I want to have my PC do that "wow" stuff? What a Crock! None of these "New Features" interest me, and some of them scare me.

For instance: I don't want or need Parental controls on my PC, they may prevent me from using a program I actually like. And why do I want Microsoft deciding what is or is not "Spam"? More importantly, I don't want to use Internet Explorer now, but because Microsoft has embedded it in the operating system I have no choice, even though they were told to remove it from the operating system, they still are not compliant six years later and with the release of a brand new operating system.

Windows XP works just fine, thankyouverymuch. But now they have turned it into Windows ME Part Deux! Talk about a step backward... it's not even going to be as good as 2000, nevermind XP.

Let the operating system use my USB Memory chip for more memory? Are they freaking insane? They can't properly manage their memory as is... I mean, Windows loads the program the into memory, but as soon as it starts to load, they write most of it back the swap file; on the hard disk...

And Fast Load? Like, geez, how many TSR's does Microsoft load up at Windows start NOW? Do we really need to preload the programs we run a lot? What if I run World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI all the time... - Oh, scratch that, they won't run on Windows Vista...

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, that new operating system from Microsoft that does everything I don't want an operating system to do and nothing I want it to do.

Michael Davis: Microsoft's problem? Well, of course, if they want to continue to sell software. But we're arguing about Microsoft's *responsibility*, and in this case, *legal culpability* (re: the class-action lawsuit) to disgruntled users. Anytime you share a procedure with another company before you bring something to market, you must first hammer out the responsibilities. Micrsoft did it's job by providing the OS and the hardware specs for each level. They ARE responsible for problems associated with *recommended hardware* that does NOT run properly (drivers, etc). But they are NOT responsible for PC manufacturers MISlabeling a machine as accepting a level of OS that Microsoft themselves don't advocate.

Jim p:

I think there are plenty of balls to go around and plenty of parties ready and willing to drop them -- both the hardware makers and Microsoft. I'm not qualified to determine legal culpability. I do know there are some highly frustrated hardware and software manufacturers out there, which leads me to suspect that MS and Vista were more difficult than usual to deal with. Given how long and large a public beta program MS ran for Vista, and how long the delay between release to manufacturing and shipping to consumers, something went very wrong between Nov 7 and Jan 30 for a lot of folks. My point here was that Microsoft shot itself in both feet throughout this process, confusing everyone, including its partners. Not the smartest way to launch your first major OS in five years.

cheers,

rxc

Game over..unless you are into pain (Microsoft).
What's an easy Linus distro for my non-geek friends (and me)? I think its time to get my feet wet before they quit patching XP.

As for me i just want to say i dont care how pretty an os looks,i demand ease of use and performance.Any system you can buy as an upgrade like you can with vista is NOT a new operating system also all the security that is built into vista is NOT for the user but for Bill Gates's operating system.Dont get me wrong I love new operating systems but vista dosent feel like mine maybe someday i will try to load it again in a few of my pcs and take the time to make it work but for now i will beat this old horse xp to death,benchmarks show that games and applications run 18% to 24% faster in xp and i hate resource hungry operating systems that need alot of memory just to run a desktop and who cares about thumbnail previews,really.One last thing it took microsoft 5yrs to develop vista in which time they scraped all the good things a truly new vista should have in it just to meet a deadline,,it also took 5yrs of updates to make xp what it is today a good operating system...Now heres truly the real answer to all this its about making money helping hardware companies like hp compact,dell,gateway,emachines sony,acer,toshiba loading a new os has bolstered their dying pc lines.Vista is bill gates operating system not yours.Bill Gates should have stolen all of apples ideas,this way he would have put together a system that is efficient as well as pretty...

Maybe if Microsoft would ever learn the difference between an operating system and a bundle of applications, we could get an OS that actually works like an OS. Most of what's bundled with Windows has absolutely nothing to do with running the computer and should be separated accordingly.

Cringe, I appreciate your comments. But you went from 'specific' to 'generic' on me, and I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire. Plenty of balls to drop? Undoubtedly - and MS has had their share of faux pas. But in THIS case, we're talking about the merits of bringing *this particular class-action lawsuit*, not the frustrations of an industry who's been pot-shotting at MS for decades. If that were the only criteria, you might as well pan every product that leaves Redmond - regardless of merit. True analysis here, seems to have taken a backseat to tossing grenades at the 800lb gorilla - just because it's easy to do from your virtual front porch.

Regardless of your qualification to discuss 'legal culpability' (and wasn't that the POINT of the article?), this doesn't seem all that tough a debate.
1. Microsoft manufactures 6,137 versions of Vista
2. PC maker scans hardware req list and affixes *appropriate* sticker to *specific* PC.
3. If (2) is done *properly* (not apparently the case here) and Vista bombs, it's MS' fault.
4. If (2) is done *improperly*, then the PC maker is at fault and proceeds to hire techs who can pass a reading test.

If you wanna talk about Microsoft's responsibility to provide manufacturers with enough information (and time) to make sure driver support is there, then fine. But that's a different discussion. Can we keep to the subject?

And one more thing...

You write:

In columns past I've written about Cringesters who bought brand new "Vista ready" machines from major vendors, only to find out that "ready" actually meant "as soon as we get our hands on some new drivers and a service pack or two." Graphics cards, sound cards, and RAID drives are three areas where Vista systems haven't been ready, sticker or no sticker.

...and THEN you write:

Given how long and large a public beta program MS ran for Vista, and how long the delay between release to manufacturing and shipping to consumers, something went very wrong between Nov 7 and Jan 30 for a lot of folks.

You can't have it both ways. MS either "provided a long and large public beta program", thereby giving hardware manufacturers NO EXCUSE for being behind in driver support.... OR you make them responsible for the failings of those same manufacturers.

There's a lot of FUD going around these days, it seems. And misrepresenting the RESPONSIBILITIES of a company who writes the OS is a contributing facter. If you don't see the irony in 'MS needs to write JUST an OS... with NO applications' and 'MS needs to make sure their software works with all the hardware out there'... then YOU are partly responsible for spreading the (ahem) 'FU' -and of that, I have no 'D'.

I tried to buy an XP notebook at Wal-Mart (because the retail chains such as CompUSA and Best Buy no longer come with XP) as a hot standby to swap out drive images with an "old" Gateway. The one I was looking for is a "discontinued item" so I bought a similar Toshiba, but Vista could not find/configure the wireless chips. I reformatted and loaded XP but XP fared no better than Vista. I booted from a Knoppix DVD and Knoppix was able to find the local wireless signals just fine. I restored the factory configuration and took it back to Wal-Mart. If a big name such as Toshiba cannot get Vista to work out-of-the-box, it's bare-bones no-OS XP-ready notebooks for this client.

Can we keep to the subject?

The subject is what does a customer expect when they buy something. Paid a visit to www.toshiba.com. I am not picking on Toshiba. I purchased one shortly before Vista came out. It was labeled Vista capable. I don't care. The machine performs very well running XP. Had no trouble re-partitioning drive and installing Ubuntu 6.06. Works very well for both operating systems. Did I plan on upgrading to Vista. Emphatically NO! Am I upset that probably only Vista basic would run well on this computer. Again No. Had I planned on upgrading to Vista because of cool whatever that was supposed to be available, probably I would have been disappointed. I do not blame Toshiba for this. I blame a bloated operating system that can't properly run on anything but the most expensive boxes. When I visited the Toshiba web site, I found a list of operating systems to select from to customize a laptop. They were all flavors of Vista. I did not see anything next to the selections that said recommended memory/disk/processor for this version is a, b, c. Toshiba could have provided this information. I hope they will in the future. I documented this on the survey I was requested to fill out.

Personally I feel that Microsoft should have simply continued XP and provided the bloated Vista for power machines, plain and simple instead of this garbage they are touting. The DRM stuff that breaks stuff that used to work with XP is the biggest piece of fraud ever foisted on the average computer user. When you buy a new CD player, you don't expect it to not play the library of CDs you have already collected. The same thing with a new operating system. Since Microsoft is the responsible party for providing the operating system and could specify with certainty that feature x, y and z will only be available with hardware the does j, k and l, then they should have provided labels that indicated the various levels of vista. Simply providing a label that says Vista capable, when they didn't tell the vendor until months later what memory/disk/processor speeds were needed for which versions of Vista, is slimy.

Why were drivers not available? Because MS shoehorned in a ton of DRM garbage to keep the movie and music industry happy.

Apple and EMI got it. Untold millions of dollars expended on Vista DRM will prove to be a total waste.

What's an easy Linus distro for my non-geek friends (and me)?

Pull down and burn a copy of Ubuntu .iso. I prefer 6.06, but that is a personal preference. Knoppix will also run off the disk. A word of notice on Live CDs. They allow you to run a version of Linux with no changes to your computer. But you really need to install it on your machine to see it work properly. Part of it depends on how much memory you have because it makes part of your memory into a RAM disk. The other thing is that when you run off the CD it looks like it takes a fair amount of time uncompressing stuff. Once you have it installed, it is snappier than XP. Also the install for Ubuntu is very straight forward. Allows you to re-partition your drive as part of the install and setting up the dual boot.

No - (patiently) - the *subject* was Microsoft's culpability in a class-action lawsuit. Which message are YOU responding to?

As I've said before, toss your grenades when/where MS *deserves* them. Take your 'added in DRM' and 'what MS SHOULD have done with Vista' distractors to a different message - I might even agree with you. This is NOT supposed to be a forum for lambasting MS for other sins they may have committed. THIS is about whether MS is responsible for *other companies* claiming *their products* are Vista compatible when they are apparently incapable of reading a Hardware Requirements List. I'm in the IT Dept of a large law firm and we've have our own list of complaints about Vista - primarily, that when you disable the security, it's little more than a cosmetic upgrade to XP... but pay attention: that's NOT what we're talking about here. We CAN read what's required to run it and have found that for the most part, it runs pretty damn well when you equip it properly.

What we ARE talking about is the ability, whether it be on the part of the consumer, the hardware manufacturer, or the reseller, to READ THE BOX and figure out whether THIS PARTICULAR MACHINE meets the HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS for running Vista - THAT is the basis of the class-action suit. All other commentaries having to do with driver support, MS past sins, or their involvement in the Kennedy Assassination are irrelevant.

One more thing (there always is... :-)

Do you realize, Gostak, that your last paragraph is all but incomprehensible to 95% of home computer users?

Test: let your great-aunt read that last paragraph and paraphrase it for you.

And you want to instruct MICROSOFT in marketing procedures?

Looking at all the posts it really impresses me how volatile this subject is. Love it or hate it (latter for me) MS has definitely pushed the OS to a limit that is nearly incomprehensible. Finally it seems that MS now has to deal with the spectre of unsupported drivers...something familiar to me over the years of using Linux. It's almost Kharmic. I am not looking forward to the time when My employer forces me to move over to Vista and Office 2007. Nor are any of my co-workers.

Of course the message that comes to mind when contemplating the new ad campaign may end something like...

MS Vista...put the "Wow" in "Wow this sucks!"

Jim P. seems to be sustaining this debate all on his own without any help from me, but while there's still some oxygen left in the room let me say this. As the author of the above item, I feel fairly qualified to discuss my intentions in writing it. And my intention was not to debate the merits of the case, since we don't even know what they are yet, or Microsoft's legal culpability. (Sorry Jim.) My intention was to point out that a) people are plenty disgruntled over Vista's compatibility problems, and b) Microsoft has engaged in deceptive marketing with Windows in the past. (As anyone who's ever tried to run Windows using the "minumum requirements" listed on the box can attest.) Point c) would be that Microsoft has made this whole process far more confusing that it needed to be, both for consumers and for its longtime partners.

As I noted in one of my responses, hardware manufacturers do bear some responsibility for incompatiblity and bad labeling. But this is not a problem with just one or three hardware makers; this is across the board, the biggest names in the PC game -- Dell, HP, Gateway, Toshiba, Nvidia, Creative, ATI, etc. What's the common factor across all of these competitors? They're all trying to get their legacy hardware products to work with Vista.

I suspect, given the problems, that Vista changed a lot during the public beta period, and again between the last release candidate and release to manufacturing. That's the only rationale I can find for so many hardware vendors being so unprepared when Vista went on sale January 30. I can't state that as fact, it's just a suspicion. If anyone out there has some backup for this, or a plausible alternate theory as to why, please weigh in here or email me at cringe@infoworld.com.

peace,

rxc

Anyone looking for a linux distro designed specifically to ease the transition from Windows, should check out Xandros 4.1. It's a solid, reliable OS with a look and feel which will make Windows refugees feel right at home. There is a free Open Circulation Edition on the cover disk of Linux Pro Magazine, the May 2007 edition. This is a DVD disk, so your machine must have a DVD rom to install it. The Open Circulation Edition should also be available for download from Xandros.com, in the near future. Ben

We're a software development house with about 300 Dell workstations and Laptops, and after trying Vista installs on a couple of them, we've decided to stay with XP for at least another year. Not only are there not drivers for a lot of things, a lot of the drivers that are out there are clearly still beta (or should be), and are unstable.

Even out of the box DELL Vista configurations blow up and and wipe out the RAID arrays (Do you suppose that's a security feature to prevent access to your data by randomly destroying it). It seems like cruel and unusal punishment to subject our developers to a less stable environment just for a slightly prettier UI.

I've tried not to comment on your intentions, Cringe, but rather on what you actually print. But I will say that when your blog contains more supposition than fact (even to the point where you're soliciting readers to corroborate your suspicions), it's fair to call your intentions into question (and yes, I've read your column before... :-).

The title of your blog entry was "Vista...FUD" and I'm simply pointing out that your suspicions of what you THINK is going on, recursively contributes to the very thing you're decrying. Besides the class-action litigants themselves, I've seen no other writers or publications condemning Microsoft by saying that "Vista changed a lot during the public beta period, and again between the last release candidate and release to manufacturing..." I'm sorry, Cringe, exactly what do you think a beta period is FOR?

It is STILL up to the hardware manufacturers to 'keep up' and make sure their drivers comply. And if it takes an extra few weeks/months of work AFTER the 'gold' release to do that, then it's in their best interests to DO it. We all have our own definitions of 'unfair' and I personally take a dim view of manufacturers who place the responsibility of making their hardware work on Microsoft.

'Unfairness to hardware manufacturers' has been a common refrain in past litigation against Microsoft - some deserved, some not. But nowadays Microsoft is subjected to such an ongoing 'journalistic colonoscopy', that if their actions were deemed in any way illegal, the hardware manufacturers themselves would be raising bloody hell. And the class-action suit would have a completely different litigant list.

If your intention was not to debate the merits of the case, you certainly do a good job of supporting the litigants' complaints with your own brand of FUD. I was simply trying to point out the irony of your railing against the cookie theft when your left hand is caught in the jar.

As a well-known columnist and (now) blogger, you certainly have the right to comment on anything you choose. But if credibility, rather than entertainment is your goal, then I'll just suggest one more time that you attempt the find the humor in statements such as "Let's kill all the g*d d*mn blasphemers..." and take care not to commit the same mistake yourself.

My last entry here.

Peace, indeed...

> Jim Piunti <

The problem is how the rest of the IT industry is going to recover from Microsoft's suicide attempt.

I think the Linux distros and hardware vendors ought to pair off. For example, HP with Redhat, Dell with SUSE, and so on. Then we would have a lot of Apple clones, all making an integrated hardware-software solution. Because of standards, they'd all be compatible.

This means the hardware manufacturer would never have the problem of the computer not working out of the box, and the software manufacturer wouldn't have to be compatible with the entire world. It also means that individual manufacturers could advance low-level technology, such as BIOS.

Of course, this would leave Microsoft out in the cold, but who cares about that?

For all of those asking about Linux: Ubuntu is the best bet for Linux newbies, but any distribution will get the job done. It all depends on how technically oriented you are, and how adept you are at research. Really no different then tracking down MS problems. The major difference is that once you understand it well enough to do more than install and use it (a little programming background doesn't hurt either) you can get the source code for most applications and drivers, and modify what you don't like. It's posible to reverse engineer Windows too, but not legally. As far as I'm concerned MS has been going down hill since Windows 98. I still have a 98 install that I prefer over XP. I have hardware that was specifically designed for 98, and no other drivers exist for it. About a year ago I moved to Red Hat 9.0 with Planet CCRMA (for my audio work) and that's what I use the most. I figured out how the hardware worked and wrote my own drivers for Linux.

...Vista is bill gates operating system not yours.Bill Gates should have stolen all of apples ideas,this way he would have put together a system that is efficient as well as pretty...

OH GIVE ME A BREAK... GET your history right folks.. it was NOT Microsoft and it was NOT Apple that developed a graphical desktop OS... IT WAS XEROX...

Read some of the history of Xerox PARC... or just visit - Wikipedia (History of the graphical user interface)

Disregard that, I suck cocks.

WOW. Did you see that earnings report for MSFT?

Posted from my easy to use Windows system. No driver development required.

"Hasn't anyone learned that you don't get a PC with the latest Windows OS for 6 months to a year after it has been test driven over the back of home users?"

Microsoft first stated something along the lines of "We won't release Vista until 500 or fewer bugs are found."

RC1 was public and the people easily found more than 500 bugs. RC2 went silent and was released to only (I think) 2000 privileged users... BAM! Out comes Vista labeled with 500 or fewer bugs, or was it... what DID they say? Either way, why was it released without the same in-depth testing.

I was one of many who couldn't even install RC1 at first due to the fact that after restart to install, well that portion of the install couldn't recognize the 74gb Raptor it was located on. When I finally said "FINE, whatever!" and installed it on a PATA HDD, I got Vista Ultimate RC1 and my sweet little processor and 2GB RAM came in handy. I still got the best "ranks" that Vista could give. Sorry I forgot whether it was 5.0 or 10.0 that was the best as I quickly discontinued my use of Vista when I found that vital support for certain software, drivers and games were non-existent.

Pros:
- I like Vista for the truly native 64-bit support.

- DX10 (Wow I'll be porting code for about the next year to start using this little gem.)

- Their little 3D Chess game kept me rather entertained for about an hour.

Cons:
- I'll probably have to wait until SP2-3 until I buy it if I want a system with fewer bugs. Those nasty little creatures will only get in my way.

- Lack of hardware drivers/support. Mostly the hardware developers' fault though. However, it would have been helpful if Microsoft would have taken the time to do more bug catching. This would have given other companies more time to develop drivers which could then be handed off to Microsoft to be pre-installed on the users' machines.

- Massive page file hits... at least 1GB RAM would be HIGHLY recommended.

- And sorry, but, the "security" advantages they boast about come mainly from a set of features which seek to query your every move with the ever so famous "ARE YOU SURE?!?!" prompts. If I want that level of protection, they have programs available for free that work for WinXP.

Honestly, I think Bill pushed this one through with the CatBox360 in mind (sorry, PS3 reflex). WinMCE didn't quite cut it. But in all, I think its sad that Vista won't be great right away with all the new 64-bit stuff coming into the market. Microsoft needs to start working more efficiently at the speed of/ catch up to Moore's Law.

But to sum up a quicker answer to the quote above, "Windows ME" AKA "Windows every one of our users are secretly our BETA testers and they pay us!" you would hope so, wouldn't you?

But now after a hefty amount of clean-up, Vista's off my Raptor and I'm back to using WinXP (Except Vista and shutdown for hardware upgrades/fixes or software installs my uptime on XP is somewhere in the ballpark of 4-5 years with no BSoD).

If anyone has anymore pros/cons feel free. These are merely the ones I've encountered in my short-lived stay in the world of Vista.

Bonderman: Like Gostak, I favor "Ubuntu" and "Knoppix" here -- they're usually regarded as the "best" starting Linux distro's.

Both are "Live CD" distro's -- you can boot/run off of CD, leaving HDD untouched! Beware that (because of compression, and simply being slower than HDD's) this will be a s-l-o-w way to run... but if you see something you like, you can install it then and there.

Both are based upon the geek-beloved "Debian" but each has put more effort into easy installers, good (and user-friendly) hardware detection / identification / configuration, and the like.

They also are, IIRC, a bit less anal-retentive about including absolutely-pureblooded OnlyOpenSource stuff, e.g. drivers.

As-noted, Xandros (also built on Debian... hmmm, is there a theme here?) may be another good option; their emphasis is on MS-Windows end-users.

Finally, there's Sun's enterprise class Solaris OS, truely awesome but not necessarily user-friendly, even if it comes on a "Live CD".

My best advice: find a "LUG" (Linux Users Group) near you, and see if they have an upcoming "installfest". Bring your gear, and have a go or have THEM do it for you...

- Steve S.

We could argue about Vista all day, as if it matters. What needs to be considered is why was Vista created, and released and who benefits. The customer obviously does not benefit,from a buggy o/s with poor driver support, bloated code and vast memory needs. So who was this software written for? Sony and every other media house with their infinite copyrights and dreams of pay per view on everything you see,hear or think. Why should I pay for an O/S that benefits Sony and Microsoft? Microsoft has lost sight of who their customers are, who pays the bills, and what they want. They have lost not only their miniscule ability to innovate, but their legendary ability to steal,coerce, or copy all things remotedly innovative. Diskdoubler comes to mind, although a really comprehensive list is beyond the scope of this diatribe. Step back, gain some perspective and realize Vista is a product without a market, that is overpriced and underdeveloped and it took 5 years and many millions of dollars to develop such a crappy piece of software. Just think what a stinker they could of made with 10 years to not fix things and just add unwanted features, the mind boggles.

That Microsoft is on the far side of it's arc is without doubt, will they pull the nose up before they plow into the mountain? The autopilot is awaiting a hot patch and the copilot is stuck in an endless reboot, better put your seatbacks and tray tables locked in an upright position and get busy downloading Ubuntu.

Give a try to PCLinuxOS (installation difficulty = 0) and you'll easely forget forget Vista ;-)

Jim Piunti certainly seems to be taking huge pains to defend MS on this score. The major complaint I've been reading here is lack of proper driver support -- that's integral to providing an OS, not writing an application. If the application or hardware in question worked on Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2000, etc. and fails to work on Windows Vista then the problem is clearly with Vista.

There is a huge difference between announcing a beta period and actually providing the support needed for application and hardware developers to create the needed drivers. For one thing, all concerned need a stable base to work from -- it is a useless waste of their time to write drivers only to have substantial changes to the OS negate all that work near the end of "beta". This phenomenon is itself rooted in Microsoft's long-standing tradition of releasing alpha-grade software as "beta" and using formal release as a real beta test period.

David is laboring under a common misapprehension that the GUI was invented at Xerox PARC. The father of the GUI was a forgotten hero in the history of computing named Doug Engelbart, who demonstrated the use of a GUI to control a computer over a network (and videoconferencing and hypermedia, for that matter) in 1968. He founded a research group called the Augmentation Research Center, many of whose members moved to Xerox PARC when ARC closed. Among other honors, he was awarded a Lemelson-MIT prize in 1997.