A Microsoft Corp. executive last year said the software company made a mistake by lowering the minimum technical requirements needed to run Windows Vista, a decision he said was made to help Intel Corp. meet its quarterly earnings, according to internal emails disclosed this week…
Problems Microsoft was having with Intel appeared in emails over the past few years, including one dated Feb. 1, 2006, in which Microsoft senior director Mike Ybarra wrote “We are caving to Intel” and later complained that PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. supported Microsoft, yet Microsoft was “allowing Intel to drive our consumer experience…”
In an email addressed to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Board member John Shirley said that he didn’t upgrade one of his PCs because Windows Vista didn’t have the necessary software, known as a driver, to run his top-of-the-line Epson printer and two scanners. “I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers,” Mr. Shirley wrote.
Har!
Thanks, K B
That’s rich! Blame others for your incompetence. M$ had years to develop Vista and all we got was an overpriced, over-bloated piece of shit.
Vista team reaching for a scapegoat for the crappy Vista launch and performance.
Intel quarterly results – yeah, that’s it! Our $3B investment in Vista and launch efforts were trumped by Intel’s desire to meet a 4th quarter goal. That should work!
Right on with the drivers complaint!
Worst part is those driver complaints were made in feb ’06 and it’s still true today.
Guess that pay for play Microsoft signed driver racket is bitting ’em in the rear now.
This is not the first time that I have heard a software vendor say that a hardware vendor is at fault. Next I expect Intel to blame Microsoft for the problems.
This software/hardware war is nothing new. For my 20 some years of dealing with PCs, I have had many a conversation with a hardware vendor who blamed a software vendor for the problem with their product and vice versa.
You know, all we really wanted them to do was lower their requirements so it could perform better under Intel. That would probably make it more stable too.
The only reason I care about Vista is because I have to support it. I will not use it myself. Not when you can get a superior OS for free.
How is it MS fault that there was very little driver support at launch? Go ahead and point that finger at Epson. It not like companies didnt know Vista was coming. Some developers made sure their software and drivers worked with Vista since the beta. Some companies said too bad, buy our new product that debuts next month – it will have Vista drivers.
No, Pedro you misunderstand. Linux makes him feel superior. He bent that OS to his will with hours of the sweat of his brow. And that was just to get the network card working.
Heck, I really like Vista. I just sold my last Mac! Talk about stuck up monopoly! Apple is it!
The only problem Microsoft has is being too popular that so much hardware and software is developed for the OS that it’s hard to keep everybody up to speed. What’s really surpising is how Apple manages to screw up it’s OS when it’s controling the hardware and the software??
You people do realize that Microsoft does not create third party driver’s don’t you? If you want to blame someone for your printer not working with Vista. Blame the printer manufacture!
The WinTel Duopoly – a one/two punch against consumers !!!
You probably need a quad-core pentium that has trouble adding 2+2 and 4 gigs of ram with a one gig video card to run Vista !!!
M$ has always been shoving out CrapWare !!!
MS has to blame someone for releasing incompetent, bloated, and sloppy programming.
I love how increasingly desperate the Vista FUD camp sounds.
“No, it really does suck! I promise! Listen to meeee!”
Its over guys. You gave it the ole college try, but its done.
As the Vista release date receeded, and interest in Vista sagged, hardware vendors went into slow motion on driver updates. The “Vista driver” became a low priority, everywhere, because no one knew what the real deadline was, and everyone predicted slow adoption.
@tcc3
No, it just installed and worked … even the nic card.
SEATTLE – Microsoft Corp. will cut the price of some versions of Windows Vista, the software maker said late Thursday.
The move came a day after court filings revealed internal dissent over which Windows XP computers would be considered capable of running the new operating system — and a feeling on at least one executive’s part that the company had “botched” the marketing of computers as “Vista Capable.”
Only copies of the year-old operating system that are sold in boxes directly to consumers are affected by the price cuts — not the versions pre-loaded on personal computers. The cuts will range from 20 percent to 48 percent.
The reductions are to coincide with the late March release of Vista Service Pack 1, a collection of security fixes and other improvements.
Microsoft said the new prices will apply to the Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Vista, in both their full editions and the editions that upgrade an older or more basic operating system.
Both versions serve the tiny percentage of users who install an operating system on their own; most people get the latest version of Windows only when they buy a new PC.
Windows Vista’s January 2007 launch was plagued by delays. To keep consumers buying PCs in the holiday season of 2006, Microsoft and PC makers promised free Vista upgrades later to shoppers who bought Windows XP computers.
At the launch, Microsoft was widely criticized for offering too many versions of the operating system — including Home Basic, which didn’t have the snazzy new signature look called “Aero” — and for setting the price too high for the high-end versions.
Brad Brooks, a corporate vice president for Windows marketing at Microsoft, said in an interview that the company has since tested lower prices and found “product was moving much, much faster.”
Brooks said he expects so many customers to buy Vista at the new prices that the price cuts will increase Microsoft’s revenue, not subtract from it.
A federal judge recently said consumers could pursue a class action suit against Microsoft for labeling PCs as “Vista Capable,” even though many were not powerful enough to run all of Vista’s features, including the Aero interface.
Company e-mails produced in court chronicle Microsoft settling on a plan to market a wide range of XP-based PCs as “Vista Capable” after company officials realized in early 2006 that 30 percent or fewer of computers on the market could run the full-fledged version of Vista with Aero.
That realization apparently caused computer makers like Dell Inc. to worry that people would stop buying PCs for almost a year — until Vista launched.
The e-mails also showed Microsoft lowering the bar for “Vista Capable” to protect Intel Corp.’s sales of some widely used chips that weren’t powerful enough for the full Vista experience.
Microsoft employee Anantha Kancherla was particularly blunt in his March 2006 response to a question about whether a certain PC configuration would be considered “Vista Capable.”
“Based on objective criteria that exist today for “capable,” even a piece of junk will qualify,” he wrote. “For the sake of Vista customers, it will be a complete tragedy if we allowed it.”
According to the e-mails, Jim Allchin, the executive in charge of Windows at the time, wasn’t involved in the decision to brand a wide swath of XP computers as “Vista Capable.”
Upon learning the details, Allchin wrote, “We really botched this.”
I’ve played around with Vista SP1 enough to know that it works fine on a virtual machine, but I still haven’t found anything really compelling enough to justify the cost and hassle of migration, which is considerable for me. The true cost of migration on an existing machine will obviously have a huge variation among users, depending on their equipment and software. It’s good to have that pre-activation period so you can test Vista thoroughly to see if the new features are really worth the cost.
I’m just wondering if we’re being harder on Microsoft than other companies? I’ve had just as many problems, if not more, with application software as I’ve had with Windows (all versions).
Corel is a good example of a company that did have a bad habit of puting out a new version before fixing serious bugs, and sometimes carried those bugs through several versions.
We need to start focusing on the entire industry, and getting them to clean up their acts.
Lets see, reasons to LOWER hardware requirements ..
Sell more HP/DELL/ OLD STOCK
Make it seem that YOU CAN UPGRADE with Older systems.
Why FAKE the realization that you COULDnt run Vista, on an Older machine, with LOTS of bells and whistles?
BACK STOCK. Can you see all those OLD computers Sitting at the computer store.
Even IF’ they didnt do this.. Its FALLEN into the HEAP.
You dont NEED this much power to Write a letter, spread sheet, email, wonder the net.
Only reason for THAT much power, is BACKGROUND security, and GAMES. NOT to run Office programs.
Lack of drivers for a new operating system is an old story. I had problems finding drivers when Win95 came out. It’s only the OS company’s fault if they don’t alert the manufacturers in time to write the new drivers.
Do the smart thing, work with Motorola ( I think it’s motorola ) who makes the processors for the Xbox 360’s. Hey those G5’s worked for Apple
bcagle – Here here! The voice of reason sounds very sweet indeed
The answer: The Power PC chip was a joint venture between several companies, mostly IBM and Motorola. I belive IBM bought Moto out and is soley responsible for the collaboration of Cell, the Gamecube/Wii processor and the 360 processor.
#1 – You just insulted shit!
I’m typing from a Vista PC right now. The only real problems I’ve had were from bad drivers from HP (new printer–got a real person on the support line; they fixed things quickly through a download from their website) and from Intel (Ethernet and Wifi drivers–kept disconnecting and wouldn’t connect again till after a reboot). Intel pushed a driver but I didn’t know the fix was there until I happened to check Windows Update for something else.
I also got a pushed driver for the trackpad in my laptop that broke my mouse driver, but rolled it back (Vista has a way for you to do that) and everything works fine now.
26,
and the comments go like this.
XP is about 10-20% FASTER, and does the SAME thing, with less ram.
do a speed comparison with vista and Linux, on a DUO CORE 2 system(set for Multi core)…then COMPARE the same setup on a P4 3.2ghz system(no Multi core)..
and look at the SPEED differences..
Vista DOESN’T use the other cores, PROPERLY.
Wake up, Windows is dying… Linux and open source is winning hearts and minds as well as surpassing all other operating systems in technical power. Four years ago a Linux server took an engineering degree to understand and a linux desktop was a joke… Now, Linux is easier to set-up and configure on a single user desktop and 10x easier in a large user base on either the server or a desktop machine.
It may take longer to fix a problem in Linux… the first time. Every time after that… that same problem is GONE! FIXED! Windows can be completely random with all sorts of things. Registry magic… “liquid” processes in the hal… you name it. Windows is built on proprietary smoke-and-mirrors.
Listen… I had a huge annoyance with touchpads on my work Windows laptop and my wife’s Linux laptop. I have to live with the issue in Windows. I finally disabled the touchpad in bios. On my wife’s Linux laptop (Ubuntu Gutsy 64-bit), I had the problem solved in 10 minutes. 10 QE$#!#$ minutes!!! It took me that long to disable the hardware in Bios on my Windows machine.
Carry on arguing the merits of Windows. It is dying as surely as Britney Spears’ career is sunk. Pick up a Linux magazine, an O’Reiley book and download an iso… get started… it’s the future. Sorry… hope your thousand bucks for MSCE certifications (and then no access to learn on a proprietary licensed Microsoft Exchange or Active Directory) wasn’t wasted.
Vista is incredibly slow. Thats a deal breaker, kiddies. Say all you want about Apple and Linux, but Vista is a horrible pig. Did they write it in Visual Basic?