Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Windows Vista February 2006 CTP (Build 5308/5342) Review, Part 5: Where Vista Fails — Paul lashes out at Microsoft. Worth reading.
When Bill Gates revealed in mid-2003 that he was returning to his roots, so to speak, and spending half of his time on what was then still called Longhorn, we should have seen the warning signs. Sadly, Gates, too, is part of the Bad Microsoft, a vestige of the past who should have had the class to either formally step down from the company or at least play just an honorary role, not step up his involvement and get his hands dirty with the next Windows version. If blame is to be assessed, we must start with Gates. He has guided–or, through lack of leadership–failed to guide the development of Microsoft’s most prized asset. He has driven it into the ground.
Promises were made. Excitement was generated. None of it, as it turns out, was worth a damn. From a technical standpoint, the version of Windows Vista we will receive is a sad shell of its former self, a shadow.
I just wanted to add a couple of comments.
First, someone will certainly claim that Microsoft is always late with their OSes. While that’s true it does not give Microsoft an excuse. Usually the delay between consumer versions of Windows is at most three years. E.g., between Windows 3.1 and Win95 was three years. Vista will be 7 years since XP was released. That’s well past Microsoft’s typical lateness. And when you consider that Microsoft forces companies and governments to pay for upgrades that will not be delivered, it’s inexcusable.
Second, WinFS and virtual folders are desperately needed with today’s massive hard drives.
I have a few terabytes of divx movies, DVDs, and MP3s spread over 6 computers. I should be able to create virtual folders of just specific stuff, e.g., one folder for the kids’ movies and one for TV shows. That way my family wouldn’t have to dig around trying to find the particular computer AND the specific hard drive the movie they want to watch is on.
I predict that Vista will be Microsoft’s undoing. It’s already late, even by Microsoft standards. Countless companies have paid for it but will not receive it because of the lateness. It’s going to run like a dog on most systems. The vast majority of current games will not run on it. It’ll be a crappy solution to a problem no one has.
1. I see no Vista on my horizon, XP is running ok on both personal and office networks, and will be the O/S on the new machine currently taking shape on paper.
2. What, I wonder, is the big deal about virtual folders? No matter how many files, no matter how big, they can be properly managed from users desktops across networks with some creative shortcut use. My boss is nearly computer illiterate (he does possess other qualities that make him the Boss), but I’ve got his desktop setup so that he can access the things he wants with just a click on an icon. No muss, no fuss.
3. There are people who will bitch about anything; but the miracle is that all this digital stuff works as well as it does. And the biggest misconception among non-techies, and this is something that is pushed by the marketing types when they gush over how simple it is to operate these machines, is that all it takes is a simple push of a button to create a miracle, or design a space ship, or perform brain surgery. The ad copy frequently omits or glosses over any mention of a learning curve.
As I see it, Vista = nothing but eye candy, and I won’t even be able to taste even that becasue 2 out of my 3 computers don’t have the video hardware, and maybe even the 3rd won’t qualify.
More than anything, I was looking forward to a file system that allows me to do seamless offline storage, with previews of documents, and clear directions of what disk to connect or CD/DVD to insert to get the original. That just ain’t gonna happen.
VIsta.. a big who cares at this point.
Wow. This sounds like the bumblings of Apple of yesteryear, pre-Jobs II.
Strong sales comes down to correctly answering the question “In what way will this product/service make my life better?” And I just don’t see the value yet (disclaimer- I am in the minority, I use XP, OSX (my preferred OS) and Linux every day).
We’ll see. I don’t have high hopes, but I want the vast majority of computer users to have a safe and secure operating system. I want it to not be as bad as it seems it may be. And if it is that bad, the market has a way of deciding these issues for us.
I’m new to Windows in a home environment. I have OS X running on a MacIntel and love it. Win XP does the job i want it for which is to allow me to use Office and Visio and that’s it. I’m paranoid with all the security precautions i need to worry about. I’m also amazed at home many patches and security updates i’m getting dumped down. I figure it’s taken 6 years to get XP stable to the point i’ll use it at home without a corporate firewall to hide between. I ain’t in any rush to join Msft’s beta testers on Vista until SP2 is at least out.
Happy debugging!
I would think that by now, Bill would just drop out of the game altogether. He certainly has enough money. Time to take some of that money and start another company, something more personal, something smaller. A pet project.
“As I see it, Vista = nothing but eye candy”
That will set you back $200+ for the full version.
You can’t play the elder statesman until capable younger administrators are in place. Gates, like a lot of other successful people start believing their own press releases. The company is just too big. It destroyed all the competition. With no competition a company gets fat and lazy. Any failure is of their own making.
“What, I wonder, is the big deal about virtual folders?”
I talked about them in comment 1. Let’s take a real world example. I have a couple terabytes of divx movies and TV shows I’ve ripped from DVDs. I have 6 computers in the house. These movies are spread over 6 hard drives on three computers. Let’s just concentrate on the non-kid movies. They are on three 250 gig drives on two computers.
With virtual folders I could create one large folder with all of my non-kid movies. I wouldn’t have to search three different hard drives to find the movie I wanted.
But here’s the real deal about virtual folders: It’s a lot less work organizing stuff. With virtual folders I would never have to organize my divx movies into the same folder or hard drive. They could be ANYWHERE on the 6 computers I own but would still show up in that one virtual folder.
The best real world example is Winamp’s library. You tell Winamp where your MP3s are stored or it’ll search for them. They can be stored anywhere. But despite the fact they are spread all over your network, they appear to be perfectly organized all in one place by artist, CD name, song name, etc.
“The main reason I don’t want them? the friggin activation.”
I agree with you 100%. I too will stick with W2K for the foreseeable future. As someone who builds his own computers and who is continually changing stuff such as motherboards and video cards I don’t need the hassle of asking permission.
Computers are, in part, my hobby. Can you imagine if a golfer had to ask permission to change clubs?! If a miniature train collector had to ask permission to change his track?! The whole notion is absurd.
And what really gets me is that Microsoft is lying. They claim that product activation is about stopping piracy. But the corporate version of XP pro was available online before it was available at retail. And ways of installing the service packs were available before the service packs were even available. To put it simply, Product Activation did not in anyway stop piracy.
The first real reason for Product Activation is to stop causal non-profit sharing. Like loaning your copy of XP to a friend. Or using your copy of XP to upgrade your older computers.
The second reason is to get us used to the idea that we don’t own software. What better way to stress that point than to make us ask permission to use it. Microsoft desperately wants to move to business model where we lease software and pay monthly or yearly fees. Product Activation is the first step.
“Two terabytes of data is not real world unless you’re the government or a bank.”
It is a real world example. The 6 computers in my home have well over three terabytes of data between them. Thus it exists in the real world. You seem to be confusing “real world” with “typical.” I never said it was typical.
“the average home user is going to watch DVDs and TV shows on DVDs and the television.”
That’s true. But that was not my example. The person asked the point behind virtual folders and I explained it. I rip every DVD I get onto the hard drives. My living room TV is connected to a computer. The rest of our “TVs” are actually computers connected to flat panel monitors.
So when my kids want to watch Finding Nemo, I don’t have to hunt down the disc. I just go to the hard drive where the kids’ movies are and start it. Virtual folders would make that task much easier to organize.
The computers in my house are now on OSX, save for one the wife uses for gaming. I assume I’ll continue to have one Windows laptop (or Mac dual-boot), but only if there’s a game out there that is PC only (not available on Mac or PS3/X-Box 360) and one of us just has to have.
Good article and a fair analysis.
I first installed Longhorn (the second alpha leaked I can’t recall the build number) back in late 2003 or early 2004. It wasn’t like any alpha I’d ever had the displeasure of testing. The install took about 12 min, but when it booted up into the desktop I could do very little because system resources were at 100%.
I couldn’t believe it, MS had had roughly 4 years into the project and this was where they were at? It wasn’t until a year and a half later that I starting testing the newer beta builds based on 2003 Server with Aero. I’m in complete agreement with Paul Thurrott from what I’ve seen (though the last build I played with was 5270).
UAP is one of the most frustrating things ever put into an OS that I know of, and it’s going to be the cause of a few monitors being thrown through windows. He didn’t mention the 3D chess game though, that’s about the greatest surface innovation of Vista aside from Aero and tabbed browsing in IE. But who uses IE anyway? I hope that the chess game isn’t pulled like all of the other features that were planned, but if it is it won’t be a shocker.
Vista is just eye candy and its too expensive. To avoid that, I’m buying a Mac