Vista Failures
Published on 21 Apr 2006 · Filed in Information · 394 words (estimated 2 minutes to read)I’ll have to say, this one came as a bit of a surprise to me. Paul Thurrott, maintainer of the WinSuperSite and a longtime reporter of Microsoft and Windows (he’s the author of the WinInfo UPDATE newsletter that’s been out for years and years) has published an review of Windows Vista that outlines some of Vista’s significant failures. He speaks honestly about Vista and how it will not meet the expectations that Microsoft is setting for the product.
That Thurrott is criticizing Microsoft and Vista is not the surprise; he’s disagreed with Microsoft on a number of areas and has made his feeling known before. I have to say, though, that I was taken aback by some of the imagery and the comparisons he made in the article. For example:
Windows Vista, in other words, has been an utter disaster. And it’s not even out yet.
Well, that was putting it bluntly, to say the least. But check out this comparison:
But we do not and should not expect to be promised the world, only to be given a warmed over copy of Mac OS X Tiger in return. Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.
Comparing Vista to Mac OS X Tiger? It’s not the first time, but what’s really telling is that he’s comparing a product which is not yet released and is not yet feature complete (Windows Vista) with a product that has been out for quite some time (Mac OS X Tiger). In my mind, that’s quite a statement to make. (Makes me wonder how “Leopard” will compare with Vista.)
Thurrott does maintain that he doesn’t hate Vista, and that Vista will deliver a few major updates and many minor updates that will make life easier and more secure for those Windows users who adopt it. (That’s assuming you have hardware capable of supporting Vista, but that’s a different story entirely.) But the fact that he speaks so honestly about what are clear failures in Windows Vista (WinFS, User Account Protection, Glass Windows, etc.) means that Microsoft has truly failed. Not failed to deliver a viable product, but failed to deliver the product that it has been promising users for almost 6 years.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire article as well as see Thurrott’s other articles regarding Windows Vista.