In Search of Everything All at Once

The reviews have been out for some time on Vista, and things aren't really looking good for it.

While there have been some positive one, most point out its flaws, undoubtedly a result of it being pushed out the door way before it was ready,and the two rewrites it endured. I find myself recommending that they do NOT buy a computer with Vista installed on it unless it is a high end machine. But with the pressure that Microsoft puts on the market, it's hard for computer makers to include anything else but Microsoft's "latest and greatest".

Some have said, "It was just like this after XP came out. Everyone said Windows 2000 was fine for them, why do we need XP." But that's not entirely true. Windows XP's launch problems were plagued by the same problems Vista is having with some prominent hardware vendors, but not to the extent that Vista has endured. Vista requires twice the hardware (in some cases, 3 times as much) to run as smoothly as XP does, and while some things like SuperFetch actually make Vista feel faster than XP, in most intensive applications frame rates and similar performance scores go down.

Chris Pirillo ended up going back to XP after a decent stint of using Vista, and while he's perhaps been one of the more vocal switch-backer's (is that even a word?), there's been a steady chorus of people who have been uninstalling it.

The fact that quite a few people are uninstalling it and going back to whatever they were using before isn't as interesting as the length of time people typically go before reinstalling it. In most cases (including mine) I had it running for about 2 months before going back. In my case, I had to, Vista's networking became hosed and no amount of fiddling by someone who's had a Windows computer around for 14+ years would fix it. If Vista was so repusive people would obviously only spend a few days with it and go back, but it's not. Some of the enhancements to the UI are improvements over XP, and going back to XP makes you miss them. XP truly needed some of the things that are in Vista, perhaps as a SP3, but not as an entirely new operating system.

I believe Microsoft has built a large enough empire and market share that it can survive one lemon like Vista. But I'm not so sure it can survive two of them.

I'm fortunately isolated from this to some extent because the large chunk of my work is on Linux systems. The computer I use to access those systems then becomes less important. But I still am asked what I recommend in computers from family and friends, and I am ashamed to say that there aren't really any viable Windows options out there at the moment, and perhaps not for quite a while. I'm tempted to tell them to just install Ubuntu, and for the vast majority who simply check their e-mail, surf the web, and listen to a bit of music, this would be fine. But I know that Linux as a desktop doesn't work 100% yet either.

Which brings us to what will life look like in the PC world after Vista. I was having a conversation with Charles at Sproutit and we discussed what Microsoft should do (but will never do) for the next version of Windows. He suggested that Microsoft should focus on improving its user interface and end-user experience, and turn its kernel (the underpinning of the operating system) over to an open source project like Linux or FreeBSD. In doing so, Microsoft would accomplish several big things:

• Let themselves focus on the front end without having to worry as much about security and reliability
• Save money and development time
• Present to the user a more stable and secure product
• Gain the respect of the open source community (at least to a certain extent), which it probably wasn't after anyway, but it's nice to have

Can you imagine? An commercially available operating system with UNIX at its core? Of course you can, Apple's doing it with Mac OS X right now! Most know I'm no fan boy of Apple, and I strongly believe in the PC architecture, but I'll have to admit, when it comes to the core of the OS, turning it over to open-source technology, specifically UNIX, was what saved (or perhaps staved off for a while) Apple's imminent destruction.

But, Microsoft's not facing that kind of life or death scenario, and thus doesn't feel now that it need make a drastic decision like that. They probably never will. But, I do predict that if another operating system like Vista is released, the domination of Windows on the desktop will come to and end, making way for massive gains in demand for Linux and Mac.

Until then, it's business as usual I suppose. Most people will keep using XP to get their work done, until things work right in Vista. That day may come a month from now, or a year from now, but Microsoft just has the numbers to let that disappointing fact slide for now.