I can't (won't) argue with someone who thinks Vista is great, and I see your point about the possibility that MS pushed up Windows 7 due to bad publicity. What I don't think is fair is to whitewash all the mistakes they made along the way. Security is overblown - Hitting OK on 3 popup security windows every 5 minutes should not be standard practice (yes I'm exaggerating). Mac OS X (I am NOT an Apple kool-aid drinker) only has one version. Vista has FIVE. From the get-go they confused the consumer and became their own worst enemy.
You seem to think I'm a blinded Vista fanboy don't you? Well, I'm not. I'm not saying it's an amazing operating system that's vastly superior to XP in all ways. My overall opinion is that it is a good/fine operating system on the level with XP and OSX with it's own advantages and disadvantages.
The security system does actually help vs XP and you are
vastly exaggerating how often you'd see the UAC popup. I haven't kept direct track but I'd say I see it may be once a week on my desktop.
I do agree that the number of versions of Vista has made things a bit of a confusing mess, however. I also think Microsoft did a poor job of handling development for third party support prior to the OS release (and this is where the majorty of the bad reputation has come from).
It all comes down to the RAM requirements (unlikely to change, but now it's two years later which will help), video card/hardware requirements (same deal), compatibility and driver issues, boot time, and the overbearing security warnings. Lots of people just don't like the OS (and I only touched on some of the reasons).
To be fair most major OS updates have put heavier strain on the RAM and hardware in general. As mentioned compatibility and driver issues are realistically the most significant flaw Vista faced, as well as a community of PC users that were comfortable with the existing design language of Windows and are uncomfortable with the changes. I've found Vista boot times largely equivalent to those of XP as well, as have many other people I know.
I PROMISE you that Dell did not resurrect XP because of some Internet Blog posts about Vista or simple bad reputation. People really do avoid that OS for good reason. People WANT updates. They WANT the newest thing. So why do they hate MS' new OS so much? Vista is a screw-up OS of major proportions and Windows 7 should be far better
Given the sheer amount of misinformation on Vista (OMG it's eating my RAM... yes that's called caching and it's good) and the amount of people hating/fearing/disliking it who had never used it I don't agree that the reason behind Dell going back to XP does not include bad reputation. Any decent product so marred by reputation alone can kill its marketability, just as any mostly terrible and overpriced product can be sold almost on misguided reputation alone (like Bose).
But even with all that my only initial comparison to Me was based on shelf life. This stands regardless of the reasons why its being replaced so soon (which I think you're being overly generous in your assessment). Now that you've caused me to go down memory lane, I'll extend that and say that Vista will probably end up being one of the biggest marketing failures of Microsoft ever. As an app I'm sure it's helped progress them the Windows 7, so that's not bad, but in terms of execution: FAIL.
I cannot disagree that this has and will be a big black eye for MS for a long time but it sounds to me like inexperience with the OS and thus the situation has led you to a rather simplistic analysis of the situation.
Vista has, I think, suffered not just a technical war
- OEMs shipping early vista systems on insufficient hardware (2GB RAM at the time Vista was released was becoming common on many systems, but there were still brand new Vista systems shipping with 512 or 1GB RAM both of which are insufficient in my opinion for running XP or OSX smoothly, regardless of Vista)
- OEMs (and other companies) providing poor drivers and unstable supporting applications (heavily affected Vista for the first 3-4 months on OEMs and a little longer for some third party drivers)
- slow third party correction of those problems
- a somewhat obnoxious security system although you mostly only see it when you're first installing all the software on a system
- Confusing number of OS options (the different types that are available)
(among other things, like sleep and transfer speed issues, etc) but a war of perception
- misunderstood RAM handling system
- Assumption that the core OS itself is incapable of functioning correctly (yes you see this a lot) when the initial and largely resolved issue with third party support were largely to blame. Now it's not a whole lot different than XP
- Assumption that UAC will pop up every day whenever you do almost anything
(again, among other things)
I'm curious how much you've used Vista or what your experience with it is. Most of your points are the rather typical talking points I've heard mostly from people with little to no experience with it (or bad OEM system experience during the first few months of Vista's release). As I mentioned Vista is far from my sole OS. I own and use computers with Vista, XP, OSX and Ubuntu so I'm trying to provide you with as balanced analysis of the problems with Vista as I can. On the whole I like Vista as well as any of them but I can point out flaws in it just like I can the rest of them.
I do hope Microsoft learns from their mistakes with Vista however. On both fronts (technical and and perceptual). I don't fully know why 3rd party drivers had so many problems (but I have suspicions based on certain core changes in Vista vs previous operating systems), but at the same time MS would do well to take some lessons from what effective advertising has done to hurt them, and instead use their own advertising to promote Windows 7.
