…that I have yet to see a PC, “in the wild,” with Vista on it. Every Windows machine I run across is still running XP. Does anyone use Vista? We Mac types jump on new operating systems like a tiger pouncing on a gazelle. (or is that a lion?)
I’ve just realized…
Published
I just ordered a new PC and it comes with Vista. I’m uneasy.
Made the switch to Apple. Running Parallels and sticking with XP. When Apple release an Outlook equivalent … bye bye XP.
I’ve glimpsed it from afar. When I looked back, it was but a mere desktop background from Vista, in XP.
I’m running Vista on my MacBook (through Parallels). At work we’re still on XP.
I have Vista on my HP Laptop. Most of the time it behaves, occasionally it won’t shutdown properly but i’m not sure if thats Vista or the hardware. I actually like the interface more than XP – but thats almost entirely aesthetic – they could have probably put the Aero skin on XP and i’d have liked it just as much. I don’t see a huge functional difference.
But Vista’s slow takeoff was expected, as per the past year’s news and stock prices. It’s more a difference between Mac people and Windows people than anything about Vista.
1. Mac users are more image-conscious than Windows users. (If your reflex is to doubt that, look at the type of work done by offices full of Macintoshes.) If you don’t care about your digital bling, you probably aren’t even keeping track of new OS releases. Apple is well aware that it’s going after a niche market interested in new and flashy.
2. Windows lives in a modular world. Software upgrades are independent from hardware upgrades, more so than in Mac. Most people didn’t rush out and buy Vista because they didn’t rush out and buy the RAM upgrades required to support it.
3. It should go without saying that Windows users, in general, spend less money on computer expenses anyway, which is why they don’t rush out to buy those RAM upgrades or the new OS itself.
Granted there are rabid Windows fans who must also have the latest tech, and they do have Vista, and I have seen it in the wild.
But there just aren’t that many people in the world who go out of their way for new stuff when the old stuff works. Apple would be bankrupt if they relied on that market. Folks who wonder why Apple isn’t the dominant personal computer tend to forget that.
@Steve: Save yourself the headache, buy/obtain a copy of WinXP (or possibly Win2000) and install that. No reason to let Microsoft OEM fling you on top of the gazelle.
I installed Vista at home a while back, but it was a very ho hum experience. I think MS really emasculated it. Recently I switched back to Mac because access to every PC game out there just wasn’t worth it. I do like my XBox though!
It seems like most MS products have slow but steady adoption via OEMs. Nobody really rushes out to buy the new software, but eventually everyone ends up with it as PCs are replaced.
There is not a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista at present, at least from what I’ve seen. XP is stable and secure enough and the OS doesn’t really do anything except host the software that matters. It didn’t help that some of the major innovations (e.g. WinFS) had to be stripped out because they were so far behind schedule.
OSX is a bit different, there is always some nice new stuff built into the OS that makes it worth the upgrade. And it’s simpler to buy OSX – there are way to many versions of most MS products, how is the average person supposed to figure out which one to get?
This might interest you: http://daringfireball.net/2007/10/milhouse
I bought a laptop in March that has Vista installed. I believe that I am now past the learning-curve-stage and still hate it. We need to get a laptop for my son and will probably get him a MAC.
I got a cheap reconditioned tower that came with Vista. Then I tried to install a SCSI card and drivers for a UMAX Scanner. It simply couldn’t be done. The drivers have not been made yet, and it complained about the card right and left. I had to rearrange the furniture in my wife’s office so that I could attach the scanner to her other PC that has XP on it.
I became a Vista user, quite by accident, about a week after the OS’s release. I was beginning a new contract programming gig of the bring-your-own-laptop variety; when I did so I was informed that my old laptop was not up to snuff for installation of the client’s dev environment. (Ouch.) So I went laptop shopping. From the reaction I got every time I asked, “Surely you still have something in the back with XP on it that you can sell me?” you’d’ve thought the omniscient hand of Bill Gates would descend from the heavens and smite the poor bastard who said “Sure, we can do that?”
Since then I have been largely underwhelmed, though occasionally *very* frustrated by the amount of software that I tried to set up that behaved very flakily under Vista. It’s now 10 or 11 months later and I hope more software providers are testing/developing with Vista in mind.
My very favorite part of the whole experience was this. The laptop came with, whatever, Vista Regular (so many different editions who can remember all their names?). I needed Remote Desktop capabilities, though, so the night I bought the laptop I also bought the Vista Geek upgrade. Installing the upgrade was the very first thing I did with my new computer. And wouldn’t you know it, those alarmist security alerts that Vista loves so much? Apply also to Vista upgrades! The machine is all “You’re trying to install software! It might be bad software! Written by evil men! Are you sure—really really sure?”
To which you can only respond: I know; it is; right again; afraid so. Vista, meet Vista. The two of you will get along great.
I’ve been running Vista on my laptop for 9 months. Last week, it decided that the license key that I was provided by Dell was invalid, and refused to boot, claiming that I was running counterfeit software. No one at Dell or Microsoft tech support would touch the problem with a ten foot pole – they just blamed each other. My only recourse was to do a clean install, which will be the third time reinstalling Vista in the time I’ve owned the machine.
My next laptop is going to be a Mac.