James,
Don’t get me wrong, I know PLENTY of people who liked Vista just fine once they got used to using it. However, do remember that something like disabling UAC is a task that while easily accomplished by the techie types, is baffling to non-techies.

Not to mention if a large part of Vista’s value proposition was better security, and the UAC was a large part of that improved security, then disabling it undercuts the reason to upgrade.

John,
Ah yes, the dream of ever techie ever burned by MS in one way or another. To give them the finger and never look back. Unfortunately, the solution is not as elegant as you may think. Remember, the very big difference between those who are technically savvy and those who are not. Ask yourself this: are all of your aunts and uncles capable of running Ubuntu?

More specifically, you may be romanticizing things a bit. How many things did you have to download / install / troubleshoot after you had finished the main installation? Ever see the Mac commercials that mocked Windows for having to get drivers before you could download pictures from a camera? What would those commercials look like if Apple competed against Ubuntu? What is trivial for you is incompressible to a much greater part of the population.

Drivers? One of the big beefs against Vista was that it wouldn’t work with what people have. How many devices have no driver for them in Ubuntu? Not just “current” devices, but printers from 1998, scanners from 2001, and the first Zip drives? Don’t forget about those old sound cards and video cards either.

Software? Let’s face it Word Processing and spreadsheets are about to become to current computers what the calculator app was to computers from two decades ago, free and disposable. Heck, you don’t even have to install anything, just use Google Docs, Zoho Office, or someday, MS Office Web Apps. Realistically, Word, et. al. aren’t the value proposition on computers any more. What about CRM applications (including multi-user, multi-office, support)? Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver? Even Google Chrome, browser of the open-source faithful, has limited and much delayed Linux compatibility.

Support? A big crowd of dedicated developers is great, but when a million dollars a day hinges on the answer, waiting for some guy to get back to you on a forum is not an option.

Enterprise tools? Ubuntu is a great alternative for individual users. I think you’ll get a much different attitude from those who have to support 10,000+ desktops.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m about to install Ubuntu on my recently decommissioned XP laptop.

I’ve cursed Microsoft more than my fair share of times, but nothing else is ready for prime time yet, which is why Vista’s failure did not result in a mass migration to Apple, Ubuntu, or anyone else. I long for the day when someone steps up to the plate and creates a real alternative. Until then, I’m glad you are enjoying Ubuntu, but in an open and competitive arena like technology, to suggest some sort of conspiracy by the Man, just isn’t very likely.

Brian

If at all possible, I will never turn to Windows again.

It was easier and WAY less stressful to learn how to use Linux rather than trying to re-learn a Windows OS that was already ingrained into my head.

Not only that, but Microsoft still updates ever when you turn auto updates off. This in itself is a security risk and a VIOLATION OF PRIVACY! To me, it seams that as soon as Vista was out and talk of Windows 7 was starting up – The XP machine I had online started having more issues…I keep all antivirus stuff up to date and haven’t had a problem for many years. Now I reinstall XP and within a week or so it’s having issues again….sounds fishy doesn’t it? It sure does when I haven’t done anything different than all the other times I have reinstalled XP….eventually it runs slow but never crashes like it does now.

With Ubuntu Server you get:

* a FREE Operating system that is light years faster than any Windows OS + it’s secure!

* FREE ‘MS Office’ type package called OpenOffice –

* Comes with most things that windows comes with.

* HUGE online communities that help solve any problem you may have (no waiting on the phone for MS customer service BS).

* Command line interface allows a user to automate processes. For instance, you could write a small script to receive an email or txt msg when someone logs onto your PC. You could run a web server to share files around the house (or even password protect it and access your files remotely). You could unzip 1,000 zip files without having to do them one at a time…

*Linux is compatible with most hardware out there. It is still possible to run windows type programs on a linux machine.

*Linux has been proven for years and years to be the most stable and reliable Operating System that has ever existed….

So why are you still even talking about Windows? It’s a rip off. A scam. It’s a JOKE! Why did windows ever have security issues in the first place? Because they don’t know what they are doing. Why does Windows run slower now? NO, Not because it does more, it’s because they code so shitty to begin with that they need all this extra crap to keep the system stable and it ends up hogging your resources.

I enjoy seeing my CPU at a grand total of 1-3% when I am using my normal applications. If you run windows Task Manager it says 0% CPU….but it doesn’t include the 60% that the OS uses to begin with.

Windows is a joke, make the change to linux now!!!

Download your FREE Ubuntu Linux Operating system to replace windows here: http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download

If you need help getting started email me cjohnweb@gmail.com

I was OK with Vista on my Sony Core 2 Duo laptop with 2gb RAM and 200 gb hd. It was a little annoying that everything was in a different location (control panel, etc.), but that was not a big deal to me. I had always thought the MS Windows haters were hating just to be fashionable, but I started to hate along with them when I got my Windows Mobile phone. I hated that OS (WM6). I also hate Vista now, and I have a real reason:

To make a very long story short, after I upgraded to Vista Service Pack 1, Vista crapped out and my laptop would no longer boot. Booting in safe mode revealed that the system was failing after loading a file called crcdisk.sys. After weeks upon weeks off research, and trying countless fixes (hardware and software) I came to the conclusion that Vista itself is the problem. I gave up on Vista, went out to buy XP Home, and now my laptop is humming quickly and smoothly.

Google the term “crcdisk Vista” (no quotes) and you’ll find tons of people with the same problem. Microsoft has no published fix for this. My theory is that Microsoft screwed up the code, could not easily fix it (or simply wanted to sell it for $199), then worked like hell to get Windows 7 released. Look how fast Windows 7 was made ready for the market (should release this month), as compare with Vista.

Does anyone agree with my theory?

Neerav,
I’m not sure if you remember what it was like right before Microsoft released Vista. Analysts, both the technology kind and stock analysts, had grown impatient with the repeated delays in shipping Vista. Ironically, when it was released, the conventional wisdom was that XP wasn’t good enough. It’s security wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t a good enough OS to compete on the Internet, and so on. In the end, SP 2 was the stable OS that everyone had been waiting for.

Microsoft has always been a big easy target. It gets little credit for what it gets right and heaps of blame for what it doesn’t. That’s the burden of being #1 for so long.

Whether Microsoft does it good enough or not on any theoretical scale is immaterial. Until someone else can do any better, Microsoft’s version is the best there is, and that is good enough.

As an aside I read somewhere (unfortunately, I don’t remember where) that Microsoft has always developed for the bigger, more lucrative business market and then trimmed those products back for the retail consumer. The author’s point was that customers have been making due with “business lite” versions for years. Again, until someone offers something more competitive, it is all just moot speculation.

Hey, I just got my next article topic!

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Zulekka,

I don’t believe that Vista makes tables. Perhaps you are talking about Office 2007?

Brian

Zulekka

Sure, you can disable UAC, but why would you, because then you wouldn’t have it. No problem with automatic updates, but regarding slow computer, I have a reasonable dual processor with 4 GB memory. Besides, I said nothing about slow computers, but now that you bring it up, if Vista is slower than XP on the same machine, it’s slower, period.

In contrast to your insightful and enlightened analysis, I find most of the points made above to be true. Microsoft is about making money. As an investor, I love it. As a user, well, not so much. Perhaps you should gtfo with your uninformed opinions, and go learn something! Cool IM abbreviations for profanity may make you feel good, but they make you look foolish to the rest of us.

c u l8r aliG8r!

But it turns out that they’re not idiots. They’re good business people. Investors love them because the continually come out with new products that exclude the old ones and force users to waste resources on endless upgrades. Office 2007 is a nice example, with the new docx format that can only be read by the newer MS Office software. This is called planned obsolescence, and is what killed GM, and it will just as surely kill Microsoft in the end. One can only hope that open standards for productivity software become a reality in the future, or that UNIX operating systems take over. For now, we are all forced to have Microsoft compatibility because that’s what everybody else uses. No matter what anybody else says, Microsoft is a monopoly, is only interested in squeezing revenue out of their users, and is not interested in helping anybody except inasmuch as it helps them (make more money). They are themselves afraid of change, in the sense that rather than actually reinvent and improve their systems and then move on to new innovative software, they keep releasing the same old tools with just enough modification to force the computer using community to buy their latest incremental “improvement.” This kind of idiocy is the product of monopolies.

I, for one, have plenty of interesting challenges in my life, and don’t need others randomly introducing stupid changes into their products for no discernable benefit, and in some cases, clearly evidient detriment. I find the “blame the user” tone of the article insulting. I don’t think most users are “shivering and afraid” of change, just annoyed and frustrated at needless changes introduced into their computers for little apparent reason. I can only hope that the rest of the world wakes up and begins to critically evaluate the parasitic effect that Microsoft has on our economy and individual users. I feel sure that the day will come when there will be no Microsoft.