vistas biggest problem is people that are affraid of change

I am sorry i disgree the biggest problems with this issue is most people are tired of paying for software upgrades one and two why should we change every couple of years for a program that has more issues then fixes before it ships? there was no great demand for Vista from the norm people just the tech junkies and the game companies are pushing the graphics and gaming world hard for better details and more, so why should the consumer be held under the gun because there kids want better gaming cards and direct x and other shading and graphics over all. Microsoft needs to concentrate on providing a OS that is fully functioning from the day it rolls out and this way manufactures have time to make sure there products work 100% with the OS. how many issues did or does vista have. LOTS enough to take up a two gigabyte download on the internet and that will suck for dsl users and comcast they way they monitor there bandwiths! how come Mac has little issues or other OS's think about it people.

I also agree with Amy on her sayings as well, Vista is OMG SLOW on a fast pc while Mac's OS is speedy zippy and virus free and always has been. for the most part. I run about 8 pc's in my home now and they range from a dell 8400 Dimension, to a few home builds and one HIGH END system that has the following psecs.
amd 6000 fx cpu OCed as far as i can get it to go with out blowing up, 8 gigs of ram, 1 terrabit of drive space, two SLI nvida cards with about 800 in ram, and my drives are sata raided as well and let me tell you i have vista on it and office and three games and when i open office 07 my cpu goes nuts and i have customed configured my system to maximize all memory for this or that and my cpu for this and that and still it runs like a silly PD4 and not a high end system, sorry micro u lose this time just like with windows Mill. that one sucked as well .......

For the most part I agree with everyone's opinions; however, I disagree that Vista is a worthless upgrade. It is truly an upgrade from XP just as XP was truly an upgrade from 2000. I think the reason that its a hard sell is because a Vista upgrade will cost more money in hardware & software. Its not compatible with most of the existing HW & SW. When the XP came out, it didn't have such an impact on the hardware and software as Vista has and most people are not going to buy a new OS and new hardware. However, as an OS, I think Vista is just as stable as XP and just as secure with the same amount of speed. In fact, I think the boot-up time is much faster than XPs. I work in all three worlds---XP, Vista and Mac and I feel that XP is the most compatible and reliable on all software and hardware; Vista is the most fun with new eye-candy like features and entertainment functions; and MAC is what it always has been(if that makes any sense.)

All the hype in the world will not disguise the fact that they're releasing Alpha quality software for sale.

More fool the people that cannot see through this, ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Most will move to Open Source sooner or later so it seems kind of dim to put effort and learning into staying hooked into this nonsense when free alternatives are around us.

Can anyone see a pattern emerging? Microsoft always release troublesome software and when it is finally tolerable it's time for "an upgrade".

Their disciples are like drug addicts I suppose, they can't necessarily see what their problem is.

One Microsoft chap once said that Open Source could be the end of capitalism itself. That implies that Microsoft is the only thing holding capitalism up does it not?

Open Source is a forest of vibrant saplings, and Microsoft is just a Giant Redwood that's rotten from the inside out.

Take your time, waste money, stay backwards if you want. You'll see.

Amy change is good if there are benefits across the board. Change is not good just for change sake. XP has some character flaws that everyone admits but Vista has character and integrity flaws. I liked the feel of Vista during the beta testing but it's lacking the software and hardware driver support for existing systems. It's like buying a car...some folks buy because it's newer. The old model runs fine and the functionality is there. But when you buy the new car are the replacement parts always available when needed? And the cost of those replacement parts are going to be steep.

XP is running fine and the support is there (for now). Replacement parts are also plentiful. Vista on the other hand...

People are afraid of change, and companies are even more afraid of change. It has taken XP six years to get to 84% of the market and still there are companies running an OS that is almost 10 years old - Win2K. If it wasn't for problems marketing software with the letters NT, we would be talking about NT6 replacing NT5.2. The true internal designation of Windows 2000 was NT5.0, and XP was NT5.1. The massive changes set forth in SP2 actually makes it NT5.2. This explains why there were no significant driver problems going from 2K to XP. However, on the consumer side, those driver incompatibilities were present. Check almost any driver download for a device and you will see Win2K/XP as one file. Win98 drivers will not work in XP and XP drivers will not work in Vista.

Another thing to consider in the software area is that in the consumer market even software with a small percentage of the market can expect to sell several hundred thousand copies of their software. However, software for the corporate environment that is not loaded on the workstations, may only have several hundred copies in existance. The company I work for has a software package for fixed assets that resides on the server and when run at a local plant, runs off the corporate server - 1 copy. The publisher has less than 100 copies in distribution and changes requested by users sometimes takes years to be implemented.

Then, once the software had been certified, there is the logistical problem of implementing Vista on thousands of PC's. That won't happen overnight.

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Ian - I don't think anyone is forcing you to move away from Win2K, especially Microsoft. While they are no long providing the updates to the system, the security patches will keep being issued until 2010, which will be 10 years after it's release. Until then, there is no reason to shift if you don't want to. As for Symantec, they and I have parted company twice. The first time when I was a user of Norton's Anti-Virus for years until the annual renewal got so high. Somewhere I still have an old NAV on 3.5" diskettes (I tend to be a packrat). Then I went to AVG Free, which in less intrusive. When I got my new Media Center, it came with NIS 2006 and gave me so many problems, they sent me a download link to 2007 and it wasn't any better. So when I upgraded my machine to Vista in May with the HP provided free upgrade, I left NIS behind and installed AVG Free on this machine along with Superantispyware.

The "layered" approach of individual applications most if not all free for non-commercial use results in a faster machine. I do not have a separate firewall other than the one in Vista (which many do not like) and the hardware firewall in the router.

By moving to XP Pro, if that is your plan, you will have an advantage in that virtually every device that works with 2K will work with XP, as the drivers are the same. I am running XP Pro on an older HP business class desktop and XP Home on a laptop. There are few differences, principally in the permissions area, (in XP Pro you can set permissions by folder, in Home you cannot) and the fact that XP Home cannot join a domain (probably because of the permissions) and it's a little cheaper if you can still find it.

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