Update: I'm Still Ignoring Vista
- — 24 August, 2007 09:27
Oh sure, I've tried it--safely tucked into a virtual machine (ironically, the Virtual PC supplied by none other than Microsoft). I'll spent a few days playing with it, then feel grateful I'm still using XP.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's holding back. James Fallows, a guy who's been using PCs since the late seventies, said he's moving back to XP. Fallows writes for the Atlantic Monthly; for a sanity check, I'll read his work to see if we agree on the state of computing (We often do.).
Fallows mentioned an article in our sister pub, UK's Techworld: "Acer: PC Industry 'Disappointed' with Vista." In it, Acer president Gianfranco Lanci is quoted as saying that the "whole industry" is disappointed with Vista, that "stability is ... a problem," and users are voting with their feet.
No lie: When I look at the stats from PC World's tracking software, it shows that on any given day, a tad over 84 percent of our visitors use XP and a little over 9 percent use Vista.
Okay, you're curious, I know: about 5 percent use Windows 2000 and the rest is are using older Windows versions, Mac OS, Unix or Linux, and, believe it or not, WebTV and OS/2.
Outgoing PC Magazine editor-in-chief (and good friend) Jim Louderback also isn't happy with Vista. He finds it buggy and loaded with, as he puts it, "strange and nonreproducible system quirks."
And to top it off, Forrester Research published a report detailing the lackluster attitude about Vista among 45 IT managers it interviewed.
Vista: Problem Child
There are good reasons why people aren't happy with Vista. Some users can't get high-def sound and images. And when someone provides a free work-around for Vista driver problems, Microsoft comes down on them like that gorilla it claims not to be.It gets better -- or worse, depending on whose side you're on. A lot of users are livid with what they call "deceptive practices" surrounding Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" coupon program. Read "'Vista Capable' Suit Against Microsoft Allowed to Proceed" for the whole story.
Are you using Vista -- and ready to come back home to XP?
