Microsoft Internal Emails about Vista Problems

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/132891.asp

by edw519 • 18 years ago

26 14 18 years ago

blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com

edw519• 18 years ago

No one wants their dirty laundry aired out in public, especially when it smells so bad.

ardit33• 18 years ago

Vista is plain aweful. I bought a cheap $400 laptop for my parents, and unfortunately it came with vista. I should have just wiped it out, and installed XP, but I didn't have time.

The user interface is confusing, menus are incoherent, and the web 2.0 gradients everywhere create huge readibility problems in cheap lcd screens. I also had problems with remote help and connection, and had to use a third party solution to help my parents on some problems they had.

If you are looking for a cheap laptops for your parents, just don't go with vista. Just install XP, or even Ubuntu would be better.

Unfortunately for 400-500 dollars you can't buy anything with Mac Os in it. Mac Os seems to be easier to operate, especially for older folks.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

It gets worse. I bought a laptop for my mom that came with Vista as well. I wiped Vista to put XP on it, but I couldn't find drivers for XP for things like the wireless card. Turns out some of the newer hardware doesn't even come with XP drivers.

I would have but Ubuntu on there but unfortunately my parents need some Windows only software for various reasons.

dhimes2• 18 years ago

XP costs $200--half the price of the machine!

That's why I am willing to endure the pain of making Linux work. It's wonderful, but lags in driver release.

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Unfortunately for 400-500 dollars you can't buy anything with Mac Os in it.

Is this true? It might be. And yet I'm going to offer this old quote from the Car Talk guys:

"In the immortal words of former GM president Roger Smith, when asked by John White, who works for the Boston Globe, what kind of car can an American buy if he wants to buy an American car for under ten grand and if he wants to buy a General Motors car? And Roger Smith thought for a second and said, 'A two-year-old Buick.'"

So perhaps the used Mac market would be helpful. I'd be a little bit worried about reliability -- the warranty repair rate on Macs seems a bit higher as Apple and the rest of the PC world continue to push product costs into the nether regions -- but, hey, what do you want for $400?

Of course, used Macs hold their prices pretty well, so your statement may be accurate.

kirse• 18 years ago

Has anyone here not had any problems with Vista?

I run Vista Business 64-bit on my desktop and have Home Premium on my XPS Laptop and have had only one problem with slow network file transfer speed between the two.

Other than that, Vista has proved to be better than XP for me. I did install it with no expectations for a good product, maybe that's why?

dualogy• 18 years ago

No problems here.

eru• 18 years ago

Me neither. But I do not run it. ;)

derefr• 18 years ago

I bought a laptop with Vista pre-installed, and haven't had any problems with it so far. I disabled quite a few things when I got it, but in general I prefer it to XP (just for the increased coherency of all the Control Panel and other configuration screens, for starters, and the integration of several utilities (i.e. enhanced battery management) that were ugly OEM system-tray-trolls before.) I write this on my XP laptop, though (which could never hope to run Vista.)

dhimes2• 18 years ago

I also bought a Vista-preinstalled laptop. I haven't had any problems (except that Java lays out things a little differently), but I don't use it much. I installed Fedora and use that machine as a dual boot. I use Vista when I need wifi, cuz the drivers aren't available for fedora yet.

meatpeople• 18 years ago

About a month ago, I was talking to a man that sells hardware and support to small businesses (almost exclusively non-technical ones at that) for a living. He said his company spends a surprising amount of time downgrading Vista machines to XP - the majority of Vista installs sold to business customers come back for downgrading.

Whether it's an unsatisfactory experience or unfamiliarity that's the cause, it's a losing proposition for Microsoft if that's a common pattern.

jrbedard• 18 years ago

iPaper version of the emails: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2191055/Microsoft-execs-on-Vista-p...

anupamkapoor• 18 years ago

yawn, who cares !

snorkel• 18 years ago

Reasons I will never use Vista ever again:

1. Could not share a printer. Seriously. A plain generic HP printer. On a Windows network. XP shared it just fine, Vista would not share it, for security reasons, I suppose.

2. Vista refused, totally refused, to allow me use Microsoft's javascript debugger. That's Microsoft's Vista would not allow me to use Microsoft's javascript debugger. For security reasons. Seriously.

3. Vista takes interface design in a whole new direction. Adventure Gaming: Your goal is to share a folder on your network but first you must find the Lost Network Settings! And watch out for the security alert trolls! No! You clicked a dead network connection! Now you must wait 10 minutes for Windows to search a network that isn't connected! Doom!

Vista == giant steaming poo poo

Microsoft Internal Emails about Vista Problems

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