Microsoft's motive behind releasing Vista?

[upapilot]

What was Microsoft's main motive behind releasing Vista? XP had no serious problems plus releasing Vista doubled the problems instead reducing them!

[Sand & Mercury]

They wanted to improve, but Vista's development was plagued with internal problems from the get-go.

[OrangeCrate]

They needed a new product, to protect and grow the revenue stream into the company.

[Bachstelze]

I disagree. From my experience, every problem I found in Vista was already there in XP, and some of the XP problems were solved.

I have Vista on my desktop and XP on my laptop (stupid device with no Vista drivers), and Vista is at least ten times more pleasant to use.

[Bachstelze]

And I shall remind you this place is not supposed to be used as a bashing area. If you want to bash, go do that on your blogs or somewhere else. I'm sick of brainless Windows bashing so I now have a zero-tolerance policy on this.

[upapilot]

i was'nt bashing windows! Merely wondering the motive behind releasing it!:popcorn:

[Vince4Amy]

And I shall remind you this place is not supposed to be used as a bashing area. If you want to bash, go do that on your blogs or somewhere else. I'm sick of brainless Windows bashing so I now have a zero-tolerance policy on this.

Awesome I agree with you.

Vista is a fine OS. I use it on one of my computers 64 bit Home Premium because I simply need it for my games, I'm not going to give up games because they don't all work in WINE on Slackware.

I also use Vista for Visual Basic Express 2008 because I need it for school, I'd like to use Java because I Know it but the school won't let me, even though I can achieve the same results.

Vista has given me no problems and I got it quite near to release date, I do recall that when XP was released there were a truckload more problems with it than there are Vista today.

The transition to an NT based OS from a 9x based OS was not smooth at best and to be honest there were more BSoDs and incompatibilities with the initial release of XP than Vista.

Not to mention the fact that XP was bloatware and never ran very well on the same systems a lot of people were running 98SE/ME on. Plus the themes were liked by very few current Windows users and they thought that they would be changed or dropped.

[Sand & Mercury]

I do not think it was MS's intention to make Vista an inferior OS to XP. :lol:

[Vince4Amy]

I do not think it was MS's intention to make Vista an inferior OS to XP. :lol:

It's not inferior to XP.

[glotz]

Digital Restrictions Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management)

[Vince4Amy]

Digital Restrictions Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management)

Never affected me. To be fair Apple are much worse with the DRM than Microsoft.

[Hydrid]

In my opinion MS released Vista for one reason.To test the "beta" version of Windows7!To see how people will react find the problems and fix them before they release windows7,so people wont be dissapointed from compatibility issues etc.

I think its their policy.Like when they launced Win Mellenium a very buggy version very little time before they launch XP.

I hope i helped.

[Vince4Amy]

In my opinion MS released Vista for one reason.To test the "beta" version of Windows7!To see how people will react find the problems and fix them before they release windows7,so people wont be dissapointed from compatibility issues etc.

I think its their policy.Like when they launced Win Mellenium a very buggy version very little time before they launch XP.

I hope i helped.

No you never helped. XP was much worse off when it was released. Very few took it seriously, the theme was constantly knocked about the way it looked and the fact that it required 256MB Ram to run comfortably made it bloatware.

Now look what happened to it in the end, it's not the most widely used OS.

[upapilot]

I kind of agree with you Hydrid!!:lolflag:

[inxygnuu]

it was simply bad marketing. they wanted to try out new ideas and things, but the market did not like them. Like all of the versions, for an example. apparently the market did not want those. UAC was a bit of a nuisance, but others liked it. I don't like how they got rid of the boot.ini file, because now I cant run vista at all, but that isn't much on topic.

Vista's 11 pillars of failure (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2286065,00.asp)

[Betsybuntu]

What's the point of Canonical developing 9.04? I'm sure plenty of people run 8.10 just fine!

[rockface]

Internally Microsoft knew that Vista was a turkey from the start. It was a money grab, simple as that. They knew all the monkeys and sheep that purchased Vista would still need their Windows fix, thus they would purchase Windows 7 also. You pay twice for something that you should have had from the beginning, genius. You have to hand it to Microsoft's marketing department, they could teach those email scam artists from Nigeria a thing or too.

Windows 7 is suppose to be the best thing since Jesus invented sliced bread. Even the betas and 'leaked' demo-ware versions stomp all over Vista, it is said.

I think most people would have rather stuck with XP and waited a little longer for a version of Windows that delivered on the promises and hype.

[Giant Speck]

Microsoft released Vista because, as a company, they were no longer profiting from XP. Almost 67% of computers today run on Windows XP. That number was as high as 85% prior to the release of Vista.

Microsoft cannot make any money off XP anymore. They don't charge for updates. The only way they can profit from XP anymore is if customers buy Windows XP install discs or request to have Windows XP pre-installed on their new computer.

They were already planning for a replacement to Windows XP before Windows XP was even released.

[rockface]

Microsoft released Vista because, as a company, they were no longer profiting from XP. Almost 67% of computers today run on Windows XP. That number was as high as 85% prior to the release of Vista.

Microsoft cannot make any money off XP anymore. They don't charge for updates. The only way they can profit from XP anymore is if customers buy Windows XP install discs or request to have Windows XP pre-installed on their new computer.

They were already planning for a replacement to Windows XP before Windows XP was even released.

I think I should have just used the phrase 'guaranteed revenue stream', a little more succinct.

[Grant A.]

They were already planning for a replacement to Windows XP before Windows XP was even released.

Yes, Microsoft used to have a 2 year release cycle on Windows. This is the main reason why XP got so popular, because it had the longest top-of-the-line run time out of all the other Windows operating systems. Had Microsoft stuck to their 2 year release cycle, XP wouldn't be nearly as popular as it currently is and we would possibly have a large spike in the market shares of other operating systems. XP is a very nice system, but Vista is quite nice too. It may seem unstable, but it is the base from which to improve and create Windows 7. Vista is much better than XP at the core level, and is not as bad as many people say it is. It even has compatibility layers built-in for programs that need older versions of Windows all the way to Windows 95.

Easy enough to say, I do infact use Vista and I dual boot with Kubuntu 8.04. It's quite easy to say that my first computer was a Windows 98 and then I bought a computer with Windows XP installed in 2004, and did not install Linux until 2006. It is quite easy to say that I have a certain fondness for Windows, it just seems so... familiar.

[Sef]

What's the point of Canonical developing 9.04? I'm sure plenty of people run 8.10 just fine!


Ubuntu is a timed-release distro. It is released twice a year. You do not have to upgrade to a newer distro, unless your distro has reached its end-of-life.

[Zerocxis]

I believe the motive behind Microsoft releasing Vista is that they needed to fix some of the inherent problems that plagued and still plague XP. Microsoft's developers behind Vista rewrote the driver architecture (specifically regarding graphics driver architecture) to fix the instability of graphics driver related bug checks (BSoD) that occurred for reasons that did not make sense. The WDDM offers a way for the driver to be reset if it stops responding (also the reason behind the buggy nVidia/ATI drivers that caused all sorts of problems in Vista's early days because they had to rewrite the drivers for the new WDDM architecture).

They also fixed flaws and holes that were in the earlier versions of NT (including XP, ofc same goes for XP when it was released except the fact that they tried to model the security model like the DOS/Windows system, aka not a multi-user system and every user is root by default - imo, biggest mistake ever, unlike earlier versions of NT). This is also why I like Vista although I will say at first, when I first got Vista, I did not like the UAC because of the nagging it did, but when I switched to Linux for a while, I understood as to why Microsoft implemented it; it provided a similar element to what "sudo" does in Ubuntu and other distributions that implement "sudo" by default.

Overall, I really like Vista and what it offers (if you have a system that can run it effectively, i.e. not running on a computer that can barely run XP which I believe was also a major issue when Vista was first released along with lack of driver support). I also believe many of the early issues that Vista had are pretty much moot now post SP1 and I have also noticed more driver support and better, more stable drivers being released. I am currently running the x64 version of Vista and the only issues I have had were due to either buggy third party software or poorly developed games that I should have waited until the 3rd or 4th patch to install, otherwise, it has been the most stable version of NT I have ran. /me hates Far Cry 2 for that... :lolflag:

Also note, I use both Linux and Windows. I am not a "fanboi" of either platform. Every OS has it's pros and cons.

In regards to Windows 7, it's nice and the changes are nice, but I probably won't upgrade to Windows 7 until the first service pack (yes I have read from some sources that purportedly that Windows 7 was supposed to be a service pack for Vista but got turned into a new version of Windows due to the amount of time invested into it).

My overall $.02

Zerocxis

[smoker]

...Windows 7 is suppose to be the best thing since Jesus invented sliced bread.

Afraid sliced bread was down to someone else:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliced_bread
:-)

as to
Microsoft's motive behind releasing Vista?

only one motive, money.

[tsali]

only one motive, money

I am just SOOOO sick of hearing from people that have an issue with corporations making money.

That's what they do! It's why they exist!

I suppose you think scorpions are evil because they sting?

Come on, already...get over it.

In the world of making money, developers MUST release product. They don't have the luxury of sitting around and tweaking until it's "just right".

Jobs forced the Mac team to ship, warts and all. Left to their own devices, it would never have gotten out the door.

Microsoft HAD to ship Longhorn, or at least some of the features of longhorn.

As Zerocxis noted Vista DOES fix a lot of issues that enterprise users were demanding to be fixed...primarily a more secure networking protocol.

Yes, they knew it wasn't everything they would have liked it to be. NO PRODUCT EVER IS.

How many here think that Ubuntu is perfect with every release? Yet it happens anyway...ready or not...

[Giant Speck]

Calm down, tsali.

All they said was "only one motive, money." They didn't imply whether that was a good thing or not.

[tsali]

Calm down, tsali.

All they said was "only one motive, money." They didn't imply whether that was a good thing or not.

Ah, I guess I need to step back and look at it objectively...

Internally Microsoft knew that Vista was a turkey from the start. It was a money grab, simple as that. They knew all the monkeys and sheep that purchased Vista would still need their Windows fix, thus they would purchase Windows 7 also.

I'm still trying to figure out if I'm a monkey or a sheep...

[3rdalbum]

XP had no serious problems plus releasing Vista doubled the problems instead reducing them!

XP has no serious problems except:

1. Default policy of allowing the first user to be full-time administrator, causing users to adopt very unsafe computing practices.
2. Bad support for SSDs, causing low performance and quick failures.
3. Scheduler was less-than-ideal for managing multiple CPU cores.
4. No out-of-the-box support for SATA, requiring the use of a floppy disk in order to install Windows on semi-modern hardware. This is a serious problem because as many computers ship with floppy drives as ship with punch-card readers!
5. Printer drivers run in kernel-space, which is a security risk and also threatens stability. With today's computing power, there are no reasons to run those drivers in kernel space, and lots of reasons not to.
6. Popular third-party applications were starting to be exploited by attackers. This was easy because the developers didn't care about security. By implementing mandatory security controls in Vista, developers were FORCED to work within the security system. Finally!
7. Graphics card vendors were running up against Windows XP's direct rendering limitations. DX10 was inevitable.
8. It was unclear whether emerging new hardware was able to be supported by XP. Vista puts the new infrastructure in place.
9. To continue to be competitive in enterprise, Windows needed to support paravirtualisation. XP could not do this, and it could not be added to XP without bringing down the house of cards.
10. No support for EFI (replacement for the BIOS), although EFI support was dropped from Vista.
11. XP has poor 64-bit support (or rather, poor 32-bit software support on 64-bit Windows) and it needed to be drastically improved. Ironically, Vista lead the charge to the 4-gigabytes-of-RAM-in-desktops mark, but we would have eventually reached there anyway. Gamers, with their big graphics cards, were also beginning to test the 4 gigabyte address space limit.

Remember, Windows XP is ANCIENT in computing terms. Vista was Microsoft's chance to break down the bad parts of Windows architecture and rebuild it properly. In the process, Microsoft added support for new hardware and added the ability to support new types of computer hardware that haven't been released yet.

Vista is a darn sight better than XP, that's for sure. The only problem is that Microsoft kept people on XP for far too long - if someone tries Vista, they quickly get annoyed with the differences between XP and Vista because they've been accustomed with the same interface for 7 years.

I'm sure Microsoft released Vista for more reasons than just "XP was getting too ancient". There was definitely a threat from Mac OS X and Linux, both being pretty modern operating systems (OS X needs a complete redesign and rewrite too actually). Microsoft also wants to defeat Google, for reasons completely unknown to everyone except Steve Ballmer, and I'm sure Vista was justified as a way to help do that. Somehow. In a land with fairies at the bottom of the garden, Vista was going to destroy Google.

However, forgetting those controversial reasons, XP was an operating system that worked for early-noughties computers, and it's simply an inappropriate operating system for today's computers. If your computer is capable of running Vista, then you should be running it. Full-stop.

[rockface]

XP has no serious problems except:

1. Default policy of allowing the first user to be full-time administrator, causing users to adopt very unsafe computing practices.
2. Bad support for SSDs, causing low performance and quick failures.
3. Scheduler was less-than-ideal for managing multiple CPU cores.
4. No out-of-the-box support for SATA, requiring the use of a floppy disk in order to install Windows on semi-modern hardware. This is a serious problem because as many computers ship with floppy drives as ship with punch-card readers!
5. Printer drivers run in kernel-space, which is a security risk and also threatens stability. With today's computing power, there are no reasons to run those drivers in kernel space, and lots of reasons not to.
6. Popular third-party applications were starting to be exploited by attackers. This was easy because the developers didn't care about security. By implementing mandatory security controls in Vista, developers were FORCED to work within the security system. Finally!
7. Graphics card vendors were running up against Windows XP's direct rendering limitations. DX10 was inevitable.
8. It was unclear whether emerging new hardware was able to be supported by XP. Vista puts the new infrastructure in place.
9. To continue to be competitive in enterprise, Windows needed to support paravirtualisation. XP could not do this, and it could not be added to XP without bringing down the house of cards.
10. No support for EFI (replacement for the BIOS), although EFI support was dropped from Vista.
11. XP has poor 64-bit support (or rather, poor 32-bit software support on 64-bit Windows) and it needed to be drastically improved. Ironically, Vista lead the charge to the 4-gigabytes-of-RAM-in-desktops mark, but we would have eventually reached there anyway. Gamers, with their big graphics cards, were also beginning to test the 4 gigabyte address space limit.

Remember, Windows XP is ANCIENT in computing terms. Vista was Microsoft's chance to break down the bad parts of Windows architecture and rebuild it properly. In the process, Microsoft added support for new hardware and added the ability to support new types of computer hardware that haven't been released yet.

Vista is a darn sight better than XP, that's for sure. The only problem is that Microsoft kept people on XP for far too long - if someone tries Vista, they quickly get annoyed with the differences between XP and Vista because they've been accustomed with the same interface for 7 years.

I'm sure Microsoft released Vista for more reasons than just "XP was getting too ancient". There was definitely a threat from Mac OS X and Linux, both being pretty modern operating systems (OS X needs a complete redesign and rewrite too actually). Microsoft also wants to defeat Google, for reasons completely unknown to everyone except Steve Ballmer, and I'm sure Vista was justified as a way to help do that. Somehow. In a land with fairies at the bottom of the garden, Vista was going to destroy Google.

However, forgetting those controversial reasons, XP was an operating system that worked for early-noughties computers, and it's simply an inappropriate operating system for today's computers. If your computer is capable of running Vista, then you should be running it. Full-stop.

'If your computer is capable of running Vista, then you should be running it. Full-stop.' And Microsoft thanks you for your patronage.

This is the first time I have installed Intrepid on this particular computer, but I am still not sure about the quality, compatibility and everyday usability of this product. Being the 64 bit edition it still has issues (Java, Flash and certain other software). Just because it is the latest and greatest from Canonical does not mean that anybody and everybody should adopt it.

Windows XP works for many people, and the faults you define, though true, can be assuaged by Microsoft's own and third party tools that are readily available. I would imagine that in the IT enabled workplace an iron fist mentality, security wise, would be (or should be) in place no matter what OS they use.

Microsoft as a corporation thinks about profits, not it's end users. It does amaze me the allegiance people here and in other forums afford MS.

I conclude Microsoft know their audience, and charge accordingly.

[tsali]

Microsoft as a corporation thinks about profits, not it's end users.

What do you base this on? As an end user, every MS product I've ever used has worked very well. The one occasion I had to invoke service was excellent.

You don't stay in business if you don't make a product that people like using. Therefore MS MUST serve their customers if they are to continue to profit.

Just ask GM and Chrysler.

It does amaze me the allegiance people here and in other forums afford MS.


Acknowledging that they make a good product does not equate to allegiance. I love using Ubuntu but cannot switch because it cannot provide the consumer level service that I expect as of yet.

[Handyman Felting]

Microsoft as a corporation thinks about profits, not it's end users.

What exactly do you mean it doesn't think about its end users?

[pcybill]

Without end users they would have no profits.

[cmat]

I used to do retail. The goal was to get the customer to empty their pockets in your department. Nothing said you had to like them.

[rockface]

I used to do retail. The goal was to get the customer to empty their pockets in your department. Nothing said you had to like them.

The number one rule of business is to make money, all other considerations are secondary and ancillary. The number two rule of business is to see rule number one.

Microsoft is the Goliath it is today because of the attitude of people such as tsali, Handyman Felting and pcybill. Microsoft is not some benevolent dictator that tolerates criticism and dissension. The naivety of the 'end user' is the reason why Microsoft has become the monument to capitalism it has. Do you think they introduced best of breed software into a vacuum?

Microsoft cares about your money, NOT YOU. Deal with it.

Linux has more than it's fare share of sycophants and blind zealots, but those from the Microsoft stable dwell on a different planet.

cmat's comment of 'get the customer to empty their pockets' is the raison d'etre as to why Microsoft exists as an entity. This obvious fact seems to escape those people that populate Cloud Cuckoo Land.

[Giant Speck]

Microsoft is the Goliath it is today because of the attitude of people such as tsali, Handyman Felting and pcybill. Microsoft is not some benevolent dictator that tolerates criticism and dissension. The naivety of the 'end user' is the reason why Microsoft has become the monument to capitalism it has. Do you think they introduced best of breed software into a vacuum?

Do you not think it is rude and distasteful to call people out by name, indirectly calling them naive and "cuckoo," just because they have a different opinion than you?

[smoker]

I am just SOOOO sick of hearing from people that have an issue with corporations making money.

That's what they do! It's why they exist!

I suppose you think scorpions are evil because they sting?

Come on, already...get over it.

In the world of making money, developers MUST release product. They don't have the luxury of sitting around and tweaking until it's "just right".

Jobs forced the Mac team to ship, warts and all. Left to their own devices, it would never have gotten out the door.

Microsoft HAD to ship Longhorn, or at least some of the features of longhorn.

As Zerocxis noted Vista DOES fix a lot of issues that enterprise users were demanding to be fixed...primarily a more secure networking protocol.

Yes, they knew it wasn't everything they would have liked it to be. NO PRODUCT EVER IS.

How many here think that Ubuntu is perfect with every release? Yet it happens anyway...ready or not...

there's nothing wrong with a business making money, did i state there was?

as to scorpions, or any other creatures, i don't really think about them in terms of good and evil!:rolleyes:

[rockface]

Do you not think it is rude and distasteful to call people out by name, indirectly calling them naive and "cuckoo," just because they have a different opinion than you?

This is a public forum, it goes with the territory.

I would call them naive face to face, there would be no need to do so indirectly.

We all have, and are entitled, to our own opinion. Since you and I have exchanged words before, you have your own view about me. If I state my view openly, so what? You stated yours, did you not?

[tsali]

This is a public forum, it goes with the territory.

I would call them naive face to face, there would be no need to do so indirectly.

We all have, and are entitled, to our own opinion. Since you and I have exchanged words before, you have your own view about me. If I state my view openly, so what? You stated yours, did you not?

Ok...you obviously have little grasp on the nature of capitalism and free enterprise.

You didn't answer anyone's questions about WHY you said what you said...you just attacked them. Personally, I don't think you KNOW why you say what you do. You're probably in parrot-mode, regurgitating whatever you've picked up along the way. You get ticked off when people want to go a little deeper, because you aren't any deeper and you know it.

Your 'in-your-face' attitude demonstrates ignorance and narrow mindedness.

You can post to your heart's content, but your style has just characterized you as someone who cannot be taken seriously.

[tsali]

as to scorpions, or any other creatures, i don't really think about them in terms of good and evil!

My point exactly...and why I believe in strong government regulation. A corporation is an entity being driven by many people to achieve the basic goal of maximizing its profits. Despite corporate "mission statements" they all are capable of behaving quite amorally when in pursuit of the basic goal. All of their decisions become a question of "cost-benefit" versus "Is this right?"

If a company decides that DRM and proprietary formats yield a greater cost-benefit, they will pursue those options. They have a legal obligation to their shareholders to do so. You can call it "greed" if you want, but it's hardly that emotional.

Corporations are machines designed to make money. When they don't, they die. Simple enough.

[rockface]

Ok...you obviously have little grasp on the nature of capitalism and free enterprise.

Your 'in-your-face' attitude demonstrates ignorance and narrow mindedness.

You can post to your heart's content, but your style has just characterized you as someone who cannot be taken seriously.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, I always have. In the flesh or via internet forums such as this, I am nothing if not consistent.

You took me serious enough to post a reply rather than simply ignore me. And feel free to characterize and generalize about me as you wish, 'ignorance and narrow mindedness' tends to do this to a person.

'Ok...you obviously have little grasp on the nature of capitalism and free enterprise.' Because I question the voracity of just how Microsoft got to be king of the castle? Whatever...

[Giant Speck]

This is a public forum, it goes with the territory.

I would call them naive face to face, there would be no need to do so indirectly.

We all have, and are entitled, to our own opinion. Since you and I have exchanged words before, you have your own view about me. If I state my view openly, so what? You stated yours, did you not?

1. My question was a yes or no question. :p

2. I have no problem with your opinion. You are clearly entitled to it. Your post seemed a little rude, that's all.

3. Yes. We have exchanged words before. The first conversation had to do with American and British humor, and the second conversation was a nonsensical argument over who was joking and who wasn't. You even said in a completely different thread that you respected me for my differing opinions about Windows. To me, it doesn't really look like you are showing those three people any respect by cutting them down.

I'm not trying to start an argument here, so I'm just going to leave it at this. If you really think you need the last laugh or something, go ahead and post a response.

[Bachstelze]

I'm still trying to figure out if I'm a monkey or a sheep...

Same here. I had missed that part, actually, I think this warrants an infraction.

Thread closed pending further staff review.

[matthew]

This thread has outlived its usefulness and will remain closed.