this post has one thing

this post has one thing going for it: Bias.

You say microsoft "wants people to believe the fix for Vista is right around the corner", If that's the case, why did they bother spending $200m on a Vista advertising campaign?

You say "After all, is there any chance in the world the system requirements for Windows 7 (whenever it arrives, probably early 2011) will be less than those for Vista?", and yet Microsoft has publicly stated that Windows 7 will have the same requirements as vista, since its basically an optimised, incremental release of the vista kernel. This gives them the support for all of vista's drivers, which plagued vista at release but nowadays there are vista drivers for almost everything.

You also say that windows 7 will need a huge hardware upgrade - if they pull off what they are aiming for, and so far it actually looks good that they'll manage it - then that wont be an issue. It's named Windows 7 at the moment to instill a sense that it's completely new, shedding any doubt in the consumer mind that its as bad as vista. Despite that, its an incremental update on the vista kernel. Much like XP was on the 2000 codebase - And who is criticising that move?

I am not doubting that

I am not doubting that Microsoft has promised to release past versions of Windows in a set time frame that was missed. Windows 1.0, 95 and 2000 are three examples of this. 95 was suppose to actually hit the market in '93 but end up coming out in August 1995. 2000 ended up being a 5 year development cycle similar to Vista and came out in February 2000 instead of the targetted '98 and the failed promise of a personal edition for consumers. Windows 1.0 was expected in 1983 but instead showed up a buggy 1.0 release in 1985 superseded by 1.01. Microsoft does have its history of failed expectations I certainly agree.

Then again, the product has lived up to the expectation and market dominance. Windows 95 was a hit, NT 4 was a hit, so was version 3.0 which pretty much cemented the company's grasp on the PC market. 2000 still dominates in many businesses to this day and XP has enjoyed a long market cycle in addition to a beloved and accepting industry.

Vista's problems were very clear and its a combination of Microsoft and industry faults. The project was too ambitious, beta being built on beta, lack of focus because of existing problems with products already on the market, XP and code red which led to XP SP2. Then we come back to Longhorn and the transprency which was overdone. There was just too much expected of it and along the way features that were dropped and OEMs, IHVs, ISVs reluctance to write or update existing software/drivers for a moving target.

This badly affected the reset and final Vista's release in January of 2007 although the product was actually reset in August of 2004 with what we have today now built on Windows Server 2003 SP1. The perception and confidence was lost. But after one year, a service pack, I see the confidence is being rebuilt, its licensed and deployed on over 200 million systems. Thats a success in my book.

You can't compare XPs market share to Vista's, XP has a longer market cycle which help it grab mind share and stay comfortable. Overall, I believe Microsoft is learning from this with Windows 7, leaked alpha previews have suggested a system thats more performance savvy and will really save the credibility of the platform itself although it never was in danger in the first place. Its 100% easier to migrate from XP to Vista than it is to do so from XP to Linux or OS X.

Thier is loads of rubbish

Thier is loads of rubbish written about Vista as far as I am concerned it is fit for purpose especially it the home sector. Business is another matter 95% of windows problems are caused by hardware and software vendors other than Microsoft. Dedicated Business software causes problems with new releases of windows and always has.

Microsoft are being punished for upping the security which older software can't handle

That been said UAC is a bag of spanners

You will always have

You will always have Microsoft bashers as long as Microsoft remains the top of the food chain for both Operating Systems and Office productivity software.

This article is beyond bias and is another Microsoft bash. Instead of bashing Microsoft look back at what actually made the company as big as it is. Anti competative? That is false and anyone with half the ability to think for themselves. Microsoft licensed their operating system and software to run on any PC(IBM clones for those that remember that far back). Apple refused to license and is now playing catch up and putting out what basically is false advertisement and still refuses to license.

Give it a break the arguements are long past old and boring and for the most part not based on evidence or facts.

Windows release dates

To Alan Burns--

Windows ME was released _after_ Windows 2000. Here's a link to the relevant Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Timeline_of_releases

I was at the local rollout event for Win2K; WinME hadn't hit the market at that point, and wouldn't for several more months. And as soon as it did, people began to realize that Win98SE was superior to its successor.

I don't know if the same can be said regarding Vista and Win7. There's a lot of FUD coming from Microsoft right now, as well as an unusual amount of expectation being stoked by various columnists, bloggers, and experts of all calibers. Being from Missouri, I think I'll fall back on my native state's wisdom and request that all involved, "Show Me."

RE:WINDOWS 7

Another Linux/Mac salesman heard from!!!

Please spare me

The only thing wrong with vista are those who are afraid to use it because of people like you making them feel it's a bad operating system. I've used it since it's beta and have had 0, nadda, zippo problems with it and it has played EVERY game, software package and recognized every device I have thrown at it.

If you don't like Microsoft then so be it, but don't play the high school game of spreading rumors because some guy is better at sports, better looking and gets all the girls and you don't.

Visa is sound, it works and is a joy to use. Unlike Linux you don't have to know 50,000 command line syntax's and hope that the driver you need is out there "somewhere" and if it is and doesn't work, maybe somebody someday will get around to fixing so you can use it.

I have a mind of my own believe it or not and I won't be intimidated by you or anyone else when 7 comes out, I will try it and judge for MYSELF if it is worth the change. Because looking for an unbiased opinion here is going to be impossible to find.

Linux vs M$

As for requiring understandings of command line syntax, I have never needed to using Ubuntu 7.10. The system works as good or better than anything windows has or may have in the future. Best of all it is all free! I think people need to open their eyes and see that there is more out there than ms or mac software.