Posted April 15th, 2008 at 3:42am
Microsoft has this way of (how shall I put this?) corralling their consumer base into upgrading on the MS timeline, i.e. how often and to what product. That master plan hit something of a bump when Windows Vista, the branch all the monkeys were expected to swing to from the XP branch, sorta broke and all the monkeys went tumbling down. To put it less poetically, XP users don't want to be forced to upgrade to Vista because an endless list of annoying problems and bugs associated with the operating system makes it look like a pretty bad choice. MSNBC has run an article about how Microsoft is literally forcing XP users to upgrade; tech support for mainstream users ends this month and before the year is out you won't be able to buy a copy of Windows XP anywhere no matter how much you beg. This has perturbed XP users so much that a petition with 111,000 signatures has been created, asking Microsoft to continue support for XP indefinitely or at least until Vista is useable on a regular basis.In a recent article about the “Save XP” drive, Gruman wrote that “in Vista’s first year, InfoWorld detected a deep anxiety over Vista among technologists and consumers alike. … We have not criticized Microsoft’s XP support plans. We have criticized Microsoft for ending the availability of XP on new machines past the June 30 end-of-sales date. ... It does you no good to have XP support if you can’t get
microsoft, vista, windows, xp
Posted March 26th, 2008 at 9:29pm
Those of you who follow the adventures that Microsoft has had with its trouble release of the latest Windows update, called Vista, will already know that a lot of users and critics alike suggest that it be panned completely until it improves (in fact, Microsoft even released a free program specifically designed to roll your computer back from Vista to Win XP). What you might not know is that even Microsft executives are just as hassled by Vista's long list of Epic Fail as you are. An article at the Sydney Morning Herald talks about how private MS emails that came to light during a recent US court case (a class action against MS over Vista) explain that their brass are complaining about how much it sucks. One executive, Mike Nash, complained he was "burned" so badly by compatibility issues he was left with "a $2100 email machine". Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft executive in charge of Windows, struggled to even get his home printer working with Vista. In an email to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in February last year, Sinofsky outlined reasons why Vista struggled at launch. He said hardware and software vendors never "really believed we would ever ship [Vista] so they didn't start the work [on updated drivers] until very late in 2006". "People who rely on using all the features of their hardware (like Jon's Nikon scanner) will not see availability for some time, if ever, depending on the [manufacturer]," Sinofsky wrote. Ballmer responded with a terse
microsoft, vista, windows