fauxscot

Not Everyone Likes Windows 7

fwiw...

I use XP and finally, after nearly a decade, can use it reasonably well and maintain it. It sill does things that I can't fix. Sadly, it's essential to some old software I need for engineering work, so I'll have to run it for quite a while more, but currently, it's running on the last non-Apple computer I'll buy.

I've watched my better half use her Macs over the years with no problems. Painless backups via Time Capsule. Complete integration with hardware/software. Plug stuff in; it works. Out of the box; it works.

I bill my time at $125/hr. Every year, I spend the equivalent of several thousand dollars dealing with my PCs. Sometimes, much more. She's a lawyer. Billing rate maybe $200/hr. Her annual computer maintenance cost equivalent? $0. Every year.

Ray, buddy, call Apple. Get a machine on loan. Try it out. Hell, load Win XP on it. Give it a month. Then call it underpowered and overpriced. (I suggest maybe you'd be OK with a Mac Mini at $600; you can use your current display and mouse.) I think you'll change your tune.

Of course, you could take $300 of that and just buy Win7 Ultimate and complain for the rest of your life, but you sound way too smart for that. Try something Different, why don't you?

Microsoft's Six Year Wagon Rut

My only experience with Vista was installing software on a new Dell laptop for someone. I found it sluggish, but pretty. I would not have been pleased with it if I had to use it because of the slow responses.

However, I'm not a luddite, and can certainly afford any hardware I want. That said, why in the world would I change to Vista? I am simply not compelled to do so. I don't NEED any more features at this point, and prudent caretaking of my XP SP2 machine gives me a perfectly suitable computing experience without security issues, preserves my investment in existing software, requires no learning curve, requires NO hardware upgrades, and I am hard pressed to explain why I would want to move to Vista?

Marketing is about motivation. Microsoft can force-feed Vista via new hardware sales, but for the hundreds of millions of people out there like me, they have to provide a reason to change. What is that reason? Eye candy?

I don't hate Microsoft. I personally feel that Gates deserves to be a billionaire. (I was there before the PC and DOS, in the era of CP/M and a zillion, highly technical, obtuse, and unreliable OS's, and with all its problems, Windows has revolutionized computing for the common man.) I also like Apple, and ran the equivalent of Windows 98 on a Lisa in 1986. Microsoft's "innovations" have their origins elsewhere!

Apple's story with OSX is so much more compelling than Microsoft's with Vista. There IS a reason to change. There IS a compelling value added. There IS the ability to try something new and at the same time, preserve XP/PC software on a new, elegant, fast machine.

Vista might not be a "mistake", but it certainly seems to be the victim of a confluence of negative factors in the market, the economy, and the competition. Microsoft has a lot of bright people, and they'll adjust. THey have money and inertia, as well as market share. Something good will eventually come out of Redmond, but the current spectrum of Vista products isn't compelling enough to push me to place an order.