Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco"

[babylonsister]

Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco"
By Larry Greenemeier in 60-Second Science Blog



It's official, Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system gets the prize for being the most overhyped, underperforming information and communication technology (ICT) project. Windows Vista garnered 5,222 of 6,043 votes (86 percent) entered via the Web to snag top honors in the first-ever Fiasco Awards announced in Barcelona, Spain, today, beating out other contenders, including Google's Lively virtual world, the One Laptop per Child computer (developed by the Nicholas Negroponte-chaired One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc.) and Second Life. Second prize went to SAGA, the oft-malfunctioning administration and academic management system developed by Spain's Catalan Education Department for public school teachers in Catalonia.

Vista was announced in July 2005 and hit the market in January 2007 after a mega PR blitz by Microsoft, which promised it would be a slick, secure successor to the company's popular Windows XP operating system. Vista came with an eye-catching graphical user interface, and Microsoft positioned the operating system's Windows Media Center software as a tool that would make the PC the new hub of home entertainment systems. What Microsoft made less clear was that many customers couldn't run Vista without upgrading their PCs.

What's more, the Fiasco Awards Web site points out, the new operating system was complicated to navigate and had compatibility problems with many programs and hardware drivers, leading many people to just stick with Windows XP. Vista was such a dismal failure that many PC makers even recommended that consumers steer clear of it.

The company's recent introduction of Windows 7—Vista's successor after only two years—indicates that even Microsoft views Vista with disappointment, according to the awards organizers. The lesson, they said: more testing should be done to check reliability and performance before rolling out major product-marketing campaigns.

more...

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=microsoft-vista-voted-the-tech-worl-2009-02-26

[TBF]

1. Anyone who owns Vista could've told them that! To be fair I am not

very technically savvy, but even I can tell that our old desktop's operating system is more stable than VISTA. I have the "home premium" and there's an upgrade, but I figure I'd just wait and see if I can upgrade to Windows 7 instead.

[Deja Q]

4. For my new laptop, I'm keeping Home Premium on it until Win7 comes out...

Or move to Linux once I verify compatibility; my main apps will work in an emulated Windows environment via VirtualBox or Win4Lin* and net RAM usage would still be a tad less than Vista...

From what I've see, Win7 looks promising, FWIW. Seems like they ditched the Vista kernel, went back to XP's, and plopped on the updated interface, BitLocker, et al. I might just stick with Vista as well; I recall reading Win7 beta rendered CS4 inoperative. (a purported pirated copy all the same, but my license is legal and if Windows breaks it, I can't go in to deactivate the license and I loathe the idea of having to call Adobe.)

* once its remaining issues are dealt with; 2GB RAM limitation (which isn't stable) is not enough.

[Deja Q]

2. Testing on the part of everyone else, not their own staff. They can afford to and

it's their responsibility as well.

Win98, 2000 (sold by telling us how unlike WIn95 wasn't crash-prone), XP...

Actually, I've had no issue with hardware drivers under Vista, and its structure puts drivers in User Mode rather than Kernel Mode -- so a faulty driver is less likely to konk the whole OS.

MS could have been upfront with system requirements, and wait another year given pre-SP1 bugs (which were atrocious)...

I'm sorry people don't know how to use it. 25 years ago, nobody complained about using a Commodore 64, and the GUI was introduced to make things "easier" because the command line OS was sooooooooooooooooooo difficult. Never mind a little thing called "Compatibility Mode"; some computer users I know of don't even know where the "Esc" key is located. :eyes:

It's like people are being dumbed down and are then told they are dumb. :evilgrin:

MS's own DirectX 10 was a joke, and the purported screenshots of Flight Simulator X is about as much gross misadvertising as the company has ever done.

I know, let's do what doofus Steve Jobs does: Blame teacher unions. :eyes: (Apple vs Microsoft; once SUSE Linux is perfected I'll be going back. It has real potential, and maybe it's just my hardware, but I had a couple problems with it too. :( Fedora was nice but others (not I) were complaining Red Hat didn't test certain updates and crashed their systems and not being able to repair them. :scared: )

[Buzz Clik]

3. My humble place of employment, a little tech school with over 40,000 students, refuses Vista.

Every new machine that comes into the university is mandated to NOT have Vista.

Apparently, it runs about as smoothly as Windows ME.

Heckuva job, Microsoft.

[Deja Q]

5. The 64-bit version rocks. The 32-bit version -- not worthwhile.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

32. I agree about the 64-bit version

I have Vista Home Premium 64 and 8 GB of memory on the computer I bought myself for Christmas. I've had one small problem with a video driver, but other than that it has kicked ass and been really stable.

But, considering that I'm a bit of a computer nerd (and a Microsoft certified programmer), it should be considered a failure simply for the fact that I only adopted Vista at the beginning of 2009. I try to be an early adopter of technologies, but when I attempted to work with the first versions of Vista that were released, I immediately switched back to XP. It was ATROCIOUS, and in some instances barely usable.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

15. I fix computers. Lots of them.

Someone brought me a very nice Dell laptop with The Abomination on it. Fast Dual-Core AMD processor, 2 GB ram, 7200 RPM HDD. It was dog slow. Just painful. Now, they say that The Abomination runs much better with 4 GB of Ram. So in goes 4. No difference. Just painfully slow. Cleaned the drive, the registry, compressed and defragged the registry, defragged the drive with Perfect Disk...still dog slow. Then I did the research. Seems that because of the DRM foofoo they crammed in there to bestow oral favors upon the moguls of Hollywood, each process ballooned to 5 instructions or more.

Let's not mention drivers, m'kay?

It's actually impressive. It's like they wanted to see just how badly they could screw up an operating system. Well, I would say they succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.

Personally, I think this is what happens when you let Ballmer make actual decisions, rather than keeping him well-fed and watered and give him lots of new, bright shiny things to play with.

[Buzz Clik]

18. any comment about 32- versus the 64-bit Abomination?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

29. My experience that any 64 bit OS is better.

Wider data path, full RAM addressing, the whole bit. That said, I do not expect 64 bit Abomination to be a huge improvement over 32 bit. Just too much crap going on inside when you ask it to do anything.

Oh my god, file copies. You would not believe how slow they are.

[BreweryYardRat]

39. 64-bit: Mine runs...mmm, fairly well, but I've only had it a few weeks.

Files copy quite fast, and the system runs fast.

User account control is annoying, though.

[Raster]

33. Let's not forget the central nervous system stimulants...

for Mr. B., that is...

"...developers, developers, developers..."

REHAB, REHAB, REHAB.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

38. Yes indeed.

One can readily assume that Mr. B has run a lot of them through his blood/brain barrier.

On edit, 3 words:

Nasty. Biker. Crank.

The kind that when you snort it you get a sensation not unlike shoving a rabid wolverine up your nose.

[MindPilot]

6. Vista is what happens when you outsource development

As more and more of IT is outsourced and surrendered to the H1B visa holders the worse it is going to get.

I'm very lucky that I can retire soon. IT used to be fun and challenging until the Bangalorians showed up. Now all I do is try to fabricate creative excuses for their fuckups. The work is still challenging but now the challenge is getting through the day without hurting somebody.

[Deja Q]

9. I must agree.

Between XP and Vista is an unusually long delay, rife with errors and setbacks, and even after its release didn't begin to work properly until the first service pack was released (late too, might I add).

I too hypothesized outsourcing was a cause, and given the mess the OS is in it's no small wonder Microsoft then turns around and says "Jobs Americans won't do". To clean up that mess would not be my first idea of a dream job. Or perhaps it would, except "quality control", much like "customer service", is deemed an evil by some of these executives.

Microsoft is also known for throwing American workers out the door, saying the Dollar will fall, claiming they are unqualified, claim there aren't enough qualified Americans... it's a football field of manure.

Now all this isn't to say everyone from India or any other country hat IT jobs are being offshored to is a dunderhead and that there isn't some truth regarding SOME American workers. I'm just fatigued from total generalizations regarding people in both countries and doing only what is financially least expensive, damning any consequences or repercussions. Without an economy, no business can survive. For any company to say they will put their own company over a country is asinine, because each country is part of the GLOBAL ECONOMY. They cannot cherrypick or have it both ways.

[izquierdista]

7. That's not the point

The point is, can you walk into any store and buy a computer and NOT pay Gates for the pleasure of having Vista installed on it?

I didn't think so.

[Deja Q]

11. Quite. Give me a Toshiba laptop with a customized Linux that's tightly integrated with the hardware

Won't happen though.

At least Apple took some open source code and melded it to their PC compatible hardware. Trouble is, the price* is way too high. I do appreciate the positives of the Mac platform, but the negatives stick out like a sore thumb painted with a bright pink bullseye.


* especially for the product quality, what with people complaining of fragility, yellowing screens, easy scratching, et al... I just can't do it. Not now.

[tridim]

26. Yes.

DIY systems don't come with an OS.

[izquierdista]

40. "Walk into a store"

Or do you walk into a fast food joint and expect to cook and assemble your own hamburger too?

[tridim]

48. My computer store sells all the parts you need to DIY.

:shrug:

http://www.microcenter.com/

It's the only computer store left within 20 miles since CompUSA shut down. Which BTW was another store where you could buy parts to build your own computer.

[slackmaster]

8. As a professional systems administrator with over 15 years of experience with Windows

I have to say Vista does not rise to the level of a fiasco.

A debacle perhaps, but it really devalues proper fiascos to associate them with Vista.

[Dawgs]

10. +1. Software engineer here, and would agree that Vista is not a fiasco.

:hi:

[cherokeeprogressive]

12. Even bigger than "New Coke"?

[Deja Q]

13. *and* Jello Pudding Pops!

:9

[keroro gunsou]

21. hey now...

thems fighting words. i love jello pudding pops.

[NoPasaran]

14. And there I was, thinking it was that war in Iraq

[Proud Liberal Dem]

16. I've been running Vista for nearly 2 years now

without too much hassle, especially since SP1. The only major sticky problem that I had with it was its incompatibility for a Belkin Wireless-G adapter that prevented Windows from shutting down but as soon as I ditched the adapter it worked fine. I had another serious ongoing problem with a piece of software that caused Windows to keep deleting system restore points but it went back to working fine once I got rid of the program. I hear everybody talking about how wonderful XP is and, while I agree that it's become a much more stable operating system over time as well, I've gotten to love Vista so much more and never had any particular urge to rollback to XP on our new system. I will say that Vista doesn't seem to run very well with less than 2-3 GB memory but if you have enough memory it looks and runs great IMHO. I actually can't recall any catastrophic system failures with Vista like I've had with XP or earlier systems and the few startup problems I have had have been so much easier to repair.

[Myrina]

17. THAT is hilarious ...

I used to work at a "community college" (it was for-profit so not really concerned with educating anyone) and our so-called 'tech experts' rode us in the IT department constantly about when we were going to roll out not only Vista, but also Second Life - which also gets honorable mention in this article.

Two things which I jumped up and down AGAINST because they weren't going to add anything to the student outcomes.

Why is it people buy a pc and immediately they're "technology experts" ??

[gratuitous]

19. I despise Vista

I'm not an early adapter gamer. I like third and fourth generation (old) stuff that has pretty tame graphics. Go here, go there, pick that up, open that door, la-de-dah. Nothing too fancy. I'm more interested in solving the problems and puzzles than in flash-bang graphics.

And yet Vista can't keep up with even these pedestrian games. I play for 20 minutes, and the screen goes black. No amount of cursing, cajoling, waiting or whining brings it back. I have to kill the machine, then bring it back with that annoying "You didn't shut down Vista properly" notice. Yeah, I wasn't shutting it down at all, dammit. And whatever progress I'd made in the game is lost.

Mightily frustrating, and I can't wait for the next generation operating system to come out.

[varkam]

20. I love Vista, personally.

Then again, I am using the 64-bit version.

[Morning Dew]

22. me too

I have had very few problems with 64 bit vista. It took a little while to get used to, but it works really well.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. Meaningless online poll

I'm always surprised when anyone pays attention to those.

[Connie_Corleone]

24. I've had absolutely no problems with Vista.

It takes a litte getting used to, but once I did I liked it.

[acmavm]

25. When people buy something, they have a right to expect it to work right

there and then.

That is not the Microsoft way.

[Paulie]

27. Windows Vista redeems Microsoft Bob and WindowsMe

Damn. :) :) :)

[tblue37]

28. What is wrong with One Laptop per Child ?

It seems like a wonderful idea. I have considered paying to donate one. Is the little laptop just not as good as it is purported to be?

[wickerwoman]

35. Yeah. I was wondering too.

I used to work for a company connected to Nicholas Negroponte and he sent us out some early models. OK, it's a really basic laptop but it hooked up to the internet fine and only cost $100. You couldn't load a lot of software on it, but for its purpose (helping kids in impoverished areas access the internet from their school) it seemed fine.

I'd be really interested to hear what the problems were, since I haven't been following the story for a while.

[tblue37]

50. When I followed the link in the OP, the article said that the

problem with OLPC is that they ended up costing nearly twice the originally projected $100 price.

Well, gee, if that's the main problem, it doesn't seem that huge an issue. Just $200 for a functioning laptop with all the advantages of OLPC seems like a damned good deal! I can't afford it this year becuase I've been helping someone out financially, but I am definitely going to make that donation next year!

[ThoughtCriminal]

30. IMHO Vista's biggest problem

Too many problems getting legacy applications to install and work. Organizations have huge investments and training in critical software that simply does not work once Vista is installed. Upgrading the legacy applications can be costly and sometimes impossible.

Flashy GUI and gadgets matter less.

[arikara]

31. The Mr bought a vista laptop

after seeing what he went through and trying to help him with it I bought a macbook when my old 2000 system gave up. He had XP installed, but guess who's happier with their computer.

I used to test software that was meant for older folk not especially computer literate, and I tested it with an eye to what my mother would see and understand. I would make sure the interface functions and instructions worked, were simple, logical and easy to use. Then the company got bigger, went more high tech, wanted younger cheaper testers to do this fancy automated testing and got rid of us old timers who knew the users and cared about the end product. The interface also changed, not user friendly anymore because its written and tested by 22 year olds who are wiz's and think everyone else in the world is too... but it doesn't matter because they also went to the ever popular automated customer service where the customer gets caught in the loop and can't get through to CS. The company was sold to a bigger fish and I suspect this fish will be offshoring it to India for cheaper labour.

My story sounds like a smaller version of what microsoft did... embarrassing fiascos like vista are what you get when cheap labour is your only concern, not the end product or user. I'm just glad I'm out of it.

[ooglymoogly]

34. My one thousand and two cents....I have built my own computers

since the precambrian DOS years,(not that building my own computer is any great feat) averaging about one every year sometimes two and can't be with out the latest and fastest as I sit at it from wake to sleep. I have a kick ass computer today which I also built... but I digress...a few years ago I purchased the Vista premium at a computer store. It ran great until I began adding programs and I began getting the screaming blue screens. At some point I was instructed to reload Vista...Which I tried to do but alas I could not find the childish Key. I called Microsoft and they informed me rudely that I had to buy a new Vista O S at which point when I tried to access even the opening of Vista it locked saying I had an illegal copy of Vista; The end. From sheer anger I went back to my old dependable XP pro which runs without too many glitches (and those are from Firefox which keeps shutting down at the very end of video's or clips and is by all the complaints very common to Firefox ((still imo the best search engine)) and they are diligently trying to fix this problem) but still all in all better than the Vista OS as it always recoups on its own. The XP OS is updated weekly to the latest patches, glitch fixes and latest security; So it now is somewhat of a comfort to hear of Vista being so harshly judged by the world community.

This is all to say in far to many words that with some pretty good experience I for one prefer the very dependable, very fast and constantly updated Xp Pro. OS which tears through my daily journeys and haunts (such as DU) at lightning speed as long as it has all its toys.

[CatholicEdHead]

36. Vista is better than ME but not XPSP2 or SP3

Windows XP was crap when it first came out. SP1 and SP2 fixed many stability and driver issues. Vista is on my current Core 2 Duo chip which runs as fast as XP SP2 did on my old PIII laptop with 384MB RAM. It is more stable than ME, I have Ultimate on my ThinkPad and Lenovo did a good job on the drivers, it is a slow but stable machine.

Of course I just picked up an Acer Aspire One netbook with XP SP3 on it and that is much more compatibility with software I had issues with on Vista and faster even with 1GB and an Intel Atom chip of all things (single core hyper threaded chip).

[LiberalPersona]

37. Deep down

I think there's a decent OS lurking in Vista.
The biggest mistake they made with this OS is putting all the security bloat in that the average home pc user has no need of whatsoever. UAC is the main culprit with concerns of performance and compatability. With UAC and Aero disabled it generally feels a lot like an enhanced, and far more stable XP.

I'm a long time hater of Windows and MS but even I can admit after 6 months of use that it's growing on me.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

41. Worse than Microsoft "Bob"?

The truly-friendly interface that nobody could figure out.

But it was warm and fuzzy.

:hi:

[sfpcjock]

42. I'm a computer jock still using XP :-D

I'm pretty happy. I like to access the IE browser cache using the old Norton file manager. You can't do that in IE7 because they've conveniently hidden it, and I'm pretty sure it won't run in Vista due to software compatability issues.

I finally got a copy of Norton Ghost 9.0 that let's you do an image backup of the hard drive. My notebook is almost 4 years old now and the drives can't be trusted forever. I'll probably upgrade to Windows 7 after the first service pack. I need to start learning .NET if I can't retire :cry:

[MadHound]

43. Microsoft and fiasco are synonymous

No matter the product, if I'm using something from Microsoft I've generally wound up cussing at it in short order. Which is why I stick with Macs and as far away from MS as I can, though I'm forced to use MS Office, simply because it is ubiquitous these days.

[undeterred]

44. Yesterday I talked to a small business customer

who lost all his email in Windows Mail, which has replaced Outlook Express in Vista. He accidentally set up IMAP to download messages from the server and then later decided to use the POP protocol. When changing the protocol all the 1000 messages in his messages disappeared... permanently. Just gone.

I couldn't find them. No pst. files. I can't count how many times in my life a Windows prompt has asked me if I am sure I want to perform an action. But when this guy switched protocols, there was no warning, no prompt.

[Orsino]

45. *Every* version of Windows is voted Antichrist *somewhere*.

This unscientific online poll tells us only what we already knew--that Vista was the Next Big Thing, to which a lot of people signed on or upgraded, and therefore the thing that ticked off the most people.

[Juche]

46. I don't know tons about computers

But I have a desktop that has XP and runs fine with 256MB of RAM while my laptop which came with Vista needed 2GB of RAM to run decently. Now that I have upped the RAM (my laptop came with 512MB when I got it, that was horrible) I don't mind Vista, but I had to go into the program and disable alot of the graphic features in order to make it less choppy.

[riverdeep]

47. I know someone in the market for a laptop right now,

and they are looking specifically for ones that still offer XP, like Lenovo. Makes their search much easier.

[Edweird]

49. As a 'power user' 64 bit Ultimate has been just fine.

It is a i7 that is dedicated to music production so it only has Cubase, Sonar, Musicquest, and a few other editors and related programs installed. It's isolated and dedicated - no internet access.
I was a bit hesitant to make the switch from xp to vista, but all is good. I am very interested in 7. I will probably be an early adopter....