Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, was first released to the public on January 30th, 2007, while businesses were given early access in November of 2006. Vista has been available to you and me for over 8 months now, and what a turbulent 8 months it has been. First, various printer manufacturers did not create new drivers for many of their popular printers (I faced the brunt of this at Office Max from May to August), and some still have not made new drivers (the software that allows your computer to talk to the printer), compatible with Vista. This forced customers to either buy a new printer (not popular) or simply refuse to upgrade (very popular).
Then users discovered that programs which had previously worked fine in Windows XP, suddenly ceased working or displayed incredibly odd behavior when installed on a Windows Vista system. As if these were not enough, Microsoft set a deadline for all computer manufacturers to offer only Vista and not XP, regardless of what customers wanted. Combine this with the horror stories regarding the numerous problems people have discovered when migrating to Microsoft’s new operating system, and you have a nice collection of Vista-phobic computer users running around. So, in light of these setbacks, what happened?
According to Microsoft, more than 20,000 licenses were sold in the first month of availability, making Vista one of the fastest selling operating system Microsoft has ever had.
However, according to just about everyone else, those numbers were connected mainly with new computer sales. And all currently shipping computers are pre-loaded with… Windows Vista. Apparently people have Vista and they are using it, often whether they like it or not. The fact that Microsoft has given computer manufacturers the option to downgrade some users of Vista to Windows XP is very interesting.
So just what is so special about this Microsoft operating system that even makes the idea of an upgrade necessary? That will be Part II in our look at Windows Vista.
My apple cinema display doesn’t work with vista…at all. Vista reminds me of an overbearing grandparent: “are you sure you want to do that? Positive? I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why, well because we like things just so…and we are Methodist.”
Haha! Well Ivan, that’s what happens when you are raised by a village instead of wolves.
Vista rules. I love that big brother gives me tabs. And not just because those are my initials.
When a new version of Windows is released, there are usually some bugs and other issues that need to be ironed out. Microsoft has put Vista through extensive testing, but it is hard for them to test it for every possible situation because there are so many different computer setups and configurations.