VARs Still Not Recommending Vista Upgrade

Friends don’t let friends buy Vista Home Edition!

Have been suspicious of the value of Vista since the beginning and am glad I didn’t outlay what is a big hunk of money to get yet another Microsoft clone of a previous version - with some tweaks and fiddles as far as I can determine.

Rick and Terry, thanks for the comments. Friends don’t let friends buy ANY Vista, until at least service pack 1. There are some changes, but the big lab tests show that the real fixes [security] haven’t been applied yet. I’m sure the fixes will come, just unsure of the time frame.

I have a desktop and laptop with XP and another desktop with 98Se and a new laptop with Vista Home Premuim…I am studying for MCAD and use Vista the most…I like it a lot!

Lester, glad to hear you’re happy. I’m sure lots of people are. There will be many who don’t expect more from their computer, so they will not be critical when they don’t get more.

Thanks for the comment.

We got three Dells earlier in the year, one for me, two for the kids. Mine is XP, the kid’s Vista Home Premium. I have spent countless hours fixing stupid problems on the Vista machines. This weekend was the first that I can remember when I wasn’t asked to fix something that turned out to take 3 to 5 hours of my time.

Our little escapade installing and then uninstalling iTunes springs to mind. I left it a few months because I knew it was going to be a problem. Then it didn’t work, and then messed up the RAID configuration in the process. And all the time I’m doing stuff I get a barrage of UAC messages that are there for my own good.

Thanks for the comment, Matt. Every new OS has some problems at first, but one would think that most would be worked out by now since in most of the ways that matter, Vista doesn’t deviate from XP that much.
I happen to believe that MS could avoid much of the problem with support, and with people speaking unkindly about their product, if they had had 4-6 months more of beta cycle. People constantly excuse them for bugs because it is an OS with so many lines of code, but I would remind those who feel that way that they’ve also had THOUSANDS of man-years with the project. Perhaps with MS, a gamma cycle before RTM is needed.

Matt, the UAC messages can be turned off. It is under user accounts at what use to be the control pannel. Sorry, don’t have a vista machine available to give exact location. I am waiting for at least SP/1 before I buy.

I’m really glad Vista came along. With its built-in DRM telling users what they can and can’t do with high-def DVD’s, it finally pissed me off enough to install Ubuntu. No regrets, and I like my computer better than I used to.

Couple of things…doesn’t Vista’s IE7 work in a “sandbox” (Protected)mode? If so, any of these exploits that are browser driven should be contained. I did read where Vista’s protected mode isn’t enabled by default for trusted sites, so I’m sure that will be toggled on with a SP1.

Regarding “bad news for Microsoft…”, I’m quite sure by this point that they are well aware that businesses aren’t going to jump on the next OS that comes down the pike. Given that the OEM’s installing Vista on home machines is giving them plenty of real-world feedback, I have no doubt that they will address these problems with the first service pack, and adopt marketing for businesses to reflect as much. So, in that sense, Vista is still “beta” for business, and MS is –while weathering criticism– able to identify problems where they exist before the big push to biz post SP-1.

I’m not worried about MS.

My dad’s business bought a new Dell for the secretary to play solitaire on…

It came with Vista Home….

Its a 2.8 Celeron /facepalm

Now they ask me why its slow.

Mike, Ron, Rick, and Jason - thanks for the comments. Mike, I have a copy of Vista Business given to me by MS, but the seal is not broken. I, too, am awaiting SP1. Actually, IF I make the move to Vista, it will be on another machine, and will be 64 bit so I can have 4GB of usable RAM.
Ron, I have Ubuntu on a couple of machines, and my son wants it on his machine…but he still wants Vista because of Halo [DX10]. I suspect that many ‘kids’ will upgrade for this reason. Rick, it is unclear, from the reading I’ve done, how ‘protected’ that sandbox really is, or how well the sand is contained in the box. Jason, a Celeron is a pig, no matter what. I remember working on a customer’s machines that all had 2.8 Celerons, and then his home machine, which was a 1.4 GHz Athlon. He ask what I had done to his machine at home that made it so much faster. I just said it was a shot of Vitamin AMD.

Core 2 Duo is faster for now, but remember what a stretch the Athlon 64 had versus the P4, as king of the hill. AMD will be back, and better.

I built a new Vista system 1.5 months ago. My XP system died. Almost no problems in installing or using Vista. The only issues so far have been from Vista versions of software that may have been rushed out the door (e.,g SpyDoctor). Stability has been great except for SpyDoctor which regularly crashed my computer. No problems after I removed SpyDoctor.

Dealing with hardware on Vista has seemed easier than what I encountered with XP (in my experience).

I like the UI alot better. Since I have a faster CPU/chipset/memory/graphics card setup, I enjoy the look and feel much better than by XP system at work. I really am more productive with the Office 2007 UI - yes, I can, and do, use Office 2007 on XP, as well.
However… I would not recommend anyone to upgrade an XP install to Vista. Not until SP1 or later. No reason to risk loss of productivity if you current setup is working fine.

I’m not recommending an upgrade to Vista for my clients yet because I simply do not see a compelling reason to do so, with one exception. While the search feature is awesome and the desktop looks pretty, small business owners usually need a better excuse than that to spend lots of money. With the machines behind a hardware firewall, they’re not too convinced about Vista’s supposed increased security either.

The one exception is laptop replacement. Bit Locker is VERY compelling!

Waiting for SP1 and third party drivers. Went through 95 hell, 98 hell and Windows XP less hell. Life’s too short to spend personal time running down incompatibilities at home and ROI’s too minimal to put up with the headaches at work. Ask me a year after release and we’ll see then.

Mike2, Robert, and Sean, thanks for the comments. It is nice to know some people really have few problems [I have suspected the magazine articles that say no problems are encountered]. About BitLocker, I see that as a disaster just waiting to happen. People who need that kind of security need to have the information on a USB key, on a chain, around their neck. [and ready to swallow] Sean, my experiences have been somewhat similar, but with each iteration of Windows, the problems have gotten less…so much so that for 98% of the people I work with, there is no reason, other than novelty, to switch away from XP. Vista seems to be reversing the trend I’ve experienced with problems.

I hate to disagree Mr. Oracle, but IMHO, everyone using a laptop should be using bitlocker. That, along with a TPM fingerprint scanner makes any stolen laptop a doorstop for the thief. It’s a turnkey solution. Anything else (USB keys???) is the disaster waiting to happen.

Robert, your description of what might happen is exactly why I would never use BitLocker. Things of this nature tend to fail at the worst times, so the thieves might not get your data, but you might not have it either.

That’s fine for you, but try managing a group of computer illiterate marketing guys sometime. :eek: You read the headlines regarding lost data. For normal users, if the IT department doesn’t set it up turn-key, (with appropriate synchs with the server to back up the data of course), then it will not get done.

Going to wait for whatever comes after Vista to spend my retirement
years figuring out.

Hugoton, thanks for the comment. I’m not sure Vista’s successor will be much different. MS is so large that the inertia makes a change in direction difficult.

Let’s let it for Windows 98… Hip, Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray!

No, seriously for me there is just too much swirling in the cyber world now that it is just like throwing money into the ocean, it might come back to you someday but chances are it won’t and will probably benefit something/someone else instead. I’m at the point now of just treading water and biding my time until something greater than MS, Apple, Linux, etc. comes along. I don’t know what it will be but it’s going to happen.

A slight correction to the previous comment… Let’s HEAR it for Windows 98…

(Write once, proof twice!)

I-user, thanks for the comment. Good luck with 98. There are those uprising against anything newer, just look around on the internet. Lots of things are being made to work on 98.

Actually, I don’t have Win 98 just Win ME. Just thought I’d stand up for all those who still do!

I-user, I used Me for quite a while [I got a free copy from MS] I know it was not revolutionary, but I never had problems with it [any more than I'd had the same problems with 98se].

Thanks for stopping by.

[...] trial and my XP install disk is within easy reach « Time to question Question Time Value Added Resellers not recommending Vista July 10th, 2007 I came across this blogpost referring to an on-line survey by CRN, whichrevealed that Value Added Resellers in the US are still not recommending “upgrading” to Vista. [...]

[...] Value Added Resellers not recommending Vista This really is bad news for Microsoft, as it was hoping adoption rates would be much higher. No matter what it claims, independent results show that adoption is very slow in the business community, and the majority of non-business users are in the Vista fold because the new PC they use was so equipped.  Read more. [via Hasta La Vista, Vista] [...]