On July 22, 2005 Microsoft announced its new line of operating systems and Windows Vista, codenamed 'Longhorn', made its first public appearance. While graphic effects and new user tools certainly looked respectively stunning and very useful, the very last five minutes of the presentation -- price and system requirements -- came as a surprise to many.
No Thanks, I'd Rather Spend My $399 Elsewhere!
Pricing is a major issue in Vista. There are six different versions of the operating system, roughly divided in two target markets, consumer and business, with increasing prices. Consumers can choose between a wealth of four different editions, with three available for developed countries. Windows Vista Starter edition is limited to emerging markets; the Home Basic is intended for budget users with low needs; Vista Home Premium covers the majority of the consumer market. For businesses, there are two versions: Windows Vista Business is designed for small business, while Windows Vista Enterprise, the premium business edition, is only available to customers participating in Microsoft's Software Assurance program. Windows Vista Ultimate contains the complete feature-set and is aimed at enthusiasts.
Prices range between $199 and a 'suggested retail price' of $399, making Vista one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive OS of all times. When it first came out, the XP line included less options (avoiding consumers waste their time choosing their favorite version) and shipped at about 60% of the price Vista has now, almost 3 years after its launch.
1 GB Ram a MINIMUM Requirement?!
While Microsoft claimed that "nearly all PCs on the 2005 market will be able to run Windows Vista", the requirements of many of the 'premium' features, such as the Aero theme, are still a no fly zone for a high percentage of users today. Depending on the version, Vista hardware requirements for a successful installation and everyday use can go to up to 1 GB Ram / 10 GB Hard Drive, certainly a bold and unwanted step compared to XP's 32 MB Ram / 250 Hard Disk space. Malicious users soon started talking about lobbyism between Microsoft and main hardware producers, where Microsoft would have set minimum requirements much higher than is reasonable to somehow 'force' customers to upgrade their hardware.
Vista's high hardware requirements is a point on which software developers are currently working on and have tried to partially (but unsuccessfully) fix with the latest Service Pack release that would both fix security bugs and some of the performance issues. While performance was claimed to be increased by up to 5%, users tend not to see the results of the upgrade.
Have I Already Seen This Somewhere?
Unlike XP's unique design, Vista aspect and theme has often been compared to the Aqua interface of Apple's Mac Os X, often by the same Apple CEO Steve Jobs during many of his notorious Keynote addresses held once every six months. Similarities are stunning and quite evident and include, but are not limited to: the Aqua design and theme, calendar and mail application, the chess application, different aspects in window behavior, and so on. Apple even produced a TV ad to explain of all these similarities, which substantially help put this thought in the mind of the consumers.
It Worked on XP... Why not in Vista?
While XP features a very useful set of options that let you run any given application in a way that is compatible with every single Microsoft operating system since Windows 95, Windows Vista is facing serious compatibility problems with many of the games and utility programs that previously worked in XP and now can no longer work under Vista, not even in a virtual machine environment. As of July 2007, there are about 2000 applications with the 'Vista Compatibility Logo'. That may sound like a lot, but is actually an extremely low percentage compared to the number of programs that can currently work under XP, either natively or in simulation modality.
Annoying Security Guard ends up Putting your Files in Danger!
Windows XP security was, while certainly not flawless, at least working to a reasonable level. Vista security, on the other hand, may only be described as overzealous: every action you do that has a potentially dangerous consequence for your security yields a truly annoying alert asking you to authorize or deny permission and confirm the operation. Curiously, even this aspect was featured in an Apple TV commercial, and is maybe known as one of the most annoying features of the system. Many users, in fact, will end up completely disabling the security system, with dangerous consequences in terms of security. When a security system practically prompts so many users to disable it, clearly there is something wrong there.
In the end, 'downgrading' from Vista to XP is probably worth the effort. And I put 'downgrading' between apostrophes because, all things considered, a passage from Vista to XP seems much more like an upgrade at this point!
Check out more articles and resources from this author here: http://wysinnwyg.altervista.org
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