Cypherus
18th Mar 2007, 11:54
Would appear that someone, probably located in a basement closet in Redmond, has got this Vista thingy all wrong big style, that is as far as the consumer is concerned , but hey for the industry, and Bill’s boyz the future is rosy, money in the bank ect, I wonder if they actually care that the majority of computer users currently have invested billions of dollars in peripheral equipment that right now just will not work under vista.
I took the time this weekend to trawl through the news stands for magazines that dealt with computers, bought a selection at random that ranged from the hi end Pro area to the out and out ridiculous, chosen because each had a consumer help section, and I make no apology for outright plagiarism here, this was an issue of research and the material was at hand, anyway, looking through these helpful hints pages the thing that struck me was the number of items that dealt with Vista and it’s current incompatibility with even the most simple of things like Graphics and Sound cards, digital cameras, printer and MP3 players, all in essence got the same reply, ‘Sorry, your stuffed, go out and buy a new one that is compatible with Vista otherwise hang on and hope the company that produced the item will eventually get around to releasing a driver for it’.
Call me cynical if you wish but this all smacks of Microsoft again controlling the market place, creating as it has by the total lack of support in Vista for DX9 and scant inbuilt basic driver resources a major market boom in computer related hardware and software, the fact that so many people are having issues with this new all singing and dancing operating system in these areas make me wonder if the delays we saw in the release of this product were not as announced due to problems with the O/S itself but actually with Microsoft trying hard to ensure that the product was actually not compatible across the board with the majority of computer users current stock of equipment. The community recently saw a similar attempt to generate sales with the introduction of PCI-E and it’s requirement for upgraded components across the board which in the end after a shaky start generated billions of dollars in sales and a mountain of perfectly serviceable components being dumped to landfill,
Microsoft has also just announced the release of SP1 for Vista due later this year which will it is hoped address the issue of missing ‘Previously Advertised’ components being made available, currently denied in all but the highest value issues of Vista, Probably carrying the code name ‘Fiji’ the update will offer interface improvements to address the problem of resource sapping currently found with the main Vista interface, an option too change too the WinFS file system, again not available in lower price releases and more importantly, ‘Buried in the list of small print’ changes too the software that address ‘High Impact’ issues currently noted with Vista like hardware and software problems, question is what are these High Impact issues, nothing there and as for the incompatibility problems surely Microsoft was well aware of these at the time of release so why after everyone that bought copies of Vista or machines with it preinstalled and have now gone out and replaced the errant equipment or software have they now chosen to release a plethora of fixes for this problem, maybe rumblings of yet another class action against them has forced there hand, similarly IE 7 is slated to be removed from the Auto update suite as currently a lot of unsuspecting users not normally disposed to read the update listings are finding themselves presented without warning with a complete new browser that at times will set itself up as the primary utility over the much used Firefox., The update also includes greater association with Windows Live products as Microsoft ramps up it’s efforts to stave off Google.
Finally the announcement By Ben Fathi of the next O/S release, again a complete new system, on the stocks for the middle of 2009 has made some of us wonder, this date is significant as the time that XP support is due to be withdrawn and reading the specifications for this new O/S we still see significant back issue compatibility problems, an adherence to the Core NT and a requirement for a complete new interface and you have the same scenario currently being enjoyed by Microsoft, loads of money, little new in the box
I took the time this weekend to trawl through the news stands for magazines that dealt with computers, bought a selection at random that ranged from the hi end Pro area to the out and out ridiculous, chosen because each had a consumer help section, and I make no apology for outright plagiarism here, this was an issue of research and the material was at hand, anyway, looking through these helpful hints pages the thing that struck me was the number of items that dealt with Vista and it’s current incompatibility with even the most simple of things like Graphics and Sound cards, digital cameras, printer and MP3 players, all in essence got the same reply, ‘Sorry, your stuffed, go out and buy a new one that is compatible with Vista otherwise hang on and hope the company that produced the item will eventually get around to releasing a driver for it’.
Call me cynical if you wish but this all smacks of Microsoft again controlling the market place, creating as it has by the total lack of support in Vista for DX9 and scant inbuilt basic driver resources a major market boom in computer related hardware and software, the fact that so many people are having issues with this new all singing and dancing operating system in these areas make me wonder if the delays we saw in the release of this product were not as announced due to problems with the O/S itself but actually with Microsoft trying hard to ensure that the product was actually not compatible across the board with the majority of computer users current stock of equipment. The community recently saw a similar attempt to generate sales with the introduction of PCI-E and it’s requirement for upgraded components across the board which in the end after a shaky start generated billions of dollars in sales and a mountain of perfectly serviceable components being dumped to landfill,
Microsoft has also just announced the release of SP1 for Vista due later this year which will it is hoped address the issue of missing ‘Previously Advertised’ components being made available, currently denied in all but the highest value issues of Vista, Probably carrying the code name ‘Fiji’ the update will offer interface improvements to address the problem of resource sapping currently found with the main Vista interface, an option too change too the WinFS file system, again not available in lower price releases and more importantly, ‘Buried in the list of small print’ changes too the software that address ‘High Impact’ issues currently noted with Vista like hardware and software problems, question is what are these High Impact issues, nothing there and as for the incompatibility problems surely Microsoft was well aware of these at the time of release so why after everyone that bought copies of Vista or machines with it preinstalled and have now gone out and replaced the errant equipment or software have they now chosen to release a plethora of fixes for this problem, maybe rumblings of yet another class action against them has forced there hand, similarly IE 7 is slated to be removed from the Auto update suite as currently a lot of unsuspecting users not normally disposed to read the update listings are finding themselves presented without warning with a complete new browser that at times will set itself up as the primary utility over the much used Firefox., The update also includes greater association with Windows Live products as Microsoft ramps up it’s efforts to stave off Google.
Finally the announcement By Ben Fathi of the next O/S release, again a complete new system, on the stocks for the middle of 2009 has made some of us wonder, this date is significant as the time that XP support is due to be withdrawn and reading the specifications for this new O/S we still see significant back issue compatibility problems, an adherence to the Core NT and a requirement for a complete new interface and you have the same scenario currently being enjoyed by Microsoft, loads of money, little new in the box