Talk:Windows Vista/Archive 11

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Pronunciation?

Does anyone know if the official pronunciation is like "vih.sta" /vIsta/, or like "vee.sta" /vi.sta/. Sorry for the mix of dictionary-guide and mock IPA, but does anyone know, I've heard both about equally. 128.122.36.34 15:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Its vista, like vih stah. Vee stah is horrendously wrong. Tourskin 03:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
You EEEDIOT! It's VEEEESTA!" - Ren (I'm just kidding!) - Bevo 15:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The word "vista" derives from the Spanish word for "view". They pronounce it "veestah". If Microsoft calls it vihstuh, it's due to the anglicizing of the word. 24.4.131.142 02:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Archives

Does anyone oppose to splitting the excessively long Archive 8 into two or three archives? Josh 16:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This article sounds like an advertisement

For example - "Windows Vista contains hundreds of new and reworked features". Hundreds? Seems to me, that even if there is one hundred of these "new" features copied straight over from Mac OS X, Linux and other serious operating systems, there is no many hundreds of these.

- anonymous coward who hasn't got an account on the English wikipedia

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.243.149.46 (talk)

I'm pretty tempted to change it to 'many new and reworked features'. Any feedback? peterl 03:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion, but the actual count of new features in Vista is in the hundreds. Actually, it's over a thousand when you start counting the small things. You're welcome to review the half-dozen Wikipedia articles covering Vista's new features to confirm the quantity of stuff for yourself. -/- Warren 05:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, I admit, if you count all of the Vistas tiny little features and "features" (If you know what I mean ;) then it does make several hundreds. But this article still seems like an advertisement, for example, the article reminds several times that Vista has "completely re-architected audio, network..."etc. Has some Microsoft tech writers and marketers been editing this article? Also, the article should mention of the criticism that the Vista's new innovations are really just ripped off the other Operating Systems out there... --213.243.149.46 20:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC) The same anonymous coward
It is because Vista DOES have a totally redone network and audio stack. And why should the article mention of the *ripping off* any more than it already does? You *think* it looks like something else, can you prove that absolutely objectively? Okay leave that aside, can you prove that MS *did* copy something and *not* come up with it separately? If not, its speculation and theoretizing which does not have any place here. --soum talk 05:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Vista Ultimate Edition

This is referred to several times in this article, but we are not told what it is(what is it by the way?) Surely this should be included--Jac16888 04:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It's explained in the Editions and pricing section. Josh 14:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Support for 16 bit MSDOS applications

What does this mean? Can I still run my old DOS programs in a DOS box, like I do on XP, or not? Is CMD.EXE available? Jm546 01:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been able to run the older MSDOS apps under cmd.exe using Vista just like I do under XP. As for 16-bit Windows applications (that were probably developed for Win 3.1), I'm not sure what happens when they are installed and started under Vista. - Bevo 20:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
In 32-bit Vista, 16-bit Windows programs run on a modified version of Windows 3.1 that runs in a virtual machine. NTVDM and/or WoWexec handle displaying the 16-bit program's window on the screen. 64-bit Vista has no 16-bit support. Josh 16:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware things in Vista are fairly similar to XP. The 64 bit version of Windows has removed Dos and 16 bit Windows support. The 32 bit version retains this support. You can still run Dos applications in a 32 bit or 64 bit Windows emulator like Dosbox. All versions retain cmd but cmd.exe is a Windows command line interpreter. It is mostly unrelated to Dos support which is actually a seperate feature of Windows despite the apparent similarities between the two. Nil Einne 09:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I guess you mean the MS-DOS so-called "software interrupt" INT 21h support is distinguishable from the command line interpreter's support for so-called "batch files". (Is there a better way to say this?) - Bevo 01:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry interrupts is a bit beyond me. What I was saying is that the Windows Virtual DOS machine which is what provides DOS support is seperate from the cmd.exe which is the command line interpreter. The former is necessary to run DOS programs/executables while the later is simply the command line interpreter which interprets and responds to command and can be used for a variety of things including running scripts i.e. batch files Nil Einne 13:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
16bit Windows 3.11 Programs rus fine under Vista 32bit for me but not in 64bit oviuelsy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AJenbo (talk • contribs) 00:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
32-bit Vista has all the same DOS support as XP. 64-bit Vista cannot run DOS programs unless you use a program like DOSBox. CMD.EXE works in all versions but has nothing to do with running real DOS programs. Josh 16:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Name

Should it be mentioned that this is the first Windows to have a real name (i.e. not 3.1, 98, 2000, XP, etc). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.131.142 (talk) 22:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How are those not real names? 76.248.46.100 23:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

SP1 Beta Not Available on Technet

"The first beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, build 16659, was released on September 24th, 2007 and is currently being tested by TechBeta participants in the Windows Vista SP1 Beta Program as well as TechNet and MSDN subscribers."

Vista SP1 beta is not available to TechNet subscribers.

Microsoft says so: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738089.aspx "Windows Vista SP1 has been released as a limited beta to a group of selected beta testers. Technet subscribers will be the first to gain access to the SP1 release candidate when it becomes available. The timing of the release candidate will be based on feedback from the current beta testers." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.99.148 (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


Vista isn't as good for gaming!

Vista makes it hard to instal games and play them. Exsampele is 'The chronicles of Riddick', 'Down of Magic' and many more. Not to mention all games with directx9 and lower, whic aren't compatabile with vista.--217.23.193.91 18:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Not quite, but true enough. Thanks to copy protection and other issues there are games that are troublesome to get running on Vista. The article does not seem to touch on this, perhaps it should? - say:
==Vista software compatibility==
Not all applications for Windows will run on Vista. AV software, games with copy protection and system tools such as defragers are especially problematic as they make use of OS specific data structures and system calls.
--Anss123 20:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

sp1 downloads

Wil service pack 1 be available for a free download, or will i have to fork out another sum of money after i get vista next month. i'm pretty sure it will, cause isn't xp's service packs free? --Jameogle 00:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it will be free of charge, just like every other Microsoft update or service pack. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No links to networking and I/O features

While this article provides a general overview, all the new features of Windows Vista are thoroughly listed only in the "New features" series of articles. Amongst those, the networking and I/O articles were created much later and therefore are not directly and prominently linked to from the main article. An administrator should edit the main article to prominently link to the networking and I/O articles, just like they've done for End user/General, Technical, Business and Developer features' articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.128.147.197 (talk) 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is only semi protected (blocks unregistered users). You can edit it just by logging in. Btw, I made the edits for now. --soum talk 08:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article

Has this been nominated for peer review? When are we going to make this a featured article?

Of late, I'm seeing very little changes and edit wars... time for making it featured? Mugunth 17:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I think the only weak part of the article is the SP1 section, it looks sloppy. (heh, I thought SP1 was primarily bugfixes). Look how the XP article has their Service Pack information organized Windows_XP#Service_Pack_1 MahangaTalk 17:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I've done some work on the SP1 section today to help it along. -/- Warren 22:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Good work, Warren. I think it looks ready. Someone who has worked on it should nominate it. MahangaTalk 01:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is it "Veesta" or "Vihsta"? RageSamurai21655 00:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC) PS: I'd spell it out in IPA format--if I knew how to use it. Sorry! "Vihsta". 72.12.163.230 21:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you have half-life 2 ep1 or ep2 you can hear and excample, it's sounds like Veesta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AJenbo (talk • contribs) 10:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
As it now says in the article, it's (IPA: /ˈvɪs.tə/). Harryboyles 12:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Handwriting recognition (INK) in Vista

I have read about handwriting recognition (INK) features of WINVista and I wanted to know if they are limited only to tablet PC type machines. can't i use a desktop machine and use WACOM digitizer (graphire) to make hand writing notes and get them converted to editable text in programs such as one note and journal etc... ??? 202.142.190.245 16:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The handwriting recognition can not handle images, as it makes use of the timing information and order of strokes when recognizing text. A graphire should provide this information for Inc, but not owning one myself I can't say for sure.:--Anss123 16:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Short answer: yes. To Windows, there is very little difference between a tablet PC and a normal PC with a Wacom tablet; you can use all the tabletPC features with a tablet, including ink, guestures, etc. (Anss123: the OP wasn't asking about recognising images, they were asking about using a Wacom graphics tablet to input text). -- simxp (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticism Section

Why have a seperate criticism page when this page exhaustively details them all, I propose we delete the entire criticism section but retain the link to the criticisms section. If noone objects, I will do this now.--Rotten 06:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I saw the problem and fixed it. Do you think this is good, or should other action(s) be taken? You are definatly right about the section being deleted.-BlueAmethyst .:*:. 06:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Another thought would be to distribute some or all of the criticism throughout the main article, with, for example, criticisms of feature X being given when feature X is discussed, as per, for example, Wikipedia:Criticism#Criticisms of a topic in its article, Wikipedia:Criticism#Criticisms about a topic in other articles, and Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Article structure. (This does have the risk of provoking complaints that the article sounds like it's written by a fanboy - see, for example, the complaints raised about the iPhone article every so often.) Guy Harris 11:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a good sales article...

This article could very well be taken as is and used in a TV ad for Vista. It is full of positive expletives (hundreds of "new and reworked" features, "completely" redesigned networking/audio/print sub-systems, provides a "solid" base, etc...), it is full of assertions based purely on marketing data and except for the "criticism" segment in the bottom its overall style is exactly the same of a salesman trying to sell the product.

Look, this is a neutral description of a car: "This car's 2007 model comes with a larger 3.5L engine producing 180 HP, 4-stars crash rating and has an optional CD player.".

The same description using this article's style would be: "The Vista version of this car has a completely new 3.5L engine. Its hundreds of engineering improvements allows it to produce 180 HP and makes the car significantly faster. Past models were criticized for having security flaws, so Ford's chairman Bob Joe announced a company-wide security improvement initiative aiming to improve every aspect of the car design for a 4-stars crash rating. The premier version of this car comes with an entirely new audio subsystem including a CD player with redesigned controls making it much easier to find your music".

C'mon, stop sweetening the pill... remove the 500 adjectives in the article and just list the changes.70.137.159.228fbs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.137.159.228 (talk) 17:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of the issues you touch upon has been discussed. There truly are hundreds of new features, networking, print, etc. has been completely reworked. The Core technologies section does indeed seem to be written by a marketer, I grant you that but...
Car analogies are evil and should be avoided at all cost! Especially when you try to imply that the article redirects readers from serious security issues towards the new media features ;-)
--Anss123 18:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the answer, Anss123, appreciate the swift feedback. As this is the first time I ever saw this article, I thought of pointing that out. I don't want to reopen an old subject. Thanks 70.137.159.228 19:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)fbs

Windows Vista doesnt Suport 5.1 and 7.1 Suround speakers

What do you expect when the article is open to anyone to edit and of course anyone is going to be anyone working for Microsoft. This is where Wikipedia fails in that it allows companies to plug their product under the guise of being an open ended resource. The criticism page is the key to this article and should be beefed up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.45.157.36 (talk) 13:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Why Vista?

Why is Vista called Vista? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.203.161 (talk) 15:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

That is the name Windows thought was best, why shouldn't it be called Vista? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeking16 (talk • contribs) 10:49, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
What is the meaning behind the name? --  timc  talk   15:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there is. Maybe because it has a good look to it, a good... view? IronCrow 07:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I am going to have to agree with IronCrow Microsoft don't have to have a meaning behind all of their product's name. Joeking16 13:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I seriously doubt the name "Vista" came about because some engineer at Microsoft said "Hey, let's call it Vista" and everyone else said "Yeah, that sounds great." Microsoft probably paid some branding consultancy six or seven figures to come up with the name and research the heck out of it. If anyone could find out the story behind it, it might indeed make an interesting addition. Greyfedora (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed long horn logo...

I've removed the long horn logo and before bringing it back, please discuss here... I felt that, the longhorn logo, right in the first section make the article look old... Infact the logo was added during the initial stages of the article, around 2.5 yrs back... or something...

Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 16:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it does belong in the development section and development goes first chronologicly speaking. Josh (talk | contribs) 01:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
That's right.. but do we require that logo in Windows Vista article?

Development of Windows Vista should have that... For example, Windows XP article does not have a huge logo of the codename... Because Vista is now pretty old, i think we should remove the image, or atleast make it small...Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 06:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Since the article mentions the development period, I think the logo is quite important. The comparison to Windows XP does not hold because Longhorn was way more publicized (and more popular) than Whistler ever was. In fact there are many people who think Longhorn and Vista are different OSs altogether. The contrast of the visual identification (logo) needs to be shown to dispel that notion. And if you want the logo to be small... --soum talk 10:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


I don't think removing the Longhorn logo is necessary because it's still a recent released operating system, if it was lets say next year, then yes, but not straight away.Fire Monkey (talk) 12:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

No Desktop Themes

Why the fact that XP and Vista are poor in visaual styles isn't stated? I mean, 98 and Me at least included Plus! themes that changed color, sounds and icons. In XP and Vista there are not many themes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.240.234.212 (talk) 15:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, in Vista there are theoretically 4,228,250,625 different "colour schemes": 255 levels each of hue, saturation, brightness, and translucency; all independently adjustable. Though Windows XP has only three by default, Microsoft have made two more available (Energy Blue and Zune, both free), and there are thousands of user-made ones available from sites such as customize.org. Also, if you prefer the old 98/Me style themes, they're all still there in both XP and Vista, under "Windows Classic". -- simxp (talk) 16:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
There is a difference between themes and the theoretical ability to make themes. Regardless, they have nothing to do with Vista since they were removed in XP. Josh (talk | contribs) 16:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, they change colors, but they don't change icons and sounds.213.240.234.212 (talk) 23:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The theme engine is locked and you can't change the colour of taskbar its away black blargh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.8.203.22 (talk) 12:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Even XP had its theme engine locked down from external access. (That it was hacked around is a different matter). Btw, I wish they included this feature isn't a criticism. Thats why it is not here. --soum talk 15:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Reception and sales?

I'm disappointed this article doesn't contain a section describing how well or poorly Vista has done compared to expectations. The words 'sales' nor 'reception' can't even be found in the article. Boo!Yeago (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

There are conflicting reports. See [1] for example. The article already is large, but it might be worth a couple of sentences. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to insert some information if you can find some reliable independent sources for it. I'm turning up Microsoft saying sales are good, and Microsoft-Watch and the FSF accusing them of fudging the figures. Which, frankly, is what they were always going to say (on both sides) whatever Vista sales were like... -- simxp (talk) 16:59, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Preferably keep MS and FSF and their affiliates out of the references, and use independent, but reliable, sources. --soum talk 17:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, feel free if you can find any, but the thing with sales figures is that the only company who reliable knows how many copies of Vista have been sold is Microsoft, and they're obviously not an independent source (they're always going to claim figures are good, whether they are or not). Any independent bodies can only estimate based on, for example, web browser usage agents (as Usage share of desktop operating systems does). This is distinctly dodgy, and even if it wasn't, evaluating how well these figures match up to "expectations" (whose expectations?) is extremely subjective. I suspect we're really not going to find anything useful and encyclopedic on this. -- simxp (talk) 15:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I hear lots of rumors about Vista being largely ignored as a replacement to XP, this article definitely needs words on this. Sorry, I've got finals and can't really delve myself. I'll check back in a few weeks and see if things have changed.Yeago (talk) 18:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Also maybe refer to the cnet poll which shows some surprising (or maybe not-so-surprising, considering the issues plaguing Vista) numbers. Althepal (talk) 00:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I only read in that sentance "I hear... rumors... article... needs words on this." Please refer to the above posts for ways to get that subject included. Paul Cyr (talk) 01:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Rumors and criticism often repeated in the media and other notable sources are certainly up for discussion here. Maybe you've had you're head in a place where sound and light do not reach, however, Vista is often scoffed at as a replacement to XP.Yeago (talk) 13:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I never said rumours in critisism don't exist, but they shouldn't exist in this article if they do not come from a proper source. The OP made no reference to any. In addition, that type of rudeness is not appropriate, please remain civil. Paul Cyr 19:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I made a section on the public reception of Windows Vista, I think it is actually pretty interesting information. Althepal 06:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
A few points: I removed the web poll. A web poll is not a reliable source, as it is self-selecting: only people with a point to make or an ax to grind are liable to vote in them. See the article on Opinion poll for proper sampling methods. I also changed the market share section from an external link to WebApplications to an internal link to Usage share of desktop operating systems, which collates information from a number of companies, including WebApplications; and replaced the slight OS X promotioneering with a statement of current market share, using an arithmetic mean of the four web market share companies results. -- simxp (talk) 02:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article?

Do you think this article is good enough to be star quallity? - Titan602 (talk) 13:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

See results of previous nominations here and here. -- simxp (talk) 03:53, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed Aero related pictures...

I removed the following three pics, [[Image:Vista Flip 3d.png|thumb|Windows Flip 3D (Win+Tab keys)]] [[Image:Vista Flip 2d.png|thumb|Windows Flip (Alt+Tab keys)]] [[Image:Livethumbnails.png|thumb|Live Thumbnails (Win+T keys)]]

They illustrate Windows Aero, which is a part of Windows Vista... The section heading is Windows Visual Styles and not Windows Aero. The pictures are already illustrated in Windows Aero article. It's redundant and gives a cluttered look to the article... (Something full of pictures...) Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 01:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

>The section heading is Windows Visual Styles and not Windows Aero
Aero Glass is the main visual style; that's why they're under that section. -- simxp (talk) 12:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I agree, but it should not so happen that Aero has three pictures and other visual styles have 1 each.

That's y I removed them... Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 02:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi Protection

This article IMO, does not suffer from much vandalism recently... Can we remove the semi protection?Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 15:53, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection is the reason it does not suffer from vandalism. Althepal (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Deprecated features section

Vista Home seems not to support SMB file shares any more. Ethereal traces show that if you want to connect a network file share Vista will try to connect using the WebDav protocol. If this fails Vista displays an error message. It will not try to connect via the SMB protocol.

A concequence of this is that Vista will not be able to connect to non-Vista file servers (even not to Windows XP or Windows 200x Server file servers). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.4.226 (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't that belongs in the article. It's not true that SMB shares aren't supported at all, but rather that the standard configuration of Vista doesn't support typical Samba configurations. It's fixable.[2] Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
If something always worked before, and if administrators of heterogeneous networks took it for granted that it worked, and if it suddenly stopped working with WIndows Vista, and if Windows Vista is the only mainstream OS on which it currently does not work, then I think it does belong in the article.
If McDonald's suddenly stopped putting Special Sauce on Big Macs, and said "It's not that Special Sauce is not supported, it's just that it isn't the standard configuration. We have it in pump bottles over by the napkins, you can put it on yourself, it's fixable," it would still be worthy of mention. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
It's more like if McDonalds stopped offering "special sauce" as a side order because they stopped putting it directly on the sandwich fifteen years ago. LM authentication is, and has been, obsolete as well as a security problem. It's a pretty obscure issue. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
If you buy a car and you notice the next day that something does not work you go to the vendor and he tells you: "Oh, I'm very sorry. This does not happen very often. We'll repair it and tomorrow your car works well".
Microsoft obviously tells you: "Oh. We want that this does not work." or "This does not work in your car. We cannot repair it because it works well in all other cars" (replace "car" by "computer"). This is the difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.64.21 (talk) 08:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm very sorry for writing the article above. SMB (of course ?) still works on Vista. However I found out that the automatic updates changed some configuration settings a normal user would never be able to find. These settings de-facto disabled SMB.
The fact, that it is rather difficult to find the problem if Windows operating systems become instable (maybe caused by 3rd party programs) is something that belongs to the Wikipedia page - I think. I heard professional system administrators talking like this. --Mr1278 (talk) 19:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Intro

The articles has a very long introduction which pretty much summarizes most of the stuff written below. I'm not really familiar with the OS (still using XP myself), but maybe we could break the intro down to a paragraph and have delete or re-appropriate the rest into their respective categories?Grifter tm (talk) 09:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Something similar to the current first paragraph is probably about all that is needed as a lead. Happypoems (talk) 05:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Lead section for an understanding of why the lead section is of the size that it is. The lead section is supposed to summarise what comes in the rest of the article. That's what it's there for. -/- Warren 07:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Summarize yes, but thing is they even go into detail on the new features, Microsoft's primary stated objective and criticism. It's an article all to itself. I did read the Lead Section article, and it would be best to follow that type of intro. It didn't need to go four paragraphs, did it? Grifter tm (talk) 04:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Criticism section

The section regarding Vista's sales is not verifiable and does not stand up to even the slightest bit of fact checking. Microsoft's "100 million licenses" are through retail channels while the IDC/Gartner stats are for total PC sales through all channels (business, online, Dell etc). Therefore one can't use those numbers together to determine the percentage of machines that shipped with Vista, as this article claims to do. Microsoft is on record as also noting that they sold an additional amount of 42 million licenses through volume license agreements. [1][2]

Vista didn't hit retail until Jan 30th and therefore missed about a month of sales counted for 2007. The 89 million licenses credited to XP is counting from October of 2001 to the end of 2002. [3] Actually, Microsoft allowed PC makers to ship XP up to a month before launch in order to jump start PC sales. [4][5][6] That's 15 months and two holiday seasons versus Vista's 11 months and one holiday season.

Microsoft also claimed that 77% of all retail PC's sold in Feb 2007 had Vista pre-installed and that number increased to 96% by CES 2008. That also vibes with common sense and everyone's personal experience as we all know it's nearly impossible to walk into a retailer an find a PC with XP pre-installed and that's been the case since shortly after Vista was released. [7] [8]

[1]http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Vista-Numbers-Sit-Between-100-and-150-Million-75362.shtml [2]http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1079 [3]http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jan03/01-08ces2003overallpr.mspx [4]http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/10/16/xp.systems.idg/index.html [5]http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2092737,00.htm [6]http://www.itworld.com/Comp/1197/IDG010924CompaqXPsystems/ [7]http://entmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=9399 [8]http://www.wininsider.com/news/?10985

I think the criticsm section should also mention how fashionable it has become to complain about Vista/Longhorn. The FUD has been pouring out for years; from MS is trying to kill OpenGL by making run on top of D3D, to trying to kill PDF and ODF with XPS and OOXML, to trying to kill Flash with Expression and Silverlight, to Palladium fears about not letting users switch to Linux, and even that ridiculously bad article about DRM in Vista. If you want you can link to Ed Bott saying he was offered money to trash Vista: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=287 Brandon Gilchrist (talk) 08:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to add in this section the saying that not all XP-compatible games are supported here? I keep hearing this from other people. --58.69.64.221 (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Windows Vista#Software compatibility -- simxp (talk) 18:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I must make a point concerning all of the Criticisms. While all the points are valid, they are almost only the things that have been brought up in reviews of Vista, or an Editors/Writers article. I work at a 24/7 Windows Tech Shop, and a few of these issues are what we generally get complaints about. New Vista users invariably don't like the more obvious DRM restrictions, the User Account Control (having to click "continue" three or four times to accomplish something as simple as changing the system time as an example) and the way that Vista makes most machines feel like running XP on a Pentium II with 128MB of ram (brings normally fast machines to a crawl at times). i agree with the point above this as well, many applications don't run well, or at all on Vista. It just seems to me that the criticism section would be more useful if it included what the end user is left with. Another note may be that there are users who disable the user account control because of its intrusiveness, negating its security use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.23.131.138 (talk) 20:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone who works on this article is going to disagree with you on the issues you've mentioned... however, being an encyclopedia, we need to ensure that anything we put in the article, especially when it is critical of the subject, can be backed up by reliable sources. This is really important, because it's your assurance as a reader that the article isn't lying to you. If the problems you're describing are that widespread, surely it's been covered in a major computing publication by now... if you can find that, fantastic, we'll find a way to work it into the article. -/- Warren 21:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
To the contrary, I think it's pretty important that anything put in the article that is positive towards the subject be backed up with reliable sources, when the subject of the article is a heavily promoted commercial product. I'm not saying that everyone putting positive comments is a shill, but rather that we need to make sure that our articles are credible and don't merely buy in to commercial hype. Hype and excitement about new products are infectious, although Apple has generally proven more skilled at harnessing this phenomenon than Microsoft; but an encyclopedia has a responsibility to be more critical -- in the sense of "critical thinking", not "opposition". --FOo (talk) 23:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Nobody's arguing "to the contrary", Mr. Obfusco. -/- Warren 04:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
You said 'especially when it is critical of the subject'. He disagrees with this double standard, and so do I. 218.159.144.49 (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
While we're at it, should we mention that not all MSDOS games work under vista too? What about windows 98 games? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.43.189 (talk) 15:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

General tone of the article

I'm sorry to post a non-specific comment (I'm no techie, I only have general user experience of Vista), but this article seems to have been written by Microsoft's PR department. Quite disappointing by Wikipedia's standards. 17/12/07 Sirio.a (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the slightest doubt that Microsoft employees are editing Wikipedia, but the present article is not as zealously protected as some that I've seen here. If you have a specific properly-sourced edit to add, go ahead. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
The opening section indeed seems to me to have neutrality problems, although the last paragraph does mention criticisms. But the article as a whole has a pretty meaty "Criticism" section. I don't know the history of the article, but the opening section wouldn't have been so bad if written prior to Vista's release, and might reflect expectations rather than reality.
I don't have time to work on this myself now, but I think that Microsoft's being... this is my personal opinion for the Talk page... forced to offer XP downgrades and forced to extend the period of time during which OEMs are allowed to offer XP preinstalled is important enough to go in the lead section. I can't remember anything like this happening before.
Although every release of Windows has had teething pains and encountered foot-dragging on adoption, I honestly think what has happened with Vista is out of the ordinary and historically important... particularly since it does not sound as if SP1 will address most of the issues that have been slowing adoption.
And what is conspicuously notable is that the teething-pain problems are not balanced by advantages that are immediately obvious to almost all users. The apparent pain-to-gain ratio is higher than I've seen before.
At what point one can say this, properly referenced, with encyclopedic neutrality, I'm not sure. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Nearly all Microsoft products ship with downgrade rights. That includes almost every version of Office and Windows in addition to Visual Studio.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/downgrade.mspx http://ss.sysware.com.tw/produce/License/Microsoft/downgrade_chart.doc Brandon Gilchrist (talk) 09:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If it can indeed be said in a properly referenced way with encyclopedic neutrality, go ahead. Unreferenced "Vista sucks" stuff is of course right out, but no reason to hold back on adding sourced and NPOV information. See WP:BOLD. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
(Uh, I've been contributing since 2003, I know about WP:BOLD).
Well, in fact I think I've found something suitable. PC World is a reasonably reliable, reasonably neutral source with, if anything, a Wintel-friendly stance. For them to characterize Vista as #1 of the "15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007" is, I think, a noteworthy fact in itself. "Biggest Tech Disappointment of 2007" is more than just a "negative assessment," and PC World is more than just a "various group." And their point that users are not just avoiding Vista but switching back to XP is notable enough to deserve prominent mention. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw that one. Put it in. Raymond Arritt (talk) 14:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I re ordered the paragraph in the lead section... Please have a look at it...Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 16:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted this change. The security push is not more important than a discussion of new features to most people. You really need to think very carefully about what is of interest to the average, non-specialist reader when writing lead sections. I cannot overstate the importance of this. -/- Warren 12:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


Raymond, I've been watching this article carefully for two years, and I can offer you my assurances that Microsoft (in an official capacity) isn't putting much effort into editing this article. I'm the single largest contributor to it, and roughly 75% of the text is mine, and I don't work for them, nor have they even so much as offered an acknowledgement of the work that's been done here. Occasionally individual employees come along and edit Microsoft articles, by their own motivations (one example that comes to mind is when the product manager for Windows Home Server worked on that article around the time of the product's announcement), but by and large there isn't any concerted effort by them to influence the tone of the article.
Generally speaking, when people complain about the article not being "neutral", or sounding like "marketing", it's because they're coming to the article with a pre-programmed negative opinion of Vista (be it from personal experience, or, IMO the result of reading a lot of negative press on web sites that tend to be anti-Microsoft anyways, such as Slashdot and The Register), and they expect the article to reflect their views. The FSF even has a campaign called BadVista that's devoted to spreading negative information about Vista, but they can't seem to demonstrate that their primary concern with Vista (DRM) is significantly affecting anyone! Of course, the FSF has their own competing software to push, so it's really no wonder that they're carrying on with a misinformation campaign against Microsoft.
We're writing an encyclopedia here, not an op-ed, so the balance of the article's content is always going to lean heavily towards straight-up information, not criticism. Always keep in mind that the "omg vista sux lol" crowd thrives on emotion, not information. It also comes from a general social truism that many people simply don't like change. -/- Warren 12:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

' hundreds of new and reworked features' In the lead - I'm not a registered user, but could someone maybe change this? It reads like advertising, and is neither backed up by a reference, nor by the linked page. How about 'a number of new and reworked features compared with previous Microsoft Windows versions'? 219.251.88.102 (talk) 03:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I too agree with this... It does not sound like a good article... Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 16:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It HAS got hundreds of new and reworked features (go to the features articles and start counting). How else can you say that? --soum talk 17:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, I started counting, like you said... and I counted 41 new or reworked things that seemed major enough to qualify as 'features of the OS' (rather than minor details). Of course it would be silly to change the article to say '41 new and reworked features', but by the same token, where does the 'hundreds' come from? 'New and reworked' is weasel wording, too. Overall I feel this statement implies to the casual reader that there are hundreds of basic functions that Vista has over and above its predecessors, which doesn't seem to quite hit the right balance. Why not just kick that paragraph off with 'Some of the most significant new features of Vista include...' 219.251.88.102 (talk) 11:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
We have six large articles covering Vista's new features. SIX ARTICLES, not including this one! You can only find 41 new features? You didn't really try, did you? -/- Warren 11:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not so much about how hard you 'try', as to what you see as a 'feature'. The features articles are very thorough indeed, and if we consider all the technical details in those articles, there may indeed be hundreds of new features. But as you said above: 'You really need to think very carefully about what is of interest to the average, non-specialist reader when writing lead sections'. 219.251.88.102 (talk) 15:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad you've come to an understanding of how the number of new features in Vista numbers into the hundreds. We'll consider that issue settled.
You'll notice that the rest of the paragraph touches on several different aspects of the operating system which have seen changes, each of which will be of interest to a major constituency (end-users, power users, developers) or have been widely discussed in the press (Aero, searching, and security). When I talk about accommodating non-specialist readers, this means that we don't bludgeon them to death with specialist details (we'll mention Aero but not the Desktop Window Manager, for example), and we take proper care in balancing out the presentation of the most important points so that the lead section is concise and interesting enough to anybody, without them really needing to know what it all means, unless they want to dig further. -/- Warren 19:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Love the patronising tone, mate! I have not changed what I said. Hey, let's go down to the 'lines of code level' and say that there are hundreds of thousands of new features! Is that arguably true? Yes. Is it meaningful to anyone? not IMO. Sigh.
It's not just this line that sounds promotional. Count the number of times that you see the word 'improve' in a sentence that is either unsourced, or sourced to Microsoft.219.251.88.102 (talk) 03:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If you don't like how the word improve is used, be bold and change it yourself. Note that we do use phrasing like "Microsoft aimed to improve" to ensure that the characterization of a change being an improvement is Microsoft's. -/- Warren 04:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Keep your patronising for yourself. You wish Vista's critics belonged to the "omg vista sux lol" family. Those who run intensive statistical analysis on their computer - like myself - don't like to see their machine freeze or slow down thanks to what appears to be a let's-rush-to-the-market piece of software. Think it's just me and a few other people? Yeah, sure. You know that Dell offers to downgrade their machines to XP and customers PAY for that? Isn't this putting their money where their mouth is? People thrive on emotion less than you'd like when it comes to Vista, and the reason is that we don't care what OS is in the box, as long as it works well. Vista is a big disappointment for the end-user with respect the latest XP, and the article is all candy-eyed about Vista. Obviously there are some negative remarks, but the article is far from encyclopedic. And "Oh, yeah, it's all a conspiracy by FSF" or whomever. 02/01/08 Sirio.a (talk) 15:37, 02 January 2008 (UTC)
"What appears to be" isn't a good basis to build an encyclopedia on. Your personal experiences aren't a good basis to build an encyclopedia on, either. Surely you agree with this as a matter of principle. (If you don't, have a good read through Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:No original research, which explain why such material is to be avoided)
Put it like this -- How do I have any assurance that you're telling the truth? How can you be absolutely, 100% certain that the problems you encounter are because Vista was, in your estimation, "rushed", and not because, oh say, Vista is less forgiving about poorly-written software than prior versions of Windows was? There was quite a lot of software that worked fine on 9x but broke under XP, and there was quite a lot of software that broke under 95 that worked under 3.x. Major operating system revisions bring with it a share of breakages and compatibility issues.... sometimes it's because the third-party software was poorly-written, sometimes it's because of bugs in Microsoft's software. If you're guessing at this stuff, I suggest you don't, because the issues here are extremely complicated and the blame doesn't always lie with Microsoft.
As for the article being "all candy-eyed", about 20% of the article is devoted to criticism and the negative public reaction to the operating system. Your concerns are touched on in the article... it's all right there. What more do you want, exactly? Be specific. -/- Warren 07:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I apologise. I understand that Windows Vista couldn't be better, and it's the computers' fault (note the "s", which suggests it's not just mine). After all PCs only crunch a bunch of 1s and 0s and don't realise the beauty of an OS that distribution agreements impose on retailers and on us. I also understand that the fact that the biggest retailer charges 100 bucks to get Vista out of the machine and install XP [3] is just the result of one person (notably me) having negative prejudices about Vista. I do have powerful friends at DELL. I also understand that the bugs, offspring of the natural complexity of a major OS revision, need to be ironed out after the system has been introduced through a friendly "buy-this-or-get-bent" policy, strictly enforced during the first months after Vista's release, rather than through diligent beta testing. The fact that customers PAY for the OS and should expect it to work out-of-the-box is irrelevant. Anyway (and I'm serious now), thanks for the article, in which you clearly put a lot of effort. I never meant to suggest it should be trashed, I was simply wishing to bring up the obvious (yes, it is obvious and, no, it's not just my computer) fact that Vista's release has been managed tragically - and there is no serious discussion about it in the article. The obvious question is why don't I write it, and the obvious answer - that you can find in my initial discussion - is that I simply don't have the technical background to do so. And with this I wave good-bye to this thread. 08/01/08 Sirio.a (talk) 13:41, 08 January 2008 (UTC)

Public reception and sales section

The "Public reception and sales" section has a whoooooole lot of Apple propaganda in it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.24 (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you sound like a neutral third party. Every statement in that section is backed up with a source, almost always with statistics. It is no secret that Vista, like ME, unlike most other versions of Windows, has a lot of people who really dislike it, and it is no secret that XP is still a very popular option. As for anything related to Apple... The first Mac reference is used to compare Vista to the general computer market [not propaganda, comparison]. The second reference is rightly pointing out that due to the existing generally poor public review, some Windows users are moving to Mac [not propaganda, relevant information based on actual numbers]. That's it! Well, I thought that Apple fans were the irrational ones. I'm glad you made it clear that this is only the case when the middle line is drawn by Microsoft. Althepal (talk) 21:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Accusing a user who points out a possible NPOV problem of being irrational and a Microsoft astroturfer is a slightly overboard response, if I may say so without offense. The section does actually suffer from slight NPOV problems -- for example, quoting Gates on the number of licenses sold, Gartner on their estimate of the number of PCs sold, and inviting the reader to subtract the former figure from the latter as if this would give a meaningful indication of how many PCs were sold without Vista licenses is distinctly dodgy (even if it's not technically WP:SYNTH because a gadget blog did it). And most of the first paragraph reads like a rehash of the 'criticism' section with the addition of several more completely unsourced problems -- e.g. "not making big enough improvements since the release of XP"? There is no mention of that in the criticism article; and to anyone who's read the "Features new to" articles, it seems a faintly silly claim. These problems will be no doubt be fixed in time -- but not by accusing novice users who point out NPOV problems of irrationality and astroturfing. -- simxp (talk) 20:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Fix the section as you see fit. My response was largely to the title he made for this talk section. I was perhaps the main contributor to the section and tried my best to put in as much balanced and cite-able information, and I took offense at the term "Apple nazis" just because the fact of the matter is that people don't like Vista as much as they did other versions. (I myself use XP quite a bit and also put in some effort improving the Windows 7 article. I had even incorrectly linked to a statistic which indicated Vista had about 10% of the user share, something higher than most counts, which someone corrected by putting in an average of more sources.) But if there is anything in there you don't see as reliable or encyclopedia worthy, feel free to fix it.
BTW: the thing about not making big enough improvements was not a criticism, it was a point PC World made when calling the product "the most disappointing tech product of 2007", which is why I thought it would be appropriate in this section. If you disagree, feel free to change it. Althepal (talk) 20:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, that makes more sense now. I didn't pay much attention to the title of the section, only the post itself, which was why your post seemed overboard. As a response to the title, it seems much more reasonable; so I'm happy to withdraw that part of my comments. (Coincidentally, the one you referred to who changed the usage share to an average of the internal article results was me and I've just updated it for December; I'll have a go at to the rest of the section tomorrow). -- simxp (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

While I wouldn't blame it on "Apple Nazis", that section definitely does not have a neutral point of view, I think enough to warrant the tag. Some of it would be more suitable in the criticism section, or not there at all. Exodite (talk) 12:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Comparing Vista / XP sales figures.

I think this will always be a problem area, even given reputable sources. Microsoft's own figures for Vista sales undoubtedly will include the millions of preinstalled OEM copies supplied with new computers. Yet, if experience is anything to judge by, a very high percentage of such copies are never even once booted-up, the new computer being reloaded with an alternative OS straight out of box. Do such 'never-booted' copies count as a sale? Good question. It is also obvious that while some customers will buy XP as a replacement, some will use an existing copy from a previous computer, which therefore won't show in XP sales figures. Thus, even given reliable figures, it is hard to draw any firm conclusions as to how the continuing usage of XP correlates with Vista sales. --Anteaus (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Vista as a disappointment

This belongs in the opening paragraph; it's at least as objective as sone of the puffery in that paragraph, it cites a reliable source, and it is one of the most frequently mentioned things about Vista in the general and trade press. SP1 has been a disappointment as well, e.g. Business Week. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

SP1 isn't even out yet so you can't say that it has been a disappointment. Betas (and maybe RCs) yes, SP1 final build no, so lets leave any SP1 talk out of it. Smoothy (talk) 17:17, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
You're right. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
What's disappointing is that a year after making such a problem-ridden OS, Microsoft still didn't release a service pack. But truth be told, the SP1 Betas (which are good indicators to the Release version) don't fix a lot of compatibility and performance problems people complain about. Althepal (talk) 22:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
What puffery in the opening paragraph? It's very much just the facts and encyclopedic. If anything out of the opening deserves to go, it's the generic Vista bashing in the last paragraph. Take it to the criticism section/article. Also as Smoothy said, the final version of SP1 for Vista is not released yet so these early complaints about SP1 don't belong in the article. In response to Althepal, it was approximately 11 months before Windows XP got the SP1, the SP1 release date for Vista isn't much different. From a personal standpoint, what I saw as the subject of a lot of Windows XP complaints back then, security, wasn't very much addressed until Service Pack 2 when they added the Security Center, which was nearly 3 years after release. Exodite (talk) 12:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
The fact that SP1 doesn't address most of the "disappointments" of Vista does not belong in the article, but it's relevant to this discussion in the Talk page because it shows that Vista can fairly be said to be disappointing. At a year, we do not yet have the judgement of history, but it's also not just a case of bad first impression. If it were clear that SP1 were going to make Vista into the product that people expected, then the fact that the first release was disappointing wouldn't be important. But the "disappointments" of Vista are, it seems, really intrinsic to the product, not things that just needed to have a few t's crossed and i's dotted.
As for dismissing these as the "early complaints" common to every new OS, please show me an article in the mainstream IT press that ever called Windows XP one of the biggest tech disappointments of 2001, said that many users were clinging to Win2K like shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, and that others who made the upgrade are switching back. Or that Windows 98 was one of the biggest tech disappointments of 1998, that many users were clinging to Windows 95 like shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, while others who made the upgrade are switching back. Or that DOS 5.0... well, you get the idea.
It is not "generic Vista bashing" when it is PC World making the criticism. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
PC World is no more excused from yellow journalism than any other source, especially with opinionated top 10 lists. That's the point of them, to be controversial. The competition for your clicks is more fierce now than ever. And editors/journalists have publicly stated that they'd get more money if they would join in on the Vista bashing.
"Vista-bashing is the ticket to online success. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I could literally double my income if I went into the Vista-bashing business. Want to guess how many times Jim Louderback’s writing was featured on Slashdot in the last four years? Only once, until he pushed the “Vista sucks” button."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=287
Linking to articles that provide/back up verifiable facts are fine. But a bunch of links to editors trolling Vista to get more clicks doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article. But if people insist on it, and I know they will, either put it in the criticism section/article or at least try to give an impression of NPOV by providing articles from both sides. So far that hasn't been done at all. Exodite (talk) 04:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
de-indent... dpbsmith: Off the top of my head, I do recall quite a bit of negative reaction to Mac OS X v10.0 when it was released. For example, Ars Technica's review concluded with: "Should you upgrade to Mac OS X? If you don't already have a copy (or plans to buy one), the answer is no. Most users should wait for a future release, and possibly new hardware to run it on."[4] ... OS X did improve over time, especially after 10.1, but it did still take them a couple of years before the vanguard of OS8/9 users really migrated in large numbers -- software compatibility and performance were the two top issues for most people, and there was a bunch of good ole' graybeardism mixed in as well. Like Mac OS X, Vista was a pretty major leap in terms of the underlying stuff, mainly because of the tightened security, and compatibility suffered. The major difference, of course, is scale... Windows is such a widely-used and well-known piece of software, that every issue is magnified to huge proportions because so many more people can be affected.
Windows XP also had some pretty major criticism levelled against in 2001 as well, notably around Product Activation and hardware & software compatibility, and the so-called "fisher-price" interface. It still garnered ~20% marketshare after one year, and has obviously become wildly successful in spite of the initial negative reactions.
Thanks have changed since 2001, though, when Mac OS X (and Windows XP) came out. People aren't in as much of a hurry to upgrade as they used to be. There's a lot more negativism (and perhaps weariness) floating around about computers. Even Mac OS X v10.5 has had enough criticism to merit a section in the article, whereas 10.4 didn't.
Year two for Vista will be interesting; whether SP1 changes enough technically is probably not as important as whether perceptions will change enough for it to be set on a similar path of success as XP. Then again, if Windows 7 does get released next year, it may never achieve market domination like XP did if only because people will adopt 7 instead, bypassing Vista altogether..... who knows!
This got a bit lengthy (sorry)... I guess what I'm trying to say here is, it's important to note the criticism and negative reception, but we shouldn't get carried away with paragraph after paragraph about it, because there is some historical precedent in major operating systems having a (sometimes very) difficult first couple of years. -/- Warren 03:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Incompatibilities

Another very important issue that is never mentioned in the article is the terrible incompatibility problems of vista. There are many articles on this issue as well, it is real phenomenon with real consequences and it is definitely worth noting. Here are some articles that report on this issue:

Vista Is Still Plagued by Incompatibilities Nine months since its release, lots of hardware and software products still don't work with Microsoft's operating system, including some that are certified as Vista compatible.

Also related with the downgrades:

Why save XP? Readers speak out On the record or off, IT pros explain why they're not prepared to say goodbye to XP and upgrade to Vista Mazzero (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

All in the Criticism of Windows Vista article. -- simxp (talk) 01:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, thank you for pointing out this article. I still think that the main vista article should at least in its intro mention these issues. These incompatibilities led to much inefficiency and waste and are a defining aspect of the vista experience (see for example the pcworld article cited above). Thanks, Mazzero (talk) 02:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The lead does mention incompatibilities, albeit briefly: "Criticism targets include ... lack of device drivers for some hardware..." -- simxp (talk) 02:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I think these points can be mentioned more carefully. `Some hardware' is in my view too vague and it is probably not doing justice to the magnitude of the problem. Vista caused people to lose money and time unnecessarily because of these problems. (I edited my earlier comment, found it too long and unnecessary, sorry for the double edit. I think I made my point. The situation seems clear to me, Vista causes waste and inefficieny much more than called for in an upgrade and I would like this article to talk about this clearly- so that whoever reading it knows what they are up against with vista. Many thanks to everyone for working on the article and for the discussion here. Best wishes.)

Mazzero (talk) 11:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You could put hardware incompatibilities at first as a criticism in every single Windows article, because that's always, always part of the complaints when a new Windows is released. But the complaints disappear after a while, and then when the next Windows is released, people magically forget all the compatibility problems the previous Windows had and act like compatibility problems with the new Windows is something that has never happened before. The only thing that would make compatibility problems worthy of putting in Vista's article is if Vista's compatibility problems are worse than previous Windows, and I've seen no proof of that.
And Mazzero, you can discuss your personal opinions and experiences in the discussion, but it shouldn't be in the article. So it seems you've clearly had problems with hardware incompatibility, yes that is frustrating, but that does not mean your experiences are universal. What about the tons of people that haven't had any problems? They shouldn't be discounted. Again personal experiences vary from person to person but what should be put in the article is objective material. Exodite (talk) 12:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Hundreds" word.

In oppose of "hundreds of new features" I just replaced "number of negative assessments" to "hundreds of negative assessments". This is for equal the tone of article to reach better NPOV. Let me know what you think about it. --Ciao 90 (talk) 19:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Assuming good faith, I think you seriously misunderstand the point of WP:NPOV. NPOV does not mean that criticism of a topic should use the same adjectives as the description of a topic! As a wider issue, nor does it mean that criticism should take up an equal amount of space as description: see WP:Undue Weight (for example, the Linux article has no criticism section at all, but contrary to your apparent interpretation of NPOV, this is not actually an NPOV violation, but rather a function of there being insufficient verifiable mainstream criticism to put in one). On this specific issue, however, the important factor is WP:V -- verifiability. The lead says 'hundreds of new features' because there are hundreds of verifiable significant new features: those which are catalogued, referenced, and verified in the numerous "X features new to Windows Vista" subarticles. This is manifestly not true of criticisms. Reverted. -- simxp (talk) 21:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine, I just noticed that "hunderds of the new features" was replaced by "many changes and new features" seems better npov now. --Ciao 90 (talk) 18:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Downgrades to xp

As of February 2008, a year after Vista's intro, many people are downgrading their vistas that come with their new computers to xp- this is a very real, interesting, relevant and rare phenomenon that is conspicously not mentioned in the article. I think it deserves to be mentioned in the intro. There is even a statistic that can be cited in this direction:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139664-page,1/article.html Vista's Biggest Problem Remains Windows XP, Survey Says

There are also ample number of news articles on the issue from all over the world; here are some examples:

Australian resellers capitalise despite slow growth of Vista “Downgrading from Vista is very popular in our store. People complain to us that they don’t like Vista and want XP for their operating system. Some vendors like Fujitsu provide downgrade CDs, but it becomes harder with other vendors, because a few of them don’t provide drivers for XP,” he said. According to Wei the need for downgrading gives the reseller the opportunity to use that to their advantage and “pretty much advertise it as an additional service.”

Dutch consumer watchdog demands free Vista downgrade Consumentenbond further reports it has received more than 5000 complaints from Vista owners describing problems with peripherals or operating system stability. The consumer watchdog calls on both Microsoft and computer retailers to offer a free Windows XP downgrade option to all Vista customers. Several major vendors already include XP installation CDs with their Vista computers or offer a downgrade to Windows XP.

Microsoft To Extend Windows XP Sales As Vista Concerns Mount PC makers have responded to such concerns by continuing to push Windows XP, despite the millions of dollars that their partner in Redmond has spent promoting Vista. Dell, Lenovo, and Hewlett-Packard have in recent weeks gone as far as offering customers discs that effectively let them "downgrade" their Windows Vista systems to Windows XP.

Windows XP's stay extended Consumers and small businesses have asked PC manufacturers to continue offering XP, and many influential tech bloggers have written critically about their experience with Vista and subsequent decision to "downgrade" back to XP.'

  • The Houston Chronicle - Nov 20, 2007

It’s possible to downgrade system from Vista to XP Should I fear Vista? Windows Vista, released in January to mixed reviews and tepid consumer upgrade sales, is now the default operating system found on nearly every consumer PC sold, both at retail and online. But Vista has gotten such bad buzz — some deserved and some not — that many buyers are wary of it. More than half the e-mail I get from readers asking for PCbuying advice includes some variation of this query: “Can I get XP instead of Vista?” Mazzero (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Downgrading to XP is mentioned in the Public reception and sales section, which someone insisted on moving to Criticism of Windows Vista because it "describes criticism". - Josh (talk | contribs) 00:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Stating that people are downgrading to xp is not a criticism, it is a simple observation of the current situation. The current article doesn't cover this phenomenon to the extent that it deserves- currenly the issue is merely and indirectly mentioned. Vista is the only operating system that has ever caused a downgrading wave like this, and this has been going on for a year now. Mazzero (talk) 01:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Saying "Vista is the only operating system that has ever caused a downgrading wave like this" is quite the claim. Where's the proof? Where's the verifiable facts? Looking through those articles, a few editors saying they are doing it/saying others are doing it is not proof. It does not properly gauge what the majority is doing at all. Personally I distinctly remember a wave of vocal people making downgrading threats after Windows XP was released. And Windows 2000. And Windows ME. etc. etc. It happens with every OS. Until there's some actual proof and statistics of Vista downgrades it doesn't belong in the article. Exodite (talk) 05:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
No, this is quite different. Sure some people have reverted to older versions in the past, but nothing on such a scale. The Dell website shows a button "Still looking for Windows XP?" WHEN HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE? Esp 1 yr after the release. Of course it is impossible to get numbers, but a number of news articles have mentioned its significance, and thus its appropriate mention here. And the "Public reception and sales" section should be moved back from the Criticism article to this article. The Criticism article is a list of criticisms, the reception article is about the OS itself. One editor moving the section four times does not show consensus. I'll move it back. Althepal (talk) 06:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The news articles don't have any statistics on downgrading numbers or a comparison to any other Windows versions, it's again just speculation. Also, the public reception article needs to be completely fixed up with NPOV, I agree with the choice of it being moved to criticism until then. Exodite (talk) 06:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
What do you mean by speculation? These articles describe situations from around the world- how is that speculation? And they are only a sample, you can find many more news articles.

And I already gave a reference to an article fron PCWorld with statistics in it: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139664-page,1/article.html Vista's Biggest Problem Remains Windows XP, Survey Says

According to a survey of nearly 600 U.S. and European companies that have more than 1,000 employees, 84% of all their PCs now run Windows XP, up from 67% the year before. While XP may have peaked, Gray warned not to bet against the 6-year-old operating system. "There are plenty of companies looking forward to XP SP3," he said. That next hot-fix and patch rollup is to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2008, Microsoft has said, and it will reportedly be XP's last service pack.

And here is one from October: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39289772,00.htm?r=3

Sales of PCs pre-installed with Vista Business accounted for 13 percent of unit PC sales among European IT distributors in August 2007 — down from 17 percent in the previous month — according to IT market researcher Context.

Twice as many PCs with Windows XP Professional — the operating system being replaced by Vista Business — were sold compared to Vista Business in August 2007, with XP Professional accounting for 27 percent of PC sales.

Mazzero (talk) 10:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This is about downgrades, not how many people haven't upgraded. Those articles are about percentages of which businesses are using/buying XP or using/buying Vista, which has nothing to do with downgrading. When I was talking about speculation, I was talking about what amount of people are actually downgrading from Vista to XP. Random articles that have editors saying they're downgrading isn't proof of how many people/businesses are actually downgrading, anything about that is purely speculation without some real facts or statistics. Exodite (talk) 11:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Exodite, are you some kind of Microsoft PR employee? You don't need exact numbers of downgrades. The section (which you REMOVED) merely stated that an unusual number of people are downgrading and that a large number of computers are still being shipped with XP. With sources. So what's your problem? There is no speculation here. Althepal (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I know you want to follow along with what random editors are saying and that you think they represent the world, but they don't. The sources provide no evidence. There is absolutely no proof that the number of downgrades is "unusual". There's not even a ballpark estimate, or if it's any different than previous Windows versions. A random editor going "I'm downgrading and so many other people too and businesses too!" is not evidence, is not a valid source, it's nothing. The things we do have proof of, Dell offering XP computers to businesses still, stuff like that, is fair game. But that is not officially "downgrading". If there was an professional poll conducted finding out the number of people who have actually downgraded from Vista to XP, fine. Find something like that, real proof, not a bunch of editors hopping aboard the Vista bashing train to get more clicks. Exodite (talk) 08:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Althepal, a friendly WP:AGF reminder here -- article development isn't helped by accusing editors of having a paid-for bias. Exodite's request for statistics that measure the phenomenon of people replacing Vista with XP is a fair one... we'd expect to have proper sources for other kinds of sales statistics, wouldn't we? -/- Warren 09:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine, fix the section as you see fit. Remove the part about downgrades, I don't care. Leave what the facts say, like that there are still a lot of computer sales with XP. However, the article as a whole is saying everything good about Vista, and (according to ChangeWave) only 20 percent of people really like Vista, compared to 50% for XP, so to remove the section completely is leaving out important information and not NPOV. Althepal (talk) 19:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
How in the heck is it saying everything good about Vista? Telling the facts about what Vista is and includes is not "saying everything good", it's neutral. People seem to have a major problem figuring that out. For example, Windows Vista added User Account Control, that's fact, that's neutral. The features of UAC, that's fact, that's neutral. Opinions about whether UAC is good or not? That's positive or negative. And when it comes to those opinions, there is nothing but negatives in this entire article. That's unacceptable.
Look at the Mac OS X article. For the most part, just the facts and the features. I commend the people who kept that article under control, and I hope this article can become more like that. With this article however, people are insisting on including negative opinions everywhere. Since this article should be NPOV, either the opinions included should be balanced as best as possible with the positives and the negatives, or basically entirely avoided, preferably the latter.
So you're right how this article is definitely not NPOV, but in the complete opposite way you're thinking. Exodite (talk) 07:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Vista SP2?

Ok. Vista SP1 is already here. Do we/you know anything about Vista SP2? If you do, please add info to the main article. Urvabara (talk) 17:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Well SP1 isn't really here...consumer release in March and even April for some...but I haven't heard anything on SP2. Exodite (talk) 12:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
It's technically here, although it isn't official from microsoft yet. A simple google search will get you SP1 via torrent. Uniquely Fabricated (talk) 03:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

SP1 wasnt really much help for me. it hardly fixed any of the problems that actually mattered TranscendantX (talk) 04:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Did fix 479 bugs though! Cooldude7273 (talk) 05:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
SP1 is not officially released for those who already have Vista until mid-March, so until then, any reviews about SP1 to current Vista owners seems premature. It should be noted the SP1 were released to manufacturers, not to consumers directly.--BirdKr (talk) 17:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

Just wondering, why is this article still semi-protected? It's been this way for quite some time now, I can't find anything in the history nor on the talk page. Uniquely Fabricated (talk) 03:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of clock management

The lack of support for running the real time clock on UTC in Vista is definitely a criticism of Vista, even if it's not limited to Vista. It's no excuse that the problem has been known for many years now; on the contrary, the neglection of this problem makes the criticism even more justified. --X-Bert (talk) 17:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, the text you're adding doesn't even mention the clock management being criticized; it just states how it works, and that it doesn't support certain features. Furthermore, the words "poor" and "desirable" are POV. - Josh (talk | contribs) 19:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Of course the criticism is about clock management, what else? It's not just a missing feature which is a matter of taste. It's a technical issue which leads to real problems under certain conditions (see knowledge base articles). Therefore it would no doubt be desirable to solve this problem. I don't know why Microsoft doesn't do that, but the actual criticism is that this bevaviour is "poor", like the slow file operations are called "slow". Perhaps there are other words like "problematic" or "insufficient", but it is no POV to name the documented criticism. Just writing "clock management" wouldn't say anything. By the way, the "Hardware requirements" should be called "High hardware requirements". --X-Bert (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
What criticism? What I'm saying is that your text doesn't mention anything being criticized; it just lists some "poor" aspects of Windows' clock management. - Josh (talk | contribs) 20:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Moved section to Criticism article. Continue discussion there. peterl (talk) 21:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Opening rewrite

I was reading the opening paragraphs and found them just about impossible to read (as an opener to a topic goes). So I copied out the paragraphs and spend a little time with them. The result is drastically shorter and more to the point — something an opening section should strive for. Rather than "shock the natives" by changing the page outright, I'll paste my result below so that, in whole or in part, it can be used collaboratively. (I deliberately reduced the linking too, because those are details not necessary to a reader's summary understanding and, I think, covered in the other sections.) --Charles Gaudette (talk) 21:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The strike and underscore notations currently represent my thoughts following Warren's input. --Charles Gaudette (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft's Windows Vista is a commercial an operating system line for use on a wide range of personal computers. In development, Windows Vista was known as "Longhorn". Development was completed on 8 November 2006. It was then released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On 30 January 2007, it was released worldwide to the general public. Windows Vista's release comes more than five years after Windows XP's introduction; to date the longest elapsed time between successive Microsoft Windows releases.

Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools, the new Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display subsystems. Windows Vista also aims to increase the communication between machines on a local network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to significantly ease developing applications.

Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista has been to improve Windows' security at the operating system-level. A criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. Considering this, Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide "Trustworthy Computing initiative" which aims to incorporate security safeguards into their software products. Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 security above finishing Windows Vista.

Windows Vista has received negative assessments. The criticism includes: protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, extensive several new digital rights management technologies, lacking hardware device drivers, and user-unfriendliness poor usability in the User Account Control subsystem.

With the exception of a few words, I wrote the entire lead section. Here are my comments:
  • Colons are generally a bad idea in prose.
  • The word "commercial" doesn't help a reader understand what's going on. Commercial as opposed to what? Why is this particular attribute so incredibly important to describing that we have to use it even before we say what Windows Vista -is- as a thing?
  • Windows Vista is a line of operating systems; there are several variants. Saying it's one operating system doesn't tell the whole story.
  • Saying "personal computer" is important, of course, because we need to identify how this thing is intended to be used; noting things like tablet PCs and media centers, however, is also important because these aren't considered "personal computer"s in the traditional sense, and given that a big part of Vista's intended target market is into the living room with Media Center, as well as onto tablet devices, they warrant mention.
  • Windows Aero needs to be linked because it's the single most visible and possibly the most discussed change to Windows. Reviews almost always lead with a description of Aero, and they all refer to it by that name.
  • Using words like "extensive" to describe the DRM technologies included in Vista is non-neutral language and would require a source. The phrase "a number of new" is less contentious, because it's easy to demonstrate that a certain number of defined technologies have been included. It's also important, for NPOV balance, to indicate why these new technologies were incorporated.
  • "usability" is a common industry term, and sticking with common terms is good. "user-unfriendliness" is harder on the brain and, aside from that, a google search on "user-unfriendliness" "user account control" returns a handful of hits, almost all of which are on forums. usability "user account control" returns a much wider range of results from well-known publications.
More generally -- When writing lead sections, there are a lot of things to consider. One of those things is that you want the lead section to be able to stand on its own as a fully usable, coherent "short" version of the article. It also needs to be understandable to people who aren't well-versed in computing terminology in general, or Microsoft technology in particular, and it should reveal links to important related articles, or at least to representative related articles that the user can use as a starting point for further discovery. For example, the link to .NET Framework is important, because this is the first consumer version of Windows since, oh, say, Windows 95 to include a major new development platform. That article goes into a lot more detail as to what this brings to the table. Windows DVD Maker is included as an example of something that's both completely new to Windows (thus making the lead section informative to those familiar with prior versions of Windows, and/or other operating systems), and will likely catch the interest of people who understand what DVDs are, and will easily enough identify the idea of "making DVDs" as something worthy of being called a "feature".
Finally, Wikipedia thrives on linking between articles. Reducing wikilinking is generally a very bad idea; it runs contrary to both Wikipedia:Build the web and the recommended usage of links put forth in Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. -/- Warren 23:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello Warren! I think we are after the same thing. Windows Vista is a big topic; being "accessible" and "telling the whole story" are at odds here. I've used some strike and underline notation on the section above. I'll (re)read your links on links over the weekend. --Charles Gaudette (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I would change some of the grammar/wording, especially in the first paragraph. "Windows Vista is a consumer-oriented operating system by Microsoft. In pre-beta development, from May 2001 through July 2005, Windows Vista was codenamed "Longhorn", after which its name "Vista" was announced. Windows Vista development was completed on 8 November 2006, followed by release in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On 30 January 2007, Vista was released worldwide to the general public, more than five years after Windows XP's introduction, making XP Microsoft's longest-running operating system to date." Althepal (talk) 23:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Windows Vista is not a single product; there are several disctinct releases. That's why it reads "a line of". The word "pre-beta" is too jargon-ish for the second sentence of the article. Again, as I said above, we are aiming this article towards all readers, and the last thing we want to do is hit them with an obtuse term 10 words in. The fact that development of it started in May 2001 is also not such an important detail that it should be placed before its announcement or release dates. Remember that Microsoft didn't really announce that they were working on it back then. It's kind of a mushy date, too, since it comes from a single interview, and there are a number of components in Vista that were being worked on as early as 2000 (WPF, for example), and a lot of real development work didn't start until months afterwards... it was mostly planning stages until after Windows XP's release.
You also have to be very thoughtful when choosing terms. "Longest-running" isn't suitable, because the word 'running' in a computing context generally describes the lifetime of a single process, or a single computer, not the lifetime of the entire product. I just restored some earlier wording which got changed along the way, which uses the phrase "time span" instead of "elapsed time", since "time span" is a common computing term. (google for "timespan", e.g.) ... this subtle form of keeping with commonly-used terms in the industry, without challenging the reader, is generally a good thing. -/- Warren 03:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Slow Take Up

I work in the field of technical support for PCs and am constantly browsing adverts as I change jobs quite frequently. Very, very few firms are asking for experience of Vista, maybe one in 50. So it seems people, or at least businesses are sticking with XP despite Vista having been around for a year now. Does this merit a mention in the article?  SmokeyTheCat  •TALK• 15:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably not, as it verges upon original research. It also wouldn't be much of an indicator as to uptake of Vista, because it depends on the adverts you are looking at. Are they from just one geographical area? Is it a specific industry area you are looking at. It wouldn't be as useful as, say, sales figures or market share statistics.Harryboyles 15:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Already mentioned in the article (with references for every sentence): "As of December 2007, small business adoption of Vista has been slower than expected, with the vast majority still favoring Windows XP and even waiting for Windows 7, Microsoft's next version of Windows then expected to be released in late 2009 or 2010.[95] According to InformationWeek, in December 2006, 6% of business enterprises were expected to employ Vista within the first year, yet as of October 2007, only about 1% of enterprise PCs were actually using Vista.[96] Furthermore, while a large number of businesses have bought licenses to run Windows Vista, many of these companies are delaying deployment.[97]". Althepal (talk) 19:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
The reference doesn't say anything about the "vast majority" waiting for Windows 7. And slower than expected for small businesses according to whom? But who am I kidding, the whole section is terrible and horribly biased and needs to be severely overhauled. Exodite (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
It indicates that the vast majority are holding onto XP for now, and a lot of them are planning to skip Vista completely to go for Windows 7. I agree that the section could use some refining, but the article does at least need something like this to address what's going on, otherwise its just trying to hide the information. "according to whom?" According to the references and about a million other places. Just check Google news for vista business adoption or something. ChangeWave and other people have conducted surveys and interviews and stuff. Althepal (talk) 23:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
No I did not see anywhere where it said "a lot" of them were actually planning to skip Vista completely. And you can't just tell people to google information, to use the phrase "slower than expected" it should be about Microsoft's expectations, and I've seen nothing indicating Vista is below Microsoft's expectations. In fact many articles, even the ones referenced, have quotes saying how Vista is selling record numbers to enterprises, but do I see that in there? Of course not. "Hiding information" indeed. Exodite (talk) 01:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
And I'm sure it doesn't hurt those record numbers (which are mentioned in that very section) that the computer market was twice as large during the release of Vista as it was in 2001. "Expectations" are also specified in that section as how many companies, in 2006, planned to use Vista. Althepal (talk) 03:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

New website

Here's an external link, giving a favorable review of Vista. [5] --Kodster (talk) 16:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There's actually lots of good reviews and talks and stats about Vista, good to have another though. However you won't see them anywhere in this article, particularly in the awful "Public Reception and Sales" section. Weasel word bias central. Exodite (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Exodite, instead of complaining that the section is so horrible, why don't you fix it? I'm sure there are plenty of people who like Vista. Changewave said that 20 percent of people are very satisfied with Vista, so there's no problem mentioning some of these things. But the section in general is important there, seeing as 20 percent is a lot lower than 50% of people who really like XP. Althepal (talk) 03:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
First off, please accept the fact that ChangeWave is not the be all end all opinion of the world. If their surveys were really representative, Mac sales would be killing Windows sales and have a much higher percentage OS share, which it doesn't. As to why I don't rewrite the entire thing, as soon as I put the work into doing that it will get immediately reverted back. If we could get a team going to fix up that section I would gladly help. Exodite (talk) 18:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Exodite, the fact that people like Leopard more than Vista and XP more than Vista is not trying to say that Leopard sales outweigh Vista sales (its just saying the general theme of the section makes sense and in fact does have NPOV when it lists so many negative things about it). Change wave indicates that, among consumers, 30% now intend to purchase Macs. Now we both know that the Windows market share is way over 70%, and that Windows sales are overall outdoing Mac sales. The explanation is that in the past, the number of consumers choosing Macs has been much lower than it is now, as well as the fact the majority of computer purchases are by businesses, which almost always choose PCs. If you want to get an idea of how Macs are getting more popular among consumers, check out the sales on Amazon.com. You'll see that, among regular (non-mini-Linux) laptops and desktops, at the moment, different Macs place in numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 on Amazon's bestseller list. Oh, and as you can see from market share trends, the Mac market share is steadily increasing. Althepal (talk) 21:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Um...

This article could sure use some positive reviews. Lighten up. Vista isn't really all that bad. This article is basically a big advertisement for Mac OS X. Please be NEUTRAL! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kodster (talk • contribs) 19:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

"This article is basically a big advertisement for Mac OS X." Exactly how? Mentioned just one time in the criticism section for having elements of its gui appearing like Mac's Aqua, and mentioned just a few times in the public reception section for comparison. Now how does that make the article a big os x advertisement? The article mentions plenty of positive things about Vista, and if you want to mention some positive reviews in the public reception section, go ahead! But man! The article is pretty neutral as it is, seeing as pc world actually did call vista the biggest tech disappointment of 2007, a low percentage of people really like Vista, etc. etc.. Althepal (talk) 19:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I completely agree with you Kodster. Althepal, there have been multiple people saying right in this discussion how the Public reception and sales acts at points like a Mac ad and is completely biased. Since we've already established nothing positive is said in the Public reception and sales section, show me one place in this entire article where there is a positive opinion. Why do you continue to think factual new features is a positive opinion? Exodite (talk) 18:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand what is preventing you from adding positive reviews to the section, or re-writing it completely to match what you would consider neutral (keeping in mind the good and the bad). It is just as factual to say that Vista promised more security as it is to say that PC World called it the #1 2007 tech disappointment. They are both facts. One shows something good, one shows something bad. There is no opinion. There is no saying "I think that PC World and a lot of other people really don't like Vista." It is all factual. Add you own good reviews, already. And by the way, there aren't many people (maybe just a couple) aside from you complaining of the section. And there were also some people asking for the section, which is why I wrote it. I'm not going to add the word "good" into the Google search of "vista reviews OR market share" just to make you happy, but you can go ahead yourself. Althepal (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems you can't tell the difference between fact and opinion. Fact: Windows Vista has a new visual style called Windows Aero. That's neutral. These kind of neutral encyclopedic facts make up the majority of the article. Whether Aero is good or not is an opinion. Opinion: PC World thinks Vista is the #1 2007 tech disappointment. That's an opinion. Sorry, but it being a fact PC World stated that doesn't make that actual statement a fact. Doesn't work that way. If I said "Star Wars sucks", that's an opinion. It's a fact that I said it, but what I said is still an opinion, and if you reference that statement, you're still referencing an obvious negative opinion. Which is what almost the entire Public reception and sales section is referencing. And when there are neutral facts in there, there's a negative spin to it like "Vista sales were not high".
I'd prefer a team going at it to fix that section but if nobody else wants to do it I guess I'll eventually redo the whole thing. Exodite (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Althepal understands the difference just fine. You're wrong when you say this:
PC World thinks Vista is the #1 2007 tech disappointment. That's an opinion.
This is a statement of fact. Slow your brain down a bit, and start with the first three words. "PC World thinks"... now stop, absorb that part on its own: we are about to factually describe a publication's opinion. That opinion is "Vista is the #1 tech disappointment of 2007". At no point is Wikipedia, the encyclopedia, making the claim on its own that Vista is a disappointment -- that would be a clear violation of WP:NPOV, and I would've edited it out of the article months ago. We are, however, making the claim that PC World thinks _____, which meets WP:NPOV because we are asserting facts about opinions (expressly allowed by policy), and it passes WP:V since we have a reliable source for this stance.
For all your bluster, Exodite, you really are not demonstrating a nuanced and full understanding of Wikipedia's neutrality policy, and such an understanding is important to understand why Althepal is absolutely correct in his judgement of the text. Read Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy for further insight as to how you yourself should approach article-writing. Remember, you are here to write a good encyclopedia, not to push your viewpoints. -/- Warren 22:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I worded that wrong, I didn't mean the actual statement "PC World thinks Vista is the #1 2007 tech disappointment" is an opinion as they obviously factually think that, I mean "Vista is the #1 tech disappointment of 2007" is an opinion. And even though I don't think any opinion lists, either positive or negative, belong in encyclopedic articles, if it's inevitable they make it in here they should be balanced when they clearly are not. WP:NPOV clearly states "representing all views clearly and impartially." You continuously editing the bottom paragraph of the intro to put in only negative opinions is certainly not encyclopedic and not NPOV. And if you really stood by the WP:NPOV and claim you would have edited out any violations, you would have done something about the Public reception section as that is a very cut and dry violation. Exodite (talk) 21:17, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not any of the editors' faults if every time a news story about Vista comes up it either says it is a huge disappointment, it is the cause of lawsuits, people are boycotting it, it is causing mass problems, businesses are avoiding it, or people dislike it. That is just stating what the reception is without trying to throw a good spin on it, which would be a clear violation of NPOV. I have yet to see a story saying "People flock to Vista and highly enjoy its features and reliability." If it doesn't exist, you can't mention it. If you find something, though, instead of complaining on the talk page, add a paragraph showing whatever good about Vista you can find. Althepal (talk) 21:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
No, Exodite, it isn't. I don't think the section is particularly well-organised, and the prose is a bit bumpy, but the information is presented in a (reasonably) netural fashion, and only hyper-sensitive Vista supporters such as yourself are going to view it any other way. The section does accurately reflect the basic truth that a lot of the reaction floating around out there about Vista is negative, thus justifying the weight given to that negativisim. Personally, I have relatively little interest in digging through sales figures and trying to write some great prose out of the data that we have floating around. I'm more interested in technical and historical aspects... always have been.
So we're clear about something here... criticism and reception & sales are two separate sections in the article. In order to meet WP:LEAD's requirements, we need to mention important or salient details from both. If someone wants to pick a different piece of information, that's fine, but not mention reception or sales data isn't acceptable. The balance of coverage and reviews of Vista has largely tilted towards the negative, so something negative needs to be mentioned in the lead -- we really don't have a choice.
Also, don't fucking call into question my ability to understand WP:NPOV -- it's an argument that simply won't wash. I've been working on the encyclopedia for more than two years, and have touched thousands of articles. The only people who complain about my work on Microsoft articles are the ones who are interested in promoting their own unapologetic anti-Microsoft or pro-Microsoft views. Look at my user page -- I wrote an essay about this very subject, a long time ago. -/- Warren 21:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
By presenting only PC World's opinion, the current lead section makes it sound like everyone who upgrades from XP to Vista regrets it. That is simply not true. —Remember the dot (talk) 21:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
That's not the implication. The implication is that Vista isn't as good as Microsoft led people to believe it would be. Statistically, I think about 40% of people were unhappy that they upgraded, 50% didn't care much, and 10% were happy they upgraded. Source: basic idea taken from looking at different surveys and forum comments. Althepal (talk) 03:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
People who had a bad experience with Vista are far more likely to post about it on forums than those who are happy and content with Vista. An objective survey is needed to determine the actual number of people who liked it versus those who didn't. —Remember the dot (talk) 03:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Note my wording: "I think...looking at different surveys...". I'm not saying this to put into the section, its just a tangent from what you said about how many of the people who upgraded are happy. My thinking is that, according to changewave, 20 percent of Vista users are very happy while 50% of XP users are very happy. This means that, give or take, 30 percent of the XP upgraders are not happy, with 70% not caring one way or the other. At most 20% of people liked Vista but really didn't like XP (with everyone who liked XP not liking Vista), so, taking into account what it seems people are saying, I figured maybe half of the people upgrading were happier with Vista than Xp, 40 percent were not happy, and the rest didn't care. It's not really such an accurate measure, nor did I ever want to delve so much into my thinking, but just simply PC World follows the majority of people who was either unhappy or didn't care about upgrading. Bottom line, PC World calls Vista a "disappointment" meaning that it was worse than what Microsoft would have had you believe, an accurate and popular position judging from (based on my logic) only a tenth of people were really highly satisfied with upgrading. Althepal (talk) 04:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

section break

You continue to reference that ChangeWave survey as representative of everyone when it obviously is not. They only surveyed "ChangeWave Alliance consumers". I have a neutral recent survey of businesses where almost half say performance and key features are "above expectations" with Vista. But...but...that's impossible! And funny Warren, that you put yourself on such a high pedestal when reading your discussion page...getting warned by an administrator...taking out the criticisms of Mac OS's while continuously insisting they belong in the Vista article...hmm.... Exodite (talk) 20:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I can assure you people generally like Mac OS X and Windows XP far more than Windows Vista. Why do you insist a ChangeWave survey is biased? There was even a salesperson in a store selling Windows stuff who recommended XP over Vista... guess he must have been part of the highly Anti-Vista biased ChangeWave Alliance to make that recommendation... It couldn't be that he, the tech-oriented person that he is, knew that Vista is inferior to XP, no way. And I bet PC World, along with all the other reputable PC publications, are also part of this ChangeWave conspiracy to make their opinion of Vista's shortcomings known. Or what about the 2.5 star reviews on Amazon.com for Vista, compared to the 3.0 star reviews for XP or the 4.0 star reviews for Mac OS X... all part of this small ChangeWave faction? If you really don't like ChangeWave, here's some random web-poll about businesses upgrading to Vista (found when searching for some PC repair info, it was a poll on the side of the screen): Poll which says 33% of businesses will wait for Windows 7, 19% will move to another OS, 17% already upgraded, 17% intend to upgrade sometime next year, 14% intend to upgrade sometime this year (meaning that less than half of businesses will ever use Vista). Even Microsoft admitted that Vista adoption isn't doing as well as they had hoped... Microsoft just slashed Vista prices by about 20%, officially stating that it was to aid Vista adoption. Now I refer to ChangeWave because it is the most reputable survey I've seen on the topic. However, all surveys on the topic are in accord with ChangeWave. Now you can either link to a survey showing Vista's popular acceptance, or maybe you just need to open your eyes at what people are really saying... unless you have a conflict of interest to support Microsoft.... Have you yourself ever used Mac OS X, or do you just 'know all' that Vista works well and people like it? Do you honestly believe that its performance is good, or that it works on as much hardware as it should? Microsoft employees don't, and their actual emails among themselves can be found on various computer blog websites. I've used a wide range of operating systems myself, extensively. So has Warren, someone who is far more respected in, and far more knowledgeable about, Wikipedia than yourself. Everyone I talk to or seen talk about it seem to agree. People like Mac OS X, and people don't like Vista... maybe you should do yourself a favor and try OS X out yourself.
On the topic of criticisms in Mac and Windows articles, the two are unrelated. There is Wikipedia policy saying that you shouldn't look to other articles to determin what content should be in other similar articles. Certain types of criticisms don't apply to either operating system, certain types would apply to both. But since Mac OS X is generally better than Windows (according to what reviews about and users of the different operating systems say, a non-biased, NPOV statement by the way), it is accordingly appropriate to include whatever criticism applies to the respective operating systems.
Now instead of removing clarification of one of the most significant aspects of this operating system from its paragraph in the article's intro, why not just add your own paragraph to the public receptions section noting all the good stuff you know people say about Vista (with sources, please).
Also, please forgive my tone of my response. I'm just a little frustrated trying to get you to at least see our side of the argument... if anything I said seems insulting, its nothing personal. Althepal (talk) 02:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I can assure you people generally like Mac OS X and Windows XP far more than Windows Vista - well I am sorry you cannot. Because you are nowhere near being the representative of "people" as a whole.
Regarding this current issue, I will be backing up your [edit:Althepal] stance. While the section can definitely do with some more polish, it is definitely not as biased as has been made out to be. The section pretty much sums up this public perception from the pre-launch phase to the post-launch and stabilization era. While there is no doubt it is pretty good, people expected it to be even better. There in lies the problem.
Any review of any product is actually an opinion. But these tech-reviewers' opinions are important enough to shape people's judgements. Thats where they become relevant for wikipedia, where as our (neither your (Exodite), nor mine, nor for that matter Warren's or Althepal's) do not make the cut to be included in the article. [I myself swear by Vista when I a developing with OS-level stuff, at other times, I do not find it to offer anything better than XP save for the ubiquitious search bars].
None of these tech press says that Vista is worse, it just says its barely what it should have been. Given the level of excitement MS managed to develop for Vista, the product barely delivers. There in lies the disappointment, not that its worse than XP. And the section just echoes the comments the reviewers have made. We editors have made a lot of effort to keep it factual - the "fact" here is the opinion of the reviewers (NPOV doesn't mean weeding out reputed, third party opinions, it just that we as editors should not take any sides when reporting opinions. If there are two opposing opinions, we report both, without taking sides). --soum talk 15:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
You know what? You're right. I can't write in the article my opinion of how good Vista is (and I haven't) and what I said here is my opinion, and a lot of other peoples' opinions. I suppose the surveys which say people are more satisfied with XP, or that say Vista is a disappointment, could simply mean that it wasn't as good as it should have been (not comparing it to other operating systems, just comparing it to what Microsoft led people to believe), causing a good amount of the complaints about the OS, what you, soum, have been saying (and I touched upon). To my credit, by "I can assure you people generally like Mac OS X and Windows XP far more than Windows Vista" is backed up by the reviews people show on Amazon.com, right? Maybe too much of a side note right now, but the reason Vista is "worse" that XP or Mac (as I had said) is all detailed in the Criticisms of Windows Vista article... its hardware requirements are higher than it should be for the features it offers (making my fairly-new desktop PC incapable of running Vista), it as an OS uses too much RAM (something Microsoft is fixing in Windows 7), and its more annoying to the end user with its style of "protection". That's all, that's why I consider it worse. Sure it has cool features, to its credit, its just that (IMHO) it doesn't balance out its problems. Compatibility with old software and hardware isn't really Microsoft's fault, though I'm sure Microsoft could have added support for this hardware somehow before Vista's release. Althepal (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Lets not get into the "reasons", theres no dispute over that, is there? And no matter how many surveys you quote, you still cannot represent the "general" public out there. Sorry, there are people who like and are satisfied with Vista. Face it. Just like there are who don't.
Anyways, coming back to the article, the section is a pretty good summary of people's perceptions. Except a few things. Like refs saying sales were not as high as expected (by MS or analysts) have been translated into poor sales. They are not the same. And some stats are used in a way that tilts the playing field towards bias: For example, rival operating system Mac OS X Leopard's first month's sales also doubled over the number of sales from the release of Mac OS X Jaguar five years earlier in August 2002 - its is much harder to double sales when 85%+ of the market is your target; rather absolute numbers should be used here.
As for Exodite, sure more positive reviews mught be added, if they are reliable and properly sourced. But there are a fair amount of them already, the same things should not be repeated over and over. --soum talk 01:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Desktop Optimization Pack/Microsoft Application Virtualization

This software is NOT part of Vista, and will also need to be purchased separately, when it becomes available later in the year, as won't be free. Also, the current version of SoftGrid was originally designed for Windows XP, not Vista. So why is this unrelated software being mentioned here as feature of Vista? Socrates2008 (Talk) 20:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Service Pack 1

Over the weekend a timetable for the public release of SP1 was added - but without citation. A link was added, but the reliability of the link was questioned, and thus removed. I've since added back the [citation needed] tag; if we don't have a verifiable source for the statement in a few days the relevant lines should be removed. Onesecondglance (talk) 08:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Article Is Biased

Not enough discussion on improvements over Windows XP. Criticisms and issues seems to dominate this article and is biased and I actually get the strange feeling it was composed by an Apple employee or activist bashing Windows. I personally have used Windows Vista professionally since the release date and find over 50% of this article biased and unfair. Let me make my point clear: look at Apple's article on Mac OS X on this website. You will actually find no critisms listed. This is not that Apple is better because it is not. You CANNOT list CRICISMS for one operating system and not the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.208.123 (talk) 02:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The "New or improved features" is already the longest section in the article. Less than half of the article has to do with opinion. Mac OS X does list criticism; it just doesn't separate it into its own section. The Microsoft Windows article, which is roughly equivalent to Mac OS X, doesn't have a criticism section either. Mac OS X v10.5 has one. Besides, each article is an individual article; one article having a criticism section and another not having one is not someone "listing criticisms for one operating system and not the other". - Josh (talk | contribs) 03:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Josh is right, anonymous Vista fan. Vista and Leopard both have criticism sections, and Windows and Mac OS X don't. And you know what? The criticisms listed in any article is dependent on the product, not other articles. You may be fine using Vista, but there were a lot more people who had problems with Vista than for Leopard. And you stated your opinion, "Apple [Mac OS X] is not [better than Vista]." Um, this is my opinion now, OS X is better than Windows. I use Windows all the time... I grew up on Windows... then I tried OS X about a year ago, whereupon I started using both. I think I have a little ground to make a good decision on which is better... I chose OS X as my primary platform, Windows as secondary. Have you ever used Mac OS X to decide Vista is better, or were you just forced to buy it at your computer store along with your computer and don't want to accept the fact that you could have done better? Well, not to say that Vista computers will run poorly or are bad, but more frequently will you see issues like speed problems or other annoyances with Vista than with Linux or Leopard. I mean, do you ever read tech magazines? Everything is almost always saying that Vista is bad this way or people don't like Vista that way, and pretty much every YouTube video on the subject is making fun of Vista, every blog post complaining. Reality kind of has to be reflected in the article you know? Can't just make every article the same with different nouns or make up fake realities that Vista is perfect or Mac is horrible when nothing else indicates that. I mean, in case I didn't make myself clear, check out this article. Can you show me where the Mac or Linux toilet paper is? And don't tell me those operating systems aren't used enough to get noticed, because XP is way more popular than Vista and doesn't have that problem (and also, by the way, among computer people, Linux is highly popular). Oh, and by the way, check out the article's history... you'll see pretty much all the main editors are big Windows users. Makes sense, seeing as this is a free encyclopedia and Windows users would be interested in Windows articles... Good luck with Vista, man, and have fun with your eye-candy... Althepal (talk) 06:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I wrote the first message about it being biased and would like to respond back to Josh and the follow up guy after that. Yes, I have used Apple products, but rarely due to their lack of support for software and hardware on the market. I get the feeling from your response that I am somehow close minded to Apple. You took my complaint the wrong way. As a matter of fact, I like the competition because I see how Vista is so much better due to the fact that Mac OS X was popular. If there was no Apple computers, we would still be using a Windows 2000 boring interface. Having said that, I believe Windows leads the way especially since they still have the majority of the market share. You state that Windows XP is still the most popular operating system and Vista not well received. Yes, you are absolutely correct but what you fail to realize is that it is doing better than previous versions of Windows. As a professional, I know exactly how long it took for coorporations and individuals to move from Windows 9x to Windows 2000/XP. I was also not forced to use Vista as you implied. I chose to use it because I want to use the latest technology as this is my field of expertise. The problem with Vista is that manufactures did not configure them properly and shipped them with unnecessary software. Apple computers come clean and configured properly from one vendor. Vista is shipped from a huge competitive field of companies and each one wants to sell it better with more software. This is from experience and not from tech magazines which I do not have to rely upon. For two separate people, I helped them setup their brand new laptops with Vista. Both laptops are sluggish out of the box because they had McAfee and Norton installed. With both systems this puts a huge drag on performance. I uninstalled both and the laptops run faster, faster than the Mac laptops. Yes, I have seen and used them. Windows Defender comes preinstalled on all Vista machines to protect against spyware and viruses. I have seen plenty of Windows XP machines infected with spyware but the new IE 7 and Defender on Vista is practically immune based on my experience so far. Here is my point on performance: it is not Vista's fault that performance is bad on your system and that the article implies. The first year most companies were shipping Vista with 512MB RAM and with anti-virus programs that was simply not the right configuration for Vista. 1) not enough RAM 2) too much anti-virus protected installed. Do not reply that Vista needs that protection to guard against viruses because you are simply being negative as Vista has a revamped Internet browser and integrated spyware and virus protection already installed and the additional anti-virus protection cripples performance. I have been around since Windows 3.11/95 came out and I remember this same negative hype that Windows NT was not compatible with DOS programs and that it was a terrible system. Guess where we are today? The Windows 9x kernel is in the history books and Windows XP/Vista uses the NT kernel. However, Vista has a revamped version of the NT kernel. BACK TO THE POINT: I realize I did not account for the new features section and I made a mistake that critisms is a majority of the section. Critisms are ok in my opinion. Mac OS X does not have a critisms section. Look at the introductory paragraphs to Windows Vista, you find the word "critism" more times than you have fingers and toes. Then do A SEARCH on the Mac OS X article and people find NOTHING. CASE CLOSED - Chad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.208.159 (talk) 01:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Chad, please check out Mac OS X v10.5, you will see the Criticism section. Now check out Microsoft Windows, which has no such section.... Ahem? Now listen, Vista may be perfectly fine when properly configured, no one's saying otherwise. But as you even stated, without first tinkering, computers with Mac OS X have fewer issues than new computers with Vista or old computers upgraded to Vista. And one more thing, Vista is selling more copies than XP simply because there is a larger market for computers. There are far more XP sales over one year after Vista's release than there were sales of all previous versions of Windows one year after XP's release. Again, no one is saying Vista is completely useless or anything, but its just that Wikipedia is all about verifiability: if notable 3rd party articles say it, its reflected right here, and there are no two ways about it. And its a simple fact that since generally people have better experiences with OS X than with Vista, you'll see the corresponding content in the articles. Sorry if it doesn't reflect your use after configuring computers, but you're not everyone. You're good with computers, thats fine, there's nothing wrong with enjoying all Vista has to offer, especially if you get it working well and want the full range of Windows software. I myself always have to remove software from HP or whomever for other people's computers... you're right: its annoying when companies clutter up computers. And, for what its worth, its better to not have to worry about malware at all (in Mac OS X) than it is to rely on Windows Defender, which, I have found, is not as thorough as software made by people like Trend Micro or others. Althepal (talk) 01:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Althepal, the Mac OS X v10.5 article is a specific operating system whereas the Microsoft Windows is not. Windows Vista is a specific operating system like Mac OS X v10.5 is a specific operating system. Both specific operating systems could have criticisms. I do not quite buy into the idea that the majority of tech magazines or generally people have better experiences with Mac OS X. All you have to do is look at the market share and Vista alone is higher than all Apple versions combined. I can post a reference to the latest figures if needed. If your statements were true, why are more people buying Vista? I know what you mean on Windows Defender, but it still does a good job keeping out the spyware in the first place. It installs on XP as well... -Chad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.208.159 (talk) 02:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I had installed Windows Defender, but it didn't check all the file areas where spyware might be, so I bought Trend Micro and it seems much better... Anyway, yeah, that's the point. Leopard and Vista are specific versions, and both have criticism sections. Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X are both a group of operating systems, and don't have criticism sections (partially since the criticism would have to apply to each and every version of Windows or Mac OS X for it to apply to the whole group). Yeah, I know all about the market shares. I also know that Mac OS X, and to a lesser extent, Linux, are both gaining market share. Mass use doesn't translate into a better product, you know. Most people don't eat organically grown produce, for example, though most experts would tell you organic is healthier and tastes better, so you can't use something like that to indicate how good a product is. There is a history which led to Windows's large market share, not related to product quality. I think it basically goes something like this (didn't double-check if every detail is 100% accurate, but bottom line is): Apple made their hardware and software for their computers in the 1980s, IBM made hardware and bought Microsoft software. Since IBM used 3rd party software, it became easy for other computer makers to make and sell IBM "clones" using the already somewhat popular and available MS-DOS software. This led to one computer manufacturer (Apple) using one operating system (their own), with several other companies using Microsoft's software. Even though the Macintosh operating system may have been significantly superior to Microsoft's OS, it wasn't as popular. As a result, software writers focused on DOS and Windows, since that's where the majority of the market was, furthering the market share gap. (Notice that this is the cause: a rolling stone gaining speed, without a "fair" market to compare how one is better than the other.) This continued making the Mac market share extremely small: Windows and PCs were doing the job, and compatibility, and price, was a main concern. Mac OS, though it had some advantages, was not significantly better than Windows, either, so the trends continued. Then around 2000, Apple started a new line of operating systems based on Unix to give it much more power, security, and performance. Apple also made the iMac around the time. This publicity started to give attention to Mac again, and its market share started growing a bit, but compatibility was still keeping it down. Then around 2005, Apple started using Intel processors, allowing the option of using Windows on the Macs, opening the Mac option to many more people. Again in 2007, Apple introduced Mac OS X Leopard with BootCamp, making duel booting of Windows with Mac OS X easier, and shrinking compatibility issues further. All the while, the Mac market share was growing, making it profitable for software makers to write for OS X as well as Windows. Where it stands, there is almost nothing you need Windows for anymore that you can't find for Mac OS X. Now, the Mac OS X market share peaked to the highest point its been since the charts started, and its still going strong... Net Applications shows you the trends. Nowadays, in order for you to get a college degree requiring software, it is usually a prerequisite that you get training on both Mac and PC platforms... yes, that day has come where you don't have to be afraid to try Mac OS X. I don't need to show you the reviews on Amazon.com or anywhere else if you really want to see which is better, not just more popular. And look at the core of the systems themselves: Leopard is 64 bit but runs 32 bit programs just fine. Vista doesn't. Mac OS X has few or no viruses (a result of UNIX), Windows has Windows Defender. Leopard runs smoothly on 1 Gig RAM and lots of programs, with full Aqua graphics, Vista is slower with Aero. Etc., etc..... Oh man, I've gone on forever trying to show you that the market share differences aren't indicators of quality, even though Wikipedia Talk pages are not discussion forums... Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't worry. The article is not biased, its just reflective of the reality. Nowhere does it say you can't get it working well, it just states the facts. Well, I've had enough of this discussion. You can have a fine time with Windows, its an OS which should do its job well. You didn't make it clear if you've used a Mac recently... its really a pleasure, and you should really just go to an Apple store and try it out. No need to delete pre-installed software, you should like that. ;) About Apple support? I found that I don't need it nearly as much as I do/did HP or Microsoft support since things usually work more smoothly, and whenever I did need them they've been fine for me, significantly better than Microsoft support in my experience. Well, to each his own, right? Just remember that you having a problem with Apple support in the past doesn't mean that Vista is good or the articles are biased. Althepal (talk) 06:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Althepal, we agree on the Defender seeming to be less tweakable but you have to tell it to do a full scan to scan everywhere. I then recommend a follow up scan by Adaware or your favorite just to be safe. It is clear that you think Apple is better and that is fine. Fine with me, but you can not make the article have that impression to neutral readers. If I had never owned a computer in my life and read this article on my hungry mind to know what Vista was about I would actually be afraid to buy it. Do you think that is fair? Why cannot you not put a crisism on Leopard that Apple is plagued by the fact that you can't easily obtain software for it? Yes you can get software for Apple but I'm talking about easily, like in Walmart. No major games work on Apple. Leopard needs to say on its criticism section that "Security vulnerabilities exists in Apple operating systems as they do in Windows but since virus writers target Windows due to the overwhelming market share, Leopard is less of a target." You have to be fair and the tech magazines are in it for the money. You can't listen to their biased readings. Quoting their biased messages in an encyclopedic article has no meaning to me. It leads uneducated minds toward false beliefs that have agendas. They realize that iPods are popular and happen to be made by Apple and are dogging Microsoft to get reader attention. iPods had a big surge the past few years so why not promote Apple and dog Microsoft? Magazines would be foolish to not jump on the opportunity. Magazines also promoted Microsoft xBox and dogged Sony's problems when customers flew to buy xBoxes. It is a fact that over 90% of viruses and spyware can be avoided if you set your machine to automatically update. That is never on the front page and it never will be because negativity to Microsoft prevails. Hackers actually read the details of microsoft's download section for patches released and then target unpatched systems. Let me assure you that if Apple captures a majority of the market one day that attackers will hit them instead. Apple and Linux has been criticized for taking longer than Windows to patch security vulnerabilities. If you was a virus writer, would you write a virus to target less than 10% of the market share? Nah, you would write one for Windows and that has been the problem for Windows, especially XP. So is Apple really better or does it happen to seem that way? The Apple kernel may not be as secure as some believe. I installed the latest Linux Fedora version last month and it had over 100 patches needed to install. My point is that security vulnerabilities exists in every operating system and should be noted on those articles if it is going to be heavily criticised on the Vista and XP articles. Your statement that Vista 64bit edition cannot run 32bit apps like the Apple is false. Vista 64bit edition runs all 32bit applications in an emulation environment and it does it well. As a matter of fact, I find Vista running older Windows XP apps more than the article leads me to believe. And lastly, if Apple is organic, I guess Vista is considered toxic to my health. Do you get a paycheck from Apple? Now I understand. I have no interest in an Apple store. Interesting debate, have a nice day. -Chad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.208.169 (talk) 21:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Windows Defender: when I tried it, it didn't scan for spyware-cookies. I don't know if they changed that or not. I have no connection to Apple, I'm just someone with an opinion. We really need to find a non-Wikipedia page to have this discussion.... Organic/not-organic was just a counter-example to popularity. The article does not say the Mac is better than Windows. It is true that Mac has been less of a target, which has helped, but it is also true that unix is a solid kernel. EA and id are now making their games for Mac OS X, you can see some here. Mac OS X has tons of non-Apple software: see http://www.macupdate.com/ for some of them. Now you need to see the distinction between biased statements and ones about possibly biased statements: "Most computer experts will tell you that its better to avoid Vista and go with XP or something else," is not a biased statement, but "It is better to avoid Vista" is a biased statement. The article is careful to only word things like the former sentence. Whether or not you agree with it, if a large number of respected computer magazines say something, the Wikipedia editors can't just choose to ignore it. Althepal (talk) 22:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
To keep it short for Wikipedia because I think it is important for this article's success, your example is biased because you don't offer both views - it is not NPOV (in Wiki terms). What if we quoted "Most experts believe Apple should be avoided for business use because of lack of hardware and software support?" Suddenly you feel it is biased as I do on the Vista side. YOU CANNOT SAY ON A FORD ENCYLOPEDIA ARTICLE THAT MOST EXPERTS BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE AVOIDED AND GO WITH GENERAL MOTORS OR TOYOTA! YOU CANNOT SAY ON A GLOBAL WARMING ARTICLE THAT MOST EXPERTS BELIEVE IT IS A MADE-UP THEORY! Now you see my point? I find it ironic that near the top it gives a false paragraph that is not relevant today. All manufactures, especially well-known manufactures ship Vista drivers so that is not true for an encyclopedia article. UAC thwarts viruses and spyware, why would that be criticised?. This ridiculous paragraph is not even cited! If I am welcomed to provide sources of good reviews of Vista to make this article balanced, I can list a million. If you want to talk more on the other stuff, let me know which site. Have a nice day. -Chad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.208.114 (talk) 14:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Chad, you would be right, except I haven't found articles from any respected sites which say Vista is the biggest success of 2007 (something that most people would seem to disagree with), nor have I seen anything saying that Mac OS X doesn't have enough software to be used (which clearly isn't the case, as it is even quite popular and useful among both graphic artists and scientists). What is said is reflected, simple as that. Make a Wikipedia account and provide the sources, then find a way to work them into the article so it is neutral, and that would be fine, no question. If you really want to continue a Mac vs. PC debate, you can just go to my talk page. Althepal (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Service Pack 1 has been released

The article need to be updated.--Eikern (talk) 10:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If you can supply a source for a *public* release of SP1 - and not a release candidate or beta, etc - then by all means add it in. A quick search of Microsoft's own website shows no such information, though. Onesecondglance (talk) 12:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Further to that, I have managed to find the standalone download for SP1 on Microsoft.com - although you can't find it by any searches such as "vista" or "service pack 1" (!). It's described as "KB936330". I suggest once we have a link to a press release we don't include anything though.Onesecondglance (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Enterprises have had it over a month already. Socrates2008 (Talk) 04:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Windows Vista SP1 appeared in Windows Update on my computer, running Windows Vista Home Premium. The article definitely needs to be updated.24.84.168.114 (talk) 07:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit war (IBM PC compatible? + programming languages)

I think think the there should be noted that Vista is for IBM PC compatible computers, because it is important to let readers know what kind of computers it runs on in the intro. And if you say that having EFI don't make a computer IBM PC compatible, well maybe then that is quite true. I suggest mentioning both "IBM PC compatible" and "IBM PC compatible with EFI instead of BIOS" or "EFI computers", or something similar.  -  And the programming languages is something to include in the infobox, they are all "included" in Vista and some of the most used on Vista, Other articles (like MS-DOS) does just give an example too.,Helpsloose 02:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

What the hell? Vista does not run an "IBM PC compatible" system, because none of the supported processors use the XT or AT buses that defines IBM PC compatible systems, but rather the EISA bus. Plus "IBM PC compatibles" support a much narrow address space (max. 20 bit) than Vista's 32 bits (leave alone 64). And now throw in UEFI. And segmented memory is also not supported either. (Given more time, I can think of even more incompatibilities.) So are we going to say "Vista supports IBM PC compatible systems where all the stuff that made it compatible with IBM PC are not present any more"? I think not. Its perfect as it is. Stop edit warring. Read the IBM PC compatible article. The term is archaic and not relevant anymore. We are making the article as accessible to general population as possible, not being politically-correct. --soum talk 02:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
As for the programming languages, comparing to other articles is not something that is done here. Every article is tackled on its own merits and demerits. Listing just the included compilers and interpreters gives an impression that that is everything that is supported, which is exactly the opposite of whats true. As such, there is no use for that. --soum talk 03:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Helpsloose, five different people have disagreed with you on this issue of "IBM PC compatible" in the last twelve hours. This should probably indicate to you that you're on the wrong track.
Also, the Infobox is meant to communicate only the most basic cornerstone information about the operating system release. The last thing we need is for it to expand ever downwards because people want to add esoteric details that they can easily look up in the article. -/- Warren 03:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I agree, IBM PC compatible is maybe not accurate enough. But the programming languages: Why don't write some that are not included in Vista? Like Java. And then put a "etc" or something at the end to indicate that there is more? Helpsloose 03:15, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Give me one example of a language for which a compiler, which produces windows binaries, exist but the resultant program does not run on Vista? I don't think any exist. Now from this set of a zillion languages, the infobox can only contain half a dozen or so. On what objective grounds are you going to choose? What may seem important to you may not be to others. And if you try to promote your PoV (that only X, Y, and Z are the important ones), you will be violating WP:NPOV. And as Warren said, the infobox is only for a quick reference. A quick glance and the language the reader is interested in isn't listed - that gives a very bad impression. Thats exactly the reason we don't choose a few out of a many to push towards a very visible location. --soum talk 03:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Why so much talk about MAC and negative views about Vista?

It looks to me that whoever wrote this article is a big Mac fan, and that's OK, but you see that when you express those strong feelings of love in a Web site that is open to the public, it becomes very bad. For example, there is a easily distinguished negative tone towards the new OP as seen in the section Public reception and sales, and also Criticism. Besides, I think it's not proper to put info of how much success Mac OS had, and even giving statistics on that OP. It's about ten lines explaining the Mac sales. So, that's not right because this article is about Vista, not Mac OS X. Please try to be less emotional... for the common good - for the site's good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.50.133 (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess half of Vista users are big Mac fans, seeing as half of the reviews about Vista on Amazon are consistent with mentioning Vista's poor public reception. Let's just ignore everyone who hates Vista... lol ;-) Sorry. hehe. Actually, I don't know how you can say that since about 70% of the article talks about everything new and great in Vista. Criticisms and public reception need to be there because, admit it or not, Vista has problems and people aren't happy about it. I edited the public receptions section to remove most mention of OS X and anything that might be original research. But seriously, I don't know how you can interpret comparison of statistics to mean its just because the author likes OS X; you can't say something like "Bananas are among the better tasting fruit: I give them 6 out of 10" without showing that most other fruits rank lower than 6. Althepal (talk) 18:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
There are still a handful of obvious problems. Like "Due to Vista's poor reception..." (just after ref #95). "Poor" is a very subjective word. Just a different angle while interpreting the statistics will make the same thing appear "good enough" or even "stellar". Either use something that is more objective such as "less than expected" or "less than projected". In the next line, "An unusual amount of Vista users...", unusual amount (without any objective stats) is definitely WP:WEASELling. --soum talk 19:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Haha, isn't it great how we have some people accusing us of being shills for Microsoft, and we have other people accusing us of being fans of the Mac. Man... it's amazing how many people are dissatisfied when you speak the plain truth. :-) -/- Warren 19:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Soum, I need to get the facts across somehow. You can change it if you want. "Poor" is descriptive of what is talked about, such as PC World's take on Vista... There is no argument that being called the biggest tech disappointment of 2007 or the 2nd biggest tech flop of all time is poor review... if you think that's "stellar", change the wording as you see fit. "An unusual amount of..." is based on so many people and articles reporting of such action. Since there are no real statistics on this significant point, I worded it as best I could. Replace it with "some" or whatever you want, but the point needs to get across that its more than other versions of Windows. Althepal (talk) 19:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I am not telling its stellar, nor am I telling its poor. I am just saying the wordings used here depend on the angle the stats are looked at. The reference gives you just raw numbers, it does not say "poor" anywhere. Its the author applying his own inference and pushing it to the users. Thats POV. All I am saying is stay impassive and stick to facts and leave the inference (whether its stellar or poor) to the users. As for the "unusal number", by your own admittance, "there are no real statistics on this significant point". Then isn't saying anything on that original research? Correct me if I am wrong, but I think I read somewhere that official policy on Wikipedia prohibit both POV and OR, doesn't it? --soum talk 19:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
It is not OR. The articles themselves are saying that Vista users are downgrading. It is not POV: It is simply required for a coherent reading of the paragraph. The numbers and articles themselves are so dramatic that there is no issue in labeling it "poor" if it aids in the reading of the sentence. You know, there is Wikipedia policy, but it is in place for the humans, not robots, to follow. People can use some common sense, and appropriately using words like "poor" or "an unusual amount" when it is clearly and obviously reflected in the sources is perfectly acceptable. Althepal (talk) 19:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey, Althepal, I'm not sure I like the phrase "unusual amount of", if only because we don't really have a way of defining what a "usual amount" might be as a point of comparison. I'm not going to edit it, though, because I don't really have a good suggestion that will stand the test of time. The best I can come up with is "substantial number". If we could find a publication that uses a specific phrase, and then quote them directly, that might work out best. -/- Warren 22:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Maybe what's there now is slightly better. Althepal (talk) 00:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I never said that Vista users downgrading is OR. I said that in absense of any numbers, saying "unusual number" of users doing so is OR. Even "some" and "many" is WP:WEASELling. Also, the use of the qualifying objectives - "generally poor" or even "largely negative" - is of a problem. I think it is best to directly quote the words the refs themselves has used.
And I am sorry to say that you cannot trump policies whenever you feel like. If you think the policies are a hindrance, go and get the policies changed first. Guidelines can be ignored on a case by case basis. Not polciies. Spend some time on the policy discussion pages and content dispute/admin boards, you will know. "The numbers and articles themselves are so dramatic that there is no issue in labeling it "poor" if it aids in the reading of the sentence." - sorry but it ain't doing just that in this case. "Poor" is a comparative word but "numbers of articles" do not show any comparison. Infering from "number of articles" to "poor" is OR. There in lies the problem.
A perfectly written section should never give out the impression of the writers' preferences on reading. This section is hardly so. Thats why you are getting so many complaints. Stick to facts, leave the interpretation to users, I say again. :-) I am not going to edit it, I don't have a concrete idea yet of how it should look like. And a minor style issue, remove the "as of"s, the article has got many eyes on it. It will always be kept current, at least for the foreseeable future. --soum talk 05:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Good advice. In the case of reverts, the sources are saying just that: that some Vista users downgraded. Can't really quote the articles as it wouldn't be very coherent in this article, but those articles imply that more Vista users are downgrading, so that is exactly what I have this article imply. And I guess I kind of did take your advice with "largely negative"... that is almost exactly the wording of some of the sources. Come on, you gotta cut some slack if you want the article to be as clear to the reader as possible. I mean, that is exactly the point: that a bunch of people dislike Vista. "Largely negative" is simply saying this, completely backed up by the sources. Its the best I could do. Althepal (talk) 05:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Recommended System Reqs. apart from Capable/Premium Ready Reqs.

This article does not state the Recommended Sys. Req. for running Vista smoothly. Only stating the Capable/Premium Ready Reqs. is biased and misleads the possible buyer to buy something that will work incredibly slow on those machines.

These articles state Recommended Sys. Reqs.

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsVista/windows-vista-rtm-review03.html

http://help.cnet.com/Software/9602-12576_39-0.html?messageID=2509548&kw=Software&nodeId=3513

VShaka (talk) 10:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Public reception and sales section

Am I the only one who finds it extremely biased? No mention of 100 million mark reach. Citing userbase statistic off some obscure website as evidence of adoption and only drawing comparisons on XP and VISTA only if it makes VISTA look bad. I'm referring to Business user equally conservative attitude towards adopting XP. And Slashdot has compiled a list? I mean common.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.157.101.233 (talk) 14:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The slashdot list was relevant to the paragraph. Better than listing everything here. There was mention of 100 million sales, but it was in context of the total PC market, indicating that its sales were still not that high, and that was considered original research. Just stating "100 million sales" without context, however, is meaningless. You figure out the best way. Althepal (talk) 17:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it's very important to mantion that Vista has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, because for the time it's been part of the market, it is the most selling OP ever, but in the article Vista is made to look bad. I mean, XP has more market share, but every month its persentage is going down and Vista's going up. Also, let's not forget that Windows XP has been around for 6 years, Vista only has one year in the market. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.88.45 (talk) 18:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
More like one and a half years. 100 million copies isn't really impressive, you know. All operating systems are selling a much larger percentages than they used to. And a huge percentage of those Vista sales are just going to bulk purchases of business computers which are then re-installed with Windows XP. The section already says that it is the best-selling OS: "...sales of the operating system set a new high. Within its first month, 20 million copies of Vista were sold, double the amount of Windows XP sales within its first month..." Does it need to mention everything Microsoft proudly announces? Do you really want to include all the info about 100 million sales compared to 2 million leopard sales in its first weekend or large replacements of Vista copies with XP? Althepal (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Application Incompatibility

Is it worth mentioning that some popular applications simply don't run on Vista, or run only on certain SKUs, or run only with reduced functionality in "compatibility mode?" This is probably a major factor in much of the criticism of the OS. The entire Adobe CS3 suite (Photoshop, Flash, etc...) simply does not run on Vista Home Basic, even in compatibility mode (reference). Even Visual Studio 2005, a Microsoft product, has an enormous number of problems running on Vista, many of which have no workarounds (reference). The list of applications with compatibility issues is very long, and compatibility with applications is arguably the most important feature of an operating system. LesPaul75 (talk) 19:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

User to user forums, like the Adobe mention, are not good sources. The Adobe KB says they don't support it because they didn't test it, not that it doesn't work. I fail to see why apps would fail to function on a reduced feature SKU, the APIs aren't changed. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
There are a number of generic application compatibility issues out there that are not included in this article, primarily because there are no independent sources at this time for this information. (e.g. New heap integrity checking in the kernel breaks a number of apps, and cannot be fixed with a compatilbility shim) Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't really suggesting that those forum posts be used as references in the article. I was just supporting my statement that many applications don't run on certain Vista SKUs, or don't run on Vista at all. I don't think this fact is really disputed, but I don't know that there are many references -- other than complaints by individual users (like the ones referenced here) -- to cite. I can certainly say from personal experience that this is true, whatever that's worth. I'll search for something a little more solid. -EDIT: How about this? Vista Home Basic is clearly not on the list. Photoshop is just one application, but it's certainly not the only one. It is one of the most popular, however. LesPaul75 (talk) 17:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, this is not a compatibility list. This is an encyclopedia article, as such maintaining a list of what works and what doesn't will not work. As for adding it as a criticism, we cannot just add it. We need reliable sources that it is a criticism of Windows Vista and not of the applications themselves. And just giving a reference or two of unsupported apps is not enough - that just shows two instances, not the general trend. So, if you can find sources that meet this criteria, then by all means do add the section. Look out for interviews (in reliable sources) with software developers that say something on the lines of "Vista makes it technically difficult to port older applications to the new infrastructure" or "The different SKUs of Vista are so architecturally different that supporting all of them together is a major PITA". And NOT "Supporting Vista doesn't make any business sense for us". --soum talk 17:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Not supported does not mean not compatible. Adobe decided they don't want to support Vista Home Basic. It's a business decision to reduce their support and testing costs. They probably also don't test or support XP Starter Edition, WinFLP, the Server SKUs, or 64 bit. If it works for you on those SKUs, fine, if it doesn't, don't call their technical support line.
Now, if you can show some MSDN documentation that certain APIs that ISV software would expect to use functions differently on Home Basic then you've got something to discuss. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Ok. Maybe a list of application incompatibilities isn't the way to go. Similar lists already exist elsewhere. But there's so much debate (here and elsewhere) over whether or not Vista is a "failure," it just seems worth mentioning. Some companies, mine included, have decided to avoid Vista solely because of application incompatibility. -LesPaul75 (talk) 21:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that Vista was in development for so many years, it's pretty pathetic that a lot of software and hardware manufacturers couldn't be bothered getting their programs to work on Vista in that time. ("The Adobe KB says they don't support it because they didn't test it, not that it doesn't work." Yep, that includes Microsoft too if "Even Visual Studio 2005, a Microsoft product, has an enormous number of problems running on Vista, many of which have no workarounds" is true). I think an application incompatiablity list could be noteworthy, if the program is a fairly major or common program. Just to provide a specimen, perhaps in the Criticism section. Evils Dark (talk) 10:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Good point - a lot software issues that are blamed on Vista, have more to do with poorly written applications than anything with the new OS. I've recently been dealing with a Fortune 500 software company whose products don't work on Vista because of heap corruption (releasing the same memory twice/trying to re-use memory that's been de-allocated/over-writing heap metadata). This is not a Vista issue - it's just that nobody knew the reason for this application's instability until Vista came along and introduced heap integrity checking. Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Reception section: Is it good yet?

Since there has been some complaints about some content in the Reception section, I've tried to modify it to remove any original research, weasel words, or non-neutral statements. Are there still any problems with it? Let me know specific problems with the section, not just some anonymous person saying that it is too anti-Vista and Vista is really good an it talks too much about Mac. Specific problems. I've addressed all problems people have brought up, so can the tags be removed? Maybe we can get some consensus or admin input so we can finish this section once and for all. And remember, if the content of that article seems to be largely negative, that is simply because that is what the reception has been as per all the sources and this cannot be considered non-neutrual simply because you as an individual disagree with the reception. Althepal (talk) 06:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

One thing, no VIsta sales figure. And since the section is mostly comparing, this should follow the same trend and compare with corresponding sales figure of XP (and other OSs) for their first year or two. --soum talk 07:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Had that, was considered OR. But re-read the section... it still talks about Vista and XP sales within the first month, but most of the other comparison stuff, especially to Mac, has been removed. The only comparison it still has to Mac, which I think is important, is how many people like Leopard compared to Vista, a significant point of the reception, but I'll remove that too, and I'll leave the comparison to corporates and just XP/Vista. Now are there any weasel words? Are there still any problems? Are there any notable articles that talk about positive reception that you'd like to include? Althepal (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I was never against comparisons, I was only against adding our own descriptions to the statistics used for the comparisons. Anyways, w.r.t "Small business adoption of Vista has been slower than expected, with the vast majority still favoring Windows XP and even waiting for Windows 7", the "vast majority" seems to be (I can't decide) either weasel-y or lacking context. Vast majority of what? Those who are using XP currently and were evaluating Windows Vista for an upgrade? Those using 2000 currently and choosing between XP or Vista? Or something else? Also I think the price reduction does not belong in reception. Things getting cheaper as they age are not uncommon. I don't know about prices elsewhere, but Win XP Pro launched around Rs 22,000 in India; now its available in Rs 4,000 (Home was Rs 11,000; now Rs 2700). Does that mean reception to XP was poor? --soum talk 10:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
One more thing, the section looks too bland. May be some sort of graph or timeline to take away the monotony would help. --soum talk 10:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'll make a graph from change wave statistics? Or PC World? What kind of graph are you thinking about? Also, I don't recall Microsoft reducing XP's price by 20% a year after its release, nor do I recall something like that happening with any other OS. Microsoft said its to aid its adoption. It really doesn't belong? And I'll work on that sentence about businesses you pointed out. Althepal (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not convinced about the pricing info either way. But yeah, at least in India, Windows XP got a Rs 3,000-odd reduction in price within 6 months. I bought in the first lot, but when my friend bought it 5 or 6 months later, he got it at the revised price (It could have been a promotional offer though, I do not remember fully). As for the graph, do you have enough data to create a quarter-by-quarter sales comparison of Vista vs XP vs Tiger vs Leopard vs any other recent OS (or similar)? --soum talk 16:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Not really... I don't know if there is anyone who has actual data in sales over time listed, you would have to ask Apple and Microsoft directly. Though I might be able to find how many sales there have been of different operating systems at certain points: first weekend, first month, first two months, and first year, but even that's being optimistic and would come from different sources, making a less-than-accurate graph. The only thing I can think of is just putting in a chart from the statistics of PC World, since that goes back to XP's release and they attract a lot of people. Any suggestions? Althepal (talk) 20:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I shot a mail to Microsoft. Let's wait and see. Meanwhile, the changewave stats sound good. --soum talk 04:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The business adoption paragraph was better before it was edited. It now reads awkwardly and is using weasle words i.e "a number of them". It should be reverted, or at least try to make it better than what it was rather than just re-writing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nsmith 84 (talk • contribs) 05:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The wording was already there, I just rearranged the lines. Anyways, feel free to suggest alternatives. We seem to have run out of ideas. --soum talk 05:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I re-worded that part you said was a weasel word. Althepal (talk) 06:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anybody still dispute the neutrality of that section? I want to be clear that I'm not a Vista-hater just reaching out for negative articles; every article I see on Vista's reception is just negative, and saying that those articles say such, or saying that Microsoft cut prices or allowed continued XP sales, or saying that a number of schools or organizations have denounced Vista is just fact and isn't considered POV. And still, the article does say that its sales are high, and most other good points about Vista are taken care of already in the rest of the article. Althepal (talk) 21:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Althepal, it is getting better but I think if you are going to have a graph of different OSs, how about Linux in there beside Mac too? (just a thought) Not sure I like the graph at all but that is me. Certain sentences still seem POV in the article though. All of these things will change in the future as businesses begin adopting Vista, especially with XP being discontinued soon. What should be noted in this section also is that businesses have to be prepared for Vista since it is a significant upgrade. Many techs have to be sent to training, new computers are needed, and it is misleading that they need Aero which requires a good video card where most admin do not know they can turn it off and use a lower-performing PC. Even modern corporate computers tend to have pathetic video cards with virtually little 3D acceleration. Only new ones have adequate 3D acceleration as noted on the new Dell Optiplex PCs. Businesses are waiting to buy new computers, and with the economy in the state it is in, this can influence the perception of how good Vista is received when looking at raw statistics.
But the section is improving. Good job! WinCEB (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, since Linux has less than 1% market share, its probably not significant enough to put in a graph, especially since the source of the information doesn't provide data on Linux. And stating that businesses need to use Vista because it is important is POV, HOWEVER if you could provide some sources which themselves make this suggestion, as well as maybe a source that talks about how some gamers like DirectX 10 a lot, putting in that information would probably finally make the section as close to NPOV as it can. You yourself can put that into the section, I'm not the only editor you know. ;-) Althepal (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I did that myself. And I removed the POV tag. If there's still any problems, anyone can correct them, or if anyone is still unsure of anything, we can discuss it here. Althepal (talk) 06:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the invitation to edit, but since I am new to editing, I didn't want to change anything with posting my comment first. The section gets my vote now, but I still may add another short paragraph in the near future about the reception of the gaming industry as they seem to like Vista. WinCEB (talk) 15:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
@Althepal: Sure you are not the only editor here, but you are pretty much THE EDITOR most informed about the aspects covered in these sections (reception/criticism). As a result, I am going to let you do any major change there; I am happy playing the advisor role. :) As for the lead, it is hard writing a coherent lead, give me some time. --soum talk 16:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Chad: I already put in a short paragraph saying how DirecX 10 is a benefit to gamers. But while Vista seems to have relatively good reception among gamers, even among gamers the adoption rate is lower than it was for XP, partly because it requires a new graphics card to benefit from it, so I don't know what to say about that. Soum: Okay, if you want to advise I'll take your advice. ;-) Not sure how I got to be the most informed about Vista's reception though... I just read Google news that's all. BTW: I saw your comment on my talk page (I responded there). While I do try to keep my personal opinions away from articles, if there is anything you think I'm incorrect about which would effect this article, please let me know so I can further look into it. Althepal (talk) 18:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Introductory Section

I think the article would attract less criticism and be more valid if the criticism paragraph in the introductory section was moved to the criticism section. It doesn't belong there, especially when compared to millions of other articles. The introduction should be "what is Vista?" not a POV. After all, not everybody thinks that is criticism... even if SOME survey shows that most people are unhappy with those things. Bottom line: It needs to move down to the criticism section. WinCEB (talk) 14:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:LEAD: A lead should be self-contained in the sense that it summarizes all aspects of the subject. For that it is necessary we mention the criticism. The problem here, as I feel it, is that the section abruptly turns from describing what is Vista and why it was developed to criticism. I do not have a concrete idea of how to fix it but probably it should build up to the criticism the way the reception section does: track the pre-release hype, show the sales and criticize how it fell short of expectations. --soum talk 16:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I feel the same way, but people ended up arguing over the wording, so eventually I just said, "screw it", and removed the lead-in to that paragraph. -/- Warren 16:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
No other Microsoft OS has ever been called "the year's #1 tech disappointment" by the mainstream trade press. The amount of criticism and the degree of disappointment expressed by Microsoft customers is one of the most salient facts about the release.
Should the opening paragraph of the Edsel article confine itself to stating what kind of engine it had? Should the Titanic article defer mention of its sinking to a section entitled "Criticism of Titanic?" Should Richard M. Nixon omit mention of his resignation from the lead section? How should an article about the IBM 7030 Stretch open? New Coke? Heaven's Gate?
There's no rule that a lead section should omit mention facts that might embarrass a vendor. There's no rule that an article that is about a commercial product should confine itself to discussing technical details about the product, and not mention any business facts about it.
"Facts about opinions" are valid everywhere in Wikipedia, including lead sections. In the case where facts about opinions rise to a high level of importance, omitting them from the lead section would be non-neutral.
To be sure, Vista is no Titanic or Edsel or New Coke. But the question is whether or not a marketplace perception of Vista as having problems is important enough to warrant lead-paragraph mention. On balance, I think it does. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it does belong in the lead, but there are enough people who disagree with that that we'd end up with another stupid edit war if someone tried to put it back in. IMO, User:Althepal is probably the most qualified among us to lift out the most important details and put something into the lead... hopefully he'll chime in here with an idea on how to move forward. -/- Warren 20:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Warren, while I appreciate the compliment, I can only suggest some text which can be thrown around a LITTLE here on the talk page to perfect the wording and make sure it is not POV or weasel words before replacing the bottom paragraph with it. I actually think it was pretty good before it was removed with all the most significant points mentioned. Now I'm trying to be as positive about Vista as I could while still pointing out its criticisms and negative reception, but I guess it could read something like:
While being lauded for bringing about many improvements to the Windows operating system, Vista has also been the target of much criticism and negative review. Among the items criticized are more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some software and hardware, and the interruptive User Account Control security feature. Some of those items criticized have been addressed with the release of Vista SP1 (an update which has seen some negative review itself) but not before receiving negative review by computer magazines such as PC World, causing them to call Vista the "biggest tech disappointment of 2007" or the "second biggest tech flop of all time." Vista has also seen both lower-than-expected adoption rates and user satisfaction rates lower than XP.
That's all I could suggest. Hope it could be improved enough to be a mutually acceptable introduction paragraph. Althepal (talk) 04:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
"...lauded for bringing about many improvements..." - that sounds too flowery. :-) Anyways, the suggested revision still does not fix the "choppiness" - it feels like reading four distinct paragraphs, not one summary. Primarily, the third and the fourth paragraphs do not feel particularly integrated into the flow set up by the first two paragraphs. May be a stab should be taken at rewriting the entire section, not just individual paragraphs. --soum talk 04:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to avoid choppiness when you're trying to make a summary that does in fact cover information from several different paragraphs. But if you can suggest a re-write, by all means. I liked your re-write of the UAC paragraph for the Criticism section... not sure why you haven't put that into the article yet. Althepal (talk) 06:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I see the point made by everyone, maybe a softer transition would be better. Just trying to help, not bashing the article by any means. Maybe we can do this with the criticism paragraph in the introduction: "While many people and industries praise Vista and think it is a big upgrade to its predecessor, Windows XP, criticisms of Windows Vista...........same paragraph continues here......... How does that set with everybody? WinCEB (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Althepal: I think you're on the right track here... I wouldn't want to use the word "interruptive" or "feature" to describe UAC, though, because it is not really a feature, per se, and I think we should avoid unnecessary critical or peacock phrasing in the lead, if only to keep the number of words down. We could also take a different route at the beginning there, making reference to the prior paragraphs with something like, "While these new features and security improvements have [been well-received? received positive reviews? something like that], Vista has also been the target of ______". The use of the word "these" would help tie the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs into the 4th, in much the same way that the word "however" in the 3rd paragraph helps contextualise what was said in the 2nd.
I think we might also need to choose between the PC World assessment and the adoption rates stuff; one solid data point should be sufficient to drive home the point that there have been significant issues with uptake and satisfaction. -/- Warren 18:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, how about:

While these new features and security improvements have seen positive review, Vista has also been the target of much criticism and negative review. Among the items criticized are more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some software and hardware, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control security. Some of those items criticized have been addressed with the release of Vista SP1 (an update which has seen some negative review itself). As a result of these issues, Vista has seen both lower-than-expected adoption rates and user satisfaction rates lower than XP.

How's that? Althepal (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I've got a few changes in mind:

While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista has targeted its more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some software and hardware, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control. While a number of issues were addressed with the release of Service Pack 1 in March 2008, Vista has seen both lower-than-expected adoption rates and user satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP.

I guess the main thing is that I don't think the criticism of SP1 needs to be mentioned in the lead, because that's starting to get a bit too detailed, unless there's some really specific, major issue with SP1 that warrants a mention in the lead. -/- Warren 19:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
(deindent)I like this one. --soum talk 19:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
One thing: low adoption does not contradict fixing problems in SP1. You're right, maybe it is too detailed to bring up SP1, so is there consensus to use (Althepal (talk) 20:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)) the following?:

While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista has targeted its more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some software and hardware, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control. As a result of these issues, Vista has seen both lower-than-expected adoption rates and user satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP.

We could tighten the last part up just a bit further with something like, "Vista has seen both lower-than-expected adoption and user satisfaction rates than Windows XP.", but I'm fine with it either way. -/- Warren 21:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
We want to keep some flow from the previous sentence, and I'm not sure your version is 100% clear. How about: "As a result of these issues, Vista has seen adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP." I think that sounds good. So any more objections before calling it consensus and putting it in the article? Althepal (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, there seems to be general consensus now and I included the new paragraph into the article. Chad: I'm still not 100% clear on what you meant for your suggestion of smoothing the flow of the lead section.... It's never to late to change something, and if you would give a full text example (your full suggestion of how you think the paragraph should read, with all words and sentences included) perhaps it could still help. Althepal (talk) 03:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I like how it transitions now. It took my suggestion a little further to say features so the new text is starting to grow on me now. This may sound picky, but I think instead of saying "lack of compatibility with some software and hardware" it should say "lack of compatibility with older software and hardware". I think everyone would agree that virtually all new software and certainly hardware is compatible with Vista. Thoughts on that? WinCEB (talk) 17:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess I could work that in. Maybe "some older software and hardware" would be okay, but then maybe "older" needs to be defined or something. How old -- since before Vista's release? What if there is a new program which was just made and isn't Vista compatible? Let me know any ideas. Althepal (talk) 20:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
WinCEB, your pickiness is most welcome. :-) It's almost impossible to strike a tone that everybody will be happy with, but sometimes all it takes is a few rounds of editing and we something really great comes out of it. -/- Warren 22:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I made a small wording tweak to say "As a result of these and other issues", and added the changewave reference at the end of the final sentence. I'm a little hesitant about the "and other" part because it might seem vaguely WP:WEASELish, so if it doesn't seem right, just remove it. -/- Warren 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the new changes! You take my suggestions a bit further and I like the finished version better. If I see anything else, I will make a note of it but right now I like the new ending paragraph to the intro. section. WinCEB (talk) 02:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Aim of .Net 3.0

"...which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write applications than with the traditional Windows API." This objective is not new to Vista or .Net 3.0. (i.e. it was a design goal of the .NET Framework right from version 1.0) The only thing here that is new is that you now get the 2.0 and 3.0 runtime in the box with Vista, rather than having to install it separately. Socrates2008 (Talk) 04:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

We're trying to explain what the .NET Framework is. The phrase ".NET Framework" is absolutely meaningless to most of our readers, but its inclusion with Vista is significant... so we need to explain why. The lead section of this article is not the place to nerd-wank over "it includes 2.0 -and- 3.0!" .... nobody gives a shit this early on. In the lead, we focus entirely on informing the widest range of people possible. They can read the article on the .NET Framework if they want more specific details.
Put it like this -- if you were to read the lead section of the article, aloud, to someone who is clueless about operating systems, would it make sense? I'm going to revert your edit, and you're encouraged to give some thought as to what we're actually trying to accomplish here. -/- Warren 04:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
This is the Vista article - the point you're trying to convey belongs in the .NET Framework article. Furthermore, the wording you've chosen implies that this design goal or capability is something to do with Vista, when it's not. Socrates2008 (Talk) 05:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
This is the Vista article - it is precisely the reason we need it here. In the .NET Framework article, we can go into a more detailed explanation. But here, we cannot spend more than a line (or may be just half a line). Everyone is not a hot-shot programmer; not describing what some jargon is to the uninformed is a very bad reading experience. How else do you suggest we fulfill the need? --soum talk 05:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

UAC cannot be considered a problem

I think we should delete the criticism on UAC. So, it was considered chatty by someone, and I am not saying it isn't, I am not saying it is, but since you can easily turn it off, then I guess it's not a problem any more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.239.4.254 (talk) 22:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

No, we can't pretend that UAC isn't being criticized just because it shouldn't be. Obviously it can be considered a problem, as many people do consider a problem. - Josh (talk | contribs) 23:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
If many people do consider it a problem, surely we can find reliable source for that newer than six months before Vista's release (before both RC2 and RTM, both of which made large changes to UAC) -- simxp (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I think I did. An October, 2007 SearchSecurity article which quotes an energy company network administrator and numerous other industry sources that perceive UAC to be a problem. As for "you can easily turn it off," if a security feature is so badly designed that anyone would want to turn it off, then in practice it will be turned off and will not add much real security. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, Microsoft removed even more UAC dialogs when they released SP1, so that October 2007 source is now outdated too:

SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location.

– Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1

—Remember the dot (talk) 05:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately the basic version of Vista has problems with the SP1 update if there are duel-boots. Althepal (talk) 05:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you have a source to confirm that? And what does that have to do with UAC? —Remember the dot (talk) 16:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it does, directly, but I imagine that Althepal's point is that SP1 isn't the predominant version yet. It apparently is slow to be adopted because it doesn't fix as many problems as it was expected to, and apparently introduces problems of its own. You certainly wouldn't say "thus-and-such isn't a problem because it's going to be fixed in the next release." Well, SP1 isn't the next release but it's only just barely the current release. Do you have some good sources that say something like "UAC used to be a problem for us but we've found that SP1 has largely solved it?" Remember, what's important is not counts of the number of prompts, but whether users see it as a problem. You source above refers to one very specific place where the number of prompts was reduced; it doesn't say there was a 4 to 1 reduction in UAC prompts overall. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Dpbsmith was right on. I did read somewhere that certain installs of Vista had problems updating, but yes, what I mean is that even if Microsoft largely fixed it, that doesn't mean its not still a problem. If I would get Vista, I would still disable Vista's security and rely on third parties for that, and I don't want an operating system to even ask me once whether I really want to rename something. So its still very much a valid criticism. Althepal (talk) 20:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You wouldn't want an operating system to ask you if you want to rename something, even if you don't by default have access to that something, but you can be given that access through privilege elevation? What would you rather it do? -/- Warren 23:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It's my computer. I don't want to have to give myself permission to do anything. I can decide what I want to do. If I installed a program and its folder in Program Files is named one thing, and I want to make it easier to recognize, that's a decision I make with myself, not my computer. So what I want is this: Key system files should warn me before renaming or deleting or replacing them and ask for my password. Everything else currently "protected" that isn't critical to the system, stuff like Program Files, I don't want the computer to question me at all. And if there is fear that other programs won't know how to access that file anymore, there should be some kind of single file hidden in Vista which tracks what files are what and what they have been renamed to or where they have been moved so everything would continue running smoothly. Althepal (talk) 23:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I vote that it is taken off because it can easily be disabled...Control panel, then User Accounts. I find UAC very useful for power users because the majority of computer use does not cause UAC to prompt. Remember, UAC is for administrative tasks, not typical program use. Don't forget that. Therefore, in theoretical terms, you can use this and not really need virus protection because when a virus "tries" to modify the system, where it is a system file, or registry setting, it will pop up and prompt for permission. If you have full access to the file outside a protected Windows folder, I have found that UAC does not prompt. However, even if you don't have access to the file, UAC will prompt for an administrative password if you happen to be power user or regular user (non-administrator). This is a HUGE IMPROVEMENT over XP because in XP you would have to log off first and then log on as an administrator to do your needed task. So, UAC is an improvement in that it saves a lot of time if you are managing computers where the people are not administrators of their PC (business setting of course). Home users may still want to leave it to thwart viruses and spyware. Me personally, I know how to stay away from spyware and viruses so I turn UAC off. I leave it on for other people and they haven't complained. Just my 2 cents... WinCEB (talk) 00:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
That may be, but it has still been widely criticized, whether or not you like or dislike it or whether or not it has or has not been fixed. For example, on the Mac OS X Leopard article, there is a criticism that the menubar is translucent. Some people will like it, and probably hardly anyone would really find it difficult to read what is on the menubar, and the option to make it opaque was added in the 10.5.2 update, but its still in the article. Maybe we can do here what was done there: Say that it was criticized and Microsoft has addressed some of the inconveniences presented. Just one point: There is a difference between modifying a file and changing its name. A virus wouldn't just change the name, so why does that even have one confirmation box? Althepal (talk) 01:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent)I don't think UAC was ever criticized as a controlled privilege escalation feature. What was criticized was its less than perfect execution that resulted it in being too chatty. So, I guess we could word it to reflect that:

“ While UAC is considered an important part of Vista's security infrastructure - as it blocks software from silently gaining admin privileges without the users' knowledge - it has been criticized for generating too many prompts, for even regular tasks like [insert an example]. This has led people to consider it annoying[add ref] and a "drag on productivity"[add ref] and consequently either turn it off[add ref] or put it in auto-approval mode[add ref]. Responding to this criticism, Microsoft altered the implementation to reduce the number of prompts before RTM[add ref] and again with SP1.[add ref] Though the changes have resulted in a big improvement[add ref] it hasn't alleviated the concerns completely.[add a recent post-sp1 ref] ”

—Only a suggested structure, not final text to be included in the article

@Althepal: "It's my computer. I don't want to have to give myself permission to do anything. I can decide what I want to do." — UAC is making sure of just that. When it prompts you for something, its not suggesting that you are stupid enough to be wanting to do that, but that it is respecting the fact that the computer is yours - and not some malware's to make any changes it feels like. It is JUST making sure that the request for the change came from you. Don't be dismissive of it; I used to run with UAC disabled but once the a worm fooled me. I had a folder shared with a friend who wanted to send me a few files; the worm sneaked into that folder and masqueraded as a backup from her - an executable that looked like a folder. Unsuspectingly I clicked on it and it raped my system so bad I had to spend the next two days getting my system back. I terribly regretted not UAC that day and since then am a regular user. Granted it was my mistake, but no matter how competent you are, there might be occasional lapse of judgement - UAC is for those moments! And UAC is not as annoying, if you bend the way you work a bit, it really moves out of the way. Plus a a significant number of the problems is due to applications (including Windows Explorer) being designed without keeping UAC's effect in mind, not UAC itself. --soum talk 04:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. And I think your example text is good. And I see your point. But (and this may seem like a silly question) why can't the computer tell the difference between software that automatically alters files and between specific, manually-made user actions? I mean, it can tell to the extent that it shows the file selected and a drop-down menu when you right-click it, why can't it just prevent automatic actions? Althepal (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The way keyboard/mice and other user input devices interact with the OS is by raising events - whenever you click something, the OS sends an event to the application, and the application executes the event handler. For example, if you click somewhere, the OS sends a mouseclick event to the shell; the event includes information about the co-ordinates of the click. The shell, on receiving the event, loads the handler for mouseclick events which analyses the co-ordinates to see what was clicked - if it was an icon, it loads the program; if it was a menu item, it selects that and so on. What happens at the lower level is that an event is communicated to a process by setting a certain bit in the process structure. The UI thread of the process periodically checks the bit, if it is high, it retrieves the event from the event queue and processes it. Now, since it is just writing to a memory location, any application can set the bit (it is an over-simplicification, but yeah, any app can get the job done) and thus trick the application into believing that the user has taken an action. The only way to prevent this would be if the OS makes the bit out of write-bounds to anything else, but it is not a general solution because it has some legitimate uses also - automated UI testing, using non-native input devices, accessibility mechanisms etc. Thats why the OS needs the extra steps of verifying from the user for potentially risky actions. However, the OS can impose the memory write-restrictions under a very specific set of conditions. In UAC, when the prompt is displayed, the OS switches to the secure desktop mode - the restriction is actually imposed in this mode. Thats why the OS can be sure that when the allow button is clicked, its actually you and not some automated software. If it didn't, it probably would have required to prompt you again or use different mechanism like a captcha. --soum talk 06:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh. Sounds like a good way to prevent certain important files from being modified then. Althepal (talk) 06:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The idea is definitely sound, but the implementation is too irritating at times. --soum talk 06:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, and even then not all files (such as your documents) wouldn't seem to be protected. If Microsoft would change Windows to be UNIX, it would stop all worms and such, at least for a while. But then all other programs would also have to be ported, too. Guess that's why they're making Singularity. Althepal (talk) 18:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
What would a move to UNIX do? The security model of Unix (or its cousins and descendants including Linux, Solaris, and Mac) isn't inherently more secure than Vista's - all of them use more or less the same primitives to the security end (I am talking about the theoretical model here, not the practical implementation). Just as applications will be ported, malware will also get ported sometime or the other. IMO, the move would be barely fruitful now. All the mainstream OSs at their core are pretty much rock solid now (look at the sec can conference, none of the OSs could be brought down; higher level applications had to be used as a leverage to get the exploit code in), its the application software running on top of them that are the vectors now-a-days. At that level in the software stack, the OS' influence is very less. So, the applications will get screwed regardless of the OS they are running on. Another trend is social engineering to get the user to install the malware rather than exploiting any flaws. Since the user would remain the same, changing OS would not matter. Singularity is a different thing altogether; it ditches native code in favor of managed code that would always be under the control of the OS. Not only that, it must be provable that the code will not do anything unexpected. Plus it enforces a zillion other restrictions, which currently make it really impractical as a replacement for NT in Windows. My belief is that the experience in building Singularity will be used to develop NT, not replace NT altogether. Anyways, we are moving away from article content. We should end this discussion here. If you are interested you may follow up via email. Coming back to the article content, if others do not have objection, we should replace the UAC criticism with a derivative of what I proposed earlier. --soum talk 18:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, ok. Let's just use your suggested text. Althepal (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the new text, can anyone think of a operating system that doesn't require administrator privileges for "installing software or renaming folders in protected areas"? I certainly can't -- Linux, OS X, Solaris, BSD et al are all *nix varients, so they all do. And the latter definition is almost circular: surely a "protected area" is one which you need administrator privileges to alter, by definition. (As a side point, we should probably be doing this all in the Criticism of Windows Vista article, then porting the result here: the criticism section of this article is supposed to be a summary of the daughter article). -- simxp (talk) 02:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

On Mac, you usually don't have to install programs. Just download a dmg, extract the .app, and it runs. Though people usually put it in the Applications folder. Renaming any program doesn't require a password. It just requires a password for deleting or renaming system files. And it doesn't ask more than once when you are doing a full install that puts files into the system folders. Althepal (talk) 02:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Not all Windows programs require Administrator privileges to install. Not all Mac OS X programs don't. It really depends on the application. That more Windows programs aren't designed to not require Administrator privileges to install is not a failing of Vista. I think the UAC criticism would more rightly be directed at system configuration operations. -/- Warren 05:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
IIRC, Vista assumes that any installers that are not "UAC-aware" (i.e. all of them except those made with the newest versions of Windows installer) do require admin access, and put up a UAC prompt when you first open them. This is perfectly reasonable and shouldn't be a criticism, since almost all installers use \Program Files, which does require admin access; but it does mean that the vast majority of installers at the moment do put up a UAC prompt when you first open them. Newer installers can should give you a choice whether you want to install a program "for all users" or "for the current user only", and only request elevation if you select the former option; but I haven't seen many programs that actually do that yet. Of course, if you have a portable application you can usually just put it to wherever you want in your home folder and run it from there without admin access; but that's still fairly rare for large programs. @Althepal: no installers that I've seen asks more than once for elevation; once the install process is elevated, it is running as admin, and can do as many restricted file operations as it likes wihout further prompting. Also, would not the equivalent metaphor in Windows to renaming a program in the Applications folder on a Mac, be renaming a program in All Programs in the Start Menu (which doesn't need admin privs)? The Program Files folder is not meant to be an application launcher, it's the equivalent of /bin in the *nix world. -- simxp (talk) 13:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The Start Menu is just a list of shortcuts, and not all programs show up in there unless you make the shortcut. I see your point, but you get to rename the actual programs on Mac, and those programs have rights to edit their own files stored within the .app. Althepal (talk) 18:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Just because one OS does it one way does not mean other OSs have to do it the same way. The only question is, is the same result achievable? Windows promotes separation of code and configuration files (for several reasons including roaming profiles). If done correctly, except for servicing of the app installation elevation would never be required. That apps do not bother to do so - can that be called a criticism of UAC? I don't think so. And what do you mean by renaming the apps? The name that is displayed? It all depends on how it is registered. Know the keys and change it. Same goes for the path of installation. It might not be as easy as stepping through a wizard but, like I said, they are different OSs altogether. (they do it the same way, you scream: COPY; they don;t do it the same way, you scream: EVIL MONOPOLISTS! THEY HAVE TO POKE THEIR PROPRIETARY ASSES EVERYWHERE!) --soum talk 18:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
LOL!! Okay, I was just responding.... The question here is whether or not UAC is really a problem and if it can be a criticism. Now whether or not it's a good or bad feature, since people have criticized it there is nothing that lets Wikipedia editors put their opinion into the matter and leave it out. Althepal (talk) 20:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

section break (UAC)

It seems maybe UAC was really intended to annoy users, according David Cross, so that users and developers would change the way they think about having full system control. Don't call that perfectly fine; its intention was almost to be criticized. Althepal (talk) 21:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This belongs in the User Account Control article as part of an explanation of Microsoft's motivations for including UAC in NT6... the original ZDNet article has a bunch of interesting statistics, too, which is exactly the sort of stuff we want to be capturing. -/- Warren 01:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello guys. I think the criticism of UAC is mostly coming from people who dislike Vista in general. Like I wrote here several days ago on this, UAC is not a problem. A secretary on a desk at a small or large company is "running" applications that are already installed just like most users. Throughout the course of the full day for this secretary she will never encounter UAC unless 1) a virus tries to execute 2) spyware tries to execute 3) tries to install a program 4) make any other change to the system setup... hmmmm, is that a problem? nope... secretary never encounters UAC. Here's an advantage point: secretary is a user which most of the time is the case because the IT admin in that company does not want users installing programs. The admin forgot to install some program. The secretary tries to install, UAC steps in prompting for an administrator username and password. The IT admin can supply it and install the program without having to log off as in XP. Ok, I know when I have tested Linux, it has a similiar setup to UAC where you have to "become root" to install programs, but UAC is much cleaner and easier. Of course being a nerd, I was able to use Linux's method of "becoming root" the first time I used it but UAC is much more user friendly for everybody including dummies. WHO MIGHT WANT TO DISABLE UAC? Me, because I'm a nerd, and if you are reading this you probably find it annoying too because you modify your system frequently. Now, what about the average home user, or any employee you think of for a company besides nerds? UAC almost never prompts for them. So, who complains then? Nerds. I don't think most people are nerds. Apple fans + nerds = criticism of UAC ........ however, nerds knows how to turn UAC off very easily in control panel which is ONLY two clicks away from the Vista orb so that almost eliminates the nerds unless you like to be critical so that almost entirely leave it to Apple fans. I rest my case. Now I propose that UAC is added to the "new features section" with this text ---> Abbreviated as UAC. User Account Control is a new security related feature that was designed to prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. When functions that could potentially affect your computer's operation are made, UAC will prompt for permission or an administrator's password before continuing with the task. Normal use of the computer such as running programs, printing, or surfing the Internet does not trigger UAC. WinCEB (talk) 03:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
UAC has got an entire paragraph in the security features section; why add that again? Most of what you are suggesting is already in the article; still I will reword bits of it. Anyways, whoever the criticism might come from, if that is from a notable source, we got to report that. We never censor any PoV, if there are opposing points of views, we report both. What to pay more weight to, we leave that to the users. So, in the security features we talk about what it does. In the criticism section, we talk about what people find annoying. Both sides are covered.
As for the David Cross comment, saying UAC was designed to annoy users is selectively cherry picking words and twist its meaning to as an evidence of what you believe. Thats serious POV-pushing and sensationalistic yellow journalism. Quote everything he says, or don't say anything at all. --soum talk 05:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Soum, I forgot that it was discussed under security but when I quickly read through the article yesterday I did not see it under the "end-user features". But, at least a positive paragraph is talking about UAC ... WinCEB (talk) 14:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

MS-DOS and MS-DOS programs

I think the possibility to format a floppy with MS-DOS should be mentioned even if it is in other versions of Windows. The users get a second operating system with much less system requirements. And MS-DOS 5 is included in NTVDM. And DOS programs, NTVDM, Telnet, Telnet server and FTP should be mentioned in Template:Microsoft_Windows_components, they are part of Windows 32-bit just as notepad is (telnet, telnet server and FTP are part of 64 bit too). Helpsloose 14:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No, ntvdm DOES NOT include MS DOS. What is includes is just an emulation layer - a wrapper on top of Win32 APIs (or NT Native APIs) which make it look like MS DOS, but instead of providing the MS DOS implementation of the APIs, it translates them to Win32 calls. Plus it is NOT fully MS DOS compliant. Only where there is a direct translation of MS DOS feature to NT does NTVDM provide a wrapper. Try it for yourself - try running any MS DOS program that tries to do direct hardware access on any NT based OS. It will fail. With respect to Vista allowing floppies to be made MS DOS bootable, <sarcasm>why not merge all Windows articles into this and describe all features of all Windows versions here itself?</sarcasm> That said, it might be merged to an existing section but I am not saying do so without hearing anyone else's comments. But there is no need to include anything on its feature set or hardware requirements. People can look it up in the MS DOS article.
As for the Windows components, why should deprecated (and probably unsupported) DOS programs be included? Template:Microsoft Windows components is not List of Microsoft Windows Components. The template is for quick navigation to the most used stuff, not for listing everything. Use the list to include everything that is included as well as all that ever were. NTVDM can be included, though. FTP and Telnet cannot be included because while there are windows components with the same name, the articles here are not about the windows component but the network protocol in general. --soum talk 15:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Telnet etc. is not even mentioned in the list. But you agree to (at least for now) only put NTVDM in the template?
And for the MS-DOS part of this article: I suggest we can write about the emulation layer wrapper, if you are sure you are right. The possibility to format a floppy with MS-DOS should certainly be mentioned. that user of Windows NT actually get two operating system in one is very useful. you can put programs on that floppy and use it as your main operating system, probably even SYS a hard drive. it is not only a rescue disk (it can't even read/write NTFS (that Vista must be installed on) without special, non-Microsoft drivers) Helpsloose 20:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
well, it looks like you can't SYS. It is at least not easy. Does some of you have an idea? I have tried with both FreeDOS's SYS and Windows 98's SYS. But neither works. How do you load Setver with config.sys? Windows 98's SYS say I am using wrong version. Helpsloose 21:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Telnet etc isn't mentioned because there are no corresponding wikipedia articles for them. Anyways, I am fine with NTVDM, but there is no need to write what it does here - its already covered in the NTVDM article. "that user of Windows NT actually get two operating system in one is very useful" - well, you do get another OSs, but there is absolutely nothing practical you can do with it. The startup disk only contains the bare essentials to boot the computer; and hardly any utilities at all. And, as you have found out, you cannot do anything with it on the Vista installation. And none of Vista's utilities will work if you copy that onto the MS DOS operating environment. In fact the command-line NT based OS used in the Vista installer disk is more powerful. Stop pushing your love for DOS onto everyone else, its not as important as you claim - more so when you have to try really hard to find a floppy disk or even a floppy drive. Okay that was my PoV. Now coming back to the article, both NTVDM and MS DOS-based start up disk creation has been a part of NT since its inceptions, nothing has changed in Vista. So there is no need to draw any specific attention to the fact. If NTVDM and MS DOS aren't in Features removed in Windows Vista, by default it means they are included. --soum talk 03:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that there it is not much you can do with that floppy as they are when newly formatted, but you can copy edlin, edit, debug or something from your Vista installation and/or other Dos programs. But even if it is not that important, I think it is important enough to mention in the article (and maybe in the article of Windows Me). The articles are not especially long. An other idea is to mention (briefly?) the possibility to format floppies with DOS in the Windows NT page. I guess all versions of NT can do it (but with an other DOS before MS-DOS 8). Helpsloose 04:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
No, thats not relevant to Windows. If some one wants information on how to get DOS, why will they look in Windows articles? It belongs in the DOS article, where it is already present. --soum talk 04:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
It should be mentioned in the Windos NT article too, (maybe just a sentence or two) because it is a feature of Windows NT. Helpsloose 04:41, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


Does anyone else have something to say about this? Helpsloose 20:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

The opening section is quite NPOV. It says Vista recieved mixed reception, then goes on only to list criticisms, while completely disregarding any good points (please don't reply that there are none)> How is that "mixed reception"?:

"Windows Vista has received mixed reception. Criticism of Windows Vista has targeted its protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new digital rights management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of device drivers for some hardware, and the usability of other new features such as User Account Control."

162.136.192.1 (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I know its the answer you don't want, but where can I find positive articles or awards about it? Vista's reception, especially its professional reception as reported by computer magazines, is largely and almost exclusively negative. That is why it is the negative points which are mentioned. Its almost a give that some people like it, so that is why it says "mixed", rather than "negative", in hopes of keeping NPOV. Althepal (talk) 19:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it was the same back at the beginning of March, but if you Google "Windows Vista review", out of the eight main links, five are positive, two are negative, and one is a dupe.
Here are the links, for reference:
Positive:
Windows Vista Review in Paul Thurrott's SuperSite For Windows, by Paul Thurrott, Nov 6 - Dec 31 2006
Windows Vista in PC Magazine by John Clyman, 29 Jan 2007
Windows Vista in TrustedReviews by Jonathan Bray, 30 Jan 2007
Windows Vista review in bit-tech.net by Wil Harris, 30 Jan 2007
Everything You Need to Know About Windows Vista in PC World by Preston Gralla, 22 Nov 2006
Negative:
Windows Vista Ultimate in ZDNet by Robert Vamosi, 23 Jan 2007 (duplicated in c|net at Windows Vista Ultimate)
Windows Vista review in Software in Review by Jem Matzan, 14 May 2007
Of cause, looking at the front page in Google isn't really usable as a survey of how popular something is, but there are positive reviews out there.
--MarkKB (talk) 22:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I find the use of "mixed" quite charitable. Even Microsoft senior execs seem to be less than impressed with Vista [NY Times]. To me, the article is NPOV because it reads like a sales brochure, or at the very least as if it were written by a microsoft employee. The fact that Vista codename was "Longhorn" before it was announced does not deserve the positional emphasis of being the second line of the article. This article needs a good edit by an outsider to bring out the general perspective, rather than an insider perspective. 22:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I will remove the NPOV tag, since the opening section is now in line with the rest.Trishm (talk) 09:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Uh-huh. Whatever, Trishm. I wrote most of the article, and I don't work for Microsoft, nor have they paid me or advised me in any fashion, or even said so much as a "thanks" for building an article about their operating system. I'm I'm seeing from your edits that you aren't actually here to promote a "neutral" view, rather to push an anti-Vista view. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last. This may be difficult for you to wrap your head around, but there really is a difference between "information", and "sales brochure". The amount of new stuff in Vista is vast; there's a very good reason why it had to expand out to half a dozen articles. In order for this article to be reasonably complete, we have to mention a lot of this. Plenty of space has been given to the criticisms and critical reception of Vista, too; we're talking a third of the article here. That's plenty.
Also, the reason Longhorn is mentioned in the lead is because this was the name the operating system was known for for four years before it got its official name. -/- Warren 15:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Please don't take offence, you've done a nice job. The "brochure" comment was about style, in particular positional emphasis, rather than content. What I mean is that the inner workings and the intention behind the software has been emphasised over what the software actually does. This would involve moving things around rather than changing or deleting. The lead paragraph should be answering the unspoken question: "What is Vista, and what is most important about it?" In the second line of an article, I would expect to see a defining characteristic of Vista, rather than a historical detail, interesting and important though it is. As for being NPOV, I'm not sure that my edits distorted the facts, or emphasised them unduly over other facts. NPOV is about lack of distortion, rather than "good" balanced with "bad". Trishm (talk) 22:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
To me, the article is NPOV because it reads like a sales brochure... Sounding like a sales brochure makes it not NPOV. NPOV (Neutral Point Of View) is what we want. Koro Neil —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.213.202 (talk) 06:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Vista is the best, so everyone who doesn't like it should shut up. You stuppid Luddites. When will you get with the times and start to worship Bill Gates for the genius he is? You are backwards laggards and you cannot deal with new technology. There is little justification for you to exist if you dislike Vista. 66.31.42.120 (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is well written, better than the XP one, I think. It is balanced. Well done. Keep up the good work.

One should bear in mind that not all negative criticism is from knowledgeable professionals: computer magazines are notorious spouters of ignorance, after all, these are only journalists who know bugger all and have little time for research. Computer professionals do not bother wasting money on PC magazines for a reason. Even MSVPs are not that clued up half the time.

For example, this article quotes to the effect that Vista impacts people who "regularly reinstall windows", yet no one in their right mind does this ever, only idiots and looneys.

Most of the criticism of Vista centered around pre-release versions (often running in VMs) and the early months of release when drivers were hard to come by. People installing Vista, say, October 2007, would have had bugger all problems, if they had mainstream hardware and software (less than 3 years old) and used Windows Update.

A number of major programs not working properly under XP for years (because they wrongly assumed all users to be admins) now work properly for the first time under Vista thanks to UAC and virtualisation.

Personally, Vista is outperforming XP for me on the same hardware (nearly 3 years old) and observation with Virtual Machines indicates it is very good at rescaling its ambitions to perform on limited hardware. It seems to run faster with Aero enabled, probably because the CPU is no longer processing the video (the GPU is instead)(?)

Critics of UAC, not being familiar with proper maintenance principles, such as build, configure, test, finalise, and backup before use, neglected to mention that the "nagging" only applies when setting up a PC. It hardly ever happens during normal use, and when it does it is absolutely appropriate and easy to live with.

The comment about file copy operations being too slow is grossly exaggerated. Certainly there was never any trouble bringing back hundreds of GB of data in my experience, including files of 8-50GB in size. You should probably check out the "Coding Horror" blog for an explanation of 'perception vs reality' on this one.

One should also bear in mind that a lot of criticism comes from certain sectors not others: games players have been adversely affected by the inability of some soundcard manufacturers to support their product under the new architecture. Business and non-gaming home users do not have this problem. A lot of "professionals" hold negative opinions because they have no experience and their "knowledge" is net-rumour (this is a common disease in the industry): they repeat the gossip they read in newsgroups and magazines rather than actually test and use the technology. People who rip DVDs and CDs are vulnerable to the rumour that Vista blocks this (it doesn't). etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.222.182 (talk) 19:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

One thing: Most "rumors" are verified by many people, and only the lucky ones, like you, don't experience them. Is this a rumor, that Vista doesn't let programs modify their own files in C:\Program Files? Is it true? Not using Vista much, I can't tell from my own experience, but do you have proof otherwise? I'd like to know. How can adding Aero effects improve your performance if the system requirements are higher with Aero? Your 3 year old computer must have been pretty darn good if it can run Vista so well. Your comments about re-installing Windows, though, I strongly disagree with. Windows accumulates problems. I myself had to re-install a Windows XP machine a few months ago because it started getting problems that I couldn't just deal with using regular maintenance (removing startup items, spyware, registry errors, emptying the Recycle Bin, stuff like that). Another XP-based laptop got software issues which would be fixed by a re-install. True, you don't need to regularly re-install for the heck of it, but you probably will need to re-install every year or so to keep things going well. Which is exactly the reason your Vista works so well compared to your previous XP installation: it probably needed maintenance or even a complete re-install to bring performance back. If you would have done a fresh XP install, it would be faster than a fresh Vista install. Althepal (talk) 19:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Althepal, sorry to go against you here but that guy happens to be right. Windows Vista does not degrade over time. I know because I have been using the same installation since January 2007. I surf the web on it every day since then, I have installed at least 10 of the most popular computer games (they use lots of space), Office 2007, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Professional, and many other big programs. My program list is so long I hate to browse through it to find a program installed. I put my popular ones on my desktop or pin it to the start menu. Guess what? Performance is the same. No viruses and no spyware, which are huge pluses for Vista and should be added to the article somewhere. If I have any ideas, I will try to post them here for thoughts. Also, Windows XP would not degrade either unless it got spyware or some badly written programs that caused problems with DLL files. Spyware not removed completely will cause XP to perform less than par. Positively speaking, I have seen Windows XP computers that have been in operation since it came out and it still runs fine. I don't know who wrote it, but it is a good point that only negative points are brought out for attention. In other words, those with no problems keep their mouth shut except for me and very few others I guess. -Chad 23:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by WinCEB (talk • contribs)
That's true, not all installations will noticeably degrade, even after many years. But some do. I have one computer with XP that, after a few years (not just one year in this case) even with maintenance it was just seeming sluggish. Re-installing Windows was recommended by HP support. Although its performance decrease was gradual, the improvement afterwards was noticeable. On another XP install (a laptop), the DVD lost some kind of codec and wouldn't play movies, and re-installing Windows would do the trick. Problems like that just happen, and it is well known that problems like this are most common on Windows computers. With newer, NT based computers it is better than older, DOS based ones, but still. Althepal (talk) 00:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, re-installing is quite common, in secure-ops activities for example, total reformatting and re-install would be advised. I use 2 Vista computers that still run anti-virus (in the 21st century!), so that hints at hidden system corruption (OMG, they even re-scan all files when no one has used the computer; I'm thinking "Vist-duh" but don't tell anyone). Then there's the misunderstanding of Defragmentation: most people don't expect disk compression means shoving all loose library books into any space available on any shelf; they expect a college-dropout billionaire would put all Britannica volumes on one shelf together, ya right (maybe in the 22nd century). Of course computer hardware (for years) has had ample diskspace to collect related files, with free space portioned between them, but most people just reinstall on an empty disk, rather than copy-recopy to join related files into contiguous diskspace. Can you imagine if people turned the key, and the car took 35 seconds to start... (lawsuit "why I was mugged in 35 seconds"). Count 35 some time. Yes, expect re-installing to reduce such delay times, as a valid issue in the article. Then, also consider: who might decide to buy a new computer when theirs began to run much slower...the plot thickens. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

As 124.168.222.182 said: "For example, this article quotes to the effect that Vista impacts people who "regularly reinstall windows", yet no one in their right mind does this ever, only idiots and looneys." Or you are an IT professional. Re-installing Windows is not the answer to every single problem you have. And if removing spyware is an issue for you, don't download it! Problem solved. The spyware you seem to accumulate so often such that you need to constantly re-install Windows is probably what's preventing you emptying the Recycle Bin or deleting start menu items. Go playing in the registry and you're sure to do something you shouldn't eventually. I've been using Windows XP for over 5 years with no issues so bad I had to reinstall it! Does Vista block you from modifying C:\Program Files? By default, yes. Supposedly, it will stop your spyware programs modifying it too. If you don't like it, turn UAC off. "Problems like that just happen, and it is well known that problems like this are most common on Windows computers." In whose "well known"? I get problems, I fix them - like a lot of people - without re-installing Windows. 1 negative comment will overrule 100 positive ones. Evils Dark (talk) 10:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Recommended specifications

The two "references" provided by the apparant "recommended" specifications where nothing more than an editors viewpoint or opinion as to what they believed it should be. This isn't the place to be inserting unofficial and POV material, particularly on an article like this. If I am in error (that being, official and verifying referencing material is found), then please do let me know and revert my removal. Bungle (talk • contribs) 21:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

While I can't say for sure right now (but maybe I could see if Microsoft recommends something), the article really should say somewhere that in order to get decent performance the specs need to be higher than the minimum. Althepal (talk) 21:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
MS does indeed give recommended system requirements (what they call requirements for "Vista Premium Ready") in addition to the minimum requirements; and these are already listed in the article. The column that Bungle (quite rightly) removed was a third column besides those that someone had added, giving their own idea of what you should be running. The 'System requirements' section should rigidly stick to Microsoft as a source. But you're right that there needs to be mention of the criticism that the 'Vista Capable' requirements has come under. And there already is, in the 'Criticism' section, under 'Hardware Requirements'. -- simxp (talk) 22:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I noticed there was a small paragraph in that section which I failed to notice, referencing and describing the prior 3rd column. Whilst I felt inclined to also remove that as it's completely POV, I agree that maybe there should be some sort of mention that the official requirements generally are insufficient for smooth operation and responsiveness. I've amended the sentence to say as much, although i'm not entirely happy with it as it still includes POV material which is frowned upon. Maybe if some others could share their view or improve upon it, or just delete it as well? Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I included this 3rd column that you guys are talking about. I included it because Vista needs at least twice as much hardware than what Microsoft states in "Premium Ready". A user could read MS's requirements, spends hundreds on dollars on this OS, install it on his/her PC and find out that the PC is nearly unusable because it needs a PC at least double the specs that MS states. Some users stated that they don't like the fact that I placed it right next to the two other columns... well then change my title and maybe background color of this new column in order to differentiate it from the other two. But don't just erase it! A single line on the paragraph above is not visible enough for the average reader, that is why it is necessary to be placed inside the table. Also, some users stated that my specs are a matter of opinion rather than official recommendations... well, can anybody write a "recommended hardware specs section" without incurring in some kind of opinion ? Anything else than MS's specs WILL be an opinion, that is why I found two articles written by professionals. VShaka (talk) 13:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not permit original research. You did not necessarily do anything incorrectly, mind you. You state that you found two professional opinions. Provided these met WP:RS and were cited correctly, your actions may very well have been appropriate in adding the information. --Yamla (talk) 13:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The 3rd column was misleading and indeed added in such a way that one wouldn't be blamed for thinking it was in fact officially stated by Microsoft themselves, if a reader were purely after such information (I would bet many readers wishing to find specific information use wiki just for that specific information only, rather than reading an entire article). I did make an amendment to the description text rather than completely remove it, which fits in to an explaination of it being more realistic than the official recommendations, but not officially released as such by Microsoft. Such a 3rd party recommendation should not be merged into the official ones as if they are alike, and I think should clearly be noted they are 3rd party opinions, aside from the actual official ones themselves.
To some extent, this is in fact original research on behalf of the professional opinions, but I am in agreement they are more realistic and would benefit from such inclusion, just not in the manner they had before been presented. A different background colour of the column would be more suitable, although in my opinion it should be aside from the main "official" table of recommendations, but still close enough to be observed easily. Bungle (talk • contribs) 15:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I read both your links and I may conclude that my addition was not "original research" as it was cited as a line in the first paragraph of your link states: "you must cite reliable sources". I think 2 professional opinions from trustworthy web sites like those are good enough. Also, I think it actually fits into "WP:RS" as it fits into the "Claims of consensus" section of that link. Well, I think placing that third column in another table may be suitable and maybe better than inside a third column... or maybe even inside another box-like container ? Regardless, I bet that other people have made similar additions to mine and have been removed for these same reasons but I think it is a necessary addition to correctly inform the user of this product. I was actually quite surprised that an addition like mine was not present in this article! VShaka (talk) 22:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Please reads comments carefully and fully take in what they mean. I don't believe any comment above has suggested "your" addition to be original research, but that the content of such references where, regardless of their worth (which may I add, I do believe they are worthwhile). Their addition to the article is not what is under dispute, but rather the manner in which they were placed, and the ease of confusion and/or misleading they could cause to casual readers, by the way in which they were presented. Although personally, I totally agree with these so called "recommended" specifications and do believe they certainly do serve a purpose, yet they simply cannot be placed in line with actual "official" stated requirements, because they are not "official". Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Bungle: I was just commenting on Yamla's post, nothing more. Anyway, if my post simply needs a title change and a new table/box/container/whatever for it, then why was it "erased", why not simply "edited". Also, we seem to have reached an agreement about how to solve the "problem"... its not my call to revert the deletion. VShaka (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough VShaka, I was just generally speaking as it seemed you were misguided as to what the problem actually was. Regardless, it isn't down to any one person as to whether the info gets put back, or indeed how it does get reinstated if it were to. The debate has largely been between VShaka and myself, although I don't feel comfortable in that being enough as to make a decision on this based on opinions given. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)