psrdirector said:
its going to happen, just like when companies started to abandon stuff for just handling xp, shows how bad vista is that another operating system had to come out before xp started to die.
Vista wasn't at all bad, especially when compared to the fiasco that was XP when it launched. There were problems, certainly but having watched the transition as an IT support professional, the problems with Vista were generally relegated to a short list:
1) Vista looked different than XP. There is nothing an end user hates more than having to learn how to do something again.
2) Initially, there was somewhat lackluster developer support in key areas. It took 6 months to get a driver set that allowed SLI to work with my set of video cards.
3) Most people purchase the cheapest computer they find in a store, or at least the cheapest one that "looks" fancy. This meant many early adopters purchased systems that were only marginally more powerful than their XP systems and the performance advantage was destroyed by the higher operating requirements of Vista.
4) People really like to participate in a conversation even if they don't actually know anything useful. After hearing stories about the problems of the Vista launch, the public perception became "Vista is awful" and avoided it like the plague. This eventually became the story of the OS.
Of those problems, only the first is actually the fault of the OS. The fault for the rest goes to various third party companies. Yes, there were other problems along the way, but compared to past OS launches, Vista was exceptionally stable out of the gate.
To me, the Win7 launched always seemed to be an effort to change the story of Vista. Functionally, fundamentally, most of the bits of 7 are right out of Vista. It has virtually the same look and feel as it's predecessor. It has very nearly identical operating requirements. What it does not have is that absolutely cursed name that Vista is dragging around wherever it goes. It seemed more like a relaunch of Vista than a new OS. Sure, they still expected money in return for the upgrade, but truth be told this really didn't affect as many people as you might expect. As of a month ago (the last time I needed to check) you could
still purchase a new system from Dell with XP installed. And that is precisely what most people I ever encountered chose to do.
