Vista - Panelists Praise Vista Performance, Despite the 'Pain'

by Herb Torrens
08 October 2008

A Microsoft Springboard Virtual Roundtable on Tuesday examined Windows Vista performance, fielding technical views from some panelists that had actually carried out system upgrades. The general opinion among the group was that Service Pack 1 for Vista had transformed the much-maligned operating system into an ideal solution for enterprise IT managers.
Mark Russinovich, technical fellow in the Core Operating Systems Division at Microsoft, hosted a seven-member panel of industry experts. It was the third session in a Microsoft series that features live, online discussions about Windows Vista.
Ironically, the seven-member panel spent much of the time (over an hour) discussing shortfalls -- hardware limitations, driver support, and setup and misconfiguration issues -- that have plagued Vista installs.
Despite those frustrations, the real problem is user expectations, which form the core of misconceptions about Vista, according to panel member Michael Boyd, a platform systems engineer for a financial services organization.

Redmond Developer News | Panelists Praise Vista Performance, Despite the 'Pain'

I remember family members,who installed Vista within a month of release,and complained bitterly that it lacked certain driver support.Printers,graphic cards,being amongst the most hardened complaints.But with the release of Service Pack 1,a lot of those issues had gone away.When I bought my new laptop,over six weeks ago,I had no such issues,so Microsoft are improving all the time.However,it is not Microsoft's fault if manufacturors fail to write the appropriate driver codes,after having long trials with Vista,pre public release,then complain.

Let us hope (please),that before Windows 7 "is out",that MS,and the appropriate hardware companies,have a good,long,productive meeting,and prevent such early chaos from happening again.

If they don't the same BS is going to happen regardless of how good Windows 7 may be.

To many people trying to install new OS's on and with ****ty computers with really out of date printers, faxes, etc.

You need to do your research on drivers before installing a new OS. I replaced a lot of hardware to go to Vista x64 Ultimate. I also upgraded my hardware.

Same here. I only had one piece of hardware not work in Vista, that was an old TV tuner card that I never used, so it was not a big deal. It seems that a lot of people do not do research at all when it comes to software and hardware compatibility.

Everybody blames Microsoft when it comes to hardware compatibility when it is usually the vendors fault that some thing does not work. I myself have known about Vista since it was named Longhorn (as have a lot of people) so I am sure that hardware vendors knew about it as well. That was in 2003 I believe... Anyway, that is more then enough time to plan and make drivers for existing software as well as new hardware for Vista. In the end, it is the customers responsibility to make sure everything will work well together. And again, the customer is complaining that it doesn't work. It is really one really big circle of crap, lol.

/rant