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Time:
18:22 EST/23:22 GMT | News Source:
CNET |
Posted By: Robert Stein |
After months of searching for ways to defend its oft-maligned Windows operating system, Microsoft may just have found its best weapon: Vista's skeptics.
Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.
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#1 By
23275 (68.186.182.236)
at
7/24/2008 6:38:47 PM
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I've seen the exact same reaction among simple business meetings where we're demoing software and services we provide.
Customers regularly make remarks like:
"What is that?"
"What kind of computer is that?"
"That is the fastest computer I have ever seen!"
"That's cool!"
"Oh!"
and yes, "Wow!" In fact, "Wow" is the most frequently heard remark we hear, but it's not necessarily about Windows, Office, or our own wares, but more to the total platform they are speaking and what it enables.
It does not surprise me at all, that Vista garners such a positive response. Once you show people how easy it is to find and organize information, and how much easier it is to connect to networks and devices, Vista does "wow" people. Once they understand it is Vista, then a great many of them express surprise.... where they say: "but those ads on TV...?"
MS let its partners take quite the hit by failing to address this sooner and most especially by failing to explain why UAC was necessary and how it would change how they interact with their computers.
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#2 By
82766 (202.154.80.82)
at
7/24/2008 7:33:53 PM
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I couldn't agree more.
I hope their Marketing company some how gets parts of the Mojave videos into the TV ad's.
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#3 By
131183 (198.185.18.207)
at
7/25/2008 8:31:42 AM
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"We've secretly switched their regular coffee with Folger's Crystals. Let's watch!"
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#4 By
2960 (70.177.180.170)
at
7/25/2008 9:05:14 AM
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Look, Vista isn't bad. But it still sufferes from performance issues that continue to need work.
The enthusiast community will NEVER forgive this. Not gonna happen.
Microsoft, IMHO, made a couple of HUGE mistakes in Vista, most of which effect enthusiasts and high-end gamers:
1. Overall Performance. Please don't blow smoke up my ass and tell me it's faster than XP. It isn't. I use both, side by side, and I KNOW the difference.
2. Network performance is still shit. Don't tell me it isn't.
3. Audio. Microsoft hosed everyone with the removal of DirectX support for hardware audio. DUMB!
I have absolutely NO problems with Vista STABILITY. Hell, even most drivers are up to snuff now. But the above three items are what is causing the real ruckus in the enthusiasts community.
TL
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#5 By
2960 (70.177.180.170)
at
7/25/2008 9:05:58 AM
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Wow. A post actually succeeded. I guess AW is intermittently ok these days.
This place is getting messy boys. Where is that retrofit?
TL
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#6 By
3746 (72.12.161.38)
at
7/25/2008 10:47:15 AM
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#4
Most issues with speed have been resolved with driver releases. If you are talking about games Vista is just as fast (and in some cases faster) then XP running on the same configuration. Plus the inclusion of superfetch make Vista respond quicker especially if you give it the RAM to make use of it. The same thing happened when XP came out. I remember gamers freaking because XP was slower then Win98. Over time the drivers and system matured and XP got faster.
We have been doing quite a bit of testing on workstation level systems at the one client I work for because they are going to be moving to Uingraphics NX v.5 which finally has a 64 bit version. In our testing Vista x64 and XP x64 we have found no real difference in use on test systems with identical configs. On my own system Vista x64 boots and in general use feels faster then XP on the same system. But my system is pretty heavy duty and has plenty of resources for Vista to stretch it's legs.
This post was edited by kaikara on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 10:48.
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#7 By
54556 (67.131.75.22)
at
7/25/2008 12:53:29 PM
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humiliating one's customers...most certainly a tried and true method of bolstering sales...
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#8 By
23275 (68.186.182.236)
at
7/26/2008 8:11:38 AM
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#7, NotMe, that is a good point you have... the original Folgers commercial was pulled from ost markets, and quickly, because few found it cute. Most didn't feel insulted - mos men that is... women, who were the target for the spot were pretty hacked off at the time (for two reasons). One half felt the ad simply dimeaned them and the other half simply thought that they would not be caught dead doing anything short of "cooking" their coffee. Back then stove-top perculators were common (I haven't had a great cup of coffee since, by the way).
Anyway... good point... MS won't use 'all' footage, and instead they will likely use the information only. Hopefully they'll have some people old enough to remember the ad.
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#9 By
82766 (122.107.48.75)
at
7/28/2008 4:49:50 AM
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Larry...
This is not a rebuttal of your personal experiences... just what I have seen with Vista (at home and at work) on exactly the same hardware and on the same networks.
As a baseline, I timed various daily activities I do during my admin job on XP before I moved 100% across to Vista.
1. You are correct, Vista is not faster than XP but Vista is doing MORE with those same processor cycles than XP does. I wrote a heap of stuff here but I decided to delete it, just far too much text :)
2. Network performance for me is the same or faster* than XP. *Faster - certain tasks that I performed on XP, are now around 5-10% faster under Vista - nothing really to talk about IMHO. I have yet to find any daily task (file copies, server-to-pc-to-server, server-to-pc-to-usb-storage, etc) that are slower under Vista than XP.
Of course, due to various networking limitations enforced upon me, I have turned off Vista's MTU auto-tuning features - although this is a great feature on a correctly configured network, IMHO, its this feature that causes a lot of people's "Vista is slow on networks" problems.
3. Audio... yes well, a lot of people have complained about this one. Graphics and audio drivers were the number one culprits of creating BSODs. Customer's wanted less BSODs. Microsoft decided the only method was a new driver model.
This HAS already reduced BSODs but as a down side, the audio manufacturers have actually lagged even further behind with their drivers, than the graphics manufacturers. If you really read up about the new audio sub-system, you'll find it IS far superior to the previous audio system with less load on the CPU... unfortunately, the drivers just are not up to scratch for the hardware thats been around for the past 3-5 years... YET.
To me the bottom line is... with all the complaints people are having, if they stick with XP, they WILL experience MORE problems when they move to Windows 7... and that is going to cause even MORE complaints in a couple of years.
This post was edited by MyBlueRex on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 04:52.
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