I must say that I enjoyed Kennedy’s rants somehow even though I strongly disagreed with most of his views. It is a pity that we probably will have to do without Kennedy’s Windows bashing articles in the future, because InfoWorld publicly announced that Kennedy will not be writing for them anymore because of “a serious breach of trust.” They discovered that Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software (aka exo.performance.network), and Randall C. Kennedy are the same person.

Devil Mountain Software was Kennedy’s favorite source when he attempted to prove how badly new Windows versions performed. He probably went a little too far when he tried to launch a Windows 7 bashing campaign (falsely) claiming that 86% of Windows 7 machines are consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM.

What I find interesting is that it was only his deception with regard to his identity that caused this “breach of trust.” It was no secret that there was a connection between Kennedy and Devil Mountain Software. In his Vista bashing article he wrote:

I’ve run the tests (repeatedly). I have the hard numbers. (You can see the full range of my results at exo.performance.network)

with which he tried to prove that

Windows Vista is a bloated pig of an operating system.

It was also quite obvious that he was on a personal campaign against Microsoft which dated back to Windows NT times when he was prevented from publishing benchmark results in Network World (according to Wikipedia; citation need).  lost a lawsuit against Microsoft. His articles were always full of subjective, emotion- and expletive-laden expressions. Hence, I wonder how there could be any kind of trust in an author whose main intentions were so obviously of a personal nature?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against writers who have no reservations about expressing their opinion in clear words. What I find questionable is when well respected journals publish articles that seem to be an objective analysis but are in reality only personal vendettas. If this happens in a blog, even if it is a blog for a magazine, then readers can easily distinguish between subjective opinion and an objective report.

Randall C. Kennedy is certainly not the only Microsoft basher, although he is probably the most famous one out there. In many cases there are personal interests behind these reports. Thus it is important not to take these allegedly objective analyses, benchmarks, or vulnerability statistics too seriously. Sometimes a competitor is a sponsor, or it is just to get publicity, and sometimes it is disguised marketing (for a security product for example).

• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)
• The risks of skipping Windows Vista (8)

I have been a Vista advocate since its first beta version. In my view, it was a milestone release only comparable to Windows 3.0, Windows 95 and Windows NT 4. Windows 3.0 was the first Windows that really worked. Windows 95 introduced a new interface concept, Windows NT brought stability, and Windows Vista security. All other Windows releases were just feature packs. It is typical for all milestone releases that they caused a lot of trouble in the beginning and required significantly more hardware resources than their predecessors. Nevertheless, from a technical point of view they were much more important than the other releases. The server version Windows 2000 was a milestone release too, but we are talking about desktop operating systems here.

Anyway, I think, the final word on these matters belongs to the 4sysops readers. What could be more revealing than the operating system shares among 4sysops readers? I must say that I was quite surprised when I generated the statistics with Google Analytics.

The general distribution among operating systems is not a surprise, though:

These are the numbers from September. This corresponds more or less to the world wide market shares of those operating systems. The operating systems under “Others” are mobile devices, which are mostly iPhones (0.33%) followed by Windows Mobile (0.21%).

Okay, but now the more interesting part: How many Vista users are among 4sysops readers? The best Vista month I could find was December 2008:

Of course, Vista’s market share among IT pros is much bigger than among average users, which is now approximately 20%. However, these numbers are still disappointing for me. It is close, yes, but Vista definitely lost that match. I never believed that so many IT pros are still using XP. After December 2008, Vista’s share was declining rapidly because of Windows 7. These are the numbers from August 2009:

If you want to know how fast Windows 7 is catching up, this is the September 2009 data:

Almost every fourth 4sysops reader is already using Windows 7. This is amazing considering that Windows 7 is not even available for retail customers. It is also interesting to note that the number of XP users is staying stable. Just to give you an idea how significant this data is: 4sysops currently has 230,000 page views and 150,000 visits per month.

Well, the voting is over. The sad truth (for me) is that Vista never surpassed XP. Obviously, the majority of Windows admins don’t share my view about Vista. I suppose I have to live with this defeat.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)
• The risks of skipping Windows Vista (8)

1. Windows 7 is great

You probably think that since Vista was such a mess and Windows 7 is so great, your decision to skip Vista was a wise one. The contrary is true. The major reason why Windows 7 is so great is because it builds on Vista. You could have had many of the great Windows 7 features long ago.

2. What is Windows 7?

You probably will never really be able to answer this question. If you move directly from Windows XP to Windows 7, you won’t be able to tell if a new feature was introduced with Vista or Windows 7. Whenever you log on to a Vista machine, you will be confused because many things are similar, but some are different. This is embarrassing for an IT pro. Let’s hope that in the future you never have to work for an organization that still has Vista.

3. You are left behind

Perhaps you played a little with Vista. But using an operating system on your own computer every day is a different thing. This is how IT pros learn to internalize how an OS has to be managed. You can’t learn this from a book. The majority of IT pros are now ahead of you. It will take a while for you to catch up since you now have to learn the Vista and Windows 7 features all at once.

4. You missed all the good trouble

Yes, it is true that in the beginning, Vista broke many applications and device drivers were either unavailable or half-baked. This made countless IT pros around the world sweat and curse. You should envy them. During this time, they have learned more about PC troubleshooting than ever before in their lives. A soldier who has never been in combat can hardly make a military career. An IT pro who managed to get Vista running properly is certainly very valuable for any organization.

5. You missed an important chapter in IT history

I don’t remember a time when an operating system was as passionately debated as Vista. History will tell if Microsoft’s decision to focus almost completely on security was good for the IT community or not. One thing is for sure, though, you didn’t really play a role in this chapter of IT history. Perhaps you took part in the debates, but someone who hasn’t really used this OS doesn’t have a say. This important chapter in IT history just passed you by.

6. Lack of bashing flu antibodies

Shorty after Vista was released, the Vista bashing flu was spreading from journalist brain to journalist brain, and many IT pros willingly got themselves infected. After trying Vista for a week or two, they downgraded to XP and proudly told everyone who wanted to hear it that Vista really is a mess, just like everyone says. Come on, how can you get to know an operating system in a week when it was developed over five years by several thousand engineers? I also know some IT pros who kept using Vista and didn’t change their minds. That is okay. They proved themselves to have bashing-flu antibodies in their brains because they didn’t fall for impression-motivated, anti-Microsoft-campaigns driven by the IT yellow press. You probably lack these antibodies.

7. Windows XP worked just fine

There is no doubt that this argument was abused most often in discussions about Vista. Of course, XP was the best desktop OS of its time, and so were Windows 2000 and Windows NT. And of course, they all worked just fine when their successors were released. To use this as an argument against a new operating system is the worst sin an IT pro can commit. If everything works just fine, nobody really needs you. This argument can be used against any kind of innovation. Heck, our business is to make those things work that aren’t working fine. Besides, as mentioned above, Vista mainly was a security release and an operating system that is significantly less secure than its successor doesn’t really work fine. Let’s just hope that the XP machines in your network don’t belong to one of these fast growing botnets.

You feel remorse now? Okay, one has to be able to forgive. Go and get Windows 7 as fast as you can.

You still don’t regret it? Tell me your reasons why skipping Vista was such a good idea!

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)
• The risks of skipping Windows Vista (8)

A recent Computerworld article gave me a good start. According to research institutions, in particular Gartner, Vista is doing better in businesses than XP had by this time. I have blogged this already a year ago. At that time I contacted Gartner and asked for data about Vista’s adoption rate. It turned out that Vista installations (not just sales) were outperforming those of XP after its release. If I could access these data so easily, then any journalist obviously would have had the same possibilities. But bashing Vista was en vogue, and nobody was really interested in such hard facts. Everyone wanted to be a part of the big anti-Vista community. As a journalist, blogger, or the local town crier, you couldn’t be wrong if you slapped Vista. The harder you slapped, the more applause you would gain from the bloodthirsty crowds.

Now we are seeing just the opposite reaction. Windows 7 is everyone’s darling. Even severe security issues are downplayed by the media. I think this behavior is a phenomenon that should interest every mass psychology researcher.

Most people just tend to parrot what they have heard elsewhere, without thinking for a minute if it really makes sense. The swine flu hysteria is another good example. Everyone was convinced that the world faces a big threat, but now nobody is interested in the topic anymore, even though there are more infected people out there than ever. You can’t blame the media alone for this, because they just report what their audience wants to hear. Rest assured that if the swine flu virus could have been spread through the media like the economic downturn hysteria virus, then we would have really had a worldwide pandemic.

At the time of this writing, the sentence “Windows 7 is what Vista should have been” gets 1090 hits and “Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been” 5350 in Google. This is not too bad for a complete sentence. It classifies as what Richard Dawkins coined by the word “meme“, which is nothing else than a brain virus. Every “good” Windows journalist or blogger has to write this sentence at least once, otherwise the crowds don’t accept him or her as an expert in these matters. I have no doubt that these numbers will boost, as soon as Windows 7 is available in the shops and the rest of the mass media start parroting what specialist journalists have discovered already in their thorough investigations.

From a technical point of view, this sentence is just plain nonsense. Of course, Windows 7 is the best operating system that Microsoft has ever produced. This is no wonder, simply because it is their latest OS. However, if you compare the importance of Vista’s innovations to those in Windows 7, then you have to admit that Windows 7 is just Windows Vista with a few additional gimmicks. Don’t get me wrong – I love most of Windows 7′s new gimmick features. Considering that Microsoft only had about two years to get them out, they did a great a job. The same high-paid developers had more than five years for Vista. It is hard to believe that their skills improved in the way that some journalists want to make us believe.

And this other widespread brain infection – that “Microsoft listened” to its customers – certainly can’t be the cause either. Of course, they always “listen” because this is the best way to earn their money in the future. I mean, do you really believe that Microsoft can afford to create software that nobody wants to buy? They don’t have the luxury of Open Source programmers who can just write software for the applause of their own little community.

Perhaps the only time Microsoft listened, in a more literal sense, was when they radically changed their strategy, as one Internet worm after the other crashed Windows XP. Microsoft more or less stopped their work on Vista and concentrated on SP2 for Windows XP to improve its security. Then they dropped quite a few gimmick features in Vista and focused on rebuilding Windows’ security structure. Yes, indeed, Windows Vista was what Windows XP should have been. Vista was Microsoft’s first operating system where security mattered more than anything else. Yes, Microsoft really “listened” to all its critics at this time, in a very literal sense. Well, as we all know, it didn’t gain them the applause they had hoped for.

With Windows 7, Microsoft returned to their old habits. They give the journalists the gimmicks they can easily understand, so they have something to write about in their positive reviews. I think, if there hadn’t been the Vista bashing hysteria, that Microsoft would not have rebranded Vista and Windows 7 would be just Windows Vista SP3. Perhaps there would be fewer gimmicks in this OS update and instead we would see some solid improvements in UAC. But Microsoft had no time for that, because they needed to get a positive press as soon possible. Thus, from a marketing point of view, Windows 7 really is what Vista should have been.

But the gimmicks are not the only reason for Windows 7′s marketing success. The main reason, and this might sound a little contradictory now, is that Vista paved the way for Windows 7. The Vista bashing wave began rolling only because of one reason: compatibility. Restructuring the operating system caused countless software compatibility issues. Of course, this was unavoidable, even though Microsoft did their best to remedy the effects. Time solved this problem, because software vendors sluggishly followed Microsoft. The second compatibility issue was missing device drivers and the high hardware demands that made Vista “incompatible” with most PCs when it was released. This was also unavoidable, because every new operating system had significantly higher hardware demands than its predecessor. It was always like this. The fact that this isn’t the case with Windows 7 only proves that it is not a new operating system version, but just a great service pack.

Therefore, it is not that Microsoft has adapted Windows 7 to the demands of the crowds – it is the environment that has adapted to Vista. So, in this very trivial sense, Windows 7 is what Vista should have been: Windows 7 is Vista! It is just that the journalists are writing now what they should have written two years ago. Hence, they “listened” and just adapted to Vista.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)
• The risks of skipping Windows Vista (8)

This feature is yet another tiny Windows enhancement that is particularly interesting for IT pros. To use it, all you have to do is right-click on an ISO image and select “burn disc image.” Of course, there are also free ISO burning tools for Windows XP and Vista. My favorite is ISO Recorder. It basically performs the same function as the ISO burning feature of Windows 7, so you might say you don’t really need this Windows 7 feature.

I often hear similar arguments from Vista’s detractors. Windows XP already does the job, so why upgrade my hardware to run Vista or Windows 7? Just for a screenshot utility or an ISO burning tool that I can get for free, anyway?

In my opinion, this argument is fundamentally flawed. Of course one such feature does not justify the costs of a Windows upgrade, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of machines in your network. The point is, of course, that every new Windows version includes countless similar improvements that increase the productivity of end users and IT pros.

Vista certainly has many more of these little improvements than Windows 7 does. They are so numerous that they are hard to count. Many of these features are available as third party tools for Windows XP. However, they are not all free. And have you thought about the time you would need to find, install and update them?

You also have to take into account that end users will only learn about the usefulness of many of Vista’s and Windows 7′s enhancements once you have upgraded the XP machines in your network. I have no doubt that Vista and Windows 7 will improve the productivity of every PC in your organization.

Of course, all of these tiny enhancements make Windows an even fatter operating system. But, as I have said before, there is nothing wrong with a bloated OS, because every new bit improves its productivity. This is the reason why I am not just a PC. I am a fat PC!

If you don’t believe my arguments, I recommend working with a Windows 2000, or, even better, Windows NT 4 machine for a week or so. If you are still convinced that nowadays a modern user only needs a web browser to accomplish all kinds of tasks, then you can stay “slim PC” until the letters on your keyboard are barely readable.

This might sound like sponsored text, but I am not getting paid for articles like this. I’m just expressing my humble opinion. Long-term readers of this blog know that I am not afraid to criticize Microsoft whenever I am in the mood for it. The fact that I have been honored with an MVP award hasn’t changed my disposition at all.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• The risks of skipping Windows Vista (8)

I have summarized the main risks outlined in Gartner’s paper.

Windows 7’s release date unsure

It is uncertain when Windows 7 RTM will be available. Most likely, it will be released in the first half of 2010. However, Microsoft might once again postpone the release of a new Windows version. Therefore, it is not really possible to plan when you will finally get rid of Windows XP.

Windows 7 stability uncertain

Even if Windows 7 is released at the beginning of 2010, it will take time to tell whether it is stable. Most organizations will deploy Windows 7 only by 2012. Can you wait this long?

ISVs will drop support for Windows XP

Independent software vendors (ISVs) will begin to drop support for Windows XP in early 2010, and, by 2012, most ISVs won’t support XP anymore. As for OEM support for Windows XP, in 2009 only 80% of OEMs will fully support XP, and by 2010 this number will possibly have dropped to only 50 or 60%.

Pressure to deploy Windows 7 too early

If you skip Vista, you will be forced to deploy Windows 7 sooner or later, because ISVs and OEMs will not support XP anymore. Unfortunately, many ISVs will not yet support Windows 7. You will then run into the same problems as those organizations who adopted Windows Vista too early.

Budget problems

Deploying Windows 7 might require upgrading some of your applications, which will increase costs. The necessary budget for new hardware and software licenses might not be available at the time when migration to Windows 7 is unavoidable.

Additional Windows license costs

As soon as Windows 7 is available, you probably will have to buy Vista licenses to be able to install XP on new PCs. When you then upgrade to Windows 7 you will have to buy additional Windows 7 licenses. If, instead of XP, you deploy Vista on new PCs, you will be able to buy Windows 7 licenses, which will include downgrade rights to Vista, but probably not to XP.

Vista’s availability may end too early

If Vista licenses can’t be bought anymore before you are ready to deploy Windows 7 it may be impossible to legally install XP on new PCs.

From my perspective, this all sounds very reasonable. The main argument of Vista detractors is that Windows XP works just fine. The problem is that this might change soon. You might feel that is unlikely that there will be software or hardware that won’t work with XP anytime soon. However, “working with” and “being supported by” are two different things. What if you have a major problem with an important application, but your software vendor tells you that they can’t help because you are running it on Windows XP? Skipping a Windows version has always caused problems. I doubt that it will be any different this time.

However, I also agree with Gartner that small organizations able to perform a forklift migration (replace all PCs at once) could save costs. For them, it will be a matter of not missing the right point in time.

I’d like to add two more arguments. First of all, I am convinced that it makes sense to migrate to Vista, simply because it is a great operating system. Windows 7 has a couple of interesting new features, but it is basically an evolutionary release. The important changes, especially the new security model, the improved user interface, and the new imaging capabilities, are all Vista developments.

Secondly, if your organization skips Vista, you will be hopelessly left behind as an IT pro. This will not be good for you or for your organization. Once you do deploy Windows 7, you will have to learn all of the Vista stuff, plus the Windows 7 enhancements, in a very short time. This will mean stress and a higher risk of error. And, if you do skip Vista, and end up changing employers before 2012, you’d better make sure that you only apply to organizations who also didn’t like Vista.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)

Even though Infoworld tries to keep the Windows-slapping business alive, I somehow doubt that the media will bash Windows 7 because their readers are already tired of this topic. Perhaps more important is that the user experience of Windows 7 will be better. The most significant improvement in Vista is the new security model. It was also one of the main reasons why the Vista-bashing wave started rolling in. It caused numerous compatibility issues, which resulted in user frustration – the perfect breeding ground for the anti-Vista meme virus. Since Microsoft did most of the dirty work in Vista, they can focus again on new end-user-related features, which makes the media happy because they have something to write about.

However, from a technical point of view, things probably won’t really change with the release of Windows 7. It will certainly not be more compatible with Windows XP than Vista. Windows 7 is just Windows Vista with quite a few additional features. Most media sources write that Windows 7 won’t cause new compatibility problems, but I am not convinced. The fact that Microsoft made some major changes to the Windows kernel makes me suspicious. So, we will only know more about compatibility when Microsoft releases a public beta of Windows 7. Furthermore, there are still many compatibility issues with Vista. Read this revealing article at apc about Vista driver woes. These problems won’t go away with Windows 7.

Microsoft is quite aware of the fact that hardware and software compatibility was the main reason for Vista’s marketing disaster. It is obvious that they are working hard not to repeat the mistake. They are pushing third parties to do their homework, too. The fact that there will only be one compatible-with-Windows 7 logo demonstrates this. But this is only what we see on the surface. The other question is whether Microsoft’s efforts will be successful.

I think the only mistake Microsoft made with Vista was that they underestimated the size of their own ecosystem. Vista’s beta’s phase was extremely long, and so they expected that all third parties would have had enough time to adapt their drivers and applications. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. The number of third parties is certainly much bigger than when Windows XP was released. There will always be hardware and software vendors who can’t match Microsoft’s pace. Thus, the only way will be to introduce compatibility affecting innovations in smaller doses. I think this is what we will see now with Windows 7. Perhaps that is another reason why Windows 7 will be coming out much earlier than expected. Five years between two major OS releases is much too long nowadays.

It also sets high expectations and increases the tension in the Windows community, which makes it more likely that it will be perceived as a failure if there are no real “wow features”. Smaller release intervals give the media less time to decide whether they should bash or praise a new operating system because they will be too busy speculating about new features and release dates. Once the user feedback comes in, the next version is already on track, which makes it boring to bash the old one. One of the reasons why Vista bashing stopped in the media is because everyone is now focused on Windows 7.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)

The hard facts of the Forrester survey are that 8.8% of 50,000 enterprise users are running Windows Vista on their PCs and 87.1% Windows XP. Now, I am asking where is the connection to sugar water? Did those 87.1% decide to stay with XP because Vista didn’t taste sweet enough? Or do these enterprise users just use the Windows version that their IT departments installed on their PCs?

You might object that IT managers made this decision, which makes it even more obvious that Vista tastes bitter. However, the real flaw in this comparison is that the success of an operating system has to be measured by completely different means. The heading of my article makes this point clear. Heck, 8.8% Vista installations in large and very large enterprises after only 18 months is indeed a success for Microsoft.

To change your favorite sugar water brand costs you only a few steps to the next shelf in the super market. I wished it were that easy when changing a desktop operating system. It is a matter of fact that the size of the organization correlates with the efforts required to move to a new desktop OS. I wonder why Forrester only interviewed enterprise users. Perhaps this was necessary to get a single-figure result?

If you have read my series about the Vista vs. Windows XP issue, you already know what I think about Microsoft’s latest desktop OS. Yup, there is no doubt that I am a Vista fan boy. But what do you think would have been the result if Forrester had interviewed the users in my organization? Well, I can tell you that far less than 8.8% would have responded to use Vista. It certainly depends on your environment, but deploying a new desktop OS requires many preparations. It also depends on the amount of time administrators have to prepare the infrastructure for the change.

This is certainly not new information. It is not the first time that Microsoft has come out with a new desktop OS. Thus, if you really want to know how well Vista is doing in the corporate sector, you shouldn’t compare it to the sales figures of sugar water, but to the adoption rate of its predecessor, Windows XP. According to Gartner’s data 13% of business PCs will run Vista by the end of 2008. Considering that already 8.8% PCs large and of very large enterprises have Vista installed by now, it is quite likely that this prediction is correct. I guess that if one includes small and mid-sized businesses, Vista’s share already exceeded 10% by now. One has to take into account here that the overall number of employees in SMBs is much bigger than those of large enterprises, simply because there are many more SMBs.

Hence, it is a matter of fact that Vista has outperformed XP sales in a comparable time period. Two years after its release XP was installed on 10% of all business PCs. Vista has reached this mark already after 18 months. This is indeed surprising, considering that migrating a desktop OS is much more complicated nowadays than it was seven years ago. The overall complexity of IT infrastructures undoubtedly increased tremendously since the release of Windows XP.

How come that people judge the same kind of data differently? My latest theory is that a meme-based Vista bashing virus is spreading through the Internet. Especially intelligent analysts who dislike Microsoft are infected easily. This virus makes them see what they want to see, i.e. that Vista is a failure for Microsoft. The “Mojave experiment” makes this more than obvious. If you let Vista skeptics try Vista without telling them what OS they are actually using, they give a positive feedback. I wonder what conclusion Forrester’s analysts would draw, if you present the same adoption rates of Vista and XP without telling them what products they are actually evaluating.

Anyway, Vista is a cash cow for Microsoft. This is the real surprise. It seems that the Vista bashing virus can’t prevent people from buying Windows.

Further reading:

• Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista
• The ‘Forrester Experiment’

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)

Here are the numbers I received from Gartner: PC Installed Base by Operating System, Worldwide

Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. The market share of Windows XP Professional was 10% after approximately two years. Windows Vista was available to business customers on November 8, 2006 and was available to the public on January 30, 2007. If Gartner’s prediction is correct, then Windows Vista Business will be installed on 13% of all PCs worldwide at the end of 2008. This means that the adoption rate of Vista will be a little faster than that for XP following its release. The same applies to the consumer versions.

According to the data in my poll, the situation looks a little better for Vista because 17% of my readers have already started moving to Vista and 12% plan to do so in 2008. Note that in my poll, I didn’t ask about the number of PCs running Vista. Starting with a deployment does not imply that all PCs in an organization run Vista.

Anyway, these numbers indicate that all the gossip about Vista’s failure is just nonsense. If Vista is a failure, then XP is one as well, because it was not adopted any faster. I am quite fascinated by how this gossip spreads on the Internet. Take this new InfoWeek article as an example. The author, Paul McDougall, refers to a Symantec executive who said that

…only a small percentage of the security software company’s large enterprise customers have upgraded their corporate PCs to Vista.

So, only a “small percentage” have upgraded to Vista? Could I have some concrete numbers, please? A “small percentage” probably refers only to the personal assessment of this Symantec executive. Maybe he expected or hoped that more of Symantec’s customers would have adopted Vista already. And that’s why it is only “small.” It is also a matter of fact that large enterprises adopt new operating systems at a much slower pace than small and mid-sized organizations do. Obviously, this statement contains absolutely no valuable information about Vista’s pace of adoption.

Later in the article, the author cites Windows license sales for Microsoft’s fiscal third quarter to confirm his point. However, everyone knows that license sales, especially for just one quarter, can’t tell you anything about Vista’s adoption. You might as well believe Microsoft who says that 140 million Windows licenses sold “proves” that Vista is a great success. The only thing that really counts is the number of Vista machines out there. And if you want to know if Vista is a success or a failure, you have to compare its adoption rate to other operating systems such as Windows XP.

Now look at how many news sites and blogs copied this story and what they make of this “data.” Again, everyone is convinced that Vista must be a really big failure. I must admit, I am quite shocked about all of this. Not because of Vista, but of how our “free media” work. In contrast to the situation in totalitarian countries, in the “free world,” the media aren’t told what to write by the government. Instead, readers are in control – because the only thing that really counts is the number of clicks. It seems to me that more and more journalists and bloggers tend to write what everyone likes to hear, regardless of whether it is true or not.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
• Seven reasons why IT Pros who skipped Vista should regret it now (21)
• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been? (13)
• Why I am a fat PC (2)

Kennedy tries to ease the mind of the worried IT pro:

If ever there were an opportunity to skip a Windows upgrade cycle, the XP-to-Vista transition is it. XP may be showing its age, but its age is mainly skin deep: The new challenger is flashy, but also slower and heavier, and it lacks a killer combination of compelling features needed to unseat XP.

At the end of the decade, when Microsoft’s executives look back at the debacle that was Windows Vista, they’ll see that simply slapping a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise aging Windows architecture wasn’t enough to fool anybody.

Interesting. The world largest software company worked more than five years on a new operating system and all they accomplished is a fresh coat of paint. I wonder what all those Windows developers have been doing in these five years. This is as if Toyota came out with a new car after five years and the only thing that is really new about it is its color.

I am sorry, but in my view this is polemics. The fact that sentences like this are published in a magazine with an international reputation shows how far the Vista-baiting has gotten already. Such statements wouldn’t have been possible shortly after Vista has been released. Only now, since so many are drunk with Vista slapping, is this acceptable.

Kennedy can talk easily about a Vista debacle without having to support his claim. Everyone knows already that Vista is the biggest failure in the history of technology because this has been written so often elsewhere. Thus, evidence is not needed. However, I prefer to rely on scientific data in such matters. According to ChannelWeb, the IT research company Gartner, claimed that

…Vista adoption among businesses is in line with that of XP at a comparable juncture after its release, and predicted Vista will have an installed base of 21.3 percent by year’s end, compared to 16.9 percent for XP in 2003.

We do not know if these numbers are precise, but one thing is for sure: If Vista is a debacle, then XP was one too. I have to say “sorry” to those who prefer to read technical articles in my blog, but this had to be said. It is important, because it seems to me that many who have to make the Vista-or-not decision are influenced by agitations in the media. It is an important decision to make and you have to keep a cool head. You have to evaluate all of Vista’s upsides and downsides to find out whether it makes sense to deploy Vista in your organization or not. Kennedy covered only a few features in his article and so did I in my blog series.

I recommend reading the Wikipedia articles about this topic. They are not biased, because many people with different attitudes have been working on them. The sheer length of those articles will make you realize that Vista has a little more to offer than just a fresh coat of paint. Here are the links:

• Features new to Windows Vista
• Security and safety features new to Windows Vista
• Technical features new to Windows Vista
• Management features new to Windows Vista

Vista certainly also has many downsides. You might run into compatibility issues, your helpdesk will be flooded with questions by end users, and most importantly, you will have to invest a lot of time to digest all of Vista’s changes.

However, rest assured that you really will be left behind if you don’t spare this time. Skipping Vista doesn’t mean that you can escape the necessity of learning about all of those new things. Windows 7 will certainly not be Windows XP with the three or four killer features you have always been waiting for. No, Windows 7 will be Windows Vista plus a lot more compatibility issues, and many more new things to learn.

It is a general rule in IT that skipping one technology generation doesn’t make things easier. The adoption process will even be harder, because you will have to fight with the enhancements of the skipped generation as well as the brand new ones. A slow and smooth transition always causes less turbulence than a rapid and abrupt one. This insight comes from chaos theory and we all know Windows administration is indeed pure chaos, right?

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• How 4sysops readers like Windows Vista and Windows 7 (8)
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So what is behind all this? The source of this new Vista bashing campaign is Simon Clausen, CEO of PC Tools, a security vendor. This is how InformationWeek cites him:

Ironically, the new operating system has been hailed by Microsoft as the most secure version of Windows to date. However, recent research conducted with statistics from over 1.4 million computers within the ThreatFire community has shown that Windows Vista is more susceptible to malware than the eight year old Windows 2000 operating system, and only 37% more secure than Windows XP.

If you are an IT pro, you probably already smell a rat. If a security vendor claims that a new Windows version is not really as secure as Microsoft wants us to us believe, then something fishy might be going on. But if this were the only thing one could say about this case, I wouldn’t have started writing this blog post.

What I find interesting is how many news sites pounced on this story without even taking the time to read the data provided by PC Tools. Everyone who knows a little about computers should be taken aback if such “evidence” is provided:

Vista let 639 threats per thousand computers through, compared with 586 for Windows 2000, 478 for Windows 2003, and 1,021 for Windows XP.

Later the author makes it even more clear what this data implies:

Given an infection rate of 639 per 1,000 PCs, almost 64% of Vista users should have compromised machines.

64% of all Vista machines are infected??? I am pretty sure that mine is clean which means that it is quite likely that yours is running some malware while you read those lines. Well, I read quite a few articles on different news sites about this topic and none of them really questioned this data. A Techworld article made it even worse by mixing up infections with vulnerabilities which probably comes from the fact that a Microsoft spokesman was not able to keep these terms apart.

I am not sure if it even makes sense to try explaining this implausible data. But it could be that these numbers are not at all about infections, but about the alarms ThreatFire triggered. Since this software uses heuristics instead of signatures, most of those alarms are probably false positives. If that is the case, then you could as well measure the number of UAC prompts to gather data about the threats your computer is exposed to. Agreed, Vista’s UAC uses very crude heuristics to determine possible threats, but according to Clausen’s data, ThreatFire seems not to be that smarter.

The fact that Windows 2000 triggered fewer alarms than Vista is easily explained. Typical Windows 2000 users just launch their Word 6.0 every day and their browser once a week. The last time they installed software was when their grandchild came to see them and insisted on trying a new fabulous game which probably didn’t work on this outdated machine, anyway. Thus, the ThreatFire heuristics had fewer chances to trigger false alarms.

It didn’t surprise me either that Windows XP came off only third in this questionable contest. XP lacks so many features that their users are busy all day downloading and installing all those tools and features that Vista already has. Okay, that was a joke. I just thought some XP bashing would be nice, too. I leave it to you to find a better explanation.

So this is how rumors come into being. I am pretty sure that many readers of these articles really believe now that Vista is more vulnerable to malware than Windows 2000. I think, this is a classic example how easy it is to convince people of something they really want to believe. And that’s why the Vista bashing industry is so successful.

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Vista has a couple of features that improve its manageability, such as the ability to restrict access to external media devices, easy deployment of printer drivers and, most noteworthy, the image-based installation. However, myriad third-party tools also offer those features for Windows XP. That’s why moving to Vista provides little or no ROI from a systems management perspective.

You can find this line of argument in several other parts of the article. The Vista features that are worth mentioning are also available for XP from third-party vendors. Two counterarguments refute Kennedy’s claims. First of all, third-party tools usually don’t come for free, at least not for corporate environments. Second, it usually costs manpower to deploy them. Of course, if you already have all the software you need, then Kennedy’ argument is valid. However, next time you pay the yearly license fees for your third-party tools, you might also take into account that you could have had those features for free, if only you had already deployed Vista.

My main critique, however, is that my view, this article hopelessly underestimates those new imaging capabilities. They are indeed Vista’s only killer feature for organizations. I blogged about the technical background of Vista’s new cloning capabilities almost two years ago. I think the reason that many neglect the importance of this feature is because it is difficult to understand that benefiting from it requires completely changing ones deployment techniques. Most IT shops have sophisticated deployment methods, which typically rely on unattended installations.

If you fully embrace Vista’s imaging technology, you can often do without scripting, and even software deployment is obsolete in many cases. The fact that you now can create images in a virtual environment is an enormous timesaver by itself. You can add any kind of setting or software to your master image within minutes, then press a button and all machines will have the new configuration including all applications. You have a PC that has a problem and you didn’t find its cause immediately? Just press a button to deploy the latest OS image, and this PC is like new within minutes.

Of course, that might imply that you have to change a lot in your overall infrastructure. For example, you have to ensure that end users can store data only in their user profiles, you have to work with roaming user profiles, you have to invest some time getting acquainted with Wake-on-LAN and, depending on your organization’s size, you might need third party software that fully supports Vista’s image-based deployment, and so on. But I think that once you master all these obstacles, you will save much time in the future.

We already worked like this to a certain degree with Windows XP. The main problem with XP is that the number of different images you need tends to skyrocket if you have different kinds of hardware in your network. No third party tool can really help you with this problem. XP was just not designed for imaging. The creation of new images is also quite complicated because you have to work on real hardware. Creating new Vista images with a tool such as VMware Workstation is much more convenient because you can work with snapshots, clone images within seconds, manage a whole library of different configurations, etc.

I believe that it will take quite some time for Vista’s new imaging technology to receive the praise it deserves. The philosophy behind imaging-based desktop management is quite different from the traditional approach. Many IT administrators have to forget most of what they have learned about OS and software deployment. Those organizations that already have worked with imaging technology will adopt the new approach faster than those who swear by unattended installations.

So, yes, Vista will certainly provide ROI when it comes to systems management. But only if you are ready to invest some time to learn what image-based deployment really means.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
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Paul is more pro Vista than me. And I have already been accused of being too Microsoft friendly. For example he wrote:

The truth, as I demonstrated back in May 2007 in Hot or Not? Measuring the Success of Vista’s First 100 Days, is that Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped.

Even though I didn’t encounter any serious compatibility problems with Vista, I wouldn’t go that far. If you look at the discussion forums, you’ll find countless Vista users suffering from compatibility problems. I think it is rather pointless to count supported devices and applications. I seriously doubt that anyone really knows about all the applications out there. In the end, the only thing that counts is if your applications and devices work or not.

He also supports my view regarding the performance comparisons with Windows XP that I discussed a few days ago:

While it’s unclear why this is notable or even newsworthy, you shouldn’t be surprised to discover that while Vista with SP1 outperforms or at least equals the original version of Vista from a performance perspective, neither version outperforms its predecessor, Windows XP. Obviously. This has been the case with every modern version of Windows since, I don’t know, 1995.

What I find strange is that never before people were complaining so much about the performance of a new Windows version. It must have something to do with this Vista bashing virus.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
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The consumer version of Windows Vista was released exactly one year ago, that is on January 30, 2007. Volume license customers were able to get it two months earlier. At that time, I wondered why Microsoft missed the Christmas sales. Considering how long it took until the first Vista computers showed up in the shops, this move was not too bad with hindsight. It seems as if Microsoft already knew that it would be a long way to go for Vista. Nobody believed that adoption would still be a topic on Vista’s first birthday.

Note that the citations are not in the order they were posted in Bishop’s articles.

Charles Walling, a user:

Bill Gates and Co., with all their billions of dollars, should come up with a fix” to make sure that printers work with Vista…

Genovese, 13-year-old user:

It ended up being so many things that wouldn’t work, that you get to the point where you just say, this thing has failed.

Barry Goffe, director of product management in the Windows group:

Because we made this conscious choice, to make architectural changes to improve security, we knew that there were going to be some things that broke…We tried to fix many of those things before we shipped Windows Vista. But the way ecosystems work, we weren’t able to fix everything, and our partners weren’t able to fix everything. Since we’ve shipped Windows Vista, we’ve done a tremendous amount of work with our partners, with the ecosystem, to improve compatibility of devices and applications.

Patrick Schmid, editor at Tom’s Hardware:

In theory, Windows Vista should perform as fast as Windows XP. In reality, we found that Vista usually requires faster hardware and more hardware to get there.

Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems, a company that makes high-end custom computers:

But as soon as people realized that Vista had some maturity problems in the code, the big manufacturers promptly added it back. … We’re seeing, you could say 50-50, but it’s a little bit swaying toward Vista.”

Neil Charney, general manager in Microsoft’s PC Windows group:

When XP first came out, I remember some of the questions were, why do I need this XP? My Windows 98 SE is good enough, I’m happy with it. There were concerns about compatibility then, as well, and compatibility is always a concern as we release a new operating system.

Bill Hibler, computer store owner:

I’m still stocking almost as much XP as I am Vista

Bill Gates:

…best new product of the year.

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These numbers fit well to a report on eWEEK claiming that Linux loses market share to Windows Server. According to IDC, Linux had a negative growth of 4% in the x86 market in 2006, whereas Windows Server was outpacing the total growth rate by more than 4%.

I must admit that I wasn’t expecting it so soon. When I first played with Windows Server 2008, I anticipated bad times for Linux to come. I also thought that it will take quite some time until Windows users would give up their beloved XP. So where will this all lead to?

You might think that I would like these developments since I am running a blog for Windows administrators. The fact is that I am in no way emotionally connected to Microsoft or Windows. If I would come to believe that the future belongs to Linux, I would certainly say good bye to Windows from one day to the other. I work with Linux almost every day, and I confess, it is more fun to play with. However, from a technical and economical point of view, I can’t see how I could justify a move from Windows to Linux in my organization.

So whom can you blame for this development? Certainly not Microsoft. They do what all companies are doing. They try to earn money. I never believed that their success was in any way related to their often rude business practices. The contrary is true. Ballmer and friends did more harm than good to Microsoft with their rude and brash manner. No other company in the software business has such a bad reputation as Microsoft. I think it is the only company where people say that they don’t buy their products because they don’t like them.

Frankly, I believe that one has to blame Microsoft’s competitors for the Windows monopoly on the desktop. Since I have followed Microsoft’s success story (more than 20 years), its competitors always tried to beat them by doing things in a completely different way. IBM, HP and Sun tried to sell their operating systems as add-ons to hardware. What a big mistake! And do you remember the OS/2 fiasco? IBM still thinks that the only use of software is to sell hardware. That’s why they like Open Source so much. Now they don’t even have to pay the programmers anymore. As it turns out now, this stance was the best that could happen to Microsoft.

Novell only understood much too late that you can only sell a server operating system if you also have a client operating system to offer. And newcomers such as Red Hat are too dependent on the Open Source community who mostly cares about playing with technology instead of thinking of end users who don’t give a damn about the moral superiority of the Open Source movement, but just want software that can be used without reading countless man pages first.

And Apple? They have those smart developers creating great operating systems. And for what? Only to sell it with overpriced hardware to a minority of style freaks. I think that Apple is the only company at the moment that could stop Microsoft. The problem is that they don’t want to. To be precise, their CEO doesn’t want to. He just doesn’t like tasteless Windows users. He only likes to sell his white toys to those who have style (and enough money, of course). Yeah, if I had to pick one person to whom one should ascribe Microsoft’s success then it certainly would be Steve Jobs.

So, hardware add-ons, moral superiority and style didn’t stop Microsoft. What’s next? Google? Can a tiny Web browser with a couple of mega bytes really compete with a full-blown operating system? You really have to be a very optimistic Microsoft opponent if you believe in this. It didn’t work with Netscape and not even all of Googles’s money can change the technical facts. For most applications you simply need a fat user interface. A Web browser will never be able to cope with this.

I wonder why people won’t look first at Microsoft’s yearly growth in revenue before they start talking about their decline. I wonder when Microsoft’s competitors will finally understand that you can beat them only on their own turf and not by playing a completely different game on quite a different field. I suppose it won’t happen in the near future. So I wonder if things will finally change once Microsoft also reached a monopoly in the server market. In the end it might turn out that only governments can stop them. It seems that the EU commission is quite aware of this already. What an embarrassment for Microsoft’s competitors!

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His question was in relation to the bad press Vista has been getting since its release. Mike Nash responded in a quite relaxed way. In his view, many of those who are dissatisfied with Vista had problems with compatibility issues. When Windows XP came out there were not as many different hardware devices and not as many applications. So it takes longer now to make everyone adopt Vista.

I believe, even more important is that many changes in Vista are under the hood and therefore not so obvious. Microsoft changed the architecture of Windows fundamentally which makes it more reliable and secure. These changes will only pay off in the long run. I fully agree with Nash here. These facts are often neglected by Microsoft critics. If you are interested in this part of the interview, you can skip forward for about 15 minutes.

Of course they also addressed Vista SP1 and its changes in the interview. It is interesting to note that Nash admits that for bigger companies, it might make sense to wait for SP1 under certain circumstances.

I should also mention that The Windows Team Blog has an experience report about Vista SP1. However, the experiences described there are more or less just the new features of Vista SP1 which has been known for some time already.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
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Nikolay K. Taschkow, senior consultant at the NT-academy, reported these results at the IIR Windows-Forum in Cologne, Germany. They ran extensive tests on laptops. The article didn’t say anything about hard disks in desktops.

I wonder how an OS can influence the temperature of a hard disk. I mean, I understand that a complex OS stresses a hard disk more. But, why is it happening even in idle mode?

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I am not sure if it really makes sense to compare Vista with XP, though. XP didn’t bring as many changes as Vista does. I think it would make more sense to compare it with Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 95. Anyway, it seems now that Vista adoption is much slower than Microsoft hoped.

Aside from the marketing problem, I mentioned in my earlier article, Vista’s biggest problem certainly is its vast demand for hardware resources. When I moved to Vista on my PC at work and my laptop at home, I was in the lucky position to get new hardware. It never occurred to me to upgrade XP on my old computers.

Another reason for the poor retail sales is that many hardware and software vendors are adopting Vista at an extremely slow pace. I just bought an external Seagate hard disk which comes with a nice backup tool (Freeagent). Officially it supports Vista, but it obviously still has problems with Microsoft’s latest desktop OS. For example, whenever I boot up my laptop Freeagent initiates two UAC prompts. This is not how it is supposed to be.

One can’t blame Microsoft for the sluggishness of third-party vendors. Technically, Vista is perfectly ready. However, it is another question whether the market is ready for Vista. In my view, Microsoft should give up these long update cycles of its operating systems. I think the marketing strategy of Linux distributors is much smarter. They deliver new versions after a couple of months, often only with minor enhancements. This way, it is much easier to adopt a new OS for customers and third-party vendors. It also forces users to upgrade as soon as possible because it will get more cumbersome the longer they wait.

Another advantage of this strategy is that volume licensing customers believe that they really get something in return for their money. Microsoft’s customers are beginning to doubt that Volume licensing makes sense if a new OS only comes out every five years. And why buy Vista if Service Pack 2 for XP greatly improved security already, and XP SP3 will be for free, anyway.

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If I understood it right, then his main point is that Windows Update itself had to be updated to work properly in the future. But this doesn’t explain at all why users haven’t been notified in advance about this. If Microsoft can replace system files, then it should also be possible to notify users about the update.

It is not that I mistrust Microsoft. Of course, I would always let them update Windows. These are just bad manners. I simply want to know if something will be changed on my PC and if it is only because it would help me pin down the cause of system problems later.

I really don’t understand why Microsoft is so insensitive about such issues. Some people think that Microsoft is only successful because of their marketing. I wonder, however, how it is possible that a company with such a bad image can survive at all. It must have something to do with their products.

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I agree that for bloggers a Mac is just fine since you only need a web browser. However, if you work with other software than mainstream apps, Windows is most often the only option. The Patchlink survey shows that Windows XP is doing a good job for most companies since all the software they need is running perfectly fine on it. So who needs Vista, then?

Microsoft obviously has a marketing problem. Their “wow campaign” was a complete failure because Vista simply has no obvious wow features and their customers are realizing that now. However, I think there are good reasons to upgrade to Vista even though it doesn’t offer any must-have features. Basically, there are two different kinds of arguments. One concerns user-related features and the other one comes from IT management.

I have been working with Vista on my own PCs since the final was out. In the beginning, I also was somewhat disappointed. The user interface looked different, but I couldn’t see anything that would improve my productivity. After several months I completely changed my mind. I can’t imagine going back to XP anymore. The strange thing is that I can’t tell you a concrete reason. I just realize that every time I logon to an XP machine, for example for testing purposes, I realize that something is missing. Sometimes it is the start search box, or the new Windows Explorer with its shortcut section, and sometimes I even miss Aero.

The point is that Vista has countless tiny improvements and this is really a hard one for every marketing professional. How can you list all 2750 new Vista features in an ad? And how can you convince IT journalists to write positive Vista reviews? A heading such as “Windows Explorer now has a shortcut section” does not really attract readers.

The other argument is often neglected in the discussion about Vista. From a system administrator’s point of view there is at least one wow feature: Vista’s new imaging technology. I’ve been writing about it before, so I won’t go into it again. This feature certainly simplifies OS deployment tremendously. I think many IT managers are not yet aware of this. Many companies still rely on unattended installations. Since they don’t have experience with cloning yet, they can’t imagine what advantages this new technology brings for OS deployment.

In my view, this feature is reason enough to move to Vista as soon as possible. You might say that this becomes only relevant when you have to buy new PCs. The force of this argument depends on the size of your organization. Bigger organizations permanently install new workstations. However, they have well-coordinated deployment strategies already. So they just keep on doing what they always did and continue installing Windows XP.

It will certainly make efforts before a big organization can change its deployment strategy and benefit from Vista new capabilities. This also applies to other fields. Software and hardware compatibility issues are another reason why many IT managers shy away from a Vista upgrade. The necessary preparations before a major Vista rollout are certainly enormous. And this explains the results of surveys like the one from Patchlink. I think that many simply underestimated the huge amount of time and energy required to upgrade to a new OS.

Improved security, countless tiny user interface enhancements, and the arguments of tech savvy admins are often not enough reason to convince CIOs to invest in those sumptuous preparations. However, I have no doubt that most companies will finally make this step as soon as they plan a major rollout of new PCs. Thus, we will only see a gradual increase of Vista installations in the next months. And by the way, this is nothing unusual. This is typical for new products from Redmond. It always takes some time until Microsoft’s customers are finally convinced.

I usually belong to those who are quite easily persuaded to use new technology. And even for me, it took several months until I fully embraced Vista. One thing is for sure, though. Those who hope that it is now the time for Apple or even Linux to step into the breach, underestimate Microsoft’s staying power. Attendees of a blogger conference might enjoy proudly showing off their stylish, white MacBooks. However, to read into this that “Windows Vista loses users” is a bit far-fetched.

• Well-known Windows basher Randall C. Kennedy unmasked – Don’t always take “objective” reports as real (13)
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