Joe, I absolutely agree that Vista’s new imaging capabilities belong to the most important enhancements. Actually, it is the main reason for me to move to Vista in my organization. We deploy Windows via imaging since Windows NT 4 and so I really know what it means to be able to use just one image for all computers in your network. However, this new imaging technology has nothing to do with syprep. If you install Vista from the original DVD, you don’t have to use syprep, but you still just install a WIM image.

Bruce, I think the difference is that there are no Office 2007 bashing articles. Many people believe that the only real new thing about Vista is its compatibility problem.

Dale, I agree. It is seems as if many expected that all companies would just move to Vista immediately after its release. Maybe this is due to the fact that it took Microsoft so long to get it ready.

Michael, I am curious. What exactly did you expect from Vista?

Herbert, then my post was good for something at least. But I doubt that such facts will stop the rumors about Vista’s failures. People enjoy it a lot if a big one fails and that’s why we will read such articles until the next Microsoft’s earnings record.

Db, I think Vista Ultimate and Enterprise don’t play an important role. Most consumer PCs run Vista Home and companies usually deploy Vista Business and sometimes Vista Enterprise laptops because of Bitlocker.

Chuck, with “number Vista machines out there” I mean computers that really run Vista and not downgraded XP installations.

…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…

This is not true how many of these machines are really running Vista and how many have been “downgraded” to XP.

I imagine that XP’s adoption rate is actually overlooked – in retrospect, I adopted XP probably four years after it came out, so I don’t know how I could’ve missed that.

I’m just disappointed that the general public’s overall impression of Windows Vista is so shabby – I’ve worked on Vista for a year, and I haven’t experienced freezing, crashing, or any BSOD’s. And the first service pack is out already.

I’m not going to lie – I wrote a post or two involving Vista’s “mediocre” adoption rate – but after reading this article, I’ll be sure to check my facts twice before informing my readers.

Thanks,
Herbert

I guess my only complaint is that I and everyone expected a lot more from Vista, not the same old growing pains.

Like you I’m all for more reporting and a fair bit less uninformed opinion! When you look at the breathtaking logistics of any large OS deployment, you soon discover the stats look pretty much as you state, it simply takes time.

Has everyone forgotten how long it took for winxp to eventually supplant win2k, even win98 and winnt4.0?

Show Office 2007 to someone who uses Office 2003 daily, and he will hate it. Show it to someone who never used Office, and he will love it, learn it faster. Show a Mac to someone who know Windows inside-out, and they won’t “get it”.