I will switch to Vista as soon as there's a hack to make the UI (Windows Explorer specifically) identical to XP.

I hate the small changes they've made - HATE them and I won't use it until then.

What needs explaining? Autocad 2007? Revit 9.1? Vegas Movie Studio Dlx 7? Roxio EMC 7? And that's just me. Imagine the wider base of applications out there. Yeah and someone else will inevitably bring up that this is not MS's fault and that the applications were coded wrong to begin with. Yeah I agree with you, but we can also agree it doesn't help Vista sales.

That's the reality.

I like Vista very much--big improvement over XP in places where it really matters. But there's an inertia that needs to take place over time regarding applications that won't run in Vista (i.e., direct driver to kernel access issues, run-as-admin issues, et al) and M$ will just have to wait it out.

On the upside, it will make adoption of Windows 7 that much easier for folks in three(?) years' time.

For some reason I am not suprised. I know a bunch of people that ordered systems with XP on them just to avoid having to get vista. I am playing with vista on my desktop right now and it is slower than XP. Windows Explorer hangs for seconds at a time and drives me crazy. XP never did that. I also have a couple of RC Flight simulators that wont run in vista that work fine in XP.

I am thinking I will go back to xp on my desktop here soon. I spent a ton of time tweaking vista to get it close to as usable as xp is and I still have problems with it. XP on the other hand just works.

Vista's adoption rate wasn't all that hot last year, yup. Vista's adoption rate *will* increase as more people are getting 4GB as a "common" upgrade.

Looking at a lot of laptops, today -- they are at 2GB (under 1k, no less)! It's going to be a short time when they come with 4GB of ram and OEMs won't really have a choice but to go 64bit Vista. Most of the "enthusiasts" I know, today, are already in 4GB of ram (my iMac took it for $110!).

The scaling of hardware will adopt Vista, there won't be much of a choice.

This should not be surprising to anyone. Application incompatibilities, higher hardware requirements, a rearranged and therefore unfamiliar user interface, UAC, Apple's attack ads, poor initial drivers from Nvidia, no drivers at all for a lot of older peripherals, corporate policies that prefer waiting for the first service pack before adopting, and questionable real benefits compared to XP..... yeah, not a single person that reads this site should be surprised.

Personally, I've gotten quite used to Visa. The two reasons I like it better are that it is visually much nicer than XP and the search feature is completely badass. Those are the only two differences I care about that would have me chose it over XP.

XP was the first mainstream 32-bit system (2000 wasn't that widely implemented across all users), and was a very stable OS compared to ME and 98/98se. Its stability along with some other added features were compelling reasons to buy it, and for the majority of users it has run well over the years. People were very used to it as it's been out there so long now. Thus, there has just been no compelling reason to switch to Vista, its added features are not all that obvious, e.g., security, or attractive, and the reported complications (e.g., lack of drivers) made people wary. Add to that the ridiculous price and the various versions, and people aren't going to be interested.

In short, 98se and ME were broken and needed to be fixed. In contrast, for most users, XP didn't seem all that broken, and so it didn't need to be fixed. My 2 cents.

BTW, I run Vista Home Premium on one of my systems. It's not nearly as bad as some claim, I love superfetch, I guess it's more secure, but beyond that, it doesn't seem all that different from XP. And I loathe UAC.

Several comments:
1. The vista threads are so passionate on TR. They usually get the most comments in the week they are published. I guess those who have it and use it want to tell those who don't like it how wrong they are, and vice versa. Seriously, does anyone think they will change someone else's mind?
2. Nobody at my work has asked for it. Nobody is "missing it." Until something really compels me to it over XP, I ain't budging.

1. The VALUE they offer does not exceed the COST of licenses and upgrade costs (training users and support people, testing compatibility, post migration support, deployment, hardware upgrades...etc)

2. XP and Office 2003 are stable good products now, they work and work well when implemented right. Users know them, and it most cases dont even use 50% of the ability of either. In house training has been created and perfected, deployment methods are tried and true.

I don't disagree in principle--our ELA was obscenely expensive and we're only 750 people in a 12K organization--but you have to remember that even conservative organizations have to improve their operating efficiencies. It's not that Office 2003 isn't any good, it's that 2007 is markedly better, and even more so when tied with MOSS across the organization. It's not that XP isn't any good, it's that the security and administrative control options under Vista are much better, especially considering W2K8 shares the exact same kernel as Vista SP1.

Pretending that companies stick with "what's tried and true" ignores license sales historically. Sure, we all know of instances where a company is still on Office 97 or W2K, but it's not as common as it used to be. ISVs still drive the market, and as they move to embrace the Vista/Windows 7 model and all that encompasses down the line, companies will adopt those M$ products to preserve their investments in capital and employee skills.

MS has peaked and have little to gain outside of continuing to make lots of money. They wont gain any more market share these days. They have everything to loose. When you see news reports that Red Hat grew 178%, SUSE grew 126% and Apple grew 40% over the previous years its likely they did so at the expense of MS. MS will continue to dominate for years to come but they will shrink over time, still be a major player but not like they once were.

Wow...huge percentages of growth. Not exactly difficult when your installed base of users is effectively nil, particularly in the corporate environment, compared to Windows.

No one really cares about Linux because no one knows which distro will be the "in" distro in two or three years and who will support it. How do you plan for growth with that model? You can't. Regarding Apple, why would any sizable company tie in with a single-source provider of all their IT needs, given the closed/vertical monopoly under which Apple operates, nevermind that Apple has never taken the corporate world seriously?

M$'s revenues in all market segments continue to rise--even to record levels in 2007. M$ has more than marketshare; they have mindshare and they intend to keep it. Does anyone really think that just because Billy G is stepping down that M$ will implode and cede the market to the chaos of the Open Source movement?

The adoption rate is worse then they let on. In 2007 I worked at a US Company that has 70k emoplyees, of which about 25k are on XP. They have an Enterprise agreement with MS so they got Vista Enterprise when it came out....I know this because I saw the budget and they paid some serious $$$ to MS.

In October I moved to a larger company that has 110k employees with about 60k on XP...again the same thing Enterprise agreement.

The total licenses owned by the two is about 85k of which was counted in that total 100 million.

At company 1 they have pushed their Vista implementation to 2009...at #2 late 2009/2010.

How many of the 100million came from license contracts?

The problem with Vista and Office 2007 is two fold for companies.

1. The VALUE they offer does not exceed the COST of licenses and upgrade costs (training users and support people, testing compatibility, post migration support, deployment, hardware upgrades...etc)

2. XP and Office 2003 are stable good products now, they work and work well when implemented right. Users know them, and it most cases dont even use 50% of the ability of either. In house training has been created and perfected, deployment methods are tried and true.

Vista is not bad, it is way better 1 year later after serveral "performance updates" but it still suffers from software compatibility that XP does not, and I still see pitful network copy speeds on some boxes. So its not bad....but not good enough to replace XP all things considered.

this all the same crap we heard before..............

I got 3 machines all running vista and all working just fine.

100 million copies, and it's still not considered 'a success.'

Wow.

The headline is kind of confusing. The way it reads right now could make one assume that Windows XP outsold Vista in 2007.

In other news, MS reports hundreds of millions in revenue from XP.

You can't stick it to Microsoft by buying their old operating system!

That's what they get for making their new operating system play so poorly with modern games. I have two comparable computers in the same room, one with Vista 64bit, one with XP 32bit. The Vista 64 machine is the more powerful one in terms of graphics and memory, and they about tie on the CPU. Having said that, the Vista machine routinely lags behind the XP machine in frame rates in all games I have. Really irritating.

And in other "breaking", "awe inspiring" news from InformationWeek...

Ford Edsel has "Slow intial consumer response", Chevrolet Corvair has "Distinctive handling characteristics" and Ford Pinto discovered with "Unusual rear end construction"

Their loss.

I wonder how many of the copies of Vista sold are still in use.

I have two that were replaced by XP. Best upgrade I made all year!

All of the Vista - XP comparisons in terms of sales and marketshare are fairly meaningless.

I think the bottom line is what effect Vista has had on Windows' overall marketshare. The biggest competitor to Windows on the desk/lap-top is the Mac. If we compare the OS share of XP to the Mac back in 2001 and compare the OS share of Vista to the Mac today, we see that Vista is not doing as well as XP. The difference isn't huge, but it's definitely noticeable.

Ultimately, this is the comparison that matters most, and it doesn't reflect well on Vista.

Win...Win... nice two punch combo...XP and Vista

sooner those XP machines will be updating to Vista...

One thing XP had over Vista is ME...computers sold before XP had ME on them...which was...well...down right painful to use...so XP was the only route to go. Now, Vista is following XP, which is an excellent OS, its a little harder to follow.

I'm not surprised. The jump from pre-XP to XP was more different than the jump from XP to Vista. I don't really care though, knowing XP outsold Vista in it's first year doesn't change how Vista performs for me.

Ha-HA! [/nelson]