This email was sent to me by a friend:
He simply made the subject line, “What it’s like to use Vista :)”
This actually is as inspiring as it is offensive and ignorant. This guy is still my friend but the email was pretty hurtful for a few reasons. The first is that the depiction is highly inaccurate. Actually, the past month of using Windows Vista full time has been extremely positive. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and in 2001, I switched to Macintosh as version 10.1 was released. In November of 2005, I got a job at a Windows IT company working on Windows XP in a technical atmosphere and mastered the operating system. On January 23rd of 2007, Windows Vista was released to retail stores and I performed an in-place upgrade from Windows XP Professional to Windows Vista Business and haven’t looked back.
There were issues initially but not as many issues as those that plagued Mac OS 10.0 or iPhone OS 2.0. Windows Vista’s issues primarily involved hardware compatibility but those were worked out within the first couple of months. I fell in love with Office 2007 and my two favorite applications were OneNote and Outlook. Windows Vista’s search functions, sidebar, Aero and sidebar really wowed me. It actually inspired the following articles:
1. The Vista Experience
2. Windows Vista is Freakin Cool
3. Looking Forward: Windows Vista
I actually wrote a dozen posts that month about how much I was loving the new OS from Windows. I used the OS full time until June of this year when I made a move across country to San Francisco. The Mac OS was my OS @ home for blogging, writing, creating podcasts and collecting photos. I have a Dell running Windows Ultimate at the apartment here that I use for playing videos and music on Windows Media Center. The only Mac I owned was a MacBook Pro running Leopard.
It took 3 months of managing my digital lifestyle on my Mac to yearn a switch back to Windows. 1 month ago, I wiped the Mac OS from my MacBook Pro and installed Windows Vista Ultimate. It’s been fun, more organized and problem free.
The reason for this entirely long preface is because I wanted to show something. The stigma around Windows Vista is fake. Windows Vista, if maintained properly, is a stable and usable operating system with great compatibility with every bit of hardware and software available. I manage hundreds of emails a day, Twitter, RSS feeds, 4 blogs, edit video & photos and stay connected with all of my friends. Windows has been a great friend to me and the only thing I miss about the Mac OS is the iLife suite of applications. Everything else about Apple’s OS can be done on Windows. The next time I get an email about how Windows sucks and Macintosh rules, I will lose it and you can consider us no longer friends. Using Windows Vista is not like using drugs. I don’t need your help breaking the habit and my choice of OS is not damaging to my lifestyle or health. Let’s stop with this bickering and simply use what we want to use in peace. I’m through with this arguement.
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10 Comments until now.
Adam,
I still use Windows at school, but the computers there are horrible… they run something called ” Deep Freeze”. What it does is basically wipes everything thats not supposed to be on the computer.
Honestly, I am considering using Boot Camp on my MacBook to run Vista also, because there are some parts of Windows that I miss… but we will see.
What I forgot to add was that I saved one of my final essays for my sophomore year on the desktop instead of my personal folder, and of course it got wiped. The next day I started using Mac OS.
You seem to be part of the $300 million campaign by Microsoft to play up Vista on all fronts, MojaveExperiment, Seinfeld Ads and now You.
Uhh do you mean Mac OS X? I never heard of Mac OS 10 but I am not an IT guy that really knows what he is talking about like you. How much is Bill paying you to write this article? It all seems without much detail and real geekiness to be legit. Sorry don’t buy Vista or this blog.
You specified “if maintained properly” that Vista is stable and usable. What do you mean by that? What type of maintenance does Vista require?
doing support for computers that includes Vista
there are some very strange issues that are happening even with SP1 applied. features of Microsoft software like Mail just disappearing. all in all very frustrating. re-installing everything returned the functions… for a while.
now this doesn’t happen with all of them, we’ve had many people very happy with vista, and doing other upgrades & installs on some of the vista machines there have been absolutely no problems, less/no spyware, extremely stable (as long as the hardware is good)
as for organization, people think differently, what one person thinks “makes sense” is not true for everyone else. For myself the Mac OS and organization of data makes sense, and means I don’t really organize so much as just do things. But I also many times have sold windows based systems to people, for them it was the best tool to get the job done.
You said it all: Windows Vista, if maintained properly, is a stable and usable operating system with great compatibility with every bit of hardware and software available. Mac users don’t have to “maintain” anything. It just works
Peace,
Earnest
Errrrrrr, yeah.
Using Vista may not not be like taking drugs but I guess you’d know ‘cos you’re obviously on plenty.
These issues you are talking about with OS 10, do you mean the beta that shipped alongside OS9?
The first version that shipped on it’s own and that was expected to be the main system was 10.2 “jaguar” and that managed to implement a switch to a totally new Unix architecture whilst retaining seamless virtualised legacy support and we now know it was supporting X86 machines at the same time.
“Longhorn” stillbirthed when they couldn’t even implement a new filesystem, let alone metadata search.
It’ll now be down to Windows 7 to implement eye-candy that is actually usefull (i.e the rolladex of doom vs expose) whilst doing away with the pyramid-on-it’s-head nature of the current code.
You obviously have very very low requirements and standards and are typical of the “it’ll do and anyway everyone else uses it” mediocrity and lowest common denominator demographic that keeps Microsoft in business.
Pathetic really.
Or are you simply trying to get flame hits?
Fanboi’s are pathetic, really.
I have had so many issues with Leopard. I have replaced my RAM (Apple RAM, covered by Apple Care) 4 times and have had to install Leopard clean 3 different times, because Apple support and the Geniuses said that was the only thing they knew how to do to resolve my issues. They told me that 3 different times. Wow! Really? That’s the resolve?
I know how to manage my computer, and any hardware/software needs some sort of maintenance. Even if its running Disk Utility, nothing JUST WORKS. It is ignorant to make that kind of statement. It isn’t the nature of hardware and software to run forever with no maintenance.
Regardless of the issues I have had, I am still a Mac user. There are issues on the Windows side, too. I am choosing to stick with my Mac issues.
I just think it’s plain ignorant when people mount personal attacks over which OS or computer is better. It’s a computer.
Whoooa there people.
Why can’t the man use whatever operating system he wants to? I mean, honestly, I got a copy of VMWareFusion recently and unfortunately have been unable to find time to install Vista on my Macbook pro. But I will! There are some things that just work nicer on a Vista machine. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my MBP and wouldn’t give it up for some $499 Dell, but look at ALL of the free software there is out there for Vista, and then TRY to find me a video converter that will go from .asf to .mov for free on a mac! There isn’t one! For that alone I will add on Vista to my MBP and spare myself the hassle of using someone else’s cheapo PC to convert videos.
You’re correct, Adam - the whole debate is, has always been, and will always be childish.
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