What's Windows Vista Worth? Play Guy's Guesstimating Game.

[jimbo99]

Vista is XP with a new interface and some security features. The security features could be added to XP with a SP3. If they aren't added then it means Microsoft is abandoning all XP customers to the wolves.

Other than that, there's no compelling reason to purchase XP. So the easy and most compelling answer is that the value of those features is $0.00.

Most of the meat of Vista has been removed long ago and what's there instead is a DRM nightmare hidden behind a pretty face. Essentially, it is being described as a pig with lipstick.

Most certainly those who buy Vista at the low end are getting the security features and some modifications to the API along with alot of DRM that is proprietary and ties back directly to Microsoft making it an even more monopolstic company.

Bottom line is that there's no compelling reason to purchase Vista at any price and at the current price model I think it would be viewed by many as a waste of dollars, dollars that could be better spent on say something for your children or improvement for your home, or put away for education.

XP is fine and if they come out with an SP3 that adds essentially the same security there's absolutely no reason to upgrade to it. Even if Microsoft halves the price of the upgrade cost it still isn't worth it.

Upgrading to Vista will not be a humorous endeavor for anyone. The cost of the hardware upgrades alone will be enough to turn people away. The OS just hasn't got the meat nor the features to justify for anyone with a valid XP license to upgrade.

Had there been significant improvements in speed, in capability, in security, in compatability, in software development, etc then maybe we'd see some modicum of justification.

What Vista should be called is XPME + 6. Or XP Millenium Edition + 6. Or XP Mistake Edition + 6. It is one of those upgrades that in the grand scheme of things means nothing and simply complicates the OS arena more because it will take significantly greater knowledge and more people to maintain it.

If Microsoft had addressed administration with simple changes, say to msconfig, etc., I'd be thinking slightly in another direction. If I hadn't seen the RC1 and prior betas I might have been thinking other things. It is important to give the administrator tools to help diagnose the problems and security and violations to that security. Vista is going back to the past in that we'll need security patches every month or so and we'll have to still undo all the bad nasty programs that are installed. Nothing in Vista jusifies the extraordinary amount of time it will take to maintain and clean systems of those nasties say 6 months after the release.

Microsoft has not given and will not give any assurances that our computers will remain clean of the bad guys.

I'm afraid that in the near future Microsoft will again convince the Department of Home Security to tell everyone to upgrade to Vista to secure their computers. If they could convince them to alert everyone to upgrade their computers to the latest security patches (which resulted in nothing more than getting the Microsoft Genuine Advantage Spyware program installed) then they'll have their sights set on getting the government to pressure the common man to upgrade to Vista with all this DRM nightmares and proprietariness.

 

[smlong]

Vista is XP with a new interface and some security features. The security features could be added to XP with a SP3. If they aren't added then it means Microsoft is abandoning all XP customers to the wolves.

Other than that, there's no compelling reason to purchase XP. So the easy and most compelling answer is that the value of those features is $0.00.

So, I guess once a software company gets a product to where people like it, they should simply stop releasing new versions/revisions or trying to improve upon it?

Saying that a new release of an OS is just the old OS with a new interface has many implications. After all, an OS really is JUST an interface foremost.

 

[jimbo99]

Vista is XP with a new interface and some security features. The security features could be added to XP with a SP3. If they aren't added then it means Microsoft is abandoning all XP customers to the wolves.

Other than that, there's no compelling reason to purchase XP. So the easy and most compelling answer is that the value of those features is $0.00.

So, I guess once a software company gets a product to where people like it, they should simply stop releasing new versions/revisions or trying to improve upon it?

Saying that a new release of an OS is just the old OS with a new interface has many implications. After all, an OS really is JUST an interface foremost.

It is because that's what it is. It is just XP with a new interface. As most of the people have stated throughout this thread many of the features are already there or have a very limited purpose. Vista is just XP ME +6. That's all. There are no compelling reasons to upgrade. The costs for the OS are far too high and the costs in hardware alone will make it prohibitive for many. The only way it will be upgraded is by force and that force will be compelled by Microsoft say through DX10 only on Vista or The Department of Homeland Security trying to sell more copies for Microsoft by warning of the need to upgrade.

Most of the security issues can be address with a service pack and most of the features they added just aren't really features, they are just marketing selling points that are not compelling enough to desire/require upgrading.

There's no reason for you to become a seller of the product for Microsoft. They are a monopoly afterall. People that think this is a worthy upgrade, considering say just the OS cost, are after the latest greatest and not necessarily after what is best overall.

Every argument given in support of Vista was given in support of ME. History has proven ME to have been a mistake. Vista is the same.

On top of that there's a pretty neat little program that adds most of the same visual spice to XP that Vista has with the AERO interface.

What has many of the supporters of this update watering at the mouth is the money for upgrades to hardware, training, new skills that will set you apart from the rest.

Right now people are still upgrading to XP and learning that it has most if not all the features they need. They are just worried about security.

Of course, if you are saying that the lipstick is important and is justification, then maybe some will listen but I frankly don't agree with the idea that the looks justify the upgrades.

 

[Shivari]

As a home user who use MS product for personal and office use, the only benefit of Vista is increased security and its new features called superfetch, readyboost and readydrive. If these features prove to be worthless once hybrid drives come out and vista launches, then there's no use upgrading to vista. The cost is too much

 

[niz]

Heya Barry 😉

I dunno about a monetary value, but a lot of what was mentioned is derived from marketing. As a lot of system engineers and developers are aware, there's generally a plethora of changes 'under the hood' that make the OS better. This leads to better, more stable software applications for the new OS.

More managability, more stability, better software. Count me in.

You sound like you work for Microsoft's marketing dept.

XP is very stable for me already. Way more than Vista. Actually I found Vista RC1 to be quite buggy. I had more than one blue screen in the 20 minutes I was running Vista RC1 (on a fresh install) before deciding to go back to XP becuse Vista is also slow, laggy and bloated compared to XP even on my core 2 extreme.

I don't agree about the managability part either, Vista hides more of the system from you so managing the system is harder because you can't find anything.

I'm not sure how you define 'better software' considering I'll be running the same applications. All the extra toolbar/sidebar bloatware you get in vista is redundant as far as I'm concerned, In XP I just quickly turn all such stuff off anyway. I'm not even sure you can in Vista.

No new OS is stable until it matures (read: had many microsoft updates). Vista won't be any different.

 

[niz]

...
Meaning that right now, considering I'm using a 'normal', paid-for version of Linux (which includes an office suite, a graphics editor, and advanced CD/DVD/MMedia tools built-in) which cost me $50, ....

Why did you pay $50 for it? Nearly all Linux distros have all that already inlcuded and downloadable for free.
office suite: OpenOffice
graphics editor: Gimp
advanced CD/DVD/MMedia tools built-in: Yep on the free ones too.

 

[xXDracoXx]

I don't know all that much about Vista but what scares me away from it is this whole super-DRM implementation. I already have lots of media of all sorts on my computer(win XP) and from what I hear(stories of peoples' legit media not running) I think I won't be able to keep it because of this.
Also, as a gamer, Vista seems to be a huge contradiction. Yes, I want DX10, but at the same time I don't want to have to pay 400$ for an OS just to have it when the said OS is a ressource hog which can potentially kill the gaming experience.
I also have a lot of uncertainty concerning compatibility. Can an older version of Office be run on Vista or am I forced to dish out hundreds of dollars on the OS plus an other few hundreds on software? How will my current free programs react on Vista?(such as VLC media player, Avira Anti-Virus, Azureus, etc).
Coming back to gaming, does it only consume more memory and run the games just as fast or does its multi-threaded nature also hog up the cpu in the background?

-off topic: Many of you have mentioned huge lists of tweaks to make XP faster when comparing it to Linux. I have halted services(remember the notorious XP popups a few years ago?) and tweaked a few things but I would like to know if there's some kind of resource out there on what to do to make the OS faster.

 

[mitch074]

because the paid for version comes with a pressed CD, 3 months free phone support, proprietary drivers and softwares built in, fast ftp access, a thick user's manual - and I felt good paying back a small amount of money to people who actually work to improve my OS.

I'd rather pay $50 to developers and get a bunch of nice extra's than $400 for a pressed CD, a small leaflet, no actual support, and uneasy upgrades to a marketing service.

 

[wolfman140]

I dunno much about Linux but I'd like to know more. I know that Fedora core is a nice graphical version. If I were to just use basic programs like word programs, spreadsheets, etc. I'd might go the Linux route. But how does it work with modern games? Are most games/programs compatible with it? This is really the only reason I haven't deepy looked into Linux because I don't know what kind of compatibility it has. If someone wants to shed some light, maybe you can convert me! 🙂

 

[wolfman140]

PS - Ya know what else, ever since I installed Vista (I dual boot), my games in XP are unstable. Don't ask me how that's possible since they are on entirely two different hard drives...But before I installed it BF2 and Company of Heros was fine. Now I get kicked out of BF2 and my comp restarts, and Company of Heros gets an error and shuts down about 20 min into gameplay. What the hell?

 

[mitch074]

Linux is not Windows. Asking this question is like asking, can I run a supercharger V10 with a moped's fuel mix?

Linux has games; you don't buy them in stores, you just download them. Now if you can't be bothered with downloading free games and absolutely need to buy them and go thorugh the install process, then you can try Transgaming's Cedega software to play those Windows games. The software itself isn't free, but considering it's sold at a fraction of the price a Vista Home licence upgrade is sold...

You don't need to stay at toms to learn about linux. Just type linux (or linux game) in Google and read.

 

[smlong]

Linux is not Windows. Asking this question is like asking, can I run a supercharger V10 with a moped's fuel mix?

Linux has games; you don't buy them in stores, you just download them. Now if you can't be bothered with downloading free games and absolutely need to buy them and go thorugh the install process, then you can try Transgaming's Cedega software to play those Windows games. The software itself isn't free, but considering it's sold at a fraction of the price a Vista Home licence upgrade is sold...

You don't need to stay at toms to learn about linux. Just type linux (or linux game) in Google and read.

Yep.. then you can hear all the rhetoric from Linux users that you could ever care to ..

 

[mitch074]

that's the easy way out: just say, 'all those Linux guys spout off how good linux is but nothing comes out of it'.

Well if you want to play Windows games under Linux, register with the Wine mailing list: there, they talk about Windows on Linux. You can also roam the Transgaming fora.

If you're still not happy, go waste $400 on Vista Ultimate, $250 on a graphics card just fast enough to run Aero, $200 on 2GB of ECC RAM (yup, Vista recommends it) and waste days installing all these - just to run yesterday's games.

 

[smlong]

that's the easy way out: just say, 'all those Linux guys spout off how good linux is but nothing comes out of it'.

Well if you want to play Windows games under Linux, register with the Wine mailing list: there, they talk about Windows on Linux. You can also roam the Transgaming fora.

If you're still not happy, go waste $400 on Vista Ultimate, $250 on a graphics card just fast enough to run Aero, $200 on 2GB of ECC RAM (yup, Vista recommends it) and waste days installing all these - just to run yesterday's games.

Oh please.. you know none of that is required. Vista RC1 ran just the same as XP (performance wise) on my current XP machine.

I'm not taking the easy way out. As I've said before, I use SuSE Linux. I use Wine AND Cedega. Both are ALMOST solutions. But, as always, I find myself migrating back to my WinXP box because the software runs better on it and that's where THE software exists.

As for 'how good' Linux is, it's a moot point. It does not offer me anything over what Windows offers me now. I am speaking as an everyday user of Linux. You can extoll the virtues of Linux all day long, but at the end of it all, spending any time or effort migrating to that platform (entirely) offers me no advantage.

I mean, honestly, if I were to ditch Windows entirely, other than having a FREE alternative, what have I gained? My LAN/VPN are as secure as any other, so don't try to sell me on security.

The EASY way out is to just constantly trash the main stream OS just because it's main stream. Or better yet, as many other people have done on this thread, call others an advertiser/marketer for Microsoft just because they are happy to use it.

If/when I run Vista it will be on a new machine that comes with Vista. So, the cost factor is irrelevant to me. My current XP machine is ~ 4 years old anyhow.

When will this big Linux revolution occur such that I can earn a LIVING with it? Again, as I have mentioned previously, I am a software engineer/developer focusing on C#/.NET development. This has a lot to do with the fact that EVERY business I deal with uses Windows machines. Until something changes this, if I want to make money I will continue to use Windows.

 

[I]

I agree with some other posters, the cost per feature largely ignores upgrade costs, downtime, technical support time (even if I do it, MY tech support time is of value), software upgrade costs, new rounds of bug patches for the mainsteam bugs (while only more obscure ones remain in XP).

Vista will be more easily estimated in cost per feature after the first couple of service packs have been released and tested, and software vendors have had time to scramble to patch or refuse (to patch, so planning for new software is initiated). Then of course the cost for the new software, and hardware when it turns out some won't support Vista at all.

$200-$500 OS license cost is the least of the issues (cost and time as related too...) about Vista deployment.

 

[gm0n3y]

In regards to Vista DX10 and DRM:

Is it just me or does it seem like the solution to this (at least for the next couple of years) is to run a dual boot XP / Vista system? Run Vista for gaming (to use DX10) and XP for all media (to avoid stupid DRM). I think that this seems like the best way to go until media starts to require either Vista or the DRM software that comes with it.

*Warning DRM rant*
<rant> I pretty much refuse to use DRM controlled media. The music industry does not support my desired consumer model. I want to be able to download all of the music I want for free and buy the albums for the bands that I really like. This is how things work right now and it is awesome. The amount of music I purchase is directly proportional to the amount of music I download. I own hundreds of CDs, most of which are from bands that I would never have heard of without free internet downloads. I think that the reason the music industry doesn't like that is because I don't necessarily buy what they are marketing, in fact most of the music I own is either indy, or from smaller labels (trustkill, victory, roadrunner, ferret, etc). That being said, I download many movies (mostly because they take too long to get to video) and buy very few (I rarely want to watch a movie more than once). </rant>

 

[mitch074]

Considering that an EULA for an upgrade nullifies that of the previous OS it replaces, to have both XP and Vista on the same machine you need to have a full licence for each

Now, DRM may be built into Vista and not XP, but considering how pervasive the changebrought by a SP is, I wouldn't be surprised if XP SP3 was as tightly controlled DRM-wise than Vista is.

Nope, DRM: be done by Vista, no DRM: use Linux.

 

[xXDracoXx]

In how much time do you suppose games will switch to exclusively Vista? I heard DX9 and 10 are meant to coexist for a long time. Might as well buy a cheap XP on a new build and only buy an Upgrad version of Vista when I /really/ need it some years down the line.

 

[mitch074]

well, it will depend on how fast MS can force developers to use DX10 exclusively... After all, suppporting 2 rendering engines is money...

Of course, some companies just do without by using OpenGL...

 

[Plekto]

I see virtually nothing in Vista that you can't either download as shareware and that Mac didn't do years earlier.

The next major relese of Mac OS, though, will be the nail in Microsoft's coffin. Why? Because the current version runs on Intel processors, and the next will run on non-Apple hardware.

$100. And supports dual-boot for your legacy games. Cleaner, faster, easier to use, crashes less. Requires no major hardware upgrades, and there's no nanny-ware. As it is, I recently installed XP Pro on a machine and spent an hour yanking services out of the OS. One of them is a built-in spyware that is an open door for the government to get into your box anytime it wants. (lsass.exe and a couple of others that are built-in and nearly impossible to remove)

In one day I noticed a constant 5-10% traffic over the net on a clean install of windows with a good firewall running. Even with the ports supposedly blocked(though not in emergency zero activity mode).

That took 15 minutes. Removing Outlook Express/disabling active-x scripting took another 10 minutes. Installing a firewall that blocked all ports by default, a few more minutes...

Removing Windows ability to make logs of everything you do - tougher - 20 minutes.(it creates hidden, even from a DOS boot, files of every site you visit, every email, and so on - probably put there at our government's request). You delete your email in Outlook? It's still there. This is simmilar to how cellphones don't really delete their contents(making the news now) - but Windows has been doing this for years.

(required a Nopix CD boot and manually crippling the hidden files, then cripping the function in windows itself) And by hidden, I mean, yes, hidden from any version of DOS or Windows(though not from a few specific utilities you can download). Really nasty stuff.

Rendering the nanny-ware call-home feature disabled - five more minutes.

Just getting a clean, stable, secure from the outside world setup of XP is daunting.

Vista is going to be ten times worse. Mac, on the other hand, does virtually none of this insanity. If I want to just get online and do normal things other than gaming, it's a total no-brainer decision. If it only costs me $100 and I can keep XP/Win2K/etc running for the few older games I have - on the same box.... DUH.

I value Vista at $0. It's a security and privacy nightmare.