Why Windows Vista failed (or so people say)

Here's the real story..... M-Audio stated on their website that they wouldn't even start development of Vista drivers until after Vista was released, as Microsoft kept changing the specs, and M-Audio had no way of knowing what the final version of Vista would be. So they couldn't develop drivers because of Microsoft.

And yes I did do my research before buying Vista, and knew my M-Audio card wouldn't work from day one, but I thought drivers would be available in a short period of time...as it turned out was about a year long wait. So what do you do in the meantime ??

So now a couple of years later, Vista drivers are available, and do indeed work with the Vista compatibility mode of Windows 7. The compatibility program in Vista did not allow XP compliant drivers to work with Vista. So obviously they improved on the compatibility program in W7, which I am very happy about, as now I'm able to use my M-Audio card with W7.

So now you know why I dumped Vista for XP. For a long time, professional grade sound cards just weren't available for Vista as nobody had Vista compliant drivers, so most pro's I talked with, also went back to XP for music production work. Some of the pro's I talked with, hated Vista for many reasons having to do with audio production work. They got better results using XP. So XP became the norm for audio pro's. I liked Vista, but I didn't like the idea of my hardware not being compatible with it.

Now that my hardware is compatible, everything is hunky dory.

Originally Posted by djwayne

Here's the real story..... M-Audio stated on their website that they wouldn't even start development of Vista drivers until after Vista was released, as Microsoft kept changing the specs, and M-Audio had no way of knowing what the final version of Vista would be. So they couldn't develop drivers because of Microsoft.

With all due respect, this is false. All companies, manufacturers, etc were given the final CORE code that makes up Vista many months prior to its official release. Matter of fact, the "core" elements were complete LONG before a public beta was even released to the public. How do i know this, because im with MSDN and have been testing vista from day one.

The truth is, companies like M-Audio didn't want to put resources & money into something that they didn't know how would take off. If this is in question in anyones mind, explain why companies like Kaspersky among so many more had Pre Beta releases of there products ready to go. Not so hard to rationalize is it?. Where as companies like Creative and M-audio sat on there asses to see how things panned out, pissing off everyone who owned one of there products. Problem was and still is, people blame Vista for this, and not the manufacturer. This is the mentality I have been speaking about.

Companies were on the fence, should we or shouldn't we make drivers for a OS that is getting such bad publicity from the folks with mentalities like the quoted subject a few posts up who falls into A) B) C) and D) categories... and at the end of the day blame only Vista for there issues.

Fact is this, ALL companies had final "core" code many many months in advance. THEY chose not to sink money into devleopment until they needed to or got pressure to do so.

That's what M-Audio told their customers. I certainly didn't make that up. If I would have known it was going to take a year for Vista drivers, I wouldn't have bought Vista the first week it was out. It wasn't just M-Audio that was having problems, it was also Hewlett-Packard. My HP Photosmart 7550 printer wouldn't work either.....HP's website had a Vista driver to download, but it didn't work, rendering the printer useless, unless I went back to XP.

Even if M-Audio didn't want to put resources into an unknown product like Vista, can you blame them after the Windows ME experience ??

Another issue I mention was Vista works slower than XP, I have both XP and Vista available to me, but I choose to work with XP as it runs better. I could go back to Vista anytime, but I choose not to, and I'll wait for W7 to come out, before dropping XP as my main OS.

You wanted to know why Vista failed, I told you.

Originally Posted by djwayne

You wanted to know why Vista failed, I told you.

Yes you did.... Yet again, its perception..Who to believe and who to muddle through the BS and see the truth that lies before you. I'm not going to go on and on over this, my facts, my perceptions and the ability to see through the BS is clear. To bad it isn't for others.

With all do respect of course.

Also to be fair......I've heard that Vista with Service Pack 1, runs pretty good. So I'm not all anti-Vista as you may think. Now that the driver issues have been settled, it's a different ballgame, but too bad it took so long. Maybe I'll try that after W7 beta expires.

I currently have my main computer programs set up on a drive with XP Service Pack 3, and that works perfectly for me. If I can get that kind of performance with Windows 7, which at this time I think I can, will be switching over to W7 when it comes out.

I have a lot of money tied up in music production and sound sample programs on my computer, so it's important to me that they work without problems.

You can expect anything you want out of microsoft or any other company and their software or hardware. I can certainly understand the frustrations people went thru with Vista.

In my opinion here is the lesson.. Don't buy some new software/hardware the first week it comes out, heck I wouldn't buy it the first month. But I think there are two different issues that happened to Vista. A switch between XP and Vista and a switch from 32bit to 64bit. Put them both together making a jump between 32bit XP to 64bit Vista and boom I would imagine those are the people who had the worst problems.

Heck I am having problems on some forums using the 64bit version of IE8 in Windows 7 while the 32bit version in Windows 7 works fine on the exact same webpage. I suspect things will improve in the next 3 years as we transition to 64bit and then one day when everything is 64bit we will come full circle and people will love that generation of OS.

Well somebody has to test the waters....I thought Vista drivers for my sound card would only take a couple of weeks, maybe month or two, I never imagined a year long wait.
A professional quality sound card is link between a musician, and a recording program. It has to be of good quality, onboard soundcards don't work for pro recording as they are noisy, and that noise is unacceptable. So in order for me to be able to use my sound card, I had no choice but to go back to XP.

As I read through all of this, I kept thinking 'wow, when I beta tested Vista I thought it was great'. Heck I still think Vista is great.

Everyone of my customers who has problems with Vista, well, there is no easy way to say someone should never even own a computer.

Anyway, I did note that the debate over Microsoft not having there system ready for vendors popped its head up, and actually, right now, there are a load of vendors who are sitting back waiting to see what happens with 7.

I beta test for about a half dozen companies, and all of them are really clear with their statements of 'NOT' using the software we are testing at present with Windows 7.

They do not want to know if or how it works, primarily a big gloat av company, whose product I would never own and is usually the first software I remove from client's computers when they bring them in because they run like crap.

As long as I can keep fragging in my fps games, keep bringing on the OS that will fully maximize my system.

Originally Posted by mutant_builder

Everyone of my customers who has problems with Vista, well, there is no easy way to say someone should never even own a computer.

Actually I think you said it quite nicely.

its the engineers and sales departments of Microsoft. First of all, I'm in agreement that Vista ran like s*** on low to mid-grade PCs. Tons of unnecessary processes killed the PCs productivity levels. Companies from near and far could care less about Aero, thats a luxery for the home users. Any skilled manager or employer would stress production, not aesthetics from a machine. Really, what employee needs Aero?
As far as the home user, Vista isnt that bad, however Microsoft needed to inform the uninformed about optimal "Vista experience" hardware requirements far better than they did. 7 should be a good OS for MS, they'll finally get the XP holdouts to upgrade.