Microsoft Spins Over a 'Mojave' Approach to Grow Vista User-base

[DarkMatter]

I love how people that don't like Vista have instantly become Vista Haters according to some people in this thread. I would even say EastCoastHandle is been regarded as such, even when he is only questioning the validity of "the study". I do question that study too, not because it is imposible for something like that to happen, but because of how they have brought it to light, period. What would people here say if something similar came from Nvidia, Intel or AMD? Wait, we know, because everytime they have released their own benchmarks, those have been instantly catalogued as BS.

But that is not what really matters. MS has fallen to understand why people don't buy Vista, and rely on these "studies" to find an excuse. And the answer is really simple: Vista costs almost double as XP and does not offer ANYTHING in return. I can't remember previous Windowses being so expensive and worthless (yet I didnt upgrade to XP until late 2003). Yes, Vista if you already own XP is totally worthless. It's not that it is worse, it's just that is not better. Paying more for the same thing-just-made-prettier is plainly stupid. And also if you are buying a new PC, you won't make an error by paying less for XP, saving money and getting exactly the same. And before any you wonder, yes, I have Vista on my laptop (came with it), yes I have dissabled everything there's there to dissable (with all the extra effort that supposed) and yes, it's still sometimes worse and sometimes only barely better than XP, worthless. Should they have offered downgrades to XP + discounts back then like they are doing now, I'd probably chose that.

TBH the contradiction I can find on these forums really surprises me. It's incredible how people will blame Heaven and Hell when a graphics card or CPU are $20 more expensive while offering just the same as another one and at the same time defend Vista so fiercely...

 

[DrPepper]

I was in that windows 98 group, glad i switched over, i decleared XP as the worst OS up to 2004 when I got a 64bit Athlon 3200 and 98 wouldnt work properly on it and no Nforce3 drivers where out for it i had to use XP, and well after i got used to it i liked it, and won't go back to windows 98. Though for anyone that says they want a responsive, fast OS that doesnt hog resources, ill give you a copy of Windows 3.1 its fast, responsive, and uses under 1mb of ram.

sigged

 

[candle_86]

I love how people that don't like Vista have instantly become Vista Haters according to some people in this thread. I would even say EastCoastHandle is been regarded as such, even when he is only questioning the validity of "the study". I do question that study too, not because it is imposible for something like that to happen, but because of how they have brought it to light, period. What would people here say if something similar came from Nvidia, Intel or AMD? Wait, we know, because everytime they have released their own benchmarks, those have been instantly catalogued as BS.

But that is not what really matters. MS has fallen to understand why people don't buy Vista, and rely on these "studies" to find an excuse. And the answer is really simple: Vista costs almost double as XP and does not offer ANYTHING in return. I can't remember previous Windowses being so expensive and worthless (yet I didnt upgrade to XP until late 2003). Yes, Vista if you already own XP is totally worthless. It's not that it is worse, it's just that is not better. Paying more for the same thing-just-made-prettier is plainly stupid. And also if you are buying a new PC, you won't make an error by paying less for XP, saving money and getting exactly the same. And before any you wonder, yes, I have Vista on my laptop (came with it), yes I have dissabled everything there's there to dissable (with all the extra effort that supposed) and yes, it's still sometimes worse and sometimes only barely better than XP, worthless. Should they have offered downgrades to XP + discounts back then like they are doing now, I'd probably chose that.

TBH the contradiction I can find on these forums really surprises me. It's incredible how people will blame Heaven and Hell when a graphics card or CPU are $20 more expensive while offering just the same as another one and at the same time defend Vista so fiercely...

cost double, i was in Wal-Mart yesterday stopped there on my way home.

Vista Home Premium Upgrade 149.

Windows XP Home Upgrade 129.

Vista Home Basic Upgrade 129.

Want more proof

89.99 Windows XP Home SP3 OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116511

89.99 Windows Vista Home Basic OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116480

109.99 Vista Home Premium OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116485

The double the price doesnt apply honestly for most users

here is another for you

134.99 XP Pro SP3 OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116400

179.99 Vista Ultimate OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116490

So there ya are the double isnt valid and the extra 20 for premium over XP Home and 50 extra for ultimate over XP Pro are worth it if you bother to look at what is offered over XP

 

[OnionMan]

It doesn't matter if it's a survey or an experiment. It's simply a marketing gimmick to bring a better image to Vista. Therefore, draws question to it's validity.


Again, this is from an email with no valid source. I've already explained why I take this with a grain of salt.


There was no comparison. You cannot have a litmus unless you have some sort of base to start from. They were told the OS was something else. Therefore, at this point the results are null and void based on the bias presented in the test. It is of my opinion they should have been presented with just the OS with no other internal or external influences of the name of the OS used. Then let them decide, that didn't happen.



No proof of that either. The responses in this thread along draw question as to how these people were obtained. For example, some here believe a person is a Vista hater because one can formulate a none biased, no peer induced opinion.


This the whole reason to take it with a grain of salt. If you can do this with the Mac ads this is no different. It only shows bias if one is weighed greater then the other.

Let me make it clear, this is my opinion on the situation, nothing has change, nothing will. If you read this and do not agree, we agree to disagree on this (for anyone). So lets not go through a whole lot of posts attempts to get one person to see the opinion of another because the 2 won't see eye to eye on the subject.

Not to flame.. I do see your points and you've explained yourself well, but I think you are making waaaaaaay to much of this.. In fact, I'm not all sure what you are upset over. You do seem a little upset.. Would having the information you are wanting really change anything? If they released video and formal documents would anything change? I think this thread has pretty much supported what MS is saying.. Some who are against Vista don't even know enough about it to know they were using it..

 

[candle_86]

well its true, XP is a hog compared to previous OS's i think actully i can find a copy windows 1.0 i can send out,

 

[DrPepper]

Would a windows 1.0 work on a core 2 ?

 

[farlex85]

Let me make it clear, this is my opinion on the situation, nothing has change, nothing will. If you read this and do not agree, we agree to disagree on this (for anyone). So lets not go through a whole lot of posts attempts to get one person to see the opinion of another because the 2 won't see eye to eye on the subject.

I think you are missing the point of at least my argument. I am in no way disagreeing that this is a marketing tool and is not to be trusted to statistical precision. Don't trust the validity, who cares? Marketing is marketing, that really isn't the point. This was done to attempt to counteract some of the bad-mouthing vista has gotten, and imo it should have been done a lot sooner.

If you have the will try your own experience, talk to someone random on the street, just ask them whether they like vista or not. My bet is 9 times out of 10 you'll get a no, maybe 8 (if they know about vista). Then ask them why, my bet is 9 times out of 10 you won't get anything that resembles an answer that indicates they themselves have tried it, it will mostly be spouting off things they've heard or read. Maybe 8. If you really get ambitious see if you can sit them down w/ vista, but that's a little impractical.

My arguments have nothing to do w/ whether the study is good or not, I really don't care, its marketing. My point is I have encountered this exact thing, and trying to break down a marketing study from a company is relatively pointless. Should I ask KFC on what grounds they say "Life tastes better w/ KFC?" Well, that wouldn't make much sense, it's marketing.

I love how people that don't like Vista have instantly become Vista Haters according to some people in this thread. I would even say EastCoastHandle is been regarded as such, even when he is only questioning the validity of "the study". I do question that study too, not because it is imposible for something like that to happen, but because of how they have brought it to light, period. What would people here say if something similar came from Nvidia, Intel or AMD? Wait, we know, because everytime they have released their own benchmarks, those have been instantly catalogued as BS.

But that is not what really matters. MS has fallen to understand why people don't buy Vista, and rely on these "studies" to find an excuse. And the answer is really simple: Vista costs almost double as XP and does not offer ANYTHING in return. I can't remember previous Windowses being so expensive and worthless (yet I didnt upgrade to XP until late 2003). Yes, Vista if you already own XP is totally worthless. It's not that it is worse, it's just that is not better. Paying more for the same thing-just-made-prettier is plainly stupid. And also if you are buying a new PC, you won't make an error by paying less for XP, saving money and getting exactly the same. And before any you wonder, yes, I have Vista on my laptop (came with it), yes I have dissabled everything there's there to dissable (with all the extra effort that supposed) and yes, it's still sometimes worse and sometimes only barely better than XP, worthless. Should they have offered downgrades to XP + discounts back then like they are doing now, I'd probably chose that.

TBH the contradiction I can find on these forums really surprises me. It's incredible how people will blame Heaven and Hell when a graphics card or CPU are $20 more expensive while offering just the same as another one and at the same time defend Vista so fiercely...

No the answer has nothing to do w/ how much it costs. I have people that don't want to buy notebooks b/c it comes w/ vista already on it. I ask them why and they say b/c they heard bad things. Vista doesn't even cost that much more than xp, although it should, later generation tend to. There is plenty of reason to go to vista, but that's not really the point either. The reason they did this was to counter-act all the bad-mouthing they get, and it should have been done sooner.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Not to flame.. I do see your points and you've explained yourself well, but I think you are making waaaaaaay to much of this.. In fact, I'm not all sure what you are upset over. You do seem a little upset.. Would having the information you are wanting really change anything? If they released video and formal documents would anything change? I think this thread has pretty much supported what MS is saying.. Some who are against Vista don't even know enough about it to know they were using it..

I think you are missing the point of at least my argument. I am in no way disagreeing that this is a marketing tool and is not to be trusted to statistical precision. Don't trust the validity, who cares? Marketing is marketing, that really isn't the point. This was done to attempt to counteract some of the bad-mouthing vista has gotten, and imo it should have been done a lot sooner.

If you have the will try your own experience, talk to someone random on the street, just ask them whether they like vista or not. My bet is 9 times out of 10 you'll get a no, maybe 8 (if they know about vista). Then ask them why, my bet is 9 times out of 10 you won't get anything that resembles an answer that indicates they themselves have tried it, it will mostly be spouting off things they've heard or read. Maybe 8. If you really get ambitious see if you can sit them down w/ vista, but that's a little impractical.

My arguments have nothing to do w/ whether the study is good or not, I really don't care, its marketing. My point is I have encountered this exact thing, and trying to break down a marketing study from a company is relatively pointless. Should I ask KFC on what grounds they say "Life tastes better w/ KFC?" Well, that wouldn't make much sense, it's marketing.

I've edit my post to make things clearer since you quoted me.

 

[OnionMan]

well its true, XP is a hog compared to previous OS's i think actully i can find a copy windows 1.0 i can send out,

This is true for so many things..

SOME- want more and more out of video cards and cpu's, yet complain about the temps of those faster components or the PSU needed to run them.. This is how I kind of see Vista/XP/98 (notice i took out ME lol)..

 

[1c3d0g]

I can understand those who have limited amounts of RAM (like the Eee PC and clones) would prefer XP over Vista (especially if it's nLite'd like TinyXP). That's a genuine reason to go for XP. But for all other notebooks and desktops, Vista is more than capable of handling it. The 64-bit version of Vista is even better, more secure, more stable...what else could you ask for?!?

I'm a big Linux supporter, but I know even the Open Source community got nothing on the ease of use and compatibility against M$. It may be a technically superior O.S. with a cleaner security model and rock-solid stability (nobody's debating that), but it's still an awkward system to use and most things just_don't_work as intended.

 

[Sh00t1st]

for me, its the fact that vista automatically uses half of my total memory..... ive got 1 gig, and it starts up SO slow for me, most people don't have the money to go out and buy the hardware to fully use an os like vista, let alone 100+ dollars to get a decent and not stripped down version of it. and xp was on a great cusp, or transformation if you will, where computers where being bought at a very fast rate and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon of owning one, simple logic dictates that people will stick with whats familiar and guess what, they're doing just that ms.

thats my horrid opinion

 

[DarkMatter]

So there ya are the double isnt valid and the extra 20 for premium over XP Home and 50 extra for ultimate over XP Pro are worth it if you bother to look at what is offered over XP

No it doesn't. If I had to conclude that it does, at the same I'd have to conclude that for example, Nvidia's GT200 are worth a lot over Ati's HD4000 series too, which I'm not inclined to believe. No, seriously, Vista does not offer anything worth $20 (pff even $5) over XP (at least up until now), except "futureproofing".

Don't worry, I already have Vista on my laptop, so I will continue testing it over the time, and I'll upgrade my main system when it is worth it. Unless windows 7 is close and it really is an upgrade...

I have to admit, anyway, that I wasn't very informed of the prices of the OS's now. Vista has come down a lot. But I can tell you something, Win XP here in Spain (I can't talk about the rest of the world) is a lot more expensive (that means €25-50) than 6 months ago, which IMHO is intriguing...

Hell it's more expensive than when I bought it back in 2003!!!!

 

[Kreij]

@EastCoast : I am not saying that this should be considered some kind of "holy grail" of marketting studies. But is was just that, a marketting study.
It sounds like MS wanted to find out why Vista was not doing as well as they hoped, so they did an experiment to see why that may be the case.
How or why the "e-mail" got into the hands of people in the tech trade is unknown, but the whole thing sounds more like media blathering than MS trumpetting.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[OnionMan]

I've edit my post to make things clearer since you quoted me.

I hope you don't think I'm not willing to accept that we won't see exactly eye to eye

In my business we have to do just this.. Customers don't like change.. I sell water filtration systems with coolers.. We replace bottled water.. We get those who think our water is bad b/c it comes from their city water instead of the bottled jug.. So we do a NON blind test so to speak.. We tell the customer A: is our water and B: is your bottledwater.. Most will pick B as the best.. Funny thing is both A and B are the exact same samples from our system..

It's not the most honest of tests, but it does prove the point that Perception is Reality..

 

[Champ]

About 95% of my friends told me to stay away from Vista and I would be sorry for using it. Well I tried it anyway and i like it a lot more than XP. The problem was their machine couldn't handle it and they bad mouthed it to everyone they knew. Its damn sure a better gaming OS and probably the better one in general. It also is way more stable in my eyes. Don't listen to your friends, try stuff for yourself first.

 

[DarkMatter]

No the answer has nothing to do w/ how much it costs. I have people that don't want to buy notebooks b/c it comes w/ vista already on it. I ask them why and they say b/c they heard bad things. Vista doesn't even cost that much more than xp, although it should, later generation tend to. There is plenty of reason to go to vista, but that's not really the point either. The reason they did this was to counter-act all the bad-mouthing they get, and it should have been done sooner.

It's not how much it costs, it's how much it costs for what it does.

Personally, I haven't heard anything bad that was not true. Most people I know that don't like Vista is because of the same thing I do: they already have XP and Vista does not offer anything worth an upgrade. Some of them are also influenced by the bad start of Vista (bugs, lack of drivers, etc.), but that's not the main reason, just some additions. Things have changed, but MS will have to wait until these changes are noticed through word of mouth. That's how this works, they can't blame people for lacking the knowledge. Vista WAS WORSE than XP when it launched and was for too many time, they can't expect things to get better overnight.

The experiment doesn't proof that Vista has not been embraced because the bad-mouthing. Test subjects are described as "XP users that hate Vista". They had some time with the test systems and give good feedback. And what?
-How were the test systems they used?
-How were their own (subject's) PCs? (A heavily crippled C2D would be a lot better than a very well optimized P4, for example.)
-Which kind of aplications could test subjects use?
-Could they experiment with different peripherals and drivers to test compatibility?

The interface and usual windows preinstalled programs are not the problem of Vista. So, how could the test subjects conclude Vista was or was not a good OS? As EastCoastHandle said: without anything to compare to, they simply can't. It just ran fine, but it could run better under Win XP. The matter of the thing is that they will never know. The experiment is not valid.

About 95% of my friends told me to stay away from Vista and I would be sorry for using it. Well I tried it anyway and i like it a lot more than XP. The problem was their machine couldn't handle it and they bad mouthed it to everyone they knew. Its damn sure a better gaming OS and probably the better one in general. It also is way more stable in my eyes. Don't listen to your friends, try stuff for yourself first.

You could have said anything except that. Well maybe I'm too concerned about the 10%+ performance penalty to look further...

 

[OnionMan]

As far as it not being worth the $$ or any $$ over XP, I again disagree.. Well sort of..

IDK if other users can tell, but I can tell a huge visual difference between the two.. Not just eye candy and special effects, but the overall clarity of Text, Icons, Images, ect.. Vista just plain looks better on screen... That has to be worth a little something, maybe not $180 tho..

 

[DrPepper]

As far as it not being worth the $$ or any $$ over XP, I again disagree.. Well sort of..

IDK if other users can tell, but I can tell a huge visual difference between the two.. Not just eye candy and special effects, but the overall clarity of Text, Icons, Images, ect.. Vista just plain looks better on screen... That has to be worth a little something, maybe not $180 tho..

Vista uses cleartype by default and xp doesnt but you can enable it it add antialiasing to the text.

 

[Kreij]

I agree that when Vista launched there were problems with it (mostly driver) that Windows XP did not have.
But don't forget that when XP launched it was a nightmare also.
Many, many people advised others not to upgrade to XP until SP1 came out.
SP1 helped, but it was not until SP2 that XP really became a solid OS.
Vista is very similar to XP in that manner.
I feel that SP1 for Vista, and the improved drivers, makes Vista a more stable OS at SP1 level than XP was at the time.

 

[DarkMatter]

I agree that when Vista launched there were problems with it (mostly driver) that Windows XP did not have.
But don't forget that when XP launched it was a nightmare also.
Many, many people advised others not to upgrade to XP until SP1 came out.
SP1 helped, but it was not until SP2 that XP really became a solid OS.
Vista is very similar to XP in that manner.
I feel that SP1 for Vista, and the improved drivers, makes Vista a more stable OS at SP1 level than XP was at the time.

Agreed. That still doesn't make Vista SP1 better than XP SP3. And even if not by much, is more expensive. Whenever Vista is clearly better than XP people will embrace it, just as they did with previous versions. Until then, until they make it better, until they make it be what they promised, excuses are not worth a thing.

 

[OnionMan]

I've really enjoyed this thread.. The lack of flaming is nice.. And civil talk is always better..

I've learned a couple of things too.. And tho I don't share every view stated here, I do understand more about why users (more exp. users) are not for Vista.. I think we all have made some good points.. Bottom line is whether or not Vista is for you.. Being an "Eye Candy" type of person, I like Vista.. But if I were a stat/performance person then, yes, I see why it's not liked..

As for the originall post goes, after reading over and over again I see more clearly now EastCoast's (and others) point about that test..

In the end tho, we are talking about something that will be replaced sooner than we think.. Vista will go down as a failure no matter if you it's for you or not, mostly b/c of it's lack of sales..

 

[yogurt_21]

cost double, i was in Wal-Mart yesterday stopped there on my way home.

Vista Home Premium Upgrade 149.

Windows XP Home Upgrade 129.

Vista Home Basic Upgrade 129.

Want more proof

89.99 Windows XP Home SP3 OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116511

89.99 Windows Vista Home Basic OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116480

109.99 Vista Home Premium OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116485

The double the price doesnt apply honestly for most users

here is another for you

134.99 XP Pro SP3 OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116400

179.99 Vista Ultimate OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116490

So there ya are the double isnt valid and the extra 20 for premium over XP Home and 50 extra for ultimate over XP Pro are worth it if you bother to look at what is offered over XP

there's more than the cost of the disk that factors into it being double I can run windows xp on a 10 year old rig without issue, I can't with vista, theres no getting around the fact that vista needs a better rig to run nice vs windows xp. so when joe blow with his pentium 3 decides between the two, what do you think he's going to pick? it's the same with the athlon xp users pentium 4 users and even early athlon 64 users. they will simply run faster on xp. no that's not opinion, that's fact.

so bein that 90% of people have those cpu's or older in their rigs, you can see why those same 90% didn't think vista was so bad when used on decent hardware. which is exactly the point, joe blow can't afford or doesn't care enough to upgrade his rig to run vista.

vista isn't the worst os put out, (it's not the best either) but it requires more from hardware which in the end always takes a while to get adopted.

 

[HAL7000]

This is the whole reason to take it with a grain of salt (regardless if the video is presented or not). If you can do this with the Mac ads this is no different. It only shows bias if one is weighed greater then the other. According to some posts so far, it is.
Let me make it clear, this is my opinion on the situation, nothing has change, nothing will. If you read this and do not agree, we agree to disagree on this (for anyone). So lets not go through a whole lot of posts attempts to get one person to see the opinion of another because the 2 won't see eye to eye on the subject.

I can relate to this statement...I hate blind testing, it shows personal bias and hypocrisy at its finest, and to state that this is reason leading to facts is bullsh*t. Blind testing is the bullsh*t. I do like it nor trust it nor even consider it as a opinion. It is merely a campaign of political correctness. So Eastcoasthandle I see your point and agree with most of what you are saying.
It is marketing at its dirtiest and creates consumers to mistrust the outcome. Same thing goes with polling during political season, it is nothing to listen to or even consider unless it is a study that has a formula and result that can be studied, and performed by unbiased 3rd parties.

 

[Kreij]

I like this civil discussion without anyone going off and being as asshat. We are here to discuss, not to trash.

The recommended reqs of Vista is a 1Ghz processor and 512MB of RAM.
This is interesting as the Pentium 3 ranged from about 600Mhz to 1.4 Ghz.
We all know that a system with a P3 is not going to run Vista worth a crap.

I think that MS should have been a little more specific in their specs about Vista, and perhaps should have been a little tighter on the specs (like minimum P4?).

Just some casual observations.

 

[Mussels]

the only rational arguments that have come up so far, is that systems with 1GB of ram or less shouldnt use vista.

so far, no one else has had anything else to offer in argument of XP over vista. To be honest i agree - if your rig is so old that you only have 1GB of ram, stay the hell away from vista. its a great OS, but its not for old rigs like that.

before people complain that they dont want to buy more ram... well i'd never game on XP with 1GB again either, lol.