Vista

I've had a number of friends, family, acquaintances, or whatever feel like just because I work at Microsoft they can let me know how terrible of an operating system they think Windows Vista is, how slow it is, or how Linux or MacOS are taking over the world. I've read the insane amounts of media coverage of the problems that people have and seen the lawsuits over the performance of computers running Vista. I've seen the commercials by the rest of the industry portraying Vista as the slow, old, dumb operating system. And up until now I really didn't think much of it.... You see I came from the "other side" of the industry, working at Sun Microsystems and developing software in Java for Linux/Solaris for all of my career. I'm used to people trash talking Microsoft and so I guess I just hadn't really changed my mindset completely from the years of brainwashing by Scott Mcnealy on the evil empire.

But just lately I've been starting to see some positive articles about Vista which made me think about it a little bit more [1] [2]. When I left Sun and came to work at Microsoft I hadn't used Windows or Office or any other Microsoft product for at least 5 years. On my first day at Microsoft, I was handed a new laptop and told I could do whatever I wanted with it.... I seriously considered Linux as I was more comfortable, but decided to go with the flow a little bit and so installed Vista Enterprise. At the time (Feb, 2007) Vista hadn't been out long and was getting hit pretty hard in the media. I plugged my laptop in, started up a network install of Vista with Office and went to get some coffee (Seattle does have good coffee). Since that time I've been given a new laptop with better hardware specs, had a couple of desktop machines that I put Vista on and got a new PC at home that runs Vista Ultimate. I guess another part of the reason that I didn't really think too much about all the things that people were saying about this operating system, because, for me, Vista just works. I think I just figured most of these people that were griping and complaining were just the typical Microsoft bashers who are never going to have anything good to say because MS is just the "evil empire" and nothing we do here will ever convince people otherwise. Getting these people to see good in Microsoft products would be like convincing George Bush that global warming is real.

Sorry I got off topic there. Vista just works. I haven't had any problems whatsoever with any of the 5 or 6 machines I've had running this operating system and it has accomplished what an operating system should do because I don't even realize that it is there, I am able to just go about my work and can use my time and brain cycles to solve more important problems. While I was at Sun I felt like I was pretty proficient at managing my Solaris boxes and my Linux systems including a laptop. But one thing I remember is the constant struggle to get things working and keep them working smoothly. I just don't even think about those system administration type of issues anymore.

I guess the thing I'm trying to say is that all of the media hype is completely overblown. Vista is a great OS and is getting better all the time with the continous updates that are being pushed out for it. If you're one of those people who are just bashing it without trying it, well you let me know where to send you a copy, and once you've tried it out then you tell me what you think.