On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 11:00 -0400, Jeff Findley wrote:
> So the question to Microsoft is *why* is Vista better than XP?  I don't 
> think that this question has truly been answered.  We're still running 32 
> bit XP here at work.  XP 64 and Vista are both noticably slower when run on 
> the same hardware.

I think you are hitting the nail on the head.

Every other MS OS upgrade (except ME) that I've experienced has produced
a TANGIBLE benefit. Yes, the new OSs often ran slower on the same
hardware, but you lived with it because the new OS gave you something
you didn't get in the old one.

win3.1->win95 gave real 32bit app support, long file names, and an
actually useful GUI
win95->win98 gave real FAT32 support (technically win95b was first with
FAT, but there were many issues that weren't resolved until 98), MUCH
better stability, and actually useful USB support (win95c had USB, but
it sucked beyond belief)
win98->win2k gave the incredible stability of WinNT, but fused most of
the usability of 98, alone with pretty decent USB support, a better file
system, and much better networking suport
win2k->winXP basically bettered the "fusing", taking out some of the
"crankiness" of win2k, pretty much perfected USB support, actually
bettered performance in a few ways, and to some people improved the GUI
(I prefer the win2k style, but that's me)

What has winXP->Vista given us? Aside from the eye candy (which isn't
even AVAILABLE in every version of VISTA) everything else is seen by
most of the public as worse. Yes, security is tighter in Vista, but it
annoys the user to much they want to throw the machine out the window.

See, VISTA was initially GOING to provide numerous benefits over XP.
They had plans for a truly useful enhancement to the file system, along
with many other features that would have blown XP out of the water.
Unfortunately for MS, they ran so far behind they were basically forced
to release VISTA without these features, leaving a shell of an OS that
doesn't seem to offer any reason for existing, other then lining MS's
wallet.

In the mean time MacOS has catapulted itself up the feature ladder, many
people consider MacOS a more modern and feature filled OS then Vista.
Linux on the desktop has also improved by many magnitudes, some would
say it's reached the feature set of Vista, others would say it hasn't,
but it is getting there.

These next few years will be interesting for MS, they don't have
something to save they're butt like Win2K was for the massive failure
that was WinME. It'll be fun to watch, no matter which way things go.

TTYL
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