Vista came out in late January, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I needed to set up some Vista systems. Come March, I was working on my first few and have done a handful altogether since then. I don't know if the problem is necessary with Vista, but I have been very disappointed overall with these new computers. I'm not really sure that Vista is to blame as much as the PC makers.
The first few systems that I set up all shipped with Roxio's drive letter access (DLA) drivers. DLA is a great tool for a lot of people and I have nothing against it, except that Dell was shipping DLA drivers that were incompatible with Vista. So, every time Vista booted, you got a scary message about a driver being disabled because it wasn't compatible. I can't help but wonder who at Dell thought that it was a good idea to ship a known incompatible driver with their systems. Messages like this are terrifying to many computer users. I hope Dell wasted tens of thousands of dollars on support calls from frantic new PC buyers who thought they had a defective computer.
These Dell systems also ship with some fancy DVD/media access software that lets you access your movies and music with play, pause, fast forward, etc. buttons right on the laptop case. Again, a wonderful feature to include. However, why do the drivers for this crash every few days, throwing up another really scary message about a program that has quit responding? I have also seen the same problem with HP's new "Total Care" software package. Is it really that hard to write software that doesn't crash so often -- especially software that is going to be shipped on every PC you sell and is enabled to run all the time?
Don't even get me started on all the junk software and trials that get loaded onto most new computers. The "Get a Mac" ad featured the bloated PC guy is probably the most true of any of the "Get a Mac" ads. The desktop comes 1/4 covered in useless software that most people never want, but they don't trash the icons because they're afraid of "messing up the computer." To Apple's credit, the desktop on a new Mac has exactly one icon -- the hard drive icon.
So even if Vista is one of the more underwhelming Windows releases, the PC makers aren't doing Microsoft or themselves any favors with how they are building and bundling their computers with incompatible software and bloatware. The bad news for Microsoft is that all of these factors are probably hurting the public image of Vista more than anything else. At least with the folks I've worked with, these problems have all been blamed on "that new Vista system" rather than the system builders who have poorly configured their computers.
It's no wonder Vista is being labeled a non-event. Sure, everyone will be using Vista in a few years (except the wise ones who jump ship to one of the increasingly viable alternatives), but if Microsoft and PC makers want better reviews and better customer experiences, they need to look at more than just the OS and hardware and clean up their act.
I hope I have enough Windows XP activations left to last until I can afford a Mac.