Although I'm late to the party in reviewing Windows Vista SP1, it's becoming widely available as I write this, so now is as good a time as any for my review. Rather than try to cover every improvement in SP1, I'm going to cover my particular experiences. Read my review.
John Dvorak makes a living saying things that rile people up, and his latest missive details 11 reasons why Windows Vista hasn't done well in the market. Dvorak makes some good points in his Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure, but he also says a lot of things I either disagree with, are non-issues or no longer important, so I'll talk about his points one by one in my response.
I agree with Dvorak that Windows Vista has not done well in the market. Paul Thurrott cites sales numbers that say otherwise, but businesses, who make up more than half of the PC market, are avoiding Vista in droves. You cannot label a Vista a success while businesses continue to ignore it. I think Vista actually should be more successful and that its problems are more perception than reality, but at this point, Vista has done poorly in the market.
1) Market confusion - Dvorak states that there are too many Vista versions, and I completely agree. There should be business and home versions and that's it. Releasing five different versions of Vista was confusing and dumb.
2) Code size - Dvorak and I agree that Vista is just too big. Modern hardware is so powerful that it neutralizes this problem to some degree. However, I and lot of other folks would really like a small, clean, fast install of Vista minus the dozens of features we never use. People have actually done this with Windows XP.
3) Missing components (WinFS) - Dvorak complains that Microsoft's long-planned WinFS file system is missing from Vista. None of the other major desktop operating systems have a WinFS-style relational file system, so I don't see the competitive disadvantage here. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what WinFS would do for me that well-designed desktop search and intelligent, automated tagging can't do, with some refinement on where we are today.
4) Laptop battery-life drain - Dvorak claims that laptop battery life is worse on Vista. I can't verify this because I don't have a laptop capable of running Vista. I see a lot of speculation and "I used to get 'x' battery life on XP" posts, but very little actual testing. I'd really like to see someone reputable run XP vs Vista battery tests on a single machine.
5) HHD fiasco - Dvorak has been on a hybrid hard drive kick for years, and he continues to complain about it. Hard drive vendors promised Dvorak that HHDs would be the best invention since round wheels, and John is still mad about that it wasn't true. Non-issue.
6) Bogus Vista-capable stickers - Dvorak rightly complains about Microsoft labeling PCs incapable of running Aero as "Vista capable." This was clearly a mistake and was designed to pacify Intel, who made a bunch of crappy video chipsets they needed to sell. People inside Microsoft fought this and lost. Bad mistake.
7) Missing drivers - Missing drivers were somewhat of a problem at RTM, but are a lot less of a problem now. I just can't feel that sorry for someone who screams that his six year old, $50 parallel port scanner doesn't work any more. You can buy newer, better hardware for less money on eBay. That being said, it's always worse when your stuff doesn't work.
8) Conflicting advice - Dvorak is right that Microsoft plays both sides of the upgrade vs. clean install issue, but this has always been the case. It was the same with Windows 2000 to XP and with Mac OS X Tiger to Leopard. Clean installs are always better and operating system vendors always give mixed messages.
9) XP mania - I agree with Dvorak that people want to stick with XP. I understand this to some degree in the business market, where IT Admins have supported XP for so long that it's become second nature. I don't understand why everyone else holds on to XP. Windows XP looks like a toy and was a complete and utter security nightmare for much of its existence. Still, people hold on to XP like it's my holey old Midvale School for the Gifted t-shirt, except that my shirt is awesome and XP isn't.
10) Mediocre rollout - Dvorak says Vista's rollout was a non-event and I agree. I don't see what Microsoft could have done about it, other than getting Vista done on time. It's tough to say "Hey! Get excited about this thing that's two years late! It even comes with a free 2005 calendar!"
11) Performance - Windows Vista is slower than Windows XP. Windows XP was slower than Windows 2000, which was slower than Windows 98. Windows upgrades have always worked this way. That being said, if you're running modern hardware, you have to benchmark XP to prove it's faster than Vista. Vista's performance is fine. John is right, but why did he expect anything different?
I actually agreed with most of Dvorak's points, but several of them were expected or not a big deal and others are no longer relevant. Dwight Silverman wrote an excellent post on Windows XP demand, and I agree with nearly everything but his conclusion. I think Microsoft should dump XP for everyone but businesses on June 30, while abolishing craplets forever. Keeping XP past June 30 tells me that Microsoft does think something is wrong with Windows Vista. Aside from craplets, needing new hardware and the odd unsupported device, Vista is better than XP. Almost everyone will be fine with Vista, whether they know it now or not.
Windows Vista SP1 review 
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