Why Windows Vista Sucks

 
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Never before has there been so many so resistant to upgrade to a new version of Windows. Even in the year since the release of Windows Vista even many most corporate IT executives and managers are holding off on Windows Vista. Even many of those who bought Vista outright or bought a computer running the new operating system state some dissatisfaction with Windows Vista. One of the common annoyances is that computers running Windows Vista are slower than a similar PC running Windows XP.

Sales are so disappointing for Microsoft that they have accelerated development of the next version of Windows code named ‘7’. At the heart of the problems with Windows Vista is the heart of Windows Vista. The NT Kernel is fifteen years old and has been patched and added on to so much that Windows Vista or any future operating system based on the NT kernel will be creaking under the weight of the kernel.

If Microsoft really wants to create an operating system that consumers will actually line up at stores at midnight to buy like they did when Windows 95 did when it was first released the Microsoft has to do something drastic, really drastic. Create a brand new operating system operating not running under yet another retread of Windows NT but under a brand new kernel.

Throwing away current technology and starting over again maybe something that Microsoft can’t get their heads around but Apple has done it three times. In the early 1990’s Apple went from manufacturing their Macintosh computers based on the 68000 family of microprocessors from Motorola to PowerPC processors from IBM. Apple had to recode and recompile their operating system for the new hardware and software vendors had to do the same to make their programs PowerPC compatible.

About the time that Microsoft was getting Windows XP ready for release Apple was making the change in their operating system right down to the kernel. The chief software engineers recognized that days of the ‘Classic Mac OS’ were numbered and developed OS X under the Unix kernel. Again software vendors that supported Mac had to rewrite and recompile their software.

A couple of years when Apple made the move from PowerPC to the Intel Core 2 Duo processors Apple and software developers had to rewrite and recompile yet again throwing away backwards compatibility.

The first twenty years of PC’s running Microsoft operating systems that were largely based on the original MS-DOS kernel. The end point of the DOS kernel was Windows Millennium Edition, a product so widely hated that it practically begged to be put out of its misery. Is the future of the NT kernel going to sink so far that a version of Windows has to get as bad as Windows Millennium Edition before Microsoft starts again with a new operating system?

One justified criticism of Microsoft operating systems is that they have been bloating, requiring faster and faster PC’s in order to run. Initially this sounds counterproductive especially for Microsoft. A new operating system under a brand new kernel would sell so well especially to those subjected to Windows Vista.

With so many PC’s hitting landfills and recycling companies, a new smaller and lighter operating system would help bring new life to old PC’s and would extend the useful life spans of today’s modern PC’s.

While we are talking about the need to create an new operating system under a new kernel let’s mention something else that Microsoft needs to do, dump the name ‘Windows’ It was a useful name about twenty years ago to let people know the program does, but now it’s pretty lame. Maybe somebody from the auto industry who comes up with the names for new models of cars can freelance at Microsoft.

The executives at Microsoft, computer and hardware manufacturers and everybody right down to the home computer user has to realize that taking a new direction is the way to the future of computing. Going the same way is just going to lead to a dead end street. The descents of Windows NT are going to be history, it’s just the way it is going to have to be.

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