In 2007, Microsoft officially released a new version of the Windows Operating System; Windows Vista. This included several overalls to the Windows Experience and its entire structuring surrounded a concept that would also become a part of Microsoft’s marketing slogan, “Bringing clarity to your world.” But for many people, Windows Vista brought anything, but clarity. A review from columnist, Gary Krakow in 2006 states, “I would like to tell you how easy it was to install and how much fun I’ve had using Vista Beta 2 over the past few days… but I can’t. That’s because the combination of Beta 2 and the laptop computers I tried to install it on was like trying to mix oil and water.” Krakow further states that installing Vista Beta 2 was one of the worst system experiences he has ever encountered. Considering that in most cases, that’s what is to be expected of a beta. Any piece of software that is still in beta is going to encounter issues and is not going to run perfectly. However, this is the case to an extent. After Windows Vista was released globally, this thought process did not change for a lot of people. Many consumers complained about Windows Vista’s weak performance, with one user bold enough to claim that “Vista is clearly the worst piece of software even Microsoft has ever released.” Additionally, a man was even arrested for shooting his girlfriend’s computer after installing Windows Vista. With this taking place, Apple took advantage of the ordeal with their “Mac versus PC commercials.” This seemingly revolutionary operating system received such intense backlash, to say the least. I think one of the most fascinating things about the phenomenon surrounding Vista’s downfall is that there is no straightforward answer. It is a fairly complex situation that needs to be delved into to be fully understood. This consists of the failure of Windows Vista due to development issues, Windows XP’s popularity, unfavorable marketing, mob mentality, and in some respects, wrong timing.
Development History. – Windows Longhorn.
Microsoft’s new project was known as “Windows Longhorn.” Codenames were often given to Windows versions during their stages of development. You may recall that Windows XP’s codename was Whistler. Windows Vista’s codename was Windows Longhorn, and “Blackcomb” was an even higher, at the time, unknown version of Windows; Windows 7. Whistler and Blackcomb were the names of mountains in British Columbia, with Longhorn being a bar between the two locations. Specifically, Blackcomb was meant to be Microsoft’s next major release of Windows, and just as revolutionary as Windows XP. Longhorn served the purpose of a smaller release between both versions. But it soon started to become more than that. Longhorn’s originally anticipated release date was in 2003, with Blackcomb coming out later in 2005. But over time during development, Microsoft began to pile on more features to Longhorn which would ultimately harm productivity.
Many leaks of the Operating System, both real and fake, were available online around 2002. This provided information regarding features more than Microsoft wanted the public to know. But in the beginning, Longhorn didn’t seem much different than Windows XP. Because of this, people were still not sure what to expect. Despite what they were being told. An article titled, “A Fork in the Road to Longhorn,” was posted to the Directions on Microsoft Website in October of 2002, expressing a lot of skepticism about the OS meeting its initial deadline. By 2004, Windows Longhorn was still in development. Rather than just being a transitional release of Windows as intended, Microsoft soon had more features in mind that they wanted to integrate into Longhorn. This included a new security architecture called Palladium, designed to use both hardware and software to protect the end user from malicious activity, a new 3D user interface, faster desktop search, and a “Sidebar,” which can be considered a primitive version of what we recognize today as the Notification Center in Windows 10, and a new storage system known as Windows Future Storage. As you can tell, Windows Longhorn became quite an ambitious project. Many of its features which were initially reserved for Blackcomb, were now essentially being packed into Longhorn. As a result, its release date was extended further to 2005.
With how development was going with Longhorn, it became apparent that Microsoft didn’t have a sense of direction and wasn’t sure of what they wanted Longhorn to be. As time progressed, the OS became more unstable and bloated, and some major changes to the extent of completely rewriting some parts of the Operating System made it incredibly difficult to use. One of these notable features was the .NET Framework, known as WinFS. This made application deployment easier, especially in enterprise environments by eliminating the requirement of downloading and installing the .NET Framework. Additionally, a significant portion of the Operating System was written in Managed C#. Using the now included .NET Framework. While this framework increased security in cross-platform compatibility for the Operating System, it also increased the amount of code and dependencies required for some of the default applications. Simply put, Microsoft thought of a really good idea but went about creating it in a very chaotic way.
Resetting Longhorn.
Microsoft concluded that they were running into many difficulties. By August 2004, the Longhorn project was completely reset and the release date was now uncertain. To put time into perspective, that’s approximately four years of Windows XP. Over time, Microsoft would only include a handful of the features that were originally intended for the project. Ultimately, dropping features such as Palladium and WinFS, but still including new graphics and a Start search. In April 2005, one of the few Longhorn builds officially released by Microsoft, introduced the Aero Theme which had a very close resemblance to Windows XP. To Microsoft’s surprise, this was not well-received. Windows enthusiast, Paul Thurrott, had choice words regarding the build, calling the build “Painful” and “the makings of a train wreck.” Luckily, as time progressed, so did Longhorn. Many changes were made to the system, including the project’s name, which was changed to Vista. Although future Beta releases of the OS did have their problems, they cannot be compared to Longhorn pre-reset. We could say for certain that Microsoft now had a vision and was quite confident with its new release date to manufacturers, in November of 2006. Each Beta release gave them more opportunities to patch bugs and provide a more professional OS. In retrospect, things looked nice and presentable, which allowed Microsoft to release Vista on time.
Releasing Windows Vista.
Unfortunately, it was obvious that Vista wasn’t finished. Despite all the major changes that Microsoft made to Vista by the time of its release, it was hated by many, and the OS quickly developed a negative reputation. Although the issues Vista had were on the order of magnitude, less severe than they were with Longhorn when reviewing what took place during its development, it’s easy to see where things went wrong. Consumers waited a very long time to get an Operating System that was completely bloated due to the rewriting of code, an over-the-top security feature known as User Account Control, and a GUI that seemed to only work properly on the latest hardware. Otherwise, the OS was incredibly slow. Because Microsoft failed to have an objective throughout most of Longhorn’s development, there wasn’t a chance to execute Vista’s features properly. Because of this, several people migrated back to Windows XP.
Staying With Windows XP.
Unsatisfied consumers migrating back to Windows XP made Vista’s reputation worse than it might have been. At the time Windows XP was very popular. It would’ve been hard to make anything as good or even better during that period. If you recall in 2008, over 70% of all computers worldwide ran Windows XP. To put that number into perspective, that is over 1 billion computers. Many businesses running Windows XP, at the time, including government agencies were also running critical applications that in some respects, only worked with Windows XP. In addition, Windows Vista was also facing backwards compatibility issues. After reviewing all the negative feedback Windows Vista was receiving, many businesses either didn’t have sufficient funds to upgrade or simply stayed on Windows XP because of the risk of corrupting their critical software. Because of Windows XP’s popularity and productivity at the time, support for it wouldn’t end. So upgrading to Vista wouldn’t serve a purpose.
Windows Vista’s Unfavorable Marketing.
Matters got worse when it came to Marketing. It wasn’t necessarily bad advertising from Microsoft for Windows Vista, it’s that negative advertising against Vista from competitors was better. It could be argued that the poor way Longhorn’s development was handled contributed to this. As mentioned earlier WinFS, was promoted as one of Longhorn’s most innovative features. In short, it would form relationships between different types of data to make managing that data easier for the user. One feature WinFS boasted was its new Metadata Search. There was no need to search for the name of a file on your PC. If you forgot the name of a file, but remember a particular word or phrase that’s located in it, it would show up. It was a massive improvement over Windows XP’s search utility. However, due to development issues and several complicated reasons, WinFS was removed. Nevertheless, most of its search capabilities stayed. The majority of people didn’t care. But because of the problematic way it was handled, Microsoft announced that this new search feature would be standard in the next Windows Operating System. As a result, the next version of Windows was not released on time.
In addition, other companies such as Google created their search tools for Windows in order to compete in the market. Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, saw the potential of this concept and wanted to bring something similar to the Mac. Apple achieved a milestone in 2005 with the release of OS 10 Tiger. MacOS would first introduce Spotlight Search, a Metadata Search tool. OS 10 now had a search bar that Microsoft initially planned to integrate into Windows. Only for the development of Windows to continue being postponed. As time progressed, such a feature became less exciting and more expected. As mentioned earlier WinFS was more than a standard search feature. But the majority of people weren’t aware of its potential. With the removal of WinFS, a number of people thought these search features would not be on Vista at all when that wasn’t true. From their perspective, it was another feature that Windows did not have. Apple’s release of Tiger made their “Get a Mac” campaign easy. When Vista wasn’t receiving the feedback it wanted, Apple had even more reason to brag. Many people who were impartial to Windows Vista were now being evangelized into purchasing a Mac instead. While Windows Vista dug its own grave, others helped.
Windows Vista’s Mob Mentality.
Of course, the reason why Windows Vista was hated so much is because it was popular to hate Vista. Generally speaking, first impressions mean a lot. When Vista started with such a significant negative result, redemption was difficult. Many of those who dealt with the worst of Vista were not open-minded to any improvement. Additionally, people who had never even tried the OS thought all the reviews were enough and didn’t want anything to do with it. This group did not want to see the success of Windows Vista and Microsoft understood this. There was no going back with the project so they decided to try something different. In 2008, Microsoft announced to a small focus group that they were currently working on a new OS, code-named Mojave. This served as an apology for Vista. Microsoft first asked everybody to rate Windows Vista on a scale of one to 10. Unsurprisingly, low reviews were given. Afterward, they were given an insight into the new Windows Mojave, and they liked it. Mojave was given a 10. However, this was a social experiment conducted by Microsoft to show that Vista still had an opportunity to be appreciated. With all these changes, the negative perception was just simply a negative perception.
Windows Vista’s Timing.
As mentioned earlier, Windows Vista came out at the wrong time. It did objectively have problems that were not present on Windows XP. But a lot of the more glaring ones were just problems of the time. The reason Windows Vista crashed so much was often because the computer’s GPU used drivers that didn’t fully support it yet. The reason why it was slow is that users were installing it on computers with hardware that wasn’t ideal for it. 1 GB of RAM was pretty advanced at the time. Vista used memory in unnecessary ways. The Operating System took unused memory to run other background processes in order to perform better. Simply, it was only the illusion that it took up memory.
So, Was Windows Vista THAT Bad?
With everything this article has covered, I believe it is a both yes and no answer. Windows Vista did eventually get the treatment that it deserved, as hardware improved. With some minor changes. Vista was rebranded to Windows 7 in 2009. Conveniently, when the “Get a Mac” campaign ended. Microsoft finally got the response that it wanted, with Windows 7 being considered by many including myself as the greatest Windows Operating System of all time.
