At one minute past midnight on January 30th, many computer stores across the country had all checklanes open so the true PC enthusiasts (read Geeks) could be the first in their neighborhoods to own a copy of the new Microsoft operating system known as Vista. It's been over five years (October 25, 2001) since Microsoft released Windows XP. At that time, Microsoft spent crazy money heralding the new operating system and it worked. The stores were packed at midnight. This time around was less crowded. For one, it's been five years - an eternity in technology terms - since the last release. In the meantime, computing has taken on more of an Internet flavor. Besides, the beta period was so long and included so many people that any true enthusiast (read Geek) would already have installed one or more versions of Vista in the past months.
Not me. I waited (but not in line) for the official version before embarking on this new journey that we will all eventually have to take. I did it in the best way possible. I ordered a new PC equipped beyond the minimum requirements to run all of the features of Vista. When I got it, I started from scratch to be sure no remnants of the now-obsolete Windows XP could hide somewhere during an upgrade installation. Then I added the new Microsoft Office 2007 which was also released at the end of January. What I got was a computer that runs slower than my old computer with the old Microsoft Office 2003 and the ancient Windows XP. I also got a completely new Office interface that makes less sense to me that the "intuitive" wheel on the Apple iPod.
As an aside, here's how the new interface was designed. It's the ultimate in customer feedback gone awry. In earlier versions of Microsoft products (Windows, Office, etc.), you were given the opportunity to sign up for the Microsoft Windows Customer Experience which allowed Microsoft to track what you did with their products. In other words, Microsoft watched how you used their software and used the information to improve their software. Just one catch: most people declined to participate. Guess what? We're going to pay for it now. Since most of us opted out of the Customer Experience, Microsoft used the information it got from those who decided to play. Clearly these were people who didn't use their Microsoft products in any of the same ways that I (and probably you) use them. So now I have to figure out where every command that used to be obvious to me is now hidden somewhere in the ever-changing, context sensitive ribbon.
Back to the Vista experience…
Other than requiring an incredible amount of computer power to give me a "cute" set of desktop features like see through windows and thumbnails of my open applications, Vista doesn't seem to do much for my computing experience. Except that it constantly asks me if I'm sure I want to do what I just attempted to do. For instance, I double-click on a desktop icon and a box pops up that says, "Such-and-such a program is attempting to run. Do you want to allow this?" I play along and tell it to run, then another window pops up that says, "You must have certain rights to run this application." I do have those rights, so I click OK again. Next, another cool new feature appears. Instead of getting the mouse pointer with the little hourglass that keeps tipping over and over, I get a little ring with what looks like some kind of worm or snake running around in it, over and over and over. When my application finally opens, it looks pretty much like it did in Windows XP, if I don't get that third Vista window that tells me, "This application is incompatible with Vista. Please contact the manufacturer for a fix."
In addition to getting Vista and Office 2007, I also got the new Internet Explorer 7.0, which tries to provide the features that have been available in Firefox for some time. For the most part, IE 7 works fine. There are a few websites that don't appear properly, but let's take Microsoft's approach and blame it on lazy web developers who didn't follow the standards as strictly as a more disciplined web developer would.
The bottom line on the whole thing is that you aren't going to run Vista without getting a new computer. Even if your current machine is only a year old, it probably doesn't have all the capabilities required for the full Vista experience. So stick with XP, which Microsoft says we'll be able to get for at least 12 more months even though several PC manufacturers will only sell many of their models with Vista already. More importantly though is to stick with Office 2003. It won't be long before someone develops a macro that makes Office 2007 look like Office 2003 and then we'll all be happy using it (except for those who participated in the Customer Experience).