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David Overton's Blog » Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent

Lets start off by saying this is a RANT.  If you don't like rants, look away now.

I saw this in CRN and it made me laugh and cry.  We have seen news that iTunes has undisclosed issues with Vista (even after being fixed), poor drivers from nVidia and others and even enough to stop a BBC reporter from getting it going, yet from the list below, most are down to 3rd parties.  I have only a little sympathy for hardware partners who didn't get drivers out - I was at WinHEC 3 and 2 years ago when the need to build drivers was hammered home.  I have seen the offers of help to ISVs to get their applications working.  I have seen the large amount of online training available for partners of all sizes to understand the benefits of the products.  However, I have also seen the difficulties people have in when to bet on Vista and deploy the resources - I think its success has taken a few people by surprise!  Microsoft is certainly happy with the launch.

If like me, when you have 2 years to solve a problem it is always tomorrows problem, until eventually the deadline looms and it suddenly urgent - perhaps many face this issue.  Of course, I am hugely over simplifying the issue.  Some people chose not to move, saying that they would wait until there was enough market demand.  Others, so the rumours say, have no desire to make older versions of hardware or software work on Vista and are using it as a lever to drive upgrades.  Finally, the meaning of "minimum requirements" somehow seems to have been lost on people, so when all editions other than basic recommend a minimum of 1GB, that should not be seen as optimum for all users, but the minimum.

I am frankly amazed that some vendors "top" PCs are not Vista compatible and it is because they were not ready - I thought the product was delayed to help these guys get ready - and if lower spec machines are working... gosh!  While others have got it all working, on new machines and with new hardware designed for Vista style PCs.

For application issues, many uncertified Windows Vista Apps May Work - no surprise there, but for more information about application compatibility, go to http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/02/27/running-office-2003-on-windows-vista-and-running-other-applications-that-work-on-windows-xp-on-vista.aspx

 

Back to the CRN article - according to various solution providers contacted by CRN, here are the 10 biggest problems faced by early adopters of Vista out of the gate:

1. Lack of available drivers from ISVs causing application conflicts;

2. Lack of available drivers for existing and new peripherals and hardware components;

3. Buggy drivers;

4. New security feature often flags existing applications as suspicious and interrupts service;

5. Few applications aside from Vista and Office 2007 take advantage of user account control;

6. Customers are confused by Office 2007's ribbon-like user interface;

7. The OS automatically recommends which Vista versions is best for each PC's configuration. This will cause small businesses to download different versions of Vista;

8. Benefits of Vista and Office 2007 running together are not obvious. Partners and IT staff need training for maximum ROI;

9. Deployment isn't easy. Partners should use either Business Desktop Deployment tool, "lite" BDD no-charge tool or other tools;

10. Hardware doesn't run Windows Vista well.

Source: CRN | Microsoft, Vista| Hardware, Software Conflicts Dampen Vista's Debut

 

Of the issues above, numbers 1, 2, (3 when not Microsofts), 4, 5 and 10 are due to people not planning for the release of Vista.  Microsoft could be considered at fault here if the organisations did not realise that Vista was coming, but I can't seriously believe many were in that position (unless they listened to Gartner who predicted "shorthorn" that never happened or that Vista would not ship until post April '07).  Anyone who said they could not get hold of the code were obviously not using MSDN, Technet, CTPs or attending one of the many conferences where it was given out!

For number 4 - these applications are basically not following the recommendations that have been out for years to not write to certain directories etc.  Vista now emulates many of the trouble spots to avoid issues while protecting the systems, so these are very naughty applications rather than just bad one.

For number 6 - we need to educate these people - there is FANTASTIC training on the office site that takes you through the new ribbon and also enables you to view a Office 2003 menu & toolbar and then be told how to work in the new world.

For number 7 - yes this is confusing, however that is more about choices.  When people compare Vista to Apple Macs, they forget that you get to choose which box, but not which vendor or environment to use it.  There is not a lower cost Mac product for the home, so I guess we could do as Apple has done and just price for the premium version?? :-)

Partner training for Vista, or at least in the UK, was rolled out on a huge scale - online and by visiting many locations, so anyone who chose not to attend was again betting against Vista being important to them - if they are now saying they don't have training, then where was their investment when the opportrunity was offered?

Finally Deployment.  Deployment of Vista is easier than deployment of Windows XP & Office 2003.  BDD was around to make it easier for them before and has been improved and re-released to make Vista easier.  For small business customers, sneakernet is still probbaly the best way - run round to 10 machines and install the software that way - on a Saturday.

 

OK, rant over... I've Vistafied in the home and at work and loving it!  I run the hardware advisor before I upgrade and so far, it has not let me down!

 

ttfn

David

 

 

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Posted Sat, Mar 10 2007 6:00 AM by David Overton
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Comments

Bob Muir wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sat, Mar 10 2007 6:16 AM

I agree with you completely.  What I want to know though is why Microsoft waited two years to release DST patches.  If they had released the patches a year or even six months ago, we wouldn't be going through the headaches we're going through now. :(

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sat, Mar 10 2007 6:36 AM

Bob,

I can't answer that - being based in the UK, the DST changes are not top of mind for me (sorry).  I don't think anyone understood the issues until more recently.  I know that Microsoft started telling people about it back in May 2006 (eg see timeline on this KB - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387/en-us), but I think the impact on people's calendars etc was only more recently understood.  Many of the patches have been around for several months though, but the critical nature of them is only more recently being flagged.

However, there are now some great tools to help at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst for example.

ttfn

David

Gary Fenton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sat, Mar 10 2007 12:18 PM

I'd argue that Vista itself was unprepared for release. I'd also throw this into the argument - manufacturers felt that the uptake of Vista would be slow and saw no need to get their Vista support sorted until they see a move in the market towards Vista?

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sat, Mar 10 2007 2:42 PM

I see where you are coming from, but from all the conversations I've had with hardware manufacturers they were counting on the success of Vista.

I happen to think that besides the mobile device piece Vista was ready by a long shot. The core is fine and some drivers will always ship later - this has always been the case.

thanks

David

Mike Edwards wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sat, Mar 10 2007 6:34 PM

I have a couple of Vista Business Systems up and running connected to SBS 2003.

The following is what I have come across so far:-

1) Lack of drivers for major equipment Canon MFP etc.

2) Lack of drivers for minor equipment Label Printers.

2) Lack of compatible utility software (Scanning).

3) Incompatibility between Office 2003 & Office 2007.

  on the same machine especially with Access Applications.

4) Vista UAC gets on my nerves, screens fading, messages

  popping up etc, has now been turned off – its not  

  security anyway – it has no learning ability.

5) Vista seems very slow to boot and slow to run – (Duel

  Core 2GHz Processor + 2Gb of RAM and rising).

6) Annoying messages - did this or that work / install

  correctly.

7) Adobe Acrobat incompatibility to produce batch Acrobat

  documents - found a couple of workarounds.

8) CAD incompatibility - AutoCAD etc.

9) Engineering software incompatibility - Wonderware /

  Allen Bradley etc.

I'm trying very hard to like Vista, but I feel like just giving up and go back to XP Pro and just waiting for SP1, by then the drivers and new applications will have been released or upgraded.

I know that a lot of the above problems are not Microsoft’s fault but there is no way I would recommend Vista or Office 2007 to any of my clients at the moment, the pain would just be too much.

Andy Maggs wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, Mar 11 2007 12:34 AM

I ran the hardware advisor before upgrading and it said I would have no problems provided that I installed an available update from ATI post installation. It took 8 goes to finally get Vista installed after which no Aero despite upgrading my Radeon 9200 to a Radeon X1600 (AGP). ATI claimed it was a problem with the AGP support on the motherboard, the motherboard manufacturer Micro Star claimed it was a problem with the ATI chipset and finally ATI conceded that it was indeed their problem and that they were not intending to support the particular chipset I have in Vista! I have had to revert to XP because the hardware manufacturers will not support Vista and my PC is only 2.5 years old. This is not a rumour, it is a fact.

Russell Clements wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, Mar 11 2007 9:36 PM

I laughed out loud when I read this post.  In the US, we've been dealing with the Daylight Savings Time (DST) patches that Microsoft has had TWO years to put together.  Some of them are on rev 12 for the "fixes".  Perhaps Microsoft is a lot more culpable in the "I'll fix that when I need to department" than a blue badge might like to admit.

I'll say too, that Office 2007 is BUGGY AS HELL!!!  I would not recommend this product to anyone.  The vast majority of the time, Outlook 2007 will not close.  How simple should that be?  Click the x and watch it go away?  It just won't do that.  Word 2007 has been a nightmare to work with.  Try moving tables.  Moving a table half way across the page, it snaps right back to the left margin.  I have been using Word 2007 for documentation for about a month now and it is so buggy I wish I hadn't put it on my machine.  I will certainly NOT recommend it to anyone.

Vista Business won't play DVDs? What's up with that?  I guess my training DVD's aren't business related and I have no reason to play them on my business machine, eh?  How about on my laptop?  Was it MS's judgement that I'd never want to play DVD's on my laptop running Vista Business?  I can do it in Windows XP Pro, why not Vista Business?  Oh, wait!  I can pay $138 to upgrade the license to Ultimate?  Wow! I've got a better idea!  I'll just stick with XP Pro and Office 2003.  They just work.

I'd say Microsoft has a LOT of room for improvement in this "I'll wait to deal with that until I have to" department.

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, Mar 11 2007 10:27 PM

Mike,

I hear where you are coming from.  Some hardware support problems are because the hardware will not work in some way with Vista, others (the rumour) is because the hardware vendor does not want it to work.

The Office, UAC and Install message areas are ones that are down to Microsoft and I would love to hear more about.   Details on error messages, scenarios, screen shots etc would be good - either to the blog, or to my e-mail at the top of the page.

thanks

David

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, Mar 11 2007 10:42 PM

Andy,

Microsoft if bound on what it can say is or is not supported by the hardware manufacturers, unless it is our drivers we are removing.  You can often run Windows XP drivers to get over initial hurdles.  Having said that, unless a vendor offers support, no amount of desire by Microsoft can help.  

http://ati.amd.com/technology/windowsvista/Products.html does state your video card is supported with Vista, so it sounds to me like they fluffed you off, or their page is wrong.  Again, I would be intrested in some more facts so we can update the hardware tool after a discussion with ATI :-)

ttfn

David

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, Mar 11 2007 10:53 PM

Russell... glad to hear I made you laugh.  I have to admit I am aware of the DST patches, but not being based in the US (I'm in the UK) I am very much watching from the side lines :-).  Perhaps the patches are based on feedback for how people would like it to work in certain situations (i.e. moving dates inside data)?

Lets deal with Vista 1st - DVD playback requires a CODEC - does on XP, still does on Vista.  Microsoft supply one in Ultimate and Home Premium.  To get DVD playback working on XP you either had to buy a CODEC, or use someone elses player that had it in (or use WMP that used their player).  You can still get those same 3rd party CODECs for much less if that is all you are interested in.

Now lets deal with Office 2007.  First off, this blog entry was about the hardware and software issues people are finding with Vista, so I did not discuss Office, however not beign shy, lets have a look at what you said.

I do think Office is a fantastic product - I use it all the time - have done so for months and I create a considerable amount of documentation.  BUT - I have seen the Outlook problem you discuss and having it recently raised by a partner a bug is being opened on this to get it fixed. Now, for the tables problem - is this new to Office 2007 or did the problem exist in Office 2003?  I have not seen this problem.  In an attempt to recreate your problem, this is what I did:

1) Insert tab, created a table of 5x5

2) hovered over the table just above the top left corner until a cross in a box appeared

3) dragged box to the right and table moved

4) let go

Let me know what I am doing wrong and if it is not behaving to spec, I can raise a bug on it.

As always, this blog is about the discussion as much as the starting entry - I want the MS products to be better than they are, not because I think they are not good, but because I know they can always be better.  I hate it when a MS product is tarnished because of things that MS cannot control, such as drivers, but I will always put my hand up if the product has a problem.

thanks

David

Russell Clements wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Mon, Mar 12 2007 9:01 PM

David,  Thank you for your reply.  Thank you for your efforts to get the word out about MS products.  I've been reading your blog now for a couple, maybe several months.  I appreciate your candor.

I am glad that you made the post you did because while there is certainly some of "the pot calling the kettle black" going on here, there is much that could have been done better on the parts of several parties.

I have found MS employees via thier blogs to be FAR more responsive to issues than any other company that I have dealings with.  As an example, the video card that I bought last summer was a high end card that I bought specifically to be able to run Vista when it came out.  When I upgraded to Vista, I was HIGHLY peeved that I couldn't play DVD's AND that ATI didn't have a fix for the situation (since the software that came with it previously didn't run on Vista).  It was out of place to blame MS for this, when it was more correctly an ATI rant.  However, since MS is already distributing the codec, wouldn't it have been nice to get it and not have to go through the trouble at all?  I have already contacted ATI's help desk and have gotten NOTHING from them.

From the description of your attempts to duplicate the table move effort in Word 2007, it sounds like exactly what I was doing.  When I released the table, it would immediately shoot back to the left margin and not move the table at all.  I don't know that I was doing anything different from what you have described, but it didn't work.  Many times in a row, I might add. I had about 10 tables in the entire document, perhaps that is signficant.  I can only say that the experience significantly impacted my willingness to recommend the product and even use it myself. If it wouldn't cost me a couple of hours to rebuild the machine again, I'd put XP and Office 2003 back on here.

Outlook 2007, which is probably the most critical app for me in the Office suite, has been greatly improved.  I love the built in RSS readers and REALLY love the search functionality. However, I have problems with RSS feeds all showing up with the same date - January 1 of whatever year they were posted.  Sometimes the blogs just don't update.  They just sit for 20-30 minutes.  One of my biggest peeves is that one cannot PASTE a RSS feed addresss into the "Add a New RSS feed" box.  OH, HOW I HATE THAT!!  Especially since Sharepoint published blogs include a GUID which is a [explicative deleted] pain to type.

I just tried to double-click on a vcard attachment in outlook and I got an error message that says the interface isn't available or something.  Again, I'm not interested in troubleshooting this issue, I just know that for my clients, I don't want to be supporting this kind of stuff.  Office 2003 is working quite well.  Lookout's not as good as the new search stuff, but I don't have problems like this on O2003.  I'll bet that on a "normal" day, I get 5-10 of these weird errors.  Many times just double-clicking or doing whatever again will be sufficient to have it work, but I shouldn't have to deal with that at all.  At $100/hour, how much phone time do I have to invest with clients to resolve little things like this before I've lost the slim profit margin I could have gotten from selling this software? How much do such phone calls erode the service profits made from the roll-out?  Until this software is more stable, it is a liability to sell and service. Again, I'll say that Office 2003 works well.

As much as I would love to be doing MS's bug reporting for them, it doesn't pay me anything.  I'll wait until the first service pack and hope it gets fixed then.  

What is the process for "the public" to get what they think is a "bug" addressed?  

I very much appreciate your willingness to engage in this discussion.  Thank you for letting me vent my spleen.  

Russell Clements

Andy Maggs wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Mon, Mar 12 2007 10:39 PM

Hi David,

This was the final reply I received from ATI:

"At this time there are no Vista Drivers for the 9100 IGP chipset.  So far there has been no indication that these drivers will be released.  If Micro Star also does not release these drivers for Vista, then I would revert back to Windows XP."

This was the one and only reply from Micro Star

"For your concern, I have to regret to inform you that due chipset limitation, RS3M-IL(MS-7003) doesn't support Vista. you may run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to confirm this, it will easily show you an report that if your mainboard supports Vista and supports which version."

Despite what Micro Star say, the upgrade advisor did not detect that my Motherboard would have a problem with Vista.

As far as I can tell this problem only effects the AGP version of the Radeon X1600, not the PCI Express.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind Regards

Andy Maggs

David Overton wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Tue, Mar 13 2007 12:17 AM

Andy,

the X1600 does not use this chipset, so should not be an issue.  If you have disabled onboard graphics on your MSI motherboard and are now using an X1600, then the ATI drivers are a red herring.  Your motherboard drivers were last updated back in mid 2004(http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/download/dld/spt_dld_detail.php?UID=537&kind=1) however I would expect the motherboard to work with Vista with your external card, providing the AGP drivers from ATI work.  Have you tried the Windows XP AGP drivers?

That is the best I can do.

thanks

David

Lindsay wrote re: Was Vista's arrival a surprises to anyone? No? Then how come so many people were unprepared - hardware vendors, ISVs, even Microsoft to an extent
on Sun, May 31 2009 9:29 AM

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