What Went Wrong With Windows Wista, Err… Vista

Microsoft might not have had the most successful product launch with Windows Vista, and for the most part, they really haven’t admitted to their mistakes in a straight-forward manner. Maximum PC decided to tackle the facts… what caused Vista to become a ‘failure’ at launch and also bring up points about what can be done with Windows 7 to prevent the same fate from happening.

Seven main points are listed as attributing factors to Vista’s harsh launch, with the main one of course being instability. Incompatibility rolls in at a close second, and others, such as performance, activation, UAC and more scatter the rest. It’s probably doubtful that any Vista user out there hasn’t been affected by at least every-single one of those.

The article further points out admission from Microsoft that a few things could have been changed in order to have a successful launch. One is that the UAC was poorly implemented, and other was that DirectX 10 being stuck to Vista was also a bad idea. Here’s another interesting thought: “He conceded that Apple appeals to more and more consumers because the hardware is slick, the price is OK, and Apple doesn’t annoy its customers (or allow third parties to).”

Way back in January 2007, after years of hype and anticipation, Microsoft unveiled Windows Vista to a decidedly lukewarm reception by the PC community, IT pros, and tech journalists alike. Instead of a revolutionary next-generation OS that was chock-full of new features, the Windows community got an underwhelming rehash with very little going for it. Oh, and Vista was plagued with performance and incompatibility problems to boot.