* Vista introduces a new variant of the SMB protocol

* Need significant hardware upgrades

* No anti-virus bundled with Vista

* Many third party applications still not supported

* Your machine better have a truck load of Memory – somewhere around 2 GB.

* Too many Vista editions.

* Need product activation.

* Vista OS will take over 10 GB of hard disk space.

* Backing up the desktop will take up a lot of space.

* No must have reasons to buy Vista.

* Is significantly different from Windows XP and so there is a learning curve.

* You’d better come to terms with the cost of Vista – it is really exorbitant running to over $300.

* Hardware vendors are taking their own time to provide support for Vista.

* Vista’s backup application is more limited than Windows XP’s.

* No VoIP or other communication applications built in.

* Lacks intelligence and forces users to approve the use of many native applications, such as a task scheduler or disk defragmenter.

* Buried controls – requiring a half a dozen mouse clicks.

* Installation can take hours, upgrades even more.

* Little information support for Hybrid hard drives.

* 50 Million lines of code – equates to countless undiscovered bugs.

* New volume-licensing technology limits installations or requires dedicated key-management servers to keep systems activated.

* Promises have remained just that – mere promises. A case to the point being WinFS, Virtual folders and so on.

* Does not have support for IPX, Gopher, WebDAV, NetDDE and AppleTalk.

* Wordpad’s ability to open .doc files have been removed. (Now that is what I call extinguishing with style.

Source: 25 Shortcomings of Microsoft Vista

This is hands down one of the most inaccurate articles I have read in 2006. Here is a brief, albeit still quite long, breakdown of just how ridiculous this article really is:

* Vista introduces a new variant of the SMB protocol

Ok, What is your point? It’s called advancement/progress. There is a new variant of SMB, update/upgrade and move on.

* Need significant hardware upgrades.

Yes, we do need to advance in technology but most computers purchased in the past 5 years will run Vista with most of the features enabled. If your computer is older than 5 years, well, you can’t really expect to run something brand new and cutting edge anyways.

* No anti-virus bundled with Vista.

Ok, What is your point again? We don’t need or want built in antivirus software. Not to mention the fact that the people preventing Microsoft from including AV software is the EU. You can’t bitch about Microsoft bundling software and then bitch when they don’t bundle software. Make a decision

* Many third party applications still not supported.

The consumer version of Vista is not even released yet so give the vendors a chance to do their job.

* Your machine better have a truck load of Memory – somewhere around 2 GB.

Who still has 128MB of ram? And why would they possibly expect to be able to run a brand new operating system? Oh, and I’ve been using Vista with 1GB of ram just fine. Also, I’ve been using Vista in a virtual machine with 512MB of ram just fine. This point isn’t even close.

* Too many Vista editions.

We wanted a choice, now we get a choice. Stop bitching.

* Need product activation.

Stop stealing Windows and perhaps they wouldn’t have to resort to such ineffective annoying anti-piracy methods.

* Vista OS will take over 10 GB of hard disk space.

Ok, I don’t know what you installed, but I just installed Vista 3 days ago and it only took up 7GB. Besides, 10GB isn’t very large considering virtually any computer purchased in the past year includes a 160GB hard drive.

* Backing up the desktop will take up a lot of space.

Backing up of your files is going to take up an equivalent (or slightly less with compression) amount of space as to the amount that you are backing up. It’s called logic. Do you magically want Microsoft to backup your 100GB of p0rn to a file that is just 1GB? Keep dreaming and whining.

* No must have reasons to buy Vista.

There are plenty of reasons to buy Vista, I won’t list them all here for the sake of keeping this brief. Besides, this article clearly makes the point that you wouldn’t bother to listen to logic anyways.

* Is significantly different from Windows XP and so there is a learning curve.

I am sorry, but what the hell? Linux has a gigantic learning curve even on the most dumbed down distributions (Freespire for example). Vista will have a slight learning curve because things do look a bit different. That being said, it won’t be anywhere remotely close to how confusing Linux would be to a new user.

* You’d better come to terms with the cost of Vista – it is really exorbitant running to over $300.

It’s the EXACT same price that Windows XP was at the time of it’s initial release. If you consider that Windows is the foundation of your computer then the price really doesn’t seem that bad.

* Vista can’t beat Linux which is free as in beer and Freedom).

Just because it’s free doesn’t mean that Linux is better. Hardware support is still horrendous on any Linux distribution. The average user must never have to touch the terminal/console, that is a requirement of any mature mainstream operating system. Linux still cannot make that claim.

* Hardware vendors are taking their own time to provide support for Vista.

How is this Microsoft’s fault? Vendors are slow…you just said it yourself. Yes, vendors are starting to support Linux, but this is still at an infant stage of development, and it’s advancing at a snail’s pace.

* Vista’s backup application is more limited than Windows XP’s. (Linux has a rich set of backup options and every one of them is free).

Limited how? The built in backup utility leverages Volume Shadow Copy to make a copy in real time of any file that is modified on the system. It also provides a way of backing up an entire drive for the purpose of later recovery. Not to mention the fact that their are plenty of 3rd party applications that handle backup very well. These include Norton Ghost, Acronis, Snapshot.

* No VoIP or other communication applications built in. (Skype, Ekiga… the list goes on in Linux).

Yet again, If Microsoft builds in an application they get bitched at, if they don’t build in an application they get bitched it. Moving on…

* Lacks intelligence and forces users to approve the use of many native applications, such as a task scheduler or disk defragmenter.

UAC is a huge step in the right direction for Windows security. It’s still rough around the edges and in need of some major usability tweaking, but it’s still progress. Not to mention the fact that if you don’t like UAC, then disable it. End of story.

* Buried controls – requiring a half a dozen mouse clicks.

They invented keyboard shortcuts for a reason. As an operating system gets more advanced it obviously contains more options. I agree that they did manage to bury these settings a bit more than they needed to, but it’s not the end of the world.

* Installation can take hours, upgrades even more.

I am sorry, but what are you installing? Vista is the fastest OS installation I have ever seen to date. A clean install takes roughly 22 minutes on my laptop. Roughly 30 minutes in a virtual machine with 512MB of ram (yes, only 30 minutes inside a VM). An upgrade install will always take longer because of it’s complex nature and the backup routines that need to be run. Linux takes equally as long if not significantly longer on the exact same hardware.

* Little information/support for Hybrid hard drives.

Oh yeah? Show me a hybrid hard drive that I can run out to the store and purchase? Oh wait, they aren’t widely available yet in any sense of the word. As shown in the past, once a new technology has gained widespread distribution it will be supported by Windows. Think USB 2.0, once it finally took off there was a patch to enable support for it.

* 50 Million lines of code – equates to countless undiscovered bugs.

I agree that the size of Windows at this point is quite staggering. That being said, Linux has plenty of vulnerabilities and bugs in its own right. Any code written by a person is going to contain errors and bugs, it’s a fact of life.

* New volume-licensing technology limits installations or requires dedicated key-management servers to keep systems activated.

A point that does not effect a single home consumer. Enterprise customers can handle this. Heck you can even install the Key Management Server inside a virtual machine so you do not need to dedicate an entire physical server to this function.

* Promises have remained just that – mere promises. A case to the point being WinFS, Virtual folders and so on.

And “so on” such as? Virtual folders do exist in Vista. Get your facts straight. The only real “feature” that was completely dropped was WinFS which is now under active development for the next generation of Windows.

* Does not have support for IPX, Gopher, WebDAV, NetDDE and AppleTalk.

And again, a point that does not affect 99% of Windows users. There are plenty of 3rd party options for adding support for these insignificant protocols.

* Wordpad’s ability to open .doc files have been removed.

Ok? I can’t even tell you the last time I had to open a DOC file. Anyways, this is the best you could up with for a reason not to buy/upgrade to Vista? Wow, you must be stretching for excuses.