There are a smattering of I Love Windows Vista websites out there. However, these are dwarfed into insignificance by the legions of those who are unimpressed to a greater or lesser degree.
I don't run Vista, I never intend to. I'm a happy Linux camper, and XP will be the desktop of choice at my place of employment for the foreseeable future.
But it seems that a major bugbear that people have with Microsoft's latest and greatest(?) is its bizarrely different interface.
Microsoft, who generally seems blissfully unaware of what is popular among the masses, has, since Windows 1.0, seen fit to radically rework the UI with each release.
Up until Vista, the practice was more or less tolerated by its customers. But now, the rebellion of users befuddled by the Vista experience is evidenced by downgrades to XP (and a small but growing number of Linux converts).
Microsoft, it's time to take a long, hard look at one of your hated rivals, and the way they do business.
Linux is basically a command-line driven interface. If you like, you can put a GUI on top of it. I prefer Gnome. Others prefer KDE. Xfce, or plain old X.
The reason that you select and stick with a particular GUI is that it suits your purposes. The GUI may be periodically updated, but sweeping changes in its appearance and function simply won't happen overnight.
However, the minds behind Windows don't see things that way. Their OS, which is bound tightly to its GUI, requires much getting used to by its users with each overhaul. And that, oh clueless ones at Redmond, makes people angry.
For example, I was a happy Windows 2000 user for three or four years. XP's soft and fuzzy interface was nothing but a resource hog to me, so I adjusted the system for best performance via system/advanced settings. With Vista, such a tweak is still possible, but it has to be done in a very geeky manner. I'll just pass altogether.
So here's what Windows needs to do, if it wants to still be sitting on top of the OS market ten years from now: model the Windows platform after Linux. Have a bare-bones OS running at command-line level, and put a GUI on top of it that changes slowly and gradually. Make your needed security tweaks at the CLI level, and keep their effects on the piggybacked GUI minimal.
That will likely never happen. First of all Microsoft would have to admit that someone has a better business plan than they do. That would require a grasp of reality. It's easier for Redmond to simply take advantage of the stranglehold that they tenuously have on the home user and business market to ram changes down millions of throats.
Second, Microsoft quit running a GUI on top of a command line interface many years ago. With the release of NT, they made a firm, unbreakable commitment to making the GUI and the OS the same, for better or worse.
The good news is that organizations that refuse to listen to their customers and/or make changes are destined to fail. Microsoft has begun a decline which will slowly but surely result in their being supplanted by the Next Big Thing. I just hope that the next company who rules the desktop is more concerned with winning and keeping customers than it is with impressing itself.
