It's called the utility curve - and mainstream users should neither be at
the bleeding-edge or stuck with an aging dinosaur. Trouble is OEMs have
starting shipping Vista way too early IMHO.

"David Dickinson" <eveningstar@die-spammer-die.mvps.org> wrote in message
news:#DbJ0DGrHHA.3284@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> <BEGIN OPINION>
> I gotta tell ya', I've made a lot of money from using and supporting
> Microsoft products over the last 28 years. But now, I'm afraid.
>
> The Vista user interface has many, many counter-intuitive features,
> including some that through creating confusion will cause disasters,
> including loss of data. In fact, Explorer windows may show inaccurate
> information. Vista doesn't play well with other machines on a network.
> Administering it can be tedious and time-consuming when compared to
> previous OS's. A lot of stuff either doesn't work the way you expect or
> just doesn't work at all. It's been dumbed down in some areas so much
> that administrators can't do some things they need to do (such as
> customized backups), while some other "features" have been made so
> complicated that the average user is going to have to ask for help where
> none was needed before. And while it certainly does have a pretty
> interface, it's a hardware hog with lousy performance even in the most
> stripped-down configuration. People can buy tremendous hardware thinking
> that they're going to get the machine of their dreams, only to find out
> that it's slower than molasses in January (for instance, will DX10 destroy
> DirectX's place in the market?).
>
> And it's buggy, and has been hacked on live TV (with promises from eEye of
> more to come).
>
> Nevertheless, I'm going to have to support Vista. But my clients will be
> calling more about computer problems than about finding solutions for
> their business operations. And they'll be unhappy about it.
>
> I realize that hardware vendors eventually will come up with truly
> Vista-compatible drivers, third-parties will offer software to overcome
> many of Vista's user-interface and configurability weaknesses, and
> eventually Microsoft will issue hotfixes and service packs to fix the bugs
> and security holes. And I have no doubt that near-future hardware
> advances eventually will make up for some of Vista's performance problems.
>
> But I'm convinced that the next couple of years are not going to be fun,
> and I even wonder if we'll be using Vista's Explorer UI at all by then.
>
> I just hope I never resort to saying "Look, don't blame me. I didn't
> write this thing." I'll probably be better off if I recommend to my
> clients that they avoid getting Vista for a couple of years.
> <END OPINION>
> --
> David Dickinson
> eveningstar at die-spammer-die dash mvps dot org
> Please reply only to the newsgroup, not by email.
>[/color]