PC Magazine Editor Throws in the Towel on Vista

MacNN caught this incredible defection and loss of faith by a former Vista booster, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback, as he steps down from his position. "I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."

Uncanny

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently there are more people reading Distrowatch with Vista [distrowatch.com] than they are with Debian, so I guess all this nonsense about Vista being a flop is far from true. Looking at those trends I'd say Vista is going to surpass Ubuntu soon as well. The zealots must be really pissed. Oh and Vista SP1 is going to be the last nail in the coffin.

The ultimate irony here - Distrowatch.com. It just kills me. I guess they must be fabricating the stats, just like Wikipedia and everyone else [hitslink.com].

MICRO$HAFT WINDOZES R TEH DYIEING LOLZORZZ!!!!!eleventyone

Heh.

Re:Just a skin

[mikelieman]

The marketing department *lied* to us?

Shocked! I'm Shocked!

Common mistake.

[Futurepower(R)]

"I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!"

Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft is a software company. That's wrong. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a method of delivering abuse.

My opinion. Maybe even partly a joke, maybe not.

It took him months?

[CPNABEND]

I had Vista Home Premium up for a total of FOUR DAYS before I went back to XP Pro. Vista has a lot of warts, even compared to the initial rollout of WIN95/98, and XP.

Re:Move to Linux?

[Tony]

Wait for SP2 before wasting your time.

Yes. After SP2, you can waste your time much more efficiently.

Re:If he's such an MS whore

[Locutus]

Networking is not that important or useful these days so what the heck is the author crying about?
There obviously is little incentive for Microsoft to spend much time and effort in this area over the last 5 years of developing this "new" operating system. ;-/

LoB

Louderback on Linux

[jayhawk88]

You know we like to joke about signs of the apocalypse, but wow. I would almost look forward to that. Can you just imagine the Louderback articles we'd get with him on Linux?

vi v. emacs: The exciting new controversy
How to protect your children from The Gimp
Why won't anyone explain what GNU stands for?

Re:Just a skin

[realdodgeman]

I maintain my position that Vista is just a new XP skin. I've heard a lot of talk about how parts were rewritten from the ground up - networking especially.

It seems that they have indeed done some work with the networking. Now it works even less than before.

Re:Doing the unthinkable

[Wabin]

Turn blue and die? Why does that sound familiar?

Too easy, I know...

Re:Just a skin

[WiseWeasel]

Wouldn't it be the author who was knocked out? The magazine headline would be "Triumphant Vista Defeats Editor"... : P

Vista - The Abusive Relationship

[shdowhawk]

I swear people are stupid...

Vista is the abusive one to the world. Always causing trouble and hurting the people around them...

And what about us *nix and osx people? We're the "friends" .. the person you go to when you have troubles or just need to talk. Will we ever be "relationship" material? Will we ever just be USED by the abused one? (oh.. just to be used even once... we could show them how amazing we really are). God forbid they get seen using a mac or a linux box though! OMFGBBQLOLZWTF! What a horrible thought, what would the general society think?!!

But ... they always go back to the abusive one... *sighs*

Re:Common mistake.

[couchslug]

I prefer to save money with Free Software and self-abuse.

Re:Unthinkable? - Why?

[sakusha]

All I can say, he deserves what he got.

Yeah right. He deserves the millions of bucks he earned, shilling for Microsoft?

Let me tell you a little Louderbeck anecdote, I still remember this incident vividly. A few years back, a cable tech channel (ZNet TV? I forget) carried the Macworld Conference Keynote with Steve Jobs live on their channel. A Stevenote is compelling enough a performance on its own to hold the audience, but for some incomprehensible reason, ZNet decided to have Louderbeck do commentary DURING the keynote. I don't even remember what products Jobs was announcing, all I remember is how the audio kept switching to Louderbeck's "commentary," he was continually bitching about how the new product sucked, and how it lacked important features. At one point, he was whining about one missing feature at the very moment that Jobs was describing that exact feature. Louderbeck looked like a complete and utter asshole.
I note that since that day, Apple has never allowed any TV channel to broadcast their Keynotes and announcements.

Re:Makes sense to me, AC. Vista users are unhappy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another happy Vista user?

Re:Just a skin

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple sells a solution, Microsoft sells a problem.

Re:The ONE good thing about VISTA:

[nih]

hello, this author would also like to join the 'i like to talk about myself in the 3rd person', where do i sign up!

Re:Makes sense to me, AC. Vista users are unhappy.

[Goldberg's Pants]

Somewhere in my horrendously badly organized bookmarks I have a page bookmarked that was linked on here I believe, to a guy who got 2000 running on a machine with 32 megs of ram. If I recall the story, even Microsoft contacted him to find out how the hell he did it.

Re:If he's such an MS whore

[dmsuperman]

Yeah, I mean come on Microsoft. You guys should have drivers for every single piece of hardware out there already, its' been a whole nine months. If I have obscure XYZ piece of hardware there should not only be a driver made by microsoft (and not the people who made hardware XYZ), but their should be an entire forum devoted to tech support for that piece of hardware. Apple's software works with all the hardware they use, why don't you? What's that? Apple makes all the hardware they're compatible with? Oh...then I'll just shut up. Well...flavor XYZ of linux doesn't have these problems like you do. Oh, they have a much larger base of people helping with these problems? And the people who get the problems had better be programmers or they won't be able to fix them? I guess I'll just shut up now. Am I being too subtle with the sarcasm?

Re:People will wait for Vista SP1, or XP SP3 or...

[ProppaT]

"Microsoft products have always been too complex and baroque. That's a good formula for the bug critical mass scenario. I'm only surprised it didn't happen before."

Windows ME.