Windows Vista: The critics have spoken.

If you read our newsletter this week, then you have already seen this article. For those do don't subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter (look in the bar to the left of this article to subscribe), I have gathered some of my favorite quotes from various Vista reviews across print and the web into a single article - as always - with commentary.

Let it be known that I am never afraid to share my opinion. However, let it also be known that I base my opinions on experience and research. Before I express my opinion, I try to always make sure that I can back it up with sources. This has been a habit of mine ever since I took a debate/social studies class in High School where we discussed the world’s problems and politics.

I learned very quickly that if you say something negative, you should have more than name calling and emotions to back it up. If you say something positive you should avoid vague reasons like saying, “I love AVG Antivirus because it’s the best.” Always backup your argument with sources.

Our special Windows Vista edition of this newsletter has been particularly negative towards the product, but I am not alone. For the rest of this article I will cite some of the sources that I used for research.

First, I will note a trend. In virtually every case, positive reviews of Vista were found on cites owned my Microsoft or where Microsoft was running a significant proportion of advertising space.

In an article on Time Magazine’s website the headline reads, “Windows Vista: Why Nobody Cares.” In the article is found this gem, “The fact that it took Microsoft over five years and $6 billion dollars to create Vista is — and I mean this quite seriously — an embarrassment to the good name of American innovation.”

ComputerWorld.com is a respected site. One of their biggest headlines about Vista this week (http://tinyurl.com/2nhtx9) read, “Wait! Don’t Buy Windows Vista.” The article discusses how Basketball player LeBron James has been hired to promote Vista, the article had this to say, “This article is for those of you who are about to download or purchase Windows Vista and install it on a PC. I’m here to talk you out of it. Just say no to LeBron James and Windows Vista — for now. Here’s why.”

CNET.com has had a number of articles on Vista. One of their articles discusses how gamers will feel about the new operating system. Now, Microsoft is working especially hard to get gamers to adopt Vista so their input is extremely important. Here’s what the article entitled, “Gamers see gain and pain from Microsoft Vista,” had to say in quoting one if the stories sources, “‘I am pretty darn sure it will significantly reduce the number of people who are downloading games or the number of games people download and buy,’ St. John said. ‘Vista does cast a wet blanket that does have some weight over that innovation. It doesn’t crush it, it just hurts.’”

Most of the reviews of Vista were not negative or positive. The general feeling is apathy. There were some very strong statements that said, essentially, “Vista is not good or bad. It just is.”

PC World Magazine used 10 pages of it’s January issue on Windows Vista articles and features. PC World is full of computer ads featuring systems branded “Windows Vista Capable,” or “Windows Vista Ultimate Capable,” so it may be important for the magazine to not upset these advertisers.

Reading the articles showed that the advertisers had little influence. PC World provided a very fair step-by-step install article that explained problems with two of the three upgrade installs that they did. Significant paragraphs were dedicated to how pretty the program was and how limited the built-in tools were compared to competing products that are often provided for free, such as Google Desktop.

Advertisers influence aside, in PC World their February issue ran an article with an advertiser-satisfying title, “Vista: Not Slow.” The subhead under the headline read, “PC World’s first Windows Vista performance tests reveal an OS that, with enough memory and a graphics card, performs fine on a range of systems.”

May I put this into my own words?

To me this article reads, “PC World’s performance test reveal that Window Vista runs fine (I even used the word “fine” from their headline) on slower systems as long as you add more RAM and upgrade the video card.” If you read through the article you will also discover that a slower system is a system that is on the shelf right now.

What’s more amazing is that PC World’s test showed that Vista systems booted up slower in every case than XP driven systems. They tried to find a silver lining for Vista under the headline, “Solo apps run slower on Vista than on XP,” was the subhead, “Our test results, however, support Microsoft’s claim that Vista surpasses XP at multi-threading.”

In other words, Vista boots slower and runs programs slower but it did perform faster with newer multi-core processor.

I will admit that I am not a fan of Windows Vista. I will also admit that my opinion has been influenced by the articles that I have read in the press more than my own hands-on experience. I did find a few positive articles about Vista, but they were praising Vista for features that I don’t think most users care about such as its beauty and its support for newer gaming graphics technology.

I will upgrade to Vista for one reason, I want to be able to answer callers’ Vista questions at work and on the air.

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