I have two lengthy pieces up at ZDNet today. In one, I explain why I think Jim Louderback (who just left PC Magazine) is guilty of whining about Vista. And in the follow-up, I explain why we the Windows world would be a better place if we had more complaining (and less whining) about Vista.
Yeah, there’s a difference.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
Ed, no offense, but the tone of your two pieces suggests Vista would be perfect if only for those pesky users:
(1) If you don’t like Vista, tough. Your complaint can be disregarded by ;
(2) We’re not listeningggggg! lalalalalalalala, lalalalala, lalalala….;
(3) Please, average user/editor/blogger/IT manager, you’re part of the problem;
(4) Please Make It Stop. My quintuple reverse judo inverse mental gymnastic attempts to defend Vista are exhausting. Sometimes users just have no idea what they’re doing.
As for your four lessons:
All anecdotes are equal, but some are more equal than others.
In other words, the positive ones are more equal. I’ll state it again and again: it was Microsoft who increased my expectations of Vista, and it was Microsoft who delayed Vista to improve it all the while they were removing a variety of promised features. It’s cliche by now: “After five years, this is what we got?!
Vista-bashing is the ticket to online success.
Please explain. Is someone offering you money to complain about Vista? Slashdot pays? I’ve complained and no one’s offered me a dime. Where do I sign up for the job? Implied in your statement is that complaining equals bashing. I bash George Bush, but I complain about rising gas prices and the fact that my transmission gasket keeps failing. Is that gasket-bashing?
The new standard of success for Windows Vista is absolute perfection.
No, how about just “better than XP?” Our collective frustration stems from the experience that Vista is not a better Microsoft OS. We shouldn’t feel guilty about that expression. Besides, I paid for my Vista license (three of them), and that buys me a right to complain. I built my own system, and Vista worked perfectly (except for its own built-in shortcomings). But if I remember, it was Microsoft who offered the Vista capable logo to OEMs. Maybe you’ll testify in the class action lawsuit that 512M of memory is enough to run Vista and not be exasperated? That would be comedy gold.
I can’t wait to read Jim’s account of his experiences switching to Linux.
I’ve made the switch, and you can read about it here in an ongoing short serial.
Zaine, you’re starting to get repetitive.
You need to read my follow-up post. I am thrilled to read complaints from users, because there I can learn and maybe even help.
I’m not going to waste my time on whiners.
Enjoy your Linux lifestyle. I’m afraid I won’t have a lot to offer you, but you’ll have a wonderful new community to work with, seriously.
PS: My favorite quote from your serial: “The [unspecified] ones I’ve come across so far were not insurmountable. There’s either an alternative, or I was not doing something right.”
But, but, but, but…. User error? You were having a problem because you weren’t doing something right? Oh, the horror.
I have run Vista without a hitch since January 31, 2007. My reliability rating has stood at a perfect 10 since June 9. And Ed gets lots of credit because the first thing I did was read his book!
This isn’t rocket science. If you run Vista the way Microsoft designed it to run, and on a system that optimizes its capabilities, it will do just fine. If not, not.
I find myself agreeing with most of what you say here, but I have to ask how your post about the uselessness of nVidia stacks up against the whining prohibition you set up here. All you’ve got to condemn them is the fact that they have more pages of bugs to solve than ATI. Well (to play devils advocate) that could also be translated as being more honest than the competition. So just out of curiosity, how are you not whining while Jim is?
My main beef with Nvidia is not the 11 pages of bugs but the unresolved, acknowledged bug in power management that is still there after nine months or more of development. Also, their driver and card couldn’t deliver proper resolution to my HD system, whereas an ATI card could. I documented my solution, I didn’t just whine about it.