Vista: the fightback starts here

August 7th, 2008 • Technology

We all hate Vista. It’s bloated, buggy, garish and expensive.

Microsoft knows this. In fact, the public stoning of Vista means that Microsoft probably feels it; the bruises are still hurtin’.

And, for once, the planet’s most powerful software vendor has voted against self-denial in favour of… a strange form of self-justification.

I clicked on an ad today for the Mojave Experiment. Fourty seconds of loading screen later, and I’m watching a focus group (in a video frame set against a background that’s scarily similar to the Apple TV ‘wall of screens’ posters. A coincidence, I’m sure).

Middle-aged Americans of varying accent are talking to an unseen researcher, who’s asking for their view of Vista. They hate it. It’s buggy, bloated… well, you know the script by now.

Those middle-aged Americans then play with Vista. And they say stuff like ‘wow’. They say they can’t believe how good it is, how it’s incredible what it can do.

The Mojave Experiment home page asks you to stay tuned. There’s more to come, apparently.

So I watch the video, then I think at the end of it - do I hate Vista any less now? Not really. Mostly because I never hated Vista in the first place. The truth (at least in my mind) is that Vista is an evolution of XP, which was a reasonable OS at the end of its life.

Many years ago, Joe Strummer of The Clash was asked by a repoter if he hated him. ‘I don’t think enough of you to hate you,’ replied our Joe. That’s how I feel about Vista; you earn hatred by being evil, by abusing your remit. Vista does neither. It just lacks sparkle in a world where so many things glint.

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