14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft will not repeat the mistakes it has done with Windows Vista with its next iteration of the Windows operating system. In other words, the Windows 7 apple will fall far from the Windows Vista tree. An exception that will end up confirming the rule? Perhaps, however, Vista was all about UX, user experience, and it failed to land on the Wow by a long shot. And by the looks of the driver problems, as well as the prerequisite issues already associated with Service Pack 1, Vista SP1 still suffers from the same glitches as Vista.
One Microsoft move made ahead of the delivery of its latest Windows operating system managed to hurt Vista along the way, and the extent of the damage is yet to be determined. The Redmond company essentially lowered the specifications of the Windows Vista Capable logo program, in order to accommodate Intel motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded, which was incapable of running Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate Editions of Vista, reducing the user to effectively choose the Home Basic SKU.
"I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I PERSONALLY bought(eg. With my own $$$). Are we seeing this a lot of customers? I know that I chose my laptop (a Sony TX770P) because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed that it not only wouldn't run Glass, but more importantly wouldn't run Movie Maker (I guess that is being addressed). I now have a $2,100 email machine," stated Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management, in an internal email, courtesy of SeattlePI.
Microsoft executive, John Kalkman, revealed that the decision to adjust Windows Vista Capable specifications for the sake of Intel resulted in a decreased focus of "OEMs planning and shipping higher end graphics for Vista Ready programs," while also managing to "reduce the focus by IHVs to ready great qualified graphics drivers."
Kalkman's email was sent out on February 26, 2007, meaning a little over a year ago, and also touched the subject of Windows 7. Apparently, for the next version of Windows, Microsoft is not ready to repeat the same mistakes as with Vista.
"In the long term we have worked hard to establish and have committed an OEM Theme for Win7 planning. This was rejected for Vista. Having this theme puts accountability and early thinking on programs like Capable/Ready so that we make the right decisions early on," Kalkman stated. "Again, to repeat the above succinctly, it was a mistake on our part to change the original graphics requirements. This created confusion in the industry on how important the aspect of visual computing would play as a feature set to new Windows Vista upgraders. We will take this learning into Win7 planning."