Blot on the landscape for Vista

Are the complaints about Microsoft's new operating system myth or reality? John Collinsexamines the new workhorse for 98 per cent of PCs.

It may have been almost five years in the making but now the dust has settled on the launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista, many technology experts, including some normally Microsoft supporters, are asking if it has been worth the wait.

The latest version of the Windows operating system that runs on about 90 per cent of the world's personal computers promised much but just six weeks after it was made available to the world at large, significant problems are becoming apparent.

Late last month Chris Pirillo, a high-profile Seattle-based blogger who has long been a supporter of Microsoft published a post entitled "Vista: I'm breaking up with you" which attracted massive attention. Pirillo announced that he would be removing Vista from his main PC following a series of incompatibility issues with much of the software he uses to get his day-to-day job done. He listed 10 reasons why he was "upgrading" back to Windows XP, the previous version of the operating system, including the fact that his scanner and fax software no longer functioned under the new system.

"I can't live in Vista if the software that I use in my life for productivity does not work," Pirillo explained in a follow-up video that he posted on YouTube. "Some people say 'Why don't you hang on? Why don't you wait until everything is fixed?' Well I can't hang on. While people are still figuring it out and fixing the bugs I have to get work done."

One of the first high-profile issues to emerge was that Apple's iTunes software, necessary to get music from a PC onto an iPod, would not work with Vista which led to a flurry of communications between the two companies.

Apple then released version 7.1.1 of iTunes which fixed most of the bugs but still left some major ones - such as the fact that ejecting your iPod through Windows Explorer may corrupt it.

Players of computer games, normally a group that can be relied on to embrace new technology early on, are also showing signs of disillusionment. Posters to internet forums have been reporting that a large proportion of games designed for Windows XP would not run after they upgraded or would run with corrupt graphics.

Gamers have said that the speed of on-screen animation falls noticeably in Vista rendering games unplayable. Vista uses a new video rendering technology, DirectX 10, and seems to have problems displaying games that were written to make use XP's graphics engine, DirectX 9.

Worryingly for Microsoft it is not just users with blogs or access to message boards who are showing signs of discontent. Earlier this week, a senior executive with Russian anti-virus experts Kaspersky told ZDNet UK that Vista's User Access Control feature, which asks the user to confirm any action that could potentially harm their PC, was so annoying that users will disable it. She said, with UAC disabled, Vista was less secure than Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. Such a statement would be damaging enough itself, but Kaspersky is a major Microsoft partner and its technology is used in Forefront, a new Microsoft security product for businesses.

A review of posts on the popular discussion forum Boards.ie confirms that many Irish Vista users are having issues. One computer technician could not get it to run on a laptop with 447MB of memory and was seeking advice on the best way to revert to XP. Another poster was frustrated that there was no software drivers for his current printer and ISDN modem.

Many of the issues being raised are related to drivers for the new operating system. Drivers are the pieces of software written to make a particular piece of hardware such as a video card or scanner work with a particular operating system and are written by the hardware manufacturer rather than Microsoft.

Some contributors to Boards.ie were critical that the third-party hardware providers were not acting quickly enough to release new Vista specific drivers. Mike Hughes, Windows business manager with Microsoft Ireland, points out that the company tested 1.5 million different devices with Vista that it can categorically state work with it.

"We are not going to get every single one," says Hughes. "We have put tools in place, such as the Application Compatibility Toolkit, to try and mitigate any issue that people upgrading might have."

Off the record, some local retailers were critical of Microsoft for not releasing Vista early enough to third parties so that they could ensure their software and peripherals would perform correctly. But at the same time they say the level of problems reported is no different than when Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001.

Hughes maintains that Vista is ready now and rejects any suggestion that users should hold off on upgrading until issues are addressed. In particular, he stresses the fact that Microsoft had its biggest beta testing programme in place for Vista including 17,000 Irish users. He advises anyone considering upgrading to download the Vista Upgrade Adviser from the Microsoft website which will warn them of any potential hardware or software issues.

A representative of HP, the second largest seller of PCs in the Irish market, said it had not received any negative feedback from customers who had purchased machines with Vista pre-loaded. "The early adopters are always consumers and there was a level of pent-up demand for Vista boxes," says Martin Cullen, head of HP's PC business in Ireland. "From a personal view I think Microsoft has learned from previous experience and it's a more smooth transition this time. It's a non-issue for us."

Declan Kenny, trading manager for PC World, says the PC retailer has had some issues around Vista but that a small number of problems have "created a universe of myths around Vista and it's compatibility issues". The main issues it has discovered are iTunes compatibility, lack of drivers for customers' existing printers and other peripherals, and difficulty loading Vista onto machines running AMD dual core chips.

"With the exception of the iTunes issue we are able to resolve the majority of customer queries or problems in our stores," says Kenny. "Our on-site technicians have been fully trained on Vista and receive regular updates from Microsoft and other key manufacturers to trouble shoot issues as they arise. Our customers' biggest concerns to date relate to compatibility myths rather than facts."

Perhaps the problem for Microsoft was that with so much expectation around Vista - prompted in no small part by repeated delays - it was never going to be able to please everyone. And with blogs and other self-publishing platforms now available to anyone with a broadband connection, even the smallest issues are guaranteed to get some airtime.