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Windows Vista And Office 2007: Revolution Or Revolting? I have a feeling that for most of you, Windows Vista and Office 2007 will be a nightmare; it certainly has been for me so far. I may change my mind about all this someday, I hope I do, but right now I just continue to shake my head in disbelief, something I've been doing since the public betas were first released about 8 months ago. When the public betas and release candidates were made available, I dutifully installed them on a machine I had bought in part for that purpose, a fairly powerful Dell tower. Each time, my attempts to really get to know Vista were stymied by software incompatibilities, each time I found myself thinking, what's the point? With the consumer release of Vista last week, I ordered a brand new laptop from Dell, looking forward to finally working on a daily basis with the OS, sadly here I am again, stymied and shaking my head. Here I am working in Windows XP. Now, any tech will tell you that being on the bleeding edge of technology is asking for it, so I expected some problems, but not to the extent that I'm having, there's really no excuse for some of them, in particular software incompatibility. While maintaining software compatibility may be the biggest challenge in updating Windows, programs that are designed for XP, should not have been broken by Vista. Microsoft has been down this road before, in particular when Windows XP was released. XP was a far more evolutionary Windows release than Vista, which while it may be revolutionary, doesn't really make any great leaps forward. Of course, some blame for this should be laid at the feet of the vendors of these programs. They have had plenty of time to develop patches and upgrades, and undoubtedly most of the incompatible programs will be patched and upgraded relatively soon. These compatibility upgrades should be a pretty good windfall for software developers. Putting that aside, it is entirely Microsoft's fault that Office 2007, Microsoft's other cash cow, and Vista do not work fabulously together, and they do not. In fact at this moment, I have had to retreat to Office 2003 on the new laptop. I should have suspected a problem with 2007 when it did not come preinstalled on the laptop, despite being released over a month ago. While Office 2003 works, it is…very sluggish. If a lot of users have this problem, I guarantee Windows Vista will be considered the worst version of Windows ever. Millennium will look like a fracking dream in comparison. Another complaint I have is the feel of Vista. Sluggishness seems to be an overall Vista trait; it lacks the snap of a good Windows system. The truth is, Vista feels like a Mac, in part due to the many "revolutionary" interface "improvements" which are emulations of the Mac OS, and frankly ones we can do without if they turn the system to sludge. I'll point out here that I am using Vista on a pretty decent little laptop. It's a little quicker with the graphics intensive aero interface turned off, but not really. At this point, I can't think of any reason to recommend Windows Vista to my clients. I don't want the headaches I have and I suspect neither do they. I feel the same way about Office 2007 with its glorified ribbon interface which forces users to learn an entirely new way of interacting with the applications they depend on. For instance after months of using Excel 2007, I still can't find many basic functions. Internet Explorer 7 presents similar interface problems, though they are fairly easy to remedy. It's worth noting that I feel somewhat differently than some of the notable experts whose opinions I depend upon. I'm hoping that's because I have more in common with my mainstream users than them. Though there is no one I am aware of trumpeting any of these products as "must haves," I seem to be more stridently upset about the changes in Vista and Office. Maybe I've got it wrong and Vista and Office are revolutionary, but if they are, I don't think the revolution was worth it. Entire Document (print, email, or web page) Copyright 2007 by Steven M. Lastoe. All rights reserved. |
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