What's Windows Vista Worth? Play Guy's Guesstimating Game.

[bgerber]

Guy Thomas is a computer consultant and writer with attitude and a great sense of humor. Here Guy, who lives in the UK, puts dollar values on the various features of Microsoft's coming Vista operating system to determine if it's worth the company's likely asking prices.

 

[CookieOfDoom]

I installed Vista beta a while back... My personal opinon:

New Aero interface that will lag up my computer when I try to alt-tab out of a game, $-25

The fact that it takes up twice the RAM as XP, $-30

The fact that it takes twice as long to boot, $-10

The fact that it takes 3 times as long to shut down $-10

The fact that I'm going to have to get a new hard drive to support their prefered method of shutdown/restart $-80

Needing to relearn how to do basic things in Windows (benift of the doubt here, I'm assuming it will be better than XP, if not then probably cube the following number.) $-5

The fact that I'll probably need to update the majority of my computers components to be able to run Vista well, $-800

All the games that I won't be able to play because they are not Vista supported, $-100

DirectX 10 support that allows for rendering of graphics like seen in screenshots of Crysis, Priceless.

Guess you gotta take the bad with the good, eh?

 

[niz]

Most of the points we're calcuating paying for in this article are actually either bug-fixes or stuff that anyone with Linux/Unix or Mac experience would consider basic operating system functionality that should have already been in windows years ago.

I installed the Vista RC1 beta and decided to go back to XP. The aero interface does indeed look good, but is very slow and laggy, which surprised me because I have a PC with a core 2 X6800 extreme, 1GB of fast DDR2 ram and an nVidia 6800 ultra video card that has 256mb of video ram.

Also the whole GUI is terribly designed from a usability perspective. There's all these redundant toolbars, sidebars and miscellaneous other crap that use system resources an generally just get in the way. I thought XP was bad for this but Vista has taken it to a whole new level.

The Vista interface is very business-task driven and targetted at non-pc minded people. If you happen to be a non-technical business user thats probably fine, but ofr the rest of us, it sucks.

Its not at all friendly or efficient if you're a home user, or someone at least semi-technical that wants to drill down, because the GUI totally hides the system and totally gets in the way of you trying to do what you want.

Vista is OK (not good, just OK) if you want to follow microsoft's use-cases and repeatedly do tasks like sign up for microsoft passport, but no real person is like that. If you want to just copy a file between two drives its now a major effort.

We haven't gotten to all the issues around Digital Rights either. I could write a whole post about how I couldn't do things with my own legitimately purchased DVDs and MP3s that I used to be able to under XP.

After what I've seen from release candidate 1, Vista is prettier but a significant functional downgrade compared to XP, therefore its value in dollars is a rather large negative number.

 

[killernotebooks]

I guess I have an issue with the Vista Aero Ultimate cost... seems like I am being gouged. We kind of beat this topic to death in A fiesta with Vista and the Killer Notebooks Wakizachi thread, so I probably don't have to regurg all over this thread.

I find it funny that essentially MS steals all their ideas from Apple, Google etc, but then slaps a huge pricetag on it. How can OSX cost <$150 and work without the economies of scale MS has?

 

[wolfman140]

The only thing about Vista out of all those features that appeal to me is..umm..like 3. The prettiness, which you all say is too laggy anyway...the Sidebar with Gadgets that will probably come to mimic Apple's Widgets, and the increased security measures. Can't they just...do all the same thing with XP without trying to make me pay $400 for it? I'm a big believer in quick response of boot/shutdown times, program reaction time, etc. If Vista is as laggy as u say, that'll be done for me. I guess the only way to know is download a copy tonight on my other harddrive and dual boot with it. No way am I ruining my current XP by upgrading to Vista

 

[kamel5547]

I guess I have an issue with the Vista Aero Ultimate cost... seems like I am being gouged. We kind of beat this topic to death in A fiesta with Vista and the Killer Notebooks Wakizachi thread, so I probably don't have to regurg all over this thread.

I find it funny that essentially MS steals all their ideas from Apple, Google etc, but then slaps a huge pricetag on it. How can OSX cost <$150 and work without the economies of scale MS has?

Um... Apple has stolen more than their fair share of features. For example the GUI came from Xerox Labs...

Apple can afford to sell OS X for whatever price because they ALSO sell the hardware. Essentially they are primarly driven by hardware profits (see desktops, laptops, ipods) and give the software away or at a break even price (see OS, iTunes). MS does not sell PC's so they need to make a profit from the software (see OS, Office) although they do sell some hardware at a loss (see XBox). They are completely different models for doing the same thing.

 

[dan555smith]

I started with computers using windows, and still use it. I have used linux and mac and like the overall Idea of not having to "pay" for an os, but I think that even through MS unreliability, it is still pretty and easy to use. that is how they have dominated the field (also the underhanded dirty tricks by locking computer retailers into using only windows) but alas, it has worked. it will continue to work. this latest version RC1 5600.xxxx is nice enough, a little slow, but it has our office build on it and I can't bash it. It is still not a release so with 2 or 4 gb of ram, it should be pretty fast! what he didn't say in the article is how much you will pay when you buy a new computer with windows on it. Will it be the same? no, it will be less. save some money with an oem copy...buy a computer from dell, hp or gateway. the $400. will only amount to $200. That isn't that much is it?


I have to say that making money by supporting these machines has been good to me, so I will allow this to go into our company. I am waiting to buy a computer until Vista is out, so slam them all you like but in 2 yrs if you have windows on your computer, you will probably still have windows on your computer. If you don't, it will probably make you mad to know you more than likely paid for a license to use windows if you bought on from a manufacturer.

 

[killernotebooks]

Well, honestly, I didn't experience lag, but this was a clean install of it, not an upgrade, dual boot etc. The hard drive was clean except for Vista.

the Sidebar with Gadgets that will probably come to mimic Apple's Widgets

which can be duplicated with the Yahoo Widget Engine.

and as far as security, i don't need more stinking security from my OS. Look at SP2, what did that acomplish? I got a half a$$ed firewall and IE that supposedly helps me in some way, but it blocks all the stuff I actaully want, and the scumbags still use multiple pop ups or pop unders etc. so you might as well just turn it off.

 

[killernotebooks]

ROFL, you are comparing stealing a GUI from Xerox, who in fact did not come with it:

Doug Engelbart's Augmentation of Human Intellect project at SRI in the 1960s developed the On-Line System (NLS), which incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows. Engelbart had been inspired, in part, by the memex desk based information machine suggested by Vannevar Bush in 1945. Much of the early research was based on how young humans learn.

Engelbart's work directly led to the advances at Xerox PARC. Several people went from SRI to Xerox PARC in the early 1970's. The Xerox PARC team with Merzouga Wilberts, codified the WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointers) paradigm, first pioneered on the Xerox Alto experimental computer, but which eventually appeared commercially in the Xerox 8010 ('Star') system in 1981.

to what MS WHOLESALE freaking lifts from the MAC OS? That's crazy talk.

As far as MS Office, don't even get me started that Sun's Open Office is FREE and can do everything MS Office can.

 

[shuffle2]

I completely agree with Niz.
oh, and.....I have three letters for M$: XGL
it's only (very)beta, but still does the job for me!

 

[infornography42]

Here is my breakdown
AERO - $25
Explorer - $15
IE7 - $0
Bitlocker - $0
Secure Startup - $5
Task Dialog - $15
Flip 3D -$5
Sidebar - $0
User Account Control - $0
DirectX 10 - $60
Restart Manager - $5
Networking Components - $20
Sleep - $0
Superfetch - $10
Shadowcopy - $0
Readyboost - $25
Windows Meeting Space - $0
Media Control Center - $0
XImage and Windows Deployment Services - $15
Various other features - $10

$210

Note this is before I start deducting for inconvenience costs
Inclusion of tons of DRM crap - -$100
Bloated as hell laggy operation - -$100

There we go.

So I would be willing to pay ...... $10 for Vista. Which version will that get me?

Can I get the version that is JUST DirectX 10 for XP? I'd pay up to $60 for that ;-)

 

[fonzy]

For new builders who wan't the best graphics then I guess they don't have a choice but to go with vista and DX10...eventually we will all have to make the switch anyway(minus the linux and OSX useres)

I would definitly wait atleast 5 months before I buy vista though, so they can get most of the bugs fixed.

 

[gm0n3y]

I pretty much have the same sentiment as above. Why do I need 570 new 'features'? I can only think of a few programs that I use in XP; remote desktop (for work), ms office (again, for work), visual studio (work)... thats all I can think of.

All of the other main programs that I use on a daily basis (EditPlus, uTorrent, Firefox, Winamp, Alcohol 120, CuteFTP, iTunes, PowerDVD, Adaware, Spybot, WavePad, etc) are all free downloads (well, sorta free ).

I would be willing to pay $300+ for a new version of Windows if it did the following:

1) Got rid of all of the unecessary crap that XP has.

2) Took OUT all of the 'added functionality' of windows explorer. That means no specialized views for viewing folders with different media (I really hate that).

3) Make it more stable (not that bad right now, but could be better).

4) Make it run faster. This means get rid of all of the extra services that users don't need. Even just give users a more user-friendly way of deactivating anything that takes up resourses (along with a description of what each windows process is).

5) DX10 (the only reason I will eventually have to get Vista, also the main reason they left it until Vista I bet).

Thats it. To me, it seems that they could have accomplished all of this with much less effort and in less time than it took to make Vista.

Actually, I would like it if they could just change $100 for DX10 and let me run it on Linux. That would be sweet

 

[DaBigHurt]

I dunno, Honestly anyone with some knowledge of the XP Operating System cant say that its unstable, Ive never had a problem with XP, But like some of us have said, DX10 will probably be the main reason most of us will be making the switch anyway, Lots of people will say that they are going to "switch" right away, but guess what, We will still be using Windows XP most of the time for at least 6 months after Vista's release. Or at least until Vista's First Service Pack.

Is Vista Worth it? at $249 is too soon to tell. But I think it will be in the long run.How many of us just purchased a WinXP upgrade version for $150 and have installed it at least 50 times through "upgrades" on more than one comp over the years? Plus all the free software we have on our comps that with all honesty shouldnt be "free".

Will we be switching? Eventually.......But its not like we have a choice....Specially gamers.

 

[gm0n3y]

True enough. I will probably wait until either my work gets a few copies or somebody I know gets an OEM version and then I will install it on my machine. That is if M$ lets us install on more than one machine. Of course, you could always just pull the old 'I just upgraded my hardware and not it says I am not allowed to reinstall'. If you actually call their tech support and tell them that, they will always let you do it. I have installed the same copy of XP on probably 6 different machines (I did actually own all of them, but for all M$ knows I didn't).

 

[blueangel]

I agree with waiting for a while, at least untill there is a good DX10 game out that I want. Untill then, XP will be fine for me, I value all the extra fetures at $0 I am getting along fine with XP for school, work, and gaming fine. Why would I want to "upgrade" to vista for 300+ when I dont need it.

 

[flasher702]

Ok, so I read this article and was surprised to find there are some new features that actually sound good. BUT, alot of them are things we already have, they just wrapped a nice GUI and Wizard on them. You could do this with any OS (I really REALLY wish the linux community would hop on this already. People only think MS GUI wizards are good because there is no real competition, linux community should be able to do so much better).

Aero is a retarded resource-hungry waste of electrons, but you can turn it off so I won't count that against Vista.

The new hybrid flash HDs. Why are they inventing new hardware for their OS? If you want a flash HD for swap and prefecting just install one and have the OS configure itself to use it. Or if you did make a hybrid to save space just partition off the flash part, no need to reinvent how an OS accesses storage or how a HD presents itself to a system. At the last Computex these HDs were still not ready. A software company should not be rushing a hardware company to bring new hardware to market.

DRM DRM DRM, is not your friend. I might actually consider using legit download services. Itunes really does have an impressive collection and sometimes it really would be worth 99cents to be able to just find what I'm looking for easily and get it quickly... but DRM sucks. It ONLY hurts legitemate users. DRM has never bothered me, because DRMed files get deleted off my HD emmediately. Customers of mine have lost gigs of data to DRM and had compatibility problems with media devices, it's just silly.

I will not be down-grading my system performance by installing Vista. I resisted installing XP for a long time but eventually gave in because I had to support it. I no longer do end-user support (thank god) so I am free to familiarize myself with whatever OS I desire. WinXP should do me just fine as a backup until I'm ready to switch over to linux entirely.

 

[niz]

... save some money with an oem copy...buy a computer from dell, hp or gateway. the $400. will only amount to $200. That isn't that much is it?...
I have to say that making money by supporting these machines has been good to me, so I will allow this to go into our company. ....

You're logic is skewed. People don't buy a whole new computer to save money on windows. And yes...$200 is still a lot. Especially when you can get Linux for nothing.

>>I have to say that making money by supporting these machines has been good to me, so I will allow this to go into our company. ..

You mean that you'd prefer this to go into your company because you already see Vista will need a lot of support work, so keeping you in a job. Although probably true, thats not a very good commendation of Vista fo the rest of us.

 

[niz]

...
Is Vista Worth it? at $249 is too soon to tell. ...

Will we be switching? Eventually.......But its not like we have a choice....Specially gamers.

You can download a release candidate copy from Microsoft already. Trust me, you'll go back to XP after the novelty of the new GUI has worn off. For me it took about 20 minutes.

Acutally gamers will have a choice. There won't be any DX10-only games out. so they'll all run under XP on DX9. You miss out on the odd extra shimmer and twinkle of water reflections or something but so what?

 

[IQuerry81]

I don't get you guys/girls. This system offers benefits over xp. If you are mad about resources, look what windows 98 required compared to its predasesor. Everyone thought 256MB was too much then! Now you all have no problems poping in 1GB of ram just so a game will run faster, so it's really about the game now.

As for Aero, get the standard home addition that doesn't come with aero. And why not get that standard system, you don't seem to like all the extras of vista anyway. Besides, more isn't always better.

As for copy-cats of OS's, you can't say that MAC didn't copy anything. If you think a Mac thought up everything it has ever made on it's own, you are walking around blind then. Oh, and lets not forget to mention that Mac has successfully charged extra for every update to their 5, yes 5 new opporating systems. Lets not forget how crappy the updates were too.

I could write pages on how rediculous it is to complain over an operating system that will probably only cast maybe $200 dollars for a good update, if not a full version. On top of it lasting you well over 4 years. If you buy the $200 dollar version, that's a whopping $50 a year for your expense. I'll save the monthly value for you to figure out, or that might be too expensive for you to figure out. Might be too much time, could end up waisting it and loosing money somewhere.

Oh, and windows 98 finally stopped getting support, so that means in the 5 and some odd years XP has been out, people could use 98 without updating to XP. This means that you could still use your precious XP (because it uses up only a 1/3 of your ram rather than 1/2 OH NO!!) and just wait for the next operating system after that.

All in all, quit being so picky! It is a new improvement in home based software and it benefits the normal everyday user! Finally, we get a home version that doesn't suck.

 

[xrodney]

I don't get you guys/girls. This system offers benefits over xp. If you are mad about resources, look what windows 98 required compared to its predasesor. Everyone thought 256MB was too much then! Now you all have no problems poping in 1GB of ram just so a game will run faster, so it's really about the game now.

As for Aero, get the standard home addition that doesn't come with aero. And why not get that standard system, you don't seem to like all the extras of vista anyway. Besides, more isn't always better.

As for copy-cats of OS's, you can't say that MAC didn't copy anything. If you think a Mac thought up everything it has ever made on it's own, you are walking around blind then. Oh, and lets not forget to mention that Mac has successfully charged extra for every update to their 5, yes 5 new opporating systems. Lets not forget how crappy the updates were too.

I could write pages on how rediculous it is to complain over an operating system that will probably only cast maybe $200 dollars for a good update, if not a full version. On top of it lasting you well over 4 years. If you buy the $200 dollar version, that's a whopping $50 a year for your expense. I'll save the monthly value for you to figure out, or that might be too expensive for you to figure out. Might be too much time, could end up waisting it and loosing money somewhere.

Oh, and windows 98 finally stopped getting support, so that means in the 5 and some odd years XP has been out, people could use 98 without updating to XP. This means that you could still use your precious XP (because it uses up only a 1/3 of your ram rather than 1/2 OH NO!!) and just wait for the next operating system after that.

All in all, quit being so picky! It is a new improvement in home based software and it benefits the normal everyday user! Finally, we get a home version that doesn't suck.

I am using Windows 2003 x64 and i dont see any befenits to move to move to Vista, but quite oposite.
Using 10 times more resources for windows itself ?
Be annoyed with overprotected scheme ?
Need 2+ times more CPU power to play same high resolution video just to be sure its "uncrackable" ?
I dont think so.
(not mentioning microsoft stupidest idea whats important for normal user, of more then 2 concurent sesions available only in most expensive versions of windows directed to companies)
And more important there will be many programs whitch will not work in Vista and I am sure companies whitch just spent milions for curent software whitch will have problems run on Vista will not move on it anytime soon.

Why MS need so many power just for windows itself when any other OS need like 1/10 to make same task.

 

[DaBigHurt]

...
Is Vista Worth it? at $249 is too soon to tell. ...

Will we be switching? Eventually.......But its not like we have a choice....Specially gamers.

You can download a release candidate copy from Microsoft already. Trust me, you'll go back to XP after the novelty of the new GUI has worn off. For me it took about 20 minutes.

Acutally gamers will have a choice. There won't be any DX10-only games out. so they'll all run under XP on DX9. You miss out on the odd extra shimmer and twinkle of water reflections or something but so what?

Funny, you should mention that, I did install the RC1, 2 days ago, and it took me about 20 min. to make up my mind that I didnt want it and im coming fresh from a format.

But what happens when we need to upgrade a Video Card? I wouldnt stick with DX9 cards forever,eventually we will make the switch, specially with all the talk of samarter/greater performance in a DX10. I dunno, I guess we will have to see.

 

[mitch074]

Well, I haven't tried RC1; still, I gave beta2 a spin some time ago.

I also gave AIGLX and XGL a spin recently. I also gave Firefox 2's beta a spin, too.

So, let's take a Dell mid-range PC, with all-Intel hardware and integrated graphics - but still dual-core and 64-bit capable.

Aero Glass don't work on it. AIGLX works out of the box at full speed, though. I even made a 1999 TNT work with XGL. Save 200$ (plus 50$ for Vista Premium).

You need at least 2 Gb of RAM to forego slowdowns in Vista. 1 Go is more than enough for GNU/Linux. Save 30$.

You need to purchase the new Windows to get DirectX 10 support. You merely need to update your Mesa libraries (included with Xorg anyway) to get the same functionalities under OpenGL: direct hardware access, GLX updated in version 7.1. Save at least 150$.

You have to deal with authorizations - and learn about them - in Vista. It's part of install with Linux, and flexible systems already exist (kdesu, sudo etc.). Save time.

IE7 uses sandboxes. A Linux user account already is a sandbox. Save on antivirii runs.

IE7 provides anti-phishing. So does Firefox 2. Ff2 also provides a nice source viewer, XHTML support, real XML parsing, SVG support. Save on an extra IE theme (15$?)

Meaning that right now, considering I'm using a 'normal', paid-for version of Linux (which includes an office suite, a graphics editor, and advanced CD/DVD/MMedia tools built-in) which cost me $50, you'd need to pay me:
200+50+30+15-50 = $345 for me to consider Vista instead of an editor phone-supported (not OEM flaky answers) Vista version, and I'll want MS Office and Photoshop thrown in for free for good measure.

I'll go back to my CPU-saving, memory frugal, too fluid (I had to put a break on the FPS, it was sickeningly fluid on my FX5200), fully equipped, well designed, cool looking 3D transluscent desktop now.

 

[dan555smith]

The main point that I am making is the main stream purchasers are going to buy new machines with vista. they won't have [much of] a choice anyway. In m$ licensing, you do not have a choice (unless you buy an OEM copy of XP either b/c you built the system or in addition to the license you already bought (a new computer with Vista) to go back). There are some retailers that are begining to allow Linux to be included instead of windows, but for the most part, it is windows. Besides, companies just make throw-away computers for this purpose.
Like one of the guys stated, if the linux guys made GUI installers, there would be more desktop penetration in the market.

NIZ: In case you haven't noticed, the corporate world has caught on to gamers spending money on hardware/software. 2-3 years from now, when m$ comes out with another os, that is not compatible with new games, you will be forced to shell out more. then your computer will have to be upgraded...Just make more money... I still game, just not as much. I don't buy new games (much), I wait until they are $20 or less or I buy them used.

xrodney :who the heck runs a server o/s as there primary o/s???? they have 64 bit xp, and linux. MAC too!

 

[infornography42]

I don't get you guys/girls. This system offers benefits over xp. If you are mad about resources, look what windows 98 required compared to its predasesor. Everyone thought 256MB was too much then! Now you all have no problems poping in 1GB of ram just so a game will run faster, so it's really about the game now.

umm... You can easily run 98 on 64 megs of ram and it will still work fine with 32. I don't know where this 256 meg figure you came up with came from.

As for Aero, get the standard home addition that doesn't come with aero. And why not get that standard system, you don't seem to like all the extras of vista anyway. Besides, more isn't always better.

The standard home edition does not support logging into a domain and I had to upgrade my home network to a domain years ago. More than 11 computers makes workgroups unworkable. Also this standard home edition does not support dual processors, which many of us will probably be switching to when 4x4 comes out.

As for copy-cats of OS's, you can't say that MAC didn't copy anything. If you think a Mac thought up everything it has ever made on it's own, you are walking around blind then. Oh, and lets not forget to mention that Mac has successfully charged extra for every update to their 5, yes 5 new opporating systems. Lets not forget how crappy the updates were too.

I don't think anyone was trying to say Apple didn't copy anything. Everyone in the PC industry steals from everyone. Most people don't even realize how many important technologies were developed by Commodore Amiga and promptly integrated into everyone elses products. I fail to see this as relevent.

I could write pages on how rediculous it is to complain over an operating system that will probably only cast maybe $200 dollars for a good update, if not a full version. On top of it lasting you well over 4 years. If you buy the $200 dollar version, that's a whopping $50 a year for your expense. I'll save the monthly value for you to figure out, or that might be too expensive for you to figure out. Might be too much time, could end up waisting it and loosing money somewhere.

I refuse to consider operating system software as a service. The mere concept sickens me.
I can accept antivirus as a service because it reacts to external forces.
I can accept MMORPGs as a service because they are adding a lot of new features regularly and have to maintain high bandwidth servers constantly.
Windows updates are not the same thing because they are fixes for things that should have worked right from the beginning and new features are few, far between, and generally unwanted/needed.

Oh, and windows 98 finally stopped getting support, so that means in the 5 and some odd years XP has been out, people could use 98 without updating to XP. This means that you could still use your precious XP (because it uses up only a 1/3 of your ram rather than 1/2 OH NO!!) and just wait for the next operating system after that.

Your ratios are a bit skewed. Also people who wanted to use any remotely recent applications could not just continue to use 98 because they no longer ran on 98. The main reason I care at all is because I REALLY want the benefits that DirectX 10 would provide, but I don't want ANYTHING else that comes with Vista. I WOULD be willing to pay good money for a version of DX10 that would run on 2000/XP, but chances are that this will not happen.

All in all, quit being so picky! It is a new improvement in home based software and it benefits the normal everyday user! Finally, we get a home version that doesn't suck.

Quit being so blind! I fail to see how any of this benefits the everyday home user more than XP. I also fail to see how the basic edition is really any better than XP home, and several ways in which it is worse.