1. Vista

Longhorn was supposed to succeed XP but somewhere along the line, Redmond decided to stop development and switch the team over to Vista. After five years of development, it’s the best Microsoft could do?

Take note that I’m not saying Vista is THAT bad. Incompatibilities plagued Vista the moment it hit the market in terms of both software and hardware (I couldn’t even install RF Online). Why? Manufacturers and developers felt that majority of Microsoft’s projected market wouldn’t make the switch anytime soon so they held back for a few months. They were right.

Vista offers a few bits of advantages. It’s the only OS I know that works best with a touchscreen PC, UAC (User Access Control) to block malware (and most of your legacy applications) from installing. Then there’s the improvements under the hood that improves searching and wireless networking. For eye candy enthusiasts, there’s Aero (Linux offers Compiz for less memory).

However behind all that gloss, Vista isn’t just the revolutionary that Microsoft promises. Vista is slower than XP (Service Pack 1 gives the OS a bit of reprieve but it’s still under release candidate) even when you consider that the former carries higher hardware requirements. Just like it’s precedecessors, Vista too was rushed too soon out of the development phase which means bugs and vulnerabilities were pretty numerous, much like how XP was when it went out.

There is little doubt that Vista will soon be the dominant OS whether users want it or not. Why? Because once, Microsoft’s extension of XP’s life expires, it will become increasingly hard to buy a new machine that doesn’t have it pre-installed. What we can hope for is that when that happens, Vista can stand where XP is now.

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