On Friday, Microsoft gave computer makers a six-month extension for offering Windows XP on newly-shipped PCs. While this doesn’t impact enterprise IT — because volume licensing agreements will allow IT to keep installing Windows XP for many years to come — the move is another symbolic nail in Vista’s coffin.

The public reputation of Windows Vista is in shambles, as Microsoft itself tacitly acknowledged in its Mojave ad campaign.

IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have put Windows 7 on an accelerated schedule that could see it released in 2010. That will provide IT departments with all the justification they need to simply skip Vista and wait to eventually standardize on Windows 7 as the next OS for business.

So how did Vista get left holding the bag? Let’s look at the five most important reasons why Vista failed.

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista

Apple’s clever I’m a Mac ads have successfully driven home the perception that Windows Vista is buggy, boring, and difficult to use. After taking two years of merciless pummeling from Apple, Microsoft recently responded with it’s I’m a PC campaign in order to defend the honor of Windows. This will likely restore some mojo to the PC and Windows brands overall, but it’s too late to save Vista’s perception as a dud.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched

In 2001, when Windows XP was released, there were about 600 million computers in use worldwide. Over 80% of them were running Windows but it was split between two code bases: Windows 95/98 (65%) and Windows NT/2000 (26%), according to IDC. One of the big goals of Windows XP was to unite the Windows 9x and Windows NT code bases, and it eventually accomplished that.

In 2008, there are now over 1.1 billion PCs in use worldwide and over 70% of them are running Windows XP. That means almost 800 million computers are running XP, which makes it the most widely installed operating system of all time. That’s a lot of inertia to overcome, especially for IT departments that have consolidated their deployments and applications around Windows XP.

And, believe it or not, Windows XP could actually increase its market share over the next couple years. How? Low-cost netbooks and nettops are going to be flooding the market. While these inexpensive machines are powerful enough to provide a solid Internet experience for most users, they don’t have enough resources to run Windows Vista, so they all run either Windows XP or Linux. Intel expects this market to explode in the years ahead. (For more on netbooks and nettops, see this fact sheet and this presentation — both are PDFs from Intel.)

3. Vista is too slow

For years Microsoft has been criticized by developers and IT professionals for “software bloat” — adding so many changes and features to its programs that the code gets huge and unwieldy. However, this never seemed to have enough of an effect to impact software sales. With Windows Vista, software bloat appears to have finally caught up with Microsoft.

Vista has over 50 million lines of code. XP had 35 million when it was released, and since then it has grown to about 40 million. This software bloat has had the effect of slowing down Windows Vista, especially when it’s running on anything but the latest and fastest hardware. Even then, the latest version of Windows XP soundly outperforms the latest version of Microsoft Vista. No one wants to use a new computer that is slower than their old one.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista

It’s easy to forget that when Microsoft launched Windows XP it was actually trying to change its OS business model to move away from shrink-wrapped software and convert customers to software subscribers. That’s why it abandoned the naming convention of Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and instead chose Windows XP.

The XP stood for “experience” and was part of Microsoft’s .NET Web services strategy at the time. The master plan was to get users and businesses to pay a yearly subscription fee for the Windows experience — XP would essentially be the on-going product name but would include all software upgrades and updates, as long as you paid for your subscription. Of course, it would disable Windows on your PC if you didn’t pay. That’s why product activation was coupled with Windows XP.

Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP simultaneously in 2001 and both included product activation and the plan to eventually migrate to subscription products. However, by the end of 2001 Microsoft had already abandoned the subscription concept with Office, and quickly returned to the shrink-wrapped business model and the old product development model with both products.

The idea of doing incremental releases and upgrades of its software — rather than a major shrink-wrapped release every 3-5 years — was a good concept. Microsoft just couldn’t figure out how to make the business model work, but instead of figuring out how to get it right, it took the easy route and went back to an old model that was simply not very well suited to the economic and technical realities of today’s IT world.

1. It broke too much stuff

One of the big reasons that Windows XP caught on was because it had the hardware, software, and driver compatibility of the Windows 9x line plus the stability and industrial strength of the Windows NT line. The compatibility issue was huge. Having a single, highly-compatible Windows platform simplified the computing experience for users, IT departments, and software and hardware vendors.

Microsoft either forgot or disregarded that fact when it released Windows Vista, because, despite a long beta period, a lot of existing software and hardware were not compatible with Vista when it was released in January 2007. Since many important programs and peripherals were unusable in Vista, that made it impossible for a lot of IT departments to adopt it. Many of the incompatibilities were the result of tighter security.

After Windows was targeted by a nasty string of viruses, worms, and malware in the early 2000s, Microsoft embarked on the Trustworthy Computing initiative to make its products more secure. One of the results was Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which won over IT and paved the way for XP to become the world’s mostly widely deployed OS.

The other big piece of Trustworthy Computing was the even-further-locked-down version of Windows that Microsoft released in Vista. This was definitely the most secure OS that Microsoft had ever released but the price was user-hostile features such as UAC, a far more complicated set of security prompts that accompanied many basic tasks, and a host of software incompatibility issues. In other words, Vista broke a lot of the things that users were used to doing in XP.
Bottom line

There are some who argue that Vista is actually more widely adopted than XP was at this stage after its release, and that it’s highly likely that Vista will eventually replace XP in the enterprise. I don’t agree. With XP, there were clear motivations to migrate: bring Windows 9x machines to a more stable and secure OS and bring Windows NT/2000 machines to an OS with much better hardware and software compatibility. And, you also had the advantage of consolidating all of those machines on a single OS in order to simplify support.

With Vista, there are simply no major incentives for IT to use it over XP. Security isn’t even that big of an issue because XP SP2 (and above) are solid and most IT departments have it locked down quite well. As I wrote in the article Prediction: Microsoft will leapfrog Vista, release Windows 7 early, and change its OS business, Microsoft needs to abandon the strategy of releasing a new OS every 3-5 years and simply stick with a single version of Windows and release updates, patches, and new features on a regular basis. Most IT departments are essentially already on a subscription model with Microsoft so the business strategy is already in place for them.

As far as the subscription model goes for small businesses and consumers, instead of disabling Windows on a user’s PC if they don’t renew their subscription, just don’t allow that machine to get any more updates if they don’t renew. Microsoft could also work with OEMs to sell something like a three-year subscription to Windows with every a new PC. Then users would have the choice of renewing on their own after that. Article written by Larry Dignan, Sam Diaz, Tom Steinert-Threlkeld ( ZDNet)

I can agree with 4, 3, and 1.

Apple hates on Microsoft for everything, but that did not get in the way of people cherishing XP or the X-Box. Vista is just an easy target.

I don't agree with the business model argument either. 7 follows the same shrink-wrap idea as Vista, but people like it.

How about the fact the XP was the best windows (albeit after SP2) and the least buggy. There was no "need" for Vista, as all software programs ran on XP and Vista, so why would you shell out cash (if you had XP) to "upgrade" to a quirky, goofy, slower, and useless operating system. Sure it had a better look to it but microsoft ignored all the beta testers complaints and released it how they wanted it. I don't think apples ads really had any effect since there market share is roughly the same if not marginally higher than before vista's release. (they make alot more money selling phones, ipods, and through itunes as well as there computer sales.) Vista just wasn't user friendly (for the avg. pc user) and I guess windows 7 will aim to correct this failure.

Completely agree with your assessment, except on the matter of how Vista looked. In my opinion the look of Vista is so horrible, it almost looks like Mac. Very gay. (But, whatever, I guess this is a personal choice.)

Official news releases constantly omit this most important reason of why Vista was a failure: It did not bring anything new. There was nothing worthy in Vista.

There was no return on investment, whatsoever, if someone wanted to go with Vista.

May-be Microsoft won't be able to issue anything good anymore, now that they do not have Bill Gates. The enterpreneur has left, and the only people that are still with Microsoft are the functionaries, the cog turners. They have no eyes, - no need to, as their job is to turn the cogs.

May-be this is the end of Microsoft (I hope so.)

I signed up to be a beta tester for Vista a year before release (like thousands of others) and the first time i loaded Vista beta, I was amazed. Amazed how slow it was and full of memory leaks etc...I kept sending my feedback mails to MS and even before the RC (release candidate) I was urging MS, that Vista is nowhere near ready and don't release this garbage, rather hold back another year if needed to skim off all the bloatware and make it more efficient and reduce the size.....make it more user friendly and add more features and options..
My complaint fell on deaf ears, along with all the rest of the beta-testers who complained.

I think I might get rotten tomatoes thrown at me or something with what I am about to say, but I actually like Vista. I do not find it slow at all, my memory is fine, and have not had any problems with programs and such. I even like the look and feel of it. I have been a user for over a year now, and not one complaint.

Vista's working great for me.

Thy may be reading them just about now. Now, that they see the screwed it up big time.

You'd better duck, because I am about to hurl a tomato at you!

I'm using Vista too, don't be surprised. It does work...I mean if you pay 199 or whatever amount for an operating system , it should at least work. right?

The problem is not that whether it works or not, but is it worth to upgrade if you already got Windows XP?

No it's not, and don't get me wrong, fine, new computers do come with Vista pre-installed, but people (about 65%?) who already own computers and have Windows XP already installed with all the latest patches, they see no advantage whatsoever of shelling out 100-300 dollars for an operating system that does not advance anywhere, beside fancy visuals and user account control and changes, that makes little difference of how most people use their computers.

See what I'm saying? For example, back in the Win95 days, upgrading to Win98 didn't really help a lot although made it more stable and finally win98SE came around which was essentially what Win95 should have been. With all that past, WinXP came and it did really moved the bar up a few notches. It was significant in stability, functionality and many advantages, it was worth to upgrade from Win95 or Win98 to WinXP.

In this point of view, Vista -as trying to be a significant new OS0 is a giant failure and it's even worse if we consider just how much it costs.

Windows Vista to WindowsXP is like Windows Millenium (which was useless and worthless as well) to Windows98, except Vista will cost you a lot more money.

p.s. (by the way if anyone want to know how to clean install Vista from a Vista upgrade, let me know, there is no reason for anyone to cash out 200 or 300 bucks for the "full" version. Vista "upgrade" version will clean install onto an empty hard disk no problem and you aren't even breaking the EULA)

Atlantis,

Vista came with my new computer.

I had Windows XP on my old computer.

I haven't had any problems with either one of them.

As I said...completely fine.. but people who do not want to buy a new PC and has a fairly good PC with windows XP running smooth with all the updates...there is little point to upgrade to Vista...especially if this PC has less than 2GB of RAM, less hard drive space and the CPU is more than 2 years old.

Here is Intel company, staying with WinxP despite Vista is out:

Intel won't touch Vista


http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/26/intel-says-no-to-vista-upgrade/

The XP stood for “experience”

I thought Xp stood for 'xtra personal'??? am I wrong, not sure, just what I heard.

I have vista premium on my gateway laptop, and it suck royally. It will close IE for no explainable reason. I even installed Halo II on it and vista let me run the game through the forst three levels, then simply gave me a black screen...although I could hear the game music still playing. Uninstalled, cleaned my system and reinstalled...same problem. Vista is NOT meant for gaming and some serious proge=ram compatability issues.

iv really only skimmed the page but felt like saying my piece. there may be many reasons it failed from bad publicity to being introduced to earlie but from my experience,its an overall bad operating system,and nothing affects a widely used products reviews more than general failure.
i for one didnt hear much bad about it directly untill after it was out.

One reason for lack of uptake with Vista was that there was nothing new to it except the shell, which is unimportant for most businesses and many home users. With XP there was the NTFS 5 file system and as far as businesses went it was an upgrade of the highly successful NT os. Vista was originally supposed to introduce a new file system , but they pulled it and said it would be a later upgrade, but it turned into nothing more than vaporware. Having tested 7 for several months now, I see no real significant improvements over Vista or XP that would make people want to upgrade. Hardcore gamers will likely upgrade as m$ plans to make the newest directx 11 software 7 only like they did 10 and vista. The biggest problem with vista for m$ was he lack of business take up. The business market is where they make the vast majority of $. Users like vista will have little choice when buying a new pc and will have to choose between about three or four different versions 7, like vista. 7 will include a netbook edition so they can phase out XP all together. The netbook version will be starter edition and will not connect to any network except the internet and will only run 3 programs at once. This will hurt them on the netbook front. Why use a limited OS like starter edition when you could have full unfettered OS like Linux for cheaper or I have read of many reports of people putting OSX on their netbooks. M$ is slowly circling the drain. They are no longer able to get away with many of the underhanded trick s that got them their market dominance.

Windows XP professional was the best. If you had the home/personal version, some things had issues because they took XP PRO and then tried to dummy it down and as a result, some things didn't work right.

But I know people who went back to XP Pro because Vista broke almost everything they needed on a daily basis. Vista only worked on brand new computers that just came w/ it. "Upgrading" to Vista turned into a major nightmare for people.

It's just a bad product.

I think Micro$oft had reached the terminal stage of business evolution, where all the workers are just career builders, bureaucrats and functionaries. In such stage, a business turns to scams in order to show profit, as it is unable to create anything useful.

microsoft hasn't had a decent release in years
they've been behind the unix crowd around every curb

catch is --> they do a great marketing job. and people put up with an inferior product
(for reasons i'll never understand)