Vista - Microsoft's Recalcitrant Child Orginally posted on the BCS Website on 24 Nov 2008
I still use Windows XP for the majority of what I do - Vista hardly gets a look in really.
As my primary role where ever I work, is to provide infrastructure solutions for large corporate organisations, I find myself regularly being asked about enterprise rollout of Vista, instead of XP.
The trouble with Vista is that it is first and foremost an home user platform. All the extra features that made it into Vista after Windows XP were squarely aimed at the family user; Photo and Video tools, the snazzy Aero interface, Windows Flip, Simplified File Navigation, Massive Icons...
In the corporate arena, these features are undesired. We just wanted a sleeker, faster, newer OS. Something that does what an OS should do, and that is to provide a stable foundation for applications. We don't want all the bells and whistles that come with Vista, and nor should we spend time and money hacking with the operating system installer to remove them.
I had high hopes for Vista business. I saw it as a baseline OS, with none of the bloat. However, what did we get? Vista Ultimate without the media centre layer. It still had all the shiny toys included, and still had that overblown interface. Microsoft even took out BitLocker (the encryption module), the one thing in Vista that was useful to all business users. If you wanted BitLocker as small business user, you were out of luck. It IS in Vista Enterprise however, but again Microsoft has misjudged the corporate market - Most large scale Corporates already have a third party encryption technology they trust.
Windows 7 is now en-route, and what I'd like to see is a customisable installation system to easily check or un-check modules. Don't want all the over-the-top eye candy? Uncheck. Need drive encryption? Check. Don't want Media Centre? Uncheck. Need domain functionality? Check. For System Admins or Build Engineers Microsoft should supply a decent tool for profiling a build type, with a set of standard profiles such as 'Core', 'Basic', 'Media', even an 'Everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink', which can be then tailored even further (As much as it pains me to say, most Linux installs already do this).
On paper it seems obvious and simple, but it needs a mindset change at Microsoft to make it happen. Early screenshots of Windows 7 are showing a stripped down interface with an emphasis on simplicity which is a step in the right direction and let's hope that this will be the ongoing trend. However, as history has taught us, Microsoft are never ones to listen properly to what their users really want.
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