"Uncle Marvo" wrote in message
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"David (Normandy)" wrote in message
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I'm avoiding Vista for as long as possible (I'm a professional software
developer) and the majority of my business colleagues are avoiding it
too - other than to try it out and prod and poke it without using it in
any serious way yet. It is too slow, takes too much memory, has a huge
amount of irrelevant bloat and has compatibility problems with numerous
pieces of software and hardware.

So until it is forced upon us by the demise of XP we are avoiding it like
the plague! It is also proving to be a support headache too, with the
increased security affecting it's ability to run various programs which
just leave end users baffled when their favourite program starts coughing
up error messages or Vista spews out security messages. Pile of poo in my
professional opinion, just another money spinner for Microsoft with
questionable benefits for everyone else - and this from someone who makes
his living writing software to run on Microsoft computers!

As a developer too, I think you're being far too generous.

It isn't that good.

Vista is a real pain as far as I'm concerned. I develop quite complex
business software that needs to generate user reports (in Word or Excel)
using whatever combination of versions of MS Windows and MS Office they have
installed. So far I've been able to maintain compatibility from Windows 98
through XP using Office 97 through to 2003. I fear Vista and Office 2007
have broken the mould, so many applications will either not work or will
need completely re-writing to run on those platforms. The support calls are
starting to come in :-(

I have another large client in Manufacturing that I developed a highly
complex, bespoke system for around 10 years ago. It has had various tweaks,
enhancements and upgrades over the years, but the important thing is the
software has evolved with their business and does exactly what they need.
Vista breaks compatibility, which leaves the company with a dilemma. Do they
continue using XP past Microsoft support lifetime and avoid Vista or do they
have the software re-written. As the software already does everything they
need they ask why they have got to spend vast sums of money having it
re-written from scratch? A very good question.

David.