Blame DOJ for bad Vista startup experience

Nothing exciting, huh? Well, Outlook 2007 is still better than Gmail. It’s the one thing that’s keeping me in Windows.

Crapware has always been a problem on PCs because they are open systems unlike Macs. In the old days prior to the DOJ settlement MS put the screws on vendors that tried to mess with what MS thought was the “Windows Experience”. But I have noticed that over the years on consumer PCs it has gotten worse. Couple that with programmers inexperienced with writing drivers and applications for Vista and things are going to be painfull in Vista land this year.

Sadily the past couple of times I have had someone come crawling to me with a problem on their personal Windows machine the problem was… the third party antivirus software. One of them even told me I could not uninstall it as the administrator on an XP box. (Both times it was the same top tier vendor who shall remain nameless.)

Another pet peeve of mine are apps that try to bring friends (like a searche engine toolbar) along or load little launcher apps that “improve performance” or “check for updates”. Those things are such a waste of memory, CPU cycles, and to make matters worse they build up like plaque on a inexperienced user’s system. Sometimes it gets so bad I just refuse to use the prodct anymore even if I need it. (The first RealOne player comes to mind, or when Apple tried to shove iTunes down my throat when all I really wanted was Quicktime)

And that’s the problem with a PC design driven by costs and marketing hype. Face it most folks want the cheapest turkey stuffed with as many marketing checkboxs they can get. The people who know better make their own of buy from speciality vendors. Apple on the other hand is a little technology dictatorship on a pretty little island. Cute, clean, and friendly so long as you obey the laws and the dictatorship isn’t allowed to get much larger.

Or buy a PC from a company that doesn’t preload that crap. Support your local OEM builder.

Gizmodo reports that Dell sells some of its XPS line without any additional crap loaded.

I don’t blame the DOJ, that’s silly. I don’t blame Microsoft, either. Heck, I don’t even “blame” the hardware vendors. Bottom line is all this extra crap is the price paid for a market that demands low-end $499 PCs and $699 laptops. Not a lot of margin there so the vendors make extra by striking these kinds of deals.

Robert, The MBP hardware price is right in line (actually a little less) than the Sony hardware, and is arguably a better machine. In _your_ case you also needed Vista, but many, many (probably most) people would not, so your proposed solution would simply end at “buy a Macintosh”.

Blame de DOJ? Really? I blame Microsoft for getting the DOJ interested in the first place.

If Microsoft hadn’t interfered so much with the OEMs, I think the DOJ would not have had a case to stand on.

And if we’re talking about boot times, I also blame Microsoft for not getting hibernation/standby to work right all the time (although I have to admit most of my bad experience in that area comes from XP).

It’s actually one of the things that makes me use my Mac much more often than my Windows PC: If my Mac comes back from sleep in 3 seconds every single time without a hiccup, why would I want to wait for the PC to boot?

I agree with the rest though: there are many ways you can get your computer to boot faster (for instance, by removing all the crap the OEMs put there in the first place).

I made a mistake in my previous comment (#23). It is directed at Gus (#19).

Sorry about that, Robert.

Come on… This isn’t even a real issue.

you could just as easily sue the big box merchants for the same lisleading of customers
http://www.winextra.com/2007/04/04/15-seconds-of-fame-sue-microsoft/

it’s actually one of the things that makes me use my Mac much more often than my Windows PC: If my Mac comes back from sleep in 3 seconds every single time without a hiccup, why would I want to wait for the PC to boot?
–

Um, cuz you might be a 37 yr old gamer?

*weeps

Blame Microsoft for so easily compromising itself in the face of DOJ attacks.

“I find it interesting that Macs retain 80% of their value years after they are useless.”

I am running Mac OS X 10.4.9 (the latest), along with all of the latest iLife apps, Photoshop CS2, and Final Cut Pro 5. Tons of extra utilities installed as well.

This is all on a 400MHz G4 tower purchased in the year 2000, with only 512MB of RAM. My system starts up from a cold boot in less than 30 seconds, and all of the above programs work perfectly acceptably, and except when doing things like rendering, I am rarely waiting for the computer.

Explain to me again where you think is the point where Macs become ‘useless’?

Wondering why Macs retain their value so much better than PCs? There is your answer. Try running Windows Vista on a 400MHz machine.

The main reason the PC makers do this is that they’re running on such dismal margins that they really can’t afford to pass up any additional revenue stream, no matter how much it irritates their customers. MS and Dell are primarily to blame for this; Dell for starting the race to the bottom, and MS for sucking off nearly all of the profit in the PC/Windows business.

Give it another year, and they’ll be pre-loading porn spam for a dollar per machine, and taking money under the table to preinstall zombie-net worms.

Face it people, you waited six years for more of the same, and windows will only get worse. The MS brain-drain began in earnest when Ballmer got the big chair, and has been accelerating each year as the stock price stayed flat. It’s going to take a decade or more for MS to collapse, but the days of their dominance are numbered.

Their one possible hope is for someone like Larry Ellison or Lew Platt to replace Ballmer, but who would even want that gig?

Like Mr. Mossberg, I recently purchased a Sony Vaio laptop in the SZ series (sz430n/b). It came preloaded with Vista Business, which one would expect to come with less consumer-oriented crud. But indeed there was a whole host of material including the four complete movies that Walt spoke of. The laptop did NOT come with a Vista DVD. Instead, there was a “recover partition” which could be burned to two DVD-Rs.

I burned the recover discs with the idea of doing a clean install. There was no clean install in sight. The Sony recover discs wanted to install all the junkware that came pre-installed. To make matters worse, things did not re-install cleanly — there were errors, which affected the system’s stability.

What a horrible out-of-the-box experience from Sony. I had an available clean copy of Vista Business, which I then installed, but a non-IT user wouldn’t have the same access and would have a computer crippled with loads of garbage.

My new laptop is sleek, small, and fast, but it took an extra effort to set it up adequately. Congrats to Walt for calling out Sony, Dell, and others for this negative practice.

Who’s fault is it that OEMs don’t include a Windows cd anymore?

Answer: They only include “restore cds” because Microsoft is worried about piracy. So thanks MICROSOFT.

BTW the DoJ’s actions on Microsoft are laughable. Just as much an illegal, abusive monopoly as it ever was.

BTW, why don’t you qualify “windows genuine advantage”, “windows activation”, windows search sending results to microsoft, WMP drm, etc as crapware? MICROSOFT lovingly includes it all in a default Windows install.

Robert…..

sorry, it’s warmed over…. nothing new, nothing exciting, and nothing worth 5+ years and the $$ they spent on it….

and, nobody is rushing to the store to purchase it… it is bloatware to the extreme, nothing new, and it’s “security” is being picked apart rapidly….

Glad you have your Mac though – running a real and secure OS – and Parallels so when you have to, you can run windows…

Comment by rory — April 6, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

This is just why I will never own a MAC, these Fool MAC fans always spouting off with attitude and nobody usually listening.

Robert says (commenting on *VISTA*)

“Nothing exciting, huh? Well, Outlook 2007 is still better than Gmail. It’s the one thing that’s keeping me in Windows.”

Robert, are you saying that Outlook 2007 comes with Vista….?

*HELLOOOO MCFLY !!!!!! ****

I recently purchased a refurbished macbook from Apple’s online store. Intel core 2 duo, DVD burner, $849 bucks with the same warrantee as a “new” machine.
(www.apple.com/store – click on the SAVE tag on the middle right of the page)

I loaded XP in parallels to run my Windows apps. Total cost with tax, under a grand. I now get access to 100% of the software available on the planet. All of windows apps, all of apple’s apps.

Why more people don’t see this as a possible solution is beyond me. It’s a tool, simply a tool. Currently, Apple offers me a tool that enables me to do anything I want. Sony, Dell, and the rest don’t.

We used to smack apple users down regarding them not being able to use 90% of the software available on the planet. Well, Steve Jobs heard us and now Windows only users are left out in the cold regarding being able to use apple apps. And believe me – they’re nice.

Scoble,

Staying with a platform for just one program is nuts, IMO. I understand you like Outlook, but surely there is something that can manage you mail for you. Just settle for 90% and get off the MS plaform totally.

I’m a hair away from getting a Mac, but I’m waiting to see what new hardware is going to be released with Leopard first.

I would love to have the black MacBook with 2GB RAM. That should run Leopard no problem. But, I want to see what’s new hardware-wise first.

Mac OS-X “Real Secure”? Hahahaha.

@26 “Nothing exciting, huh? Well, Outlook 2007 is still better than Gmail. It’s the one thing that’s keeping me in Windows.”

Huh? First off, the topic is Vista, not Office 2007. Last I checked, Outlook 2007 didn’t come bundled with Vista. Also, I believe, Office 2007 can run on XP. So….what’s your point? Finally, I can bring my GMail into Outlook, so I don’t think GMail was ever intending to compete with Outlook 2007. Outlook doesn’t really care what email back end you use. So…….again, what’s your point?

“Nothing exciting, huh? Well, Outlook 2007 is still better than Gmail. It’s the one thing that’s keeping me in Windows.”

Are you kidding? I use Entourage at work where we use an Exchange server. I can set up the configuration in a minute, including the LDAP config. Now, I may not be a Windows geek, but it took me calling tech support to set up the Exchange connection in Outlook 2007 on a Windows XP laptop.

I have to go to the Mail icon in the Control Panel first? It was ridiculous.

And I am sure Outlook has a lot more “features” than Entourage (well, blame MS for that), but it is a confusing jungle trying to just get mail. I would rather use Entourage any day of the week. I can’t even pass my pointer over anything in Outlook w/o getting some stupid pop-up box. It is unbelievably frustrating. The very reason I use a Mac, because it leaves me alone.

Outlook is what is keeping you on Windows? Good luck with that.