kaled - 12:49 pm on Dec 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

The problem with Vista is, in some part, it seems to be a step in the wrong direction.

What do people want?
1) Reliability.
2) Security.
3) Speed.
4) Simplicity (but that doesn't mean burying advanced options).
5) Menu items, etc, located broadly where they've come to expect them.
6) Eye Candy.

On this basis, Vista may get ticks for Reliability and Security (but that remains to be proven). On good hardware, it gets a tick for Eye Candy.

Windows 95 was a leap forward. Windows 98 and 2000 (compared to 95 and NT4) were essential since they added things like USB support and multiple monitors (but they got part of that badly wrong - shock!). XP added Eye Candy (of sorts) and user-switching (no need to log off anymore).

There may be some genuinely useful new features in Vista, but upgrading is likely to be a waste of time and money for most people.

In Microsoft's own notes for developers they state that (I paraphrase) 80% of a program's usefulness is normally provided by 20% of the features.

Kaled.