Microsoft has been making good operating systems. They have not stopped doing that. But just by continuing to do so will not help them sell Windows. The marketing techniques need to change with time and so do the product highlights. Clearly, getting help from Seinfeld or retaliating just because the Macintosh community keeps defining Windows is not the solution here.

To start, there are too many editions of Windows Vista: Home Basic to the Ultimate edition. The result, too difficult a choice to make. For most users, Windows Vista Home Basic would not look anything better than a modified version of Windows XP. And their Windows Vista Capable PCs have not managed to remain capable of running a copy of Windows Vista smoothly. Microsoft made a big mistake printing Vista Capable stickers on machines barely capable of getting Vista functioning well. They made a bigger mistake by not correctly identifying this bare minimum configuration. The expected result of an experiment and the actual result may point in two different directions. Thus, defining the minimum configuration list just by processor speed, RAM and hard disk space is not sufficient.

Apple enjoys building software for restricted hardware that they support themselves. They do not have to worry about a million hardware components’ compatibility issues. Microsoft’s approach has always been different. The more popular personal computers become, the more personalized they are. People have more options to choose the components they need. They look at Microsoft’s system requirements page and build computers that just manage to install and run a copy of Vista. Buying a poorly performing computer during a sale or clearance should not cause Microsoft the damage. But it does. The performance is limited because of the hardware. A high end Windows XP PC, may just be a low end Windows Vista PC. So you are probably fine installing Windows Vista Home Basic, but not the other editions. The “Capable” tag is not well defined.

This is not a post defending Microsoft. It is again a post about a problem Microsoft needs to tackle well. A start could be having a website which allows prospective buyers to look at various hardware combinations that are well tested by Microsoft. Microsoft needs to rate hardware for various editions of Windows rather than people rating Windows based on the hardware they use. The biggest problem for Microsoft with Windows Vista has been its negative critical analysis, the cause of which according to me is the pathetic hardware choices consumers have been offered by manufacturers.

Addendum October 8, 2008 at 11:13 pm
A point to be noted is that I have talked specifically about upgrades. Updates and fixes that Microsoft released have had little or no effect on the original performance of Windows Vista systems. On my system, Vista’s startup time and general performance have improved having installed Service Pack 1(SP1) which is merely a combined update.