Vista’s Bad Rap – Can the Facts Overcome Marketing Anymore?

Ever since Windows Vista was released in February 2007 the over-hyped operating system has absorbed repeated and targeted attacks against it from just about every corner of the computing world.

The attacks have been so ferocious that no one really seemed to notice that Microsoft had delivered what it had promised – a stable, more secure replacement for Windows XP.

To this day the popularity of Apple’s Mac vs. PC commercial campaign and the resistance of stubborn IT administrators to adopt Vista are the only forces propping up Windows XP against its inevitable extinction.

While it is true that Windows Vista requires more computing power to accomplish the same tasks Windows XP could complete with less, most of that additional overhead went toward new and visually exciting trim as well as the new User Account Control feature that for the course of a year made Vista almost impenetrable to spyware infections.

As the saying goes, the pioneer takes the arrows and Vista was no different. The new operating system necessitated computers with dual core processors, more memory and faster hard drives.

Slowly other device manufacturers started to realize they too could take advantage of the sudden surge of computing power under the hood of Vista equipped machines. Over time faster printers, higher detail digital cameras, and games with dazzling graphics came into the marketplace, falling in line behind Vista’s bulldozing lead.

Hardware has advanced so much over the past two years that it has surpassed Windows XP’s capability to use it. Fewer and fewer new devices are XP compatible, and the IT managers who before so stubbornly clung to Windows XP have slowly started to let go seeing the opportunity that Vista presents.

Realizing the marketplace opinion of Vista is changing, Microsoft released a new commercial series nicknamed the Mojave Experiment. In these commercials clipboard carrying individuals dressed in white doctors smocks interviewed regular people about Windows Vista. They all responded that Vista was a terrible operating system, and offered a variety of rehashed second hand opinions they hard heard from friends or the media.

The interviewers then asked these same people to test out the newest Windows Operating System, “Windows Mojave.” In reality Mojave was Windows Vista, but the people in the focus group did not know it. After allowing each of the people to lay thick praise on “Mojave” for its visual beauty, smooth function, and stability the interviewers revealed that the operating system was in fact, Vista.

Many of them were quite surprised. The commercials served to illustrate that while many people have opinions about Vista, few of those opinions are based on real information. The commercials revealed that when you stripped away the amazingly effective disinformation campaign, Vista was indeed superior to Windows XP.

While Windows XP still has its place with portable computer users who appreciate its lightweight hardware requirements, consumers buying a standard tower desktop system should insist on Windows Vista.

Despite what you might have heard elsewhere, Windows Vista is solid as a rock and is actually patched less frequently for security issues than Apple’s OS X Leopard or even Windows XP itself.