I can’t help but feel we’re being treated like consumer bitches in this rivalry in the computing world, specifically between Windows and Apple. Initially, I was amused by the candour applied in the recent Apple TV spots. They were frank and to the point. But they were incredibly biased, naturally. They are pure political spin and they buff the rough and hide the rest.
I’m getting a bit tired of it now though. Yes, Windows is more prone to exploitation, but that’s probably because there are 14 trillion Windows PC’s out there versus about 34 Macs. I know, I own both systems.
Vista is gorgeous, it really is. It’s a functionally superior system so far, but I’m so annoyed by the lack of support by third party vendors, I’m incensed we’re expected to do all their legroom – we’re not guinnea pigs!
I plugged my Western Digital My Book in today, all 500GB of it. Didn’t work. WD’s statement?
“Western Digital does not provide technical support or drivers for our products installed under Windows Vista at this time. We will be releasing updated software utilities and drivers for selective Western Digital products in the near future.”
Yeah, coz you’ve only had 12 months to prepare for this.
Then there’s my iPod. I installed iTunes (fresh download), connected my 80gb Video iPod to it and was greeted with a message which asked me to format and reinstall all my music. Fine I said. Except when it zapped my iPod and lost all the data, it refused to transfer all the files across. The Apple statement?
“iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs. Apple recommends, however, that customers wait to upgrade Windows until after the next release of iTunes which will be available in the next few weeks. This document will be updated as more information becomes available.”
Way to go Apple. How aboute telling me BEFORE I installed your junkware?
And the list just goes on. And on. And on. And I don’t blame Microsoft for this, it all appears to be a conspiracy to dethrone Microsoft by giving it enough rope.
Why haven’t all the third party hardware and software developers got their fingers on their pulses and provided us with upto date support and drivers?
I have had no end of problems with various USB hardware since the VIsta upgrade,.
You’re right about the lack of driver support for Vista and I’m writing this nearly 2 1/2 months after your original posting! This is *still* the case.
There are a number of reasons for the delay in manufacturer drivers being available for Vista but I don’t think it is because it “all appears to be a conspiracy to dethrone Microsoft by giving it enough rope” as you suggest.
The first is that architecturally, Vista is in many ways a completely different beast to Windows XP. Many of the new security features in Vista are causing headaches for some vendors – many AV vendors for example are still bitching about the way that Vista stops their products integrating with the OS. From a sound perspective, Vista is completely different to XP architecturally and for the muso’s this explains the poor level of support for Vista from music equipment manufacturers.
Secondly, Vista take up has so far been very poor, especially here in the UK. This has probably been due to the fact that Bill Gates seems to think that £1 = $1 and as a result Vista to purchase in this country is almost twice the price that it is in the US! It is likely that due to the forecasted low take-up, vendors have decided to concentrate on support for XP. (And lets face it, there are some vendors who still haven’t got stable XP drivers yet!)
I remember when XP came out and it was a similar situation intially. Once Vista Service Pack 1 appears (my bet is for sometime between September/October this year), driver support will improve.
Oh and BTW, the iPod issue is now fixed – a patch is available from MS for this now!! See: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ae02a107-ebc8-4b67-a597-80349631c395&displaylang=en
Cheers!