Before joining Microsoft I must admit that I have never used Windows Vista, yep never. I was happy with Windows XP and its performance and saw no reason to change. Besides, why would I? Windows Vista obviously was horrible with very little to offer in terms of new features.
This all changed the day my Microsoft employee Laptop arrived, loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate. I knew the machines hardware would be compatible and id have no issues so I was happy to finally try this Vista thing, and wow was I impressed. No seriously, this isn’t me speaking as a Blue Badger, I seriously loved how Aero made Windows look, I loved the search compatibilities within Start and I simply had no issues to speak of. Development with Visual Studio worked great and the added protection of UAC was not nearly as annoying as people claimed it would be.
Within a month I had even decided to upgrade my home PC to Vista Ultimate and that experience was very smooth. The hardware I have is less then a year old and there were no driver issues to speak of. In fact out-of-the-box Vista had the right sound drivers I needed, something I had struggled with in Windows XP.
The Battle Begins
So what can Microsoft do to help people fear Vista less and give it a chance (without hiring everyone that is, like it happened with me)? Simple, invest in reviving the brand. Here are just some of the things Microsoft is doing to finally fight the negative perceptions:
Will this be enough? Will we have to wait for Windows 7 to save the day? I really dont know but im glad that the battle is on. I am so tired of the lies within the brilliant Macintosh ads, I just hope ours wont suck as many predict. Lets see what happens.