Disclaimer: This has been in my drafts for nearly 2 weeks now and I just never got around to finishing it. Sorry. I wanted to give you something to read this morning, so hopefully this will be of interest to at least some of you.

I don’t think its really that big of a deal with Windows 7 so close now, but its still amusing that even after 2 years on the market, Microsoft is still suffering such a major PR issue with Vista.

The Texas state Senate yesterday gave preliminary approval to a state budget that includes a provision forbidding government agencies from upgrading to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Vista without written consent of the legislature.

Sen. Juan Hinojosa, a Democrat from McAllen and vice chairman of the Finance Committee, proposed the rider because “of the many reports of problems with Vista.”

“We are not in any way, shape or form trying to pick on Microsoft, but the problems with this particular [operating] system are known nationwide,” Hinojosa said during a Senate session debating the rider Wednesday evening.
Texas state Senate bans Vista from use in government agencies

The argument in this case is simple. In their view, Windows XP does what they want and the number of problems that has plagued Windows Vista means that they do not believe there is any benefit at all in moving from Windows XP to Vista.

To be fair to Microsoft, they have put a lot of work into Vista, and SP1 did resolve a lot of the issues people had with it at launch. I think that if there is still an objection to upgrading to Vista today, that objection must still be relevant to Windows 7. Microsoft has worked really had to try and fix the main objections in Vista, but they still can’t shake the whole “its bad” moniker that hit it.

I know quite a few people that have vista and claim it works fine for them. A lot of them didn’t get Vista until well after the SP1 release when they bought a new computer. Or in some cases, they got it not long before SP1 was released so never really got a chance to notice most of the problems before they were fixed. For many of them, the hardest part about getting Vista was simply getting used to the new interface and the way things worked now. It was such a big change from previous versions they were used to.

I think this will also affect users when they get Windows 7. The interface of Windows 7 is as different from Vista as Vista was from XP. There are still things that show its obvious heritage (like the start menu) but there are very significant changes too (like the task bar.) But I don’t think it will be as bad for Microsoft as Vista was. People have had a chance to get used to the major changes of Vista, and many will see the changes in Windows 7 as almost incremental. Kind of like upgrading to Windows XP from Windows 2000 for those that remember that period.

However, the problems of Vista aside, I think its a very good call for Texas to make a “No Vista” policy this year. Windows 7 is so close to release that putting up with existing systems for a few months longer makes financial success. I personally will not be buying any computer of any kind till after Windows 7 is released. And I’ve had my eye on a little Dell Mini ;-) But given Vista is now over 2 years old, it doesn’t make sense to buy something that old when something newer is known to be not that far away. If Windows 7 were still more than 18 months away, probably would be silly to hold off. But its not, so why outdate yourself immediately?

Interesting times ahead for Microsoft. They have so much riding on Windows 7 they must be a little anxious. Which is good. It means they’ll polish it a little longer than they did Vista. ;-)