Survey: Vista now in use on less than 1% of PCs
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Statistics released today by market research firm Net Applications show that Windows Vista hasn't even licked its nine-year old ancestor, Windows 98.
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Early version of first significant Vista update released to testers. Also, near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Server 2008 to be available within 24 hours.
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Get a closer look at some of the new features in Vista Service Pack 1.
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(InfoWorld) - Adoption of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system will happen at a faster pace than any previous operating system release, a software analyst predicted last week. Up to 15 percent of PC users will move to Vista within the first year that the operating system is available, said David Mitchell, the software practice leader at Ovum Ltd. "That would make it the fastest-moving operating system ever," he said. By comparison, between 12 to 14 percent of users switched to Windows XP during the first year of its release, Mitchell said. Vista will gain traction in the market from quick adoption by both corporate and consumer users. For example, companies that participate in Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing program will automatically get upgrades to Vista, Mitchell said. "On the consumer side, there has been a bit of pent-up demand. Just look at the beta adoption in the consumer space -- it's very high," he said. Windows Vista will be available to business customers from November 30, with the operating system available to consumers from January. For users who buy a new computer before Vista is released to consumers, Microsoft is now shipping Vista upgrade coupons with computers that are sold with Windows XP. The upgrade coupons mean that Microsoft will not be hurt financially by missing the year-end holiday shopping season -- a peak time for computer sales. While corporate and consumer users will quickly move to Vista, the adoption prospects forÂ Office 2007 -- which goes on sale at the same time -- are less clear. While many users may now see no need to upgrade, once Office 2007 starts to make its way into companies users may find themselves upgrading to keep pace, Mitchell said. Overall, the rate of adoption of Office 2007 will be lower than Vista during the first year, Mitchell said. "You don't get the OEM drag effect. If you buy a new PC, you get a copy of Vista. You don't necessarily get a copy of Office," he said. Â
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Microsoft's operating system from 1.0 to Vista.
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A new study on Vista adoption shows that the year-old Microsoft operating system may be finding a groove with business users.
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InfoWorld - On Wednesday, Microsoft released details of a study it commissioned that found that total cost of ownership for Windows Vista on mobile PCs is $605 less annually than Windows XP.
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Security: We've heard of it A small minority of users - as few as one in 20 - is running fully-patched Windows PCs.â¦
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Strip, shutdown, repeat Microsoft has published an article on speeding up Vista, aimed at general users.â¦
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Microsoft confirmed Thursday that its invite-only group of about 15,000 testers has had the final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the past two weeks.Other Vista users, however, will have to wait until March to obtain a legal copy of the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Vista SP1, the company reiterated.According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, the build designated Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2, which was seeded to testers on Jan. 24, is identical to&#160;the code that company developers shipped&#160;out the door on Monday as RTM.&quot;In final stages of a product, Microsoft likes to get as much validation as possible before releasing,&quot; the spokeswoman said in an e-mail. &quot;The release candidate ended up being a high enough quality to be approved to release to manufacturing.&quot;The shift in nomenclature, but not bits, is common. Eventually, a vendor must approve a build as &quot;gold code,&quot; at which point that edition becomes the shipping version. Last November, for example, Apple Inc. issued a test build of Mac OS X 10.5.1 to developers one day, then called it good to go and posted it for download the next.However, users who weren&#39;t part of the SP1 testing group must wait until March to get their hands on the update, the spokeswoman repeated today. In five to six weeks -- mid-March according to Microsoft -- the service pack will be offered via Windows Update as a 65MB optional update and posted to Download Center as a 450MB stand-alone installer that supports five languages. A month later, in mid-April, Windows Update will automatically download and install SP1 on Vista-equipped PCs whose users have set Automatic Updates to do hands-off updating.Subscribers to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet will get a slight jump on the general public. &quot;In early March, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to get the &#39;Windows Vista with SP1&#39; full DVD,&quot; the same spokeswoman said in another e-mail. The updated operating system will be offered to MSDN and TechNet subscribers through their respective download centers.Microsoft is holding SP1 so that it can identify device drivers that won&#39;t reinstall -- as they must -- during the service pack update process. On Monday morning, Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, said that while SP1 had met the RTM criteria, it would not be available for several weeks because of the&#160;driver problems.That generated a firestorm of criticism from users, who vented by posting over 200 comments to Nash&#39;s announcement, calling the decision &quot;stupid&quot; and &quot;one of the all-time worst moves&quot; by Microsoft.Judging by the tone of nearly 120 comments left on Microsoft&#39;s official TechNet blog, IT professionals and developers are even angrier. The subscribers called the withholding of SP1 &quot;boneheaded&quot; and a &quot;slap in the face,&quot; or dubbed it &quot;the Vista SP1 RTM Debacle.&quot; Others questioned the value of their TechNet subscriptions, admitted that they had had to download a pirated copy using BitTorrent so that they could start testing, and said they would postpone Vista deployments for months because of the delay.Several wondered why reviewers in the press had the finished bits before they did.But a commenter identified only as Joe put it most succinctly: &quot;This is the lamest decision since Microsoft Bob. I get this the same time as my mom?&quot;The backlash may have gotten through to Microsoft. On Monday night, Kathy Dixon, the TechNet Plus team member who normally writes the blog, said that she was looking into the possibility of moving up the availability date of SP1. But as of Thursday night, she had no solution for users. &quot;I have escalated this and am continuing to push internally for a solution ASAP,&quot; Dixon wrote around 8 p.m. EST. &quot;Please hang in there, I should have something more specific soon.&quot;Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft's wish that consumers purchase the premium versions of Windows Vista rather than the most basic version of the OS may be coming true, according to the findings of a research report released Thursday. Research from Current Analysis for the week ending Feb. 3, which covers the first five days Vista was available to U.S. retail customers, shows that sales of PCs with Vista Home Premium preinstalled comprised 70 percent of PC unit sales in the U.S. retail market, while sales of PCs with Vista Home Basic accounted for 22 percent. Windows Vista was released to consumers on Jan. 30. However, sales of PCs with the most full-featured and expensive consumer version of Vista, Windows Vista Ultimate, were lackluster in the first week, accounting for a mere 1.2 percent of PC sales. However, Samir Bhavnani, the Current Analysis research director who wrote the report, said he expects this will eventually change. "You can expect over time that Ultimate will become a bigger part of the overall mix," he said. The release of Vista boosted overall PC sales, giving the PC market the best week it's had in four years, Bhavnani said. PC unit retail sales increased 173 percent for the week ending Feb. 3 compared to the previous week, and were up 67 percent year over year, according to the report. And the increase occurred at a time when retailers weren't even promoting Vista to customers as much as they were promoting another consumer product, he said. "Most of the retailers last week were focused on selling HDTVs because of the Super Bowl," he said. This week, Vista has been more top of mind with retailers, so he said the strength of PC sales during Vista's first week should be sustained over its second week of release. Still, if Microsoft had gotten Vista to market before the busy holiday shopping season in November and December as originally planned, Vista would have had an even more impressive launch, Bhavnani said. Out of the PC vendors selling hardware that supports Vista, Hewlett-Packard fared the best in the first week, according to the report. HP accounted for a 54 percent share of Vista Home Premium sales and a 53 percent share of Vista Home Basic unit sales. The week prior to the introduction of Vista, which ended Jan. 27, HP computers represented 33 percent of all PC sales. As for the long-term sustainability of Vista PC sales, that remains to be seen, Bhavnani said. "We won't know the answer to the question until we look at the first half of this year relative to the first half of the year last year," he said.
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If you're putting Vista on a PC yourself, you need to read this.
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But some progress has been made Review Microsoft has gone out on a limb to promote Vista not merely as "the most secure version of Windows ever" (every recent version is marketed with that tired slogan), but for the first time as an adequately secure version of Windows. "We've got the message and we've done our homework", the company says. So let's see if the reality lives up to the marketing hype.â¦
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Those eager to try out the newest release of Windows Vista, which has received positive reviews from analysts and testers alike, can rest easy: RC1 is now available to the general public. Microsoft expects the latest beta code to reach 5 million people through the Customer Preview Program.
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Microsoft has reversed course and will now allow Vista users to run a virtual copy of the least expensive versions of the operating system, Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium.
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There are times when I feel like I'm in a tiny minority of people who don't hate Windows Vista.
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Vista has failed a major security test. It's improved security is one of its major selling point, and antispyware in particular has been boosted. But experts believe that additional antivirus protection is required.