Change does not necessarily assure progress, OK Microsoft?

I originally wrote this post when Windows Vista came out. Now that Windows 8 has been released, I feel a sense of deja vu. So instead of re-hashing the same idea, I'll just re-post the original. Feel free to mentally substitute Windows 8
in place of Windows Vista.

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Recently, there was a discussion about operating systems in the office. Somebody was talking about how much they like Windows XP and disliked Windows Vista. From what I could gather, the only thing they really like about Windows XP is that they were familiar with it, and the only thing they disliked about Vista is that they weren't. The question I ask anytime somebody talks about a software upgrade, particularly for a Microsoft product, is "what are you going to gain by upgrading". Usually I get an answer like "well, the user interface is updated" or "it's such a huge improvement over the last version", but very seldom do I hear "because I really like the way it give me the ability to (insert any legitimate time-saving, productivity enhancing activity here)". Why would you want to upgrade just so you can learn a new interface? Why would you fork over $150+ (plus the cost to have somebody install it if you're not so inclined) just for something that's going to slow you down while you learn, with no real payoff in the end.

Now, let it be said, I'm not opposed to learning. I don't mind learning a new product, new interface, new workflow, etc... However, if I'm going to learn something new, I expect a payoff somewhere down the line. My real computer usage (other than the Commodore 64 in my Jr. High computer lab) started with MS-DOS. Our first home computer came with DOS 3.3. I screwed it up (still don't know how) and my dad told me if I wanted to use the computer, I was going to have to figure out how to fix it. He found a copy of DOS 6.22 ( my first OS upgrade) and that, combined with my old DOS 3.3 manuals formed the foundation of my computer use.

I later took a giant step up in the world with a Windows 3.1 machine, then into Windows 3.11. Now, my DOS machine had a DOS menu system, so I could use my arrow keys (before the days of mice) and select whether I wanted games, productivity, etc... and then select the program I wanted to run. With Windows, I had a mouse (a cool feature) and a little more enhanced interface. The trade-off was that it would *occasionally* crash. Yes, occasionally. As in, every once in a while. As in, not very often. It also ran a little slower than pure DOS.

Now comes Windows 95. Decent looking interface, but nothing really productivity enhancing about it. It didn't really give me the ability to work faster. I suppose the Windows explorer was better for managing files than the Windows 3.11 File Manager. The plug and play concept was nice, especially for those of us who were involved in PC Repair at the time. Plug and play would have been even nice had it worked properly and consistently. Those of you who used it at the time probably remember referring to it as "plug and pray".

Windows 98. I attended the Windows 98 release conference. I listened to the marketing hype. I remember a few months before the release when Bill Gates, on live national television, gave a product demonstration of the new, improved plug and play and USB support. He plugged a scanner into a PC, live on national television mind you, and promptly got a "blue screen of death", live on national television. Nothing in the history of personal computing had been so gratifying to those of us who spent our days dealing with Windows problems. Thinking back to the upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows 98 (which I avoided for quite some time, personally) I can't really think of any new features. Some claim it was more stable, but I had gotten to the point with my Windows 95B machine, where it was more stable than most new Windows 98 (pre-patches) machines anyway.

On to Windows 2000. I recall reading an article that claimed that Windows 2000 was release with many tens of thousands of known bugs (in the interest of fairness, they defined a bug as a piece of code that didn't work properly, or as a note that a coder had left to come back and review something, which doesn't necessarily mean that section is bad, it just needs reviewed).

To save space, I'll skip right over Windows XP and Windows Vista and just say that it's basically the same story. I also realize that I left out NT4, but suffice it to say, I still have some NT4 boxes in production in my server room.

The overall question here, from the perspective of somebody who's seen and performed OS upgrades from DOS 3.3 all the way through Windows Vista is this: what have we really gained? Hardware requirements are through the roof, we have 15 years worth of operating system "upgrades" and I can only think of a handful of things I can do with my current XP machine that I couldn't do with Windows 3.11. Sure, some things are easier (like hardware installations, they've finally gotten plug and play right it seems), networking, graphics-related activities, but it doesn't seem like nearly the kind of progress you would expect from a multi-billion dollar industry.

What do I think real progress would look like in the OS market? My expectations are that after decades of tweaking with an OS, you would have the following:

• Decreased system requirements. Get smart and learn how to do more with less.


• Stability. Make computers not crash. My DOS 3.3 machine never crashed. My Windows 3.1 machine almost never crashed. Stability seems to be coming back up, but until "computer crash" is no longer in my vocabulary (it wasn't with DOS 3.3), then I'm not happy yet.


• Security. Now, I know it's not fair to compare security of old OS's with the security of new ones, so I won't. The world has changed with with a "connected" world, our risks have changed. That said, STOP RELEASING OPERATING SYSTEMS THAT AREN'T SECURE. We live in a "connected" world. Our risks range from viruses, to hackers around the world, to foreign governments and electronic terrorism. I mean, you're not doing this out of the goodness of your hearts, right? You're getting paid good money to develop new operating systems, right? You must be capable of securing them, right? I mean, after all, you are the most sophisticated software company in the world. You do end up finding the vulnerabilities and patching them anyway, right? Don't release the OS until it's ready. Don't make me and every other savvy user wait until after the first or second service pack to even consider upgrading. Take your time, build a good product and then release it. Don't worry, I'll wait. I'm waiting anyway.

Wow, this post is going really long so I'll stop there and probably rant some more about it in the future.

Jeffery