vista will be good

Mike Gunderloy who writes the useful Daily Grind tacked on this little blurb on Windows Vista in # 803

Manuel Clement and Robert Scoble team up to bring us a list of reasons to upgrade from Windows XP, complete with Channel 9 video links. Some of these have got to be jokes … I personally won’t be upgrading, … (because I optimize for getting my work done, not for eye candy). … Microsoft is on the verge of releasing an OS that is pretty much irrelevant to me. If you’re still playing the cutting-edge game, I hope you enjoy it.

I’m glad I don’t have to deal with Mike in person, because this is the kind of stuff that just conflicts 100% with my sentimentalities regarding computing.

I worked at Software Etc for approximately five weeks in college, early 1996 I think. People would come in and want to buy software for their Windows 3.1 PCs (with floppy disks only) and I’d go “We don’t sell any anymore, sorry.” And they would freak out and proceed to try and tell me why 3.1 was all they’d ever need from then to the end of times because “it got their work done” and CD-ROMs were for gamers. But you know what, your work changes. In high school, I dealt with debating other computer kids who claimed that GUIs were a fad, not-going anywhere and they would *never* use one.

Everyone, Vista will be good. Microsoft may makes some minor errors in judgment, but cmon they are not going to mess up Vista. You’re going to want it. There are tons of little features alone that I’ve noticed in using the December CTP that I already want on my main workstations. Don’t get distracted by the UI candy. Every single version of Windows since the dawn of Windows has had this exact same pre-launch feedback.

I don’t want to sound like President Bush here, but Mike: You are on the wrong side of history.