Letters to Redmond

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Readers on XP's support deadline, Vista's charms and more.

• By Readers of Redmond magazine
• 06/01/2009

XP Users Unite
I read the recent Redmond Report article on support for Windows XP ending ["Users Protest XP Support Deadline," April 2009], and I think the real question is: Why is Microsoft apparently doing all it can to make XP users angry and unhappy?

There may well be clients who love Windows Vista and like the beta of Windows 7. I am not one of them. It has nothing to do with being against change-it's about the technology and not taking the things we liked about XP and including them with anything new that designers want to provide in Vista or Windows 7.

The fact that tech writers and Microsoft get so caught up in their own marketing hype is a shame. If they started actually listening to XP users they would find a lot of users' comments matter and should be acted upon. If Microsoft continues to ignore XP users, the company can expect a significant backlash and even stronger resistance to change-which I expect will result in a repeat of the Vista debacle.

Ken McAvoy
Melbourne, Australia

Vista Gains Support
Like many of the users in Doug Barney's March cover story ["Will Windows 7 Be Microsoft's Redemption?"], I had heard lurid horror stories about Vista. Even people who I wouldn't characterize as tech savvy seemed to denigrate the OS. I avoided upgrading and kept trusty XP on my laptop.

Finally, out of curiosity, I decided to find out for myself how Vista performed. I bought a new HP desktop with Vista Home Premium. I then purchased a few cases of Pepto Bismol, because I could feel the impending ulcer coming ...

Now I have Vista on several machines at home and, to my surprise, they all work fabulously. Once you make a little effort to get the latest drivers directly from the vendor, most of the Vista issues disappear. While no operating system is perfect, I've had no blue screens in 18 months.

I can't speak for all readers, but I think some people are too lazy to make that extra effort. Personally, I like Vista better than XP.

Charles
received by e-mail

I'm really getting tired of the Microsoft bashing, especially in regard to Vista. If Vista isn't working well for you, chances are you have prehistoric applications or hardware built by companies that either don't exist anymore, failed to make the necessary upgrades or are inept. Vista is light-years better than XP.

Winthrop Dickinson
Los Angeles, Calif.

Questionable Capabilities
I suspect that, in the April issue's Roundup ["3 Exchange Server Add-ons You Don't Want to Miss"], J. Peter Bruzzese wasn't evaluating Mimosa's archiving product from a total-cost-of-ownership perspective.

Sure, it has log shipping, which allows you to capture all activity that happens in Exchange. However, to achieve that functionality, you would need two to three times the amount of storage you already have for Exchange. Consequently, storage optimization isn't a real play here-rather, you should just ask for a sizing recommendation.

As far as the ease of installation goes, Bruzzese rated Mimosa a 10. In my experience-trying to perform a 1,000-mailbox implementation for Mimosa's Enterprise solution-not only did I find the product to be subpar, I found the company even more difficult to work with.

With economic times like these, it's important to know that the bill of goods you purchase matches the bill of goods that was sold to you.

Name Withheld by Request
received by e-mail

IE8 Is Great
I have to agree that IE8 works better than anything else I've used-even Firefox. In fact, I view IE8 as IE7 with bugs fixed [see "IE8: Behind the 8 Ball" May 2009]. The restart session actually works; the tabs are great; and saving and using Tab Groups is cool.

I've had some small problems with IE8, but on the whole, I'm definitely an IE8 recommender.

Rik Krohn
Minnesota