90% of those surveyed said they had concerns about Vista and over half this amount had no intention of installing it. Of the companies that have tried Vista, many found that up to 40% of their current programmes were incompatible causing many problems.



It is expected that by the end of 2008, Microsoft will have seen a mere third of businesses begin to deploy the Vista system. This is a slow uptake and could be the result of bad publicity. Coupled with that is the time factor of training staff to use a new programme.

Companies have shown increasing interest in migrating to a completely different system, such as Linux, Macintosh or Apple but these bring issues of their own, not least the same problem as Vista whereby employers need to train staff on the new system again.

However, Apple, Linux and Macintoch are not Vista's biggest competitors. It's actually Microsoft's own XP programme. Why fix something that's not broken?

My own Microsoft Vista programme, on a Dell computer, constantly drops the internet connection, all due, they say, to an automatic update that Microsoft try to install. It seems there is no way out of this. We have tried in vain to stop these updates, so if there is anyone out there who understands this issue and knows of a way out if it please let me know!

A Vista SP1 update was needed for installation of Vista and it was hoped this would speed things up for Vista but tests have found that it doesn't really make any difference where speed is concerned. If anything, it has caused more problems by blocking security programmes already installed, either partially or completely.

Not entirely a Vista problem but certainly a Vista issue is the older discs meant to ease the installation of broadband. Some of these discs are completely incompatible with the Microsoft Vista programme and many users have been held up for weeks with no internet access while they try to resolve the problem.

Apparently, Vista have been quite shy in coming forward with their technical support in this regard.

Vista needs a PC with a minimum 2GB memory and the cost of computers with this capacity is still very expensive. This is another off-putting reason that is deterring potential users.

Forrester, the independent technology and market research company, have carried out studies and surveys into the slow uptake of Microsoft Vista and the reasons behind this. They believe it to be more a lack of knowledge about the new programme that is unsettling people but that a turn around, although slow, is imminent.

Forrester analyst Benjamin Gray says that Microsoft will win out in the end as there are no real competitors that can stand against Microsoft. Let's hope they sort out all the relevant issues with more speed and efficiency than we have seen to date, then.