64-bit Semprons were very available at least a year before Vista... it wasn't unobtanium

(also i wouldn't claim Win2000 as x64 either. IA64 was a false start)

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-08-17, 14:10:

The main pushback on Vista was its 64bit nature.
Remember having to run the inferior x32 version because you didnt have an x64 PC?

Ummm... no one ran the 64-bit version in 2007. I remember something happened in 2008 and I had to reformat and I nervously was like 'you know what, I'll try this 64-bit thing, maaaaaybe it will be mature enough'. And it turned out to be much better than my expectations, I promptly upgraded my 3GB of RAM to 8GB, and have lived 64-bitly (except for retro systems) since.

I think the large consumer OEMs started to preinstall 64-bit Vista in late 2008ish; businesses were still issuing 32-bit 7 systems in 2011, 2012...

Also, to go from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Vista required a clean install. I'm pretty sure the retail copies only contained 32-bit discs, not sure now.

The pushback on Vista had to do with a few more obvious things:
- UAC, and software not designed for UAC. e.g. the current version of WordPerfect when Vista came out required a UAC prompt to start it; Corel fixed that within a few months. Plus some tasks, e.g. copying files, could require multiple UAC prompts.
- drivers. Vista was supposedish to use different drivers, and many manufacturers didn't have drivers nor did they intend to make them. This was especially a problem for 64-bit but even on 32. People in 2007 did not feel like throwing out a 2003 printer or scanner or whatever because some manufacturer didn't have drivers for Vista; they just blamed Vista.
(Meanwhile, I remember throwing out a <2 year old USB scanner because UMAX decided that Win2000 was too corporate for them to support... but that was 2001, not 2007)
- performance. I'm sure both low-end new systems and under-rammed older systems being upgraded performed slowly

Honestly, what Microsoft should have done is release Vista in January like they did, but not market it until Christmas. Maybe not even preload it on new OEM systems until the summer. That would have given a lot of third parties a chance to upgrade their stuff to be Vista-friendly. Instead, by late 2007, "everybody" knew they didn't want Vista.

This happened to coincide with the launch of Intel MacBooks and it was amazing - by 2008, Mac was cool, Vista was bad, while people in, say, the same university program three years earlier would have bought XP Dells and HPs.

VivienM wrote on 2024-08-17, 16:11:

Ummm... no one ran the 64-bit version in 2007. I remember something happened in 2008 and I had to reformat and I nervously was l […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-08-17, 14:10:

The main pushback on Vista was its 64bit nature.
Remember having to run the inferior x32 version because you didnt have an x64 PC?

Ummm... no one ran the 64-bit version in 2007. I remember something happened in 2008 and I had to reformat and I nervously was like 'you know what, I'll try this 64-bit thing, maaaaaybe it will be mature enough'. And it turned out to be much better than my expectations, I promptly upgraded my 3GB of RAM to 8GB, and have lived 64-bitly (except for retro systems) since.

I think the large consumer OEMs started to preinstall 64-bit Vista in late 2008ish; businesses were still issuing 32-bit 7 systems in 2011, 2012...

Also, to go from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Vista required a clean install. I'm pretty sure the retail copies only contained 32-bit discs, not sure now.

The pushback on Vista had to do with a few more obvious things:
- UAC, and software not designed for UAC. e.g. the current version of WordPerfect when Vista came out required a UAC prompt to start it; Corel fixed that within a few months. Plus some tasks, e.g. copying files, could require multiple UAC prompts.
- drivers. Vista was supposedish to use different drivers, and many manufacturers didn't have drivers nor did they intend to make them. This was especially a problem for 64-bit but even on 32. People in 2007 did not feel like throwing out a 2003 printer or scanner or whatever because some manufacturer didn't have drivers for Vista; they just blamed Vista.
(Meanwhile, I remember throwing out a <2 year old USB scanner because UMAX decided that Win2000 was too corporate for them to support... but that was 2001, not 2007)
- performance. I'm sure both low-end new systems and under-rammed older systems being upgraded performed slowly

Honestly, what Microsoft should have done is release Vista in January like they did, but not market it until Christmas. Maybe not even preload it on new OEM systems until the summer. That would have given a lot of third parties a chance to upgrade their stuff to be Vista-friendly. Instead, by late 2007, "everybody" knew they didn't want Vista.

This happened to coincide with the launch of Intel MacBooks and it was amazing - by 2008, Mac was cool, Vista was bad, while people in, say, the same university program three years earlier would have bought XP Dells and HPs.

I had wondered if I should expand the reasons why people didnt like Vista in my last post.
Yes there was more than one reason. UAC was a talking point and source of annoyance. Especially coming from XP that allowed you to kill you machine in many ways.
UAC was born mainly though not exclusively from the P2P file sharing programs like KaZaA and LimeWire. But only because they were so popular among the people who didnt know a file name that makes you think its a movie doesnt actually have to be a movie.

Vista took peoples upgrade path away from them. Not completely but in their minds because you powerful new Pentium 4 or Athlon XP system wasnt 64bit.

The main issues with Vista was that it was released where most machines were underpowered for it in terms of CPU and memory, since it was easier to power XP, (and of course Win 2000), and that there were bugs on release. It was just simply slow. Very few people cared about 64bit mode because of lack of 64bit software. The 64bit aspect to Vista is that it was 64bit clean -- this was already true about Windows before Vista -- but this was the first full consumer release that supported 64bit. The flagship for Vista would have been 32bit retail and OEM, and it would not have been slower just because Vista was also compiled to 64bit. Try comparing 64bit ports of originally 32bit software. It's that 64bit software is naturally faster due to the extra registers, but no where 32bit actually got slower. The issue is if the code is 64bit clean. There were some fixes needed to the software before you can go forward with a port, due to lack of foresight of developers before migration started. This is all done and over with.

Basically the Vista release was plagued by people running on a machine that made it slow. If you remember the first machines that rolled off -- I remember because someone called me up like the week Vista was released, saying his PC is slow. I looked at it, and I had to break the news: the PC was underpowered. There was nothing else wrong with it. But it was very pretty, and improved visual effects, but at a usability cost. Vista released was botched like the WinME release, but worse, because MS actually slipped up here. That's why it got a bad rep. But patches & service packs to Vista made it much better, and vendors caught up, to make it pretty much the same as Win7. WinME was not released in as bad condition, except system restore bogged down already slow hard drives -- unless of course you think DOS & the old kernel was horrid to stability, and you're both right and wrong 😉 MS wanted the old kernel to die, so they spread rumors to kill their own product, but otherwise it was fine for the era.

I'd have to admit though, I'd rather run something like Win2000 on a P4 or early 64bit machine, than Vista, because visual effects aren't important to getting the job done.

There is a community stripped down XP. All the user things you find in 2k. That children toy user interface is dropped and all stupid program are optional, eve that IE. And there is even a 486 friendly kernel now.