Windows Vista, the Microsoft operating system that everyone loved to hate, has finally died – it reached end-of-support status back on April 11th. This comes just a little over 10 years since the operating systems release.
Now, this would be the part where every other blogger would talk about how terrible Vista was, and tear into it one last time. Not me. Vista was a victim of the time it was released in, and the history of Windows XP that caused Vista to be what it is.
I plan on a follow up article going into detail, but suffice it to day, Windows Vista was a victim of the time it was released; poor computer hardware combined with it’s code base being different lead to a very poor preforming operating system not of its own fault, but as a fault of what it was trying to run with. Vista would become a rather usable operating system as time would progress, and while most wouldn’t want to admit it, the fact remains the oh-so-beloved (and oh-so-archaic) Windows 7 is still, at its core, just an updated version of Windows Vista (much like Windows XP is really just an updated Windows 2000). Vista itself did mature well enough, but never reached the usability that later Windows releases.
Of course, the hate of the original release had done its damage – Vista never had a majority OS usage share, with XP holding on until near it’s own end-of-support back in 2014, and Windows 7 maintaining strong following that. The damage was done, and Vista became the new Windows ME – the OS everyone loved to hate.
I’m not saying Vista was great, all I’m saying is, it wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It’s time has come and gone.