Vista and the case of the 85 unsolved problems

Angus Kidman
Thursday, 14 June 2007 03:44

Opinion and Analysis

I'm not sure why Vista's Problem Reports and Solutions feature had decided to wait for so long before delivering its verdict on what problems it had encountered. There certainly had been a lot of them -- 85 in fact, which amounts to just under three a day. This does not strike me as an impressive number, especially considering that this was a copy of Vista factory-installed on a brand new PC and where the main application was Microsoft's own Office 2007, which is allegedly Vista-compatible.


However, what was really unimpressive was what happened when Problem Reports and Solutions offered to connect to the Internet to look for possible solutions to these various issues. In not a single case was Microsoft able to offer a solution. Instead, all I got was the same message ad nauseum: "Thank you for submitting a problem report to Microsoft. At this time, we are researching the cause of this problem." In plain language, this translates to "We don't have a clue, sorry."

Based on that level of useful response to error feedback, it's no wonder that Vista took half a decade to develop. And with that level of solutions to existing stability problems on offer, I won't be holding my breath for the first Vista service pack any time soon.

I realise that no operating system can be expected to operate error-free all the time. But having a system which can identify problems but offer no help at all with them comes across as rubbing salt into a very expensive wound. Microsoft is going to have to do better.