Ok so maybe these numbers are a little off, but it looks like people are actually buying vista. We've all heard how much more secure Vista has been so that's old news, but nice fewer tech support calls within a similar time frame. Hmm, kinda funny though that the Vista installed base is more than all of Apple's and they did it in only a few weeks. Fanboy or not these numbers show Microsoft can sell a product well also. Heh, I just wished they mentioned how compatible they were with programs to stop all the Vista haters from complaining Vista doesn't run anything. And to those who say that please give me a list of software that doesn't run, because practically everything i run, even win 95 apps run fine in Vista. Meh, I'll leave it at that, I'll just wait till the Microsoft haters, Linux-Lovers, and Mac Fanboys show up efore i say anything else.

What I would really like to know is how much of these 60 mil. are preinstalled copies and how much are express upgrades and retail?

If microsoft sold 60 mil copies but that 42 mil of these are volume license, that would mean that they only sold 18 mil. copies at retail. If you consider an active windows PC ecosystem of more than 600 mil. machines worldwide that would mean that only 3% of Windows machines were actually upgraded in 6 months, all the rest being machines that were shipped with Vista as default (That means that it counts as a sale even if the user wiped Vista and put XP or linux in it's place). 3% of customers actually spending money for the OS is really not much! If they means that they sold 60 mil. copies retail 42 mil. volume license copies for a total of 102 mil. copies that would be a good number, but the article is a bit unclear on this.

On the volume license front, I would suspect that 42 mil. PCs sold with windows preinstalled is actually on the low side for a 6 month period (I think that worldwide between 150 mil. and 200 mil. PCs are sold every year), so I would say that Vista completely failled to boost PC sales.

For the financial results, this is again unimpressive if we consider that microsoft used the "premium" trick to raise the average selling price of a copy of Windows

IMHO if you buy Vista and complain about compatibility, you're barking at the wrong tree. Jesus, it's a new OS! It's only as compatible as it is because MS wanted it to be (and personally I can't complain, most apps worked with Vista when I tried some of the beta versions). Another thing about compatibility: MS ran a long and fully open beta test period, yet many hardware vendors didn't have Vista-ready drivers at launch. Is this also MS's fault? I'm not using Vista now because I recently bought a PC (prior to Vista launch) and find the OS too expensive to buy on a whim. But I have tried Ubuntu and it wouldn't even boot until I'd searched the net high and low for some cryptic command line parameters, and even then I had no wifi support. A similar thing happened years ago when I tried to install Red Hat - it crashed every time saying it couldn't compile the kernel, didn't boot even once! (compile the kernel?? WTF do I care about that, I want an OS!) I'd say Linux is still years behind MS in terms of ease of use and while it may serve IT professionals better than Windows, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

Been running Vista before it was officially released thanks to my MSDN subscription. I have absolutely nothing to say against Vista.

There wasn't a lot of drivers at first for the old hardware but this has been corrected now. The only software problem I had was with a rather old version of my DVD burning software. I since d/l a free software that does the job very nicely.

I also play quite bit so don't tell me that Vista can't run games. You may loose a fps or two in some games but that's because your drivers (or your graphics card) may be outdated.

I didn't think so. You can't buy a computer without Vista preinstalled. And just because Vista comes preinstalled doesn't mean you're going to have a great experience with it. Most of the entry-level machines are a very slow. One of them I tried took like 15 minutes to bootup. We tried installing XP instead but there is no video driver for XP. The computer will end up in the trash. So subtract this one from the 60 million when you read the statistics.

Tried it went back to XP.
Now there are some cool things about Vista like a resource monitor that is actually useful.
But for the most part it’s huge SLOW and bangs away at the hard drive incessantly to the point of nausea.
But worst of all is the gaming performance, at least a 30 percent hit, terrible. It was like down grading my graphics card by at least 2 generations.
I have fairly up to date dual core system so I know Vista blows and the performance just isn't there. So M$, some of the people some of the time eh? For a development cost of 5 billion you got’a wonder, so my Vista CD is back in the drawer collecting dust until another day that is sure to come.

I tried Vista when it first came out, I had problems and reverted to XP. I decided to give Vista a second look 6 months after the launch. I was surprised to see all of my hardware and all software except the Symantec stuff worked perfectly.

Most people that I know personally that are knocking Vista have never used it or only briefly "played with it" and declared it sucks, and are mostly going of what other people are saying.

I just used the 30 day no activation trial period, I am glad I did, as I no longer have to install 107 security/update patches on fresh XP SP2 install before I can safely use it.

B.D.

Vista is by far the greatest thing to come out from Microsoft in a long while in terms of software (Save office 2007, which is an absolutely stellar release, and no one can doubt that).

HAHA, it just works!!!

Any issues with it i can only blame on bad driver support. Many people who tried to use vista are using it on pre-built machines, in which the companies dont think its of high priority to make drivers both on time for vista release and stable for vista (cough, acer). But, since most people are fools when it comes to computers, they blame the OS, since it didnt happen before with XP, so it must be blamed on the only change they made.

I have had my fair share of problems with Vista, but all, and i mean all of those, are related to buggy drivers from Nvidia, which have finally gotten better, but not quite there, as well as 64 bit software (this is a small number, but i still cant find a direct show filter for OGM on WMP 64). Every problem with Vista can only be blamed on software development companies that decided that the Vista market will take time to build, so they just did nothing.

Hmm...you believe numbers from a bunch of convicted criminals and that they say it's true. The company I work for hasn't even heard one, I say it again ONE, customer ask about using Vista. Being I work for a software company and our customers are major players in the medical, law enforcement and goverment area that pretty much tells all.

This number includes all machines not sold sitting in a warehouse somewhere at dell,hp or big box store.

In my store we have only sold a few vista how few less than 20 copies.

Same goes to big box stores i know the mangers of 3 big box stores after speaking with them they also sold only a few 30-60 copies.

Also when you buy a new computer it will have vista installed even if it can run it well or not, had many customers try to return laptops because the system ram dog slow they wanted xp.

99% customers ask for xp saying they don't want vista because of system performance and many business programs will not run it.

I am wondering out of the 60 million of those Vista units sold were to corporations that immediately formatted the drives and reinstalled Windows XP?

I can think of two big corporations that would buy the computer with Vista serial numbers and promptly delete Vista and install XP instead. But to be fair, I am sure that most corporations are a version behind on most operation systems and slow to adopt new versions of an operation system, especially when the old is working just fine.

Having computer companies only install the latest version of Windows does not give customers a choice of operating systems. Perhaps the high numbers are from those sold to people who never intend to use the latest version of Windows and either went back to an earlier version of Windows or another operating system. I bought an IBM Thinkpad T23 and installed eComStation over Windows that it came with. http://www.ecomstation.com It is like Fords Model T; 'you can have any color as long as it is black'. The same is true of computer companies and operating systems; 'you can have any os as long as it is Windows'.

If you're just going to throw the machine away, I'll pay for the shipping costs for you to ship it to me. ;-)

The adoption rate of big companies with new software is painfully slow. There are probably a number of high tech companies that adopt things like new OSs very quickly, but the majority never do.

There are too many potential problems that, while they might be a minor inconvience for an individual, will end up costing companies huge amounts of money.

The company I'm working for now (one of the major auto companies) has been testing and waiting to switch away from some Novell file servers because they run slow and aren't easily scalable. (this probably isn't due to Novell as much as it is to Novell that is probably 10 years old) They've went at least a couple years with limited shared HD space because it may have caused problems to upgrade it. This is coming at a time when they could have greatly increased the storage size with a couple hundred worth of new HDs.

We were also using Win2k up until about 6 months ago and even though we are now running XP they haven't even yet upgrade to SP2 because it might cause unforseen problems. I think they are talking about bringing SP2 online sometimes in the next 6 months.

The business world has a lot of interia to it. The cost and time required to upgrade to a new OS is high, even if the new OS is clearly better.

This has been true of almost every company I've worked for, and it has been the same situation with most of the people I know too. The companies we work for are generally at least 2-5 years behind the technology curve. At least in terms of general computing, they are often at the front of the technology curve when it comes to the technology directly related to the focus of the business.

I have been building systems for over 20 years. All of the issues that I have had with Vista have nothing to do with Microsoft and everything to do with the hardware drivers. Companies like NVidia and Creative have had a long time to get their act together and have solid drivers ready. But everyone pegs these issues on Vista. NVidia's own driver documentation lists tons of bugs with their drivers. Pull the PDF files yourself and read them.

For those of you who complain about how slow or bloated Vista is, you have not taken the time to learn why. Any Windows PC with more than 30 processes loaded when no applications are running is loading too many. Go to blackviper.com and learn how to deal with the excess processes.

And all you Linux elitists, shut up! We have heard enough of your crap. We all know Linux is a good OS, but you are boring. You are nothing but a bunch of shrill parrots spouting off the same lines.

I have used more than 20 different operating systems, not including version numbers. I would not say that any of them sucked. I have enjoyed using every single one of them. All of you people who bash operating systems simply spread hate. You do not make the computing experience enjoyable.

'you can have any os as long as it is Windows'

so how many was sold in asia, not including counterfeit software? and how many counterfeit vistas were sold in asia?

What happened to my post?? I had some valid points there!! Hehehe. Well I can't be bothered to write it all again, even because Froogler has said much of it.
But I would like to say that your phrase 'you can have any os as long as it is Windows' is so foolish that it's offensive.

Which linux elitist are you talking to? I can't see any previous positive mention of linux in this article or comments. Who is spreading the hate here?

First about compatibility:

Micrsoft should really try to archive 100% compatibility or work around solutions (not counting Virtual PC) because you cannot force everyone to switch to newer versions or so of a software when they want to just upgrade their operating system.

Also, some software may not have further development or support, like Microsoft won't support those Windows 9x, which won't get Vista compatibility upgrade.

Second about driver issues:

As of all driver developers knows, the driver model of Windows NT changes a lot in every major Windows version release. They really need time to learn and corp with. Drivers are not like other software as they need to take care a lot of kernel design issues. So, any changes to this would require huge amount of time for designing, programming and debugging. Even a year may not be enough for nVidia and ATi to work on Windows XP and Vista drivers simultaneously.

For Creative, Microsoft even scrapped the old sound driver model as well as DirectSound driver model. This forced Creative to invent their own driver model from the ground up and supporting the Vista model at the same time. Why Microsoft can take Creative out? It is because nearly only they are making consumer sound cards nowadays. (this clearly shows, monopoly is bad, both for Creative and Microsoft in doing so).

Forth, most processes are default when Windows Vista starts after the installation. Would it be really that good for a normal computer user to know, they should stop them by themselves?

They say it right "Shipments" not "Sales", most of those shipments are for preloaded computers, beta testers, developers, sales man, etc. Vista is the worst failure of microsoft, only compared to windows 95 and windows ME. I will love to keep my Windows NT 4.0 if they only added 3D, USB and Firewire support, Windows 2000 is good, but not as fast and stable as NT 4.0.. Anyway, I have already switch to Mac and the world is now a better place.

They say it right "Shipments" not "Sales", most of those shipments are for preloaded computers, beta testers, developers, sales man, etc. Vista is the worst failure of microsoft, only compared to windows 95 and windows ME. I will love to keep my Windows NT 4.0 if they only added 3D, USB and Firewire support, Windows 2000 is good, but not as fast and stable as NT 4.0.. Anyway, I have already switch to Mac and the world is now a better place.

Didn't have the time and especially effort to read all posts...

But anyway, If I install dos 6.22 on my recently purchased machine (With Vista Home Premium in it)... ...It would go nuts, It would sledge all my Sierra games with a sledge hammer???

To the point, no new os (does not matter who coded the bits in it) will ever be faster then it's predessor. Have you forgotten than xp was slower than me, 2000? Me/98? - 98/95SE - 95SE/95? 95/3.11? and so on...

Whatever, now I'm gonna start up Virtual PC and run Larry II *Yeah*

By the way, I've express graded to Ultimate, isn't that gonna count in any figures?

Where the hell are all the ultimate extras they promised? And no i did not spend 400 dollars on vista ultimate, i got mine from the university for 10 dollars. But that is not the point.

last quarter, MS had sold 40 million copies. Maybe not as strong as you think!!!

Well, at least Microsoft has some real numbers to show off, regardless of wats retail and whats pre-installed. Sales numbers in the tens of millions.
Not a direct comparison, but its better than hearing some company brag when they have only sold a couple hundred thousand units. (Blu-ray/HD-DVD).

"Of course, the claim of 60 million sold units within six months isn’t entirely true, as this number includes sales from the firm’s Express Upgrade program, which went into effect on October 26 of last year and was available until March 15 of this year. So, the sell-through of Vista is more like 6.7 million units per month."

Of course, the claim of 6.7 million units per month isn't entirely true, as this number excludes the sales from the firm's Express Upgrade program, which went into effect on October 26 of last year and was available until March 15 of this year. So, the sell-through of Vista is more like 6.7 million units per month. Or just because some of the people who use Vista had to install it manually themselves instead of buying a new PC with Vista (which hadn't been released yet) pre-installed, that shouldn't count? Either way you put (and regardless of how much the media tries to skew facts and figures that prove Vista to be a success), Vista eclipsed Apple's entired installed base in 5 weeks of shipments (and Linux's in 5 days I imagine, LOL), it's the fastest-selling OS in history, is already the 2nd most used OS in the world after Windows XP and will sooner or later be the market leader XP is today.

of XP

Performance is caching up in games (patching) and the rest is the same as xp or better that is if you have at lest 1 gig of ram... sure you could go up to 3 but you have to sacrifice some catch. I wish they did vista in only 64 and came with xp emulators via seamless integration that way we would be able to go nuts with ram... MMMM 32 gigs of ram. But that would have been nuts to do... way to much work for software developers.

Previous posts are saying Vista's sales are mostly due to preinstalled PC's.
This means that all PC providers have adopted Vista as their premium selling OS....
(even for 1/2GB low level PC's...)

Also, Vista came after the transition to Intel's Core2 has matured and prices are down, offering faster PC's at lower prices.

I guess MS is in a position that everything dramatic they do would be adopted. That's their power.
Linux doesn't stand a real chance... - since no massive PC providers would adopt it (Dell is the exception - try to get an Ubuntu preinstalled PC from Lenovo/hp/...).

Apple will never be a threat to MS when it comes to user base. Simple fact.

Those big numbers comes from shipment of, mainly, bundled copies, not actual sales.
After some months, I'm rather seeing a big number of home users returning back to XP and a lot of pro buyers delaying Vista adoption in businness units, or either plainning to skip it at all.

How many people are actually using it however? It is packaged with all new PC's even if you'd prefer XP. I have a Vista Ultimate version that I can't currently use with my computer due to motherboard driver issues for example.

looks like bill's children are having fun yet again with their dad's credit card.