The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007

Tag : Hardware Assortment
#1. No Wow, No How: Windows Vista
Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do?
It's not that Vista is awful . The integrated security and parental controls are nice, and theAero interface is as whizzy as it gets. Searching and wirelessnetworking are much faster and easier than under XP.
It's just that Vista isn't all that good. Many of the innovationsthe operating system was supposed to bring--like more efficientfile and communications systems--got tossed overboard as Microsoftstruggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it wasfirst promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista isslower than XP.
When it debuted last January, incompatibilities were rampant --in part because hardware and software makers didn't feel anyurgency to revamp their products to work with the new OS. The useraccount controls that were supposed to make users feel safer justmade them feel irritated. And at $399 ($299 upgrade) for WindowsUltimate, we couldn't help feeling more than a little gouged.
No wonder so many users are clinging to XP like shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, while others who made theupgrade are switching back . And when the fastest Vista notebook PC World has ever tested is an Apple MacBook Pro, there's something deeply wrong with the universe.
We have no doubt Vista will come to dominate the PC landscape, ifonly because it will become increasingly hard to buy a new machinethat doesn't have it pre-installed. And that's disappointing in itsown right.
PC World contributing editor Dan Tynan used to be disappointed, now he tries to be bemused.