I"ve wondered after doing several channel checks on Windows Vista adoption. The results, while arguably anecdotal, are grisly. Businesses aren"t just taking their time deploying. Some early adopters have switched back to Windows XP. Yesterday, I spoke with a VAR buddy who has several large clients in the Washington, DC metro area. His largest client, a sizable software developer, is sticking with XP because he demanded it. For a short time, the company president used Vista on a new, Sony VAIO T series notebook but later switched back to XP.
"Everyone—every single person—that I put on Vista has switched back to XP," he said. "It"s too complicated." From an administrator"s perspective, my VAR buddy likes some Vista deployment tools, but he viciously complained about poor driver support, networking changes and end user complaints about UAC (User Account Control) and Internet Explorer 7 security popups. In this ringing Vista endorsement, one Microsoft Watch commenter claimed: "I"m an IT consultant and I"m proud to announce I"ve formatted 450 Windows Vista machines back to Windows XP to date. I have also prevented at least 1,000 Windows Vista sales."