Six month old Microsoft Vista crawls rather than strides

Gripes over what doesn't work with Vista continue, eclipsing positive buzz over the program's improved desktop search, graphics and security, AP said.

While Vista is all but guaranteed to become the world's dominant PC operating system, AP said too many users are either learning to live with workarounds or sticking with Vista's predecessor, Windows XP.

Industry analysts say that Vista adoption is "plodding along" as they expected, with most consumers and businesses switching over as they replace old hardware with new.

IDC analyst Al Gillen thinks it will take Vista five years to get onto 84 per cent of PCs.

One of Vole's biggest problems is that printer makers cannot be bothered upgrading their machine to work with Vista. This is because they get most of their profits from printer ink and have little motivation to invest in updating drivers for old hardware.

It also looks like Microsoft's user account control feature which is designed to protect Web surfers from spyware and viruses is also sailing up the noses of users.

AP tells the story of one guy that was so miffed that he was getting too many pop-up windows warning of possible threats from the Internet that he switched the control feature off. Now he gets pop-ups warning him that turning off UAC is dangerous.

More here. µ