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Recently posted in a Microsoft Watch blog, a technology columnist delivers a scathing review of Microsoft’s Vista operating system:

The Vista experience is broken. It’s long past time to fix it. Not since Windows ME or Mac OS X 10.0 have I observed a more troubled consumer operating system. This is a difficult post to write, because I really don’t want to beat on Microsoft about Vista yet again. But yesterday’s continuation of the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit and several conversations I had today are reasons to look at what Microsoft got wrong and why the company should make things right.

Simply put: Windows Vista is a train wreck, but it didn’t have to be. Unfortunately, my “Wow” moment was accepting Windows Vista for what it is. Vista will succeed in the marketplace because of the huge infrastructure built up around the operating system. But that doesn’t mean most people will like using Vista, or even ask for it. [more]

~ “Broken Windows” by Joe Wilcox, eWeek Microsoft Watch, Aug. 9, 2007.

Ditto… ouch.

Effective May 1, 2007, Microsoft Office 2003 will no longer be available

As of May 1st, customers can no longer have Microsoft Office 2003 pre-installed on their systems. Only Microsoft Office 2007 will be offered on all systems - including those with Windows XP.

Is Microsoft Office 2007 compatible with Windows XP?

YES. All of the new and exciting features of Microsoft Office 2007 are completely compatible with Windows XP

Is Microsoft Office 2007 backwards compatible with previous versions of Microsoft Office?

YES. Microsoft Office 2007 files will automatically convert to readable/usable files for anyone using any prior version of Office and vice versa.

Are there any issues with Microsoft Office 2007?

NO. All of the functionality within Office 2003 is available in Office 2007

Why should I want to install Office 2007 on my systems?

Microsoft Office 2007 was designed to be more user-friendly. The new Ribbon shows visual representations of tools and commands, unlike prior versions of Office in which the user had to search the toolbar to complete a task.

Windows Vista users complain about long start-up, shutdown and application load times compared with Windows XP.

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 1:00 AM PDT

Windows Vista users are complaining on Microsoft Corp.’s support forums about long start-up, shutdown and application load times compared with Windows XP.

The users, who sound pro-Vista for the most part, have vented about a variety of speed issues on Microsoft’s Performance & Maintenance forum. “I have XP and Vista running side-by-side [but] I twiddle my thumbs waiting for certain apps to load up on the Vista machine while the load is instantaneous on the older XP machine,” wrote a user identified as William. “I’ve tweaked it as best as I could with the info available and I am still very disappointed.” …

A recent review by Steve Wildstrom of Business Week is enough to send potential Vista users running in the opposite direction. Read the entire column here.

More testing needed before Vista deployment:

Microsoft introduced the latest version of its operating system in grand fashion, with parties at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and other tony venues and the ever-present theme, “The ‘wow’ starts now.” But for many agencies the wow will come later rather than now.

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URL: If the Time Bomb Goes Off, You Should…

What is Microsoft’s big advice for dealing with the daylight-saving time change on Sunday? Check your calendar.

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URL: Superfetch, RAM and the meaning of life.

The analysis and reviews of Vista are starting to come in - especially with respect to one of my favorite features - Superfetch. I blogged a bit about this in the past (about how Superfetch will proactively fetch applications into memory based on usage patterns so that they are already paged in from disk before you need them) but I have some real world experience with Vista on a variety of memory configurations and processors now and I’ll offer my own real world experiences…

Time’s a wastin’. Did you get the memo?

The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress July, 2005, extended Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. As a result, beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed. These four weeks are referred to in this article as the extended DST period. Visit MSN Encarta for more general information on DST.

When your time zone settings are incorrect your clock may be off by one hour, and certain applications running on your Windows based computer may not display the correct time. To address this, Microsoft is providing many free updates and tools that will update your system automatically.

Top Issues

Microsoft products affected by 2007 daylight saving time changes
What end users can do to ease the transition
General sequence of update actions and special considerations