Die, Vista, die!

It’s like a scene out of some zombie “slasher” flick: Our intrepid hero pummels the evil creature with a devastating series of blows, then turns away to attend to his or her friend/lover/damsel-in-distress only to be surprised moments later by a suddenly resurgent villain.

In Microsoft’s mind, XP is the evil spawn of the underworld, while Vista is the intrepid hero fighting for all that’s noble and clean and right in the world. And like all good undead villains, XP simply refuses to die. In fact, the whole “kill it/it’s not dead yet/kill it again” scenario has been played out so many times that the audience is now actively cheering for the monster to win. After all, if you can’t knock off your own product after two years of very public bashing, smashing, and pummeling, you deserve to take a dirt nap in the creepy crypt.

Now we hear that Microsoft is extending its XP “downgrade” program for OEMs by another six months. Basically, if you’re a customer and you don’t want Vista on your shiny new PC, you still don’t have to take it. It’s another sign that Microsoft has finally realized the futility of its Vista-or-else strategy. And with Windows 7 finally emerging from the Redmond “cone of silence,” it could signal the final curtain call for this pretender to the desktop throne.

For me, Vista’s demise was foregone conclusion. It was nearly a year ago that I declared Vista to be a failure in the enterprise and encouraged customers to wait for Windows 7. And though subsequent developments have soured me on Vista’s successor, I can’t help but feel a bit melancholy about the whole affair.

On the one hand, I’m pleased to see Microsoft paying the price for its arrogant dismissal of IT’s wants and needs. On the other hand, I’m sad to see my old friend, Windows NT, collapsing under so much bloat and abuse. After nearly two decades of continuous use –- including those early lean years when drivers were scarce and nobody supported NT as a desktop OS –- to see my once lean, mean workstation OS devolve into a blubbering mass of eye candy and sluggishness is almost too much to take.

So, as I say a bittersweet farewell to Vista (and its slightly thinner, more robust sibling Workstation 2008), I can’t help but shed a tear or two -– not for Microsoft (after the Vista-or-nothing fiasco, they company deserves what it gets), but for my beloved NT, the once-proud hero now reduced to cowering at the shadow of its former self.