Partager via

Windows Vista will change perception

  • Article

Windows Vista has a lot of new features, but one of them is when programs stop functioning a popup appears asking if you would like to find a resolution to the problem that was just caused.

Typically in the earlier versions of Windows, you'd not get this as the message would be obscure and it wouldn't associate the problem with the rightful owner, it'd simply ask whether or not you wanted to send an error report back to Microsoft. Which in turn provides Software vendors a dump report on what's happening with their software in the wild (yet this is unknown to the average punter out there whom isn't in the know around how this workflow works).

This is typically bad for Microsoft I guess as it's easy for folks to associate the problem as being the operating systems fault instead of the software vendor? "Grr, Windows just crashed, great! ".

Did it? or did the actual software you are using crash and Windows simply caught the exception, didn't know what to do with it due to lack of instruction and simply told the end user "I have to close this now, because it's just broken" but in a much more universal obscure message so not to offend everyone in the world sort of thing.

Now, we bring you Windows Vista, which the appropriate messaging is put into the right context and end users can apply appropriate amount of pressure on such vendors to fix it, but also allows vendors to take ownership of their own issues that arise.

Untitled

I often see Adobe Staffers in Twitter complain about Windows Vista crashing "Yet again" and wonder if it's us or them? :P

Update: Adobe Staffers was not at all meant to be an attack or negative response, it was actually meant as a joke between a friend at Adobe. It's not an attack on anyone specific persons but a slight jib as they often make similiar jibs about M$ and so on (all in good humour folks).

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    yes, it is a nice feature, execpt when it says "A solution exists for your problem" "Call Microsoft support and quote XYZ" Well if there is a fix, don't make me call, just give it to me... I want to help myself! [SB: I've not seen that message yet, and would like to hear more about it to be honest]

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    Oh, and an update - I thought I would give it a try, so followed the link to contact support and was glad to see that there was an email option. I was asked to find my PID to show that I had a real product, Clicked on the "How do i find my PID link" and got a 404 page. Went to "About Windows" to find my Product ID - typed it in and got told that it was not valid or was not in the correct form. I guess us MSDN subscribers don't get real product IDs

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    Do you have to enable this somehow? If I am away from my vista machine for any period of time, it crashes when I try to log back in, and I don't get the option above. It crashes hard, where it will reboot, and then gives me the option to start in safe mode. >I often see Adobe Staffers in Twitter complain about Windows Vista crashing "Yet again" and wonder if it's us or them? :P Well, I am guessing that reference is to me, since I complain on twitter about Vista constantly crashing. Regardless though, at least on my home machine, Vista is by far the most unstable operating system I have ever used. I expect it will get better over time (XP didnt really seem ready for prime time until SP 2), but that doesn't do me too much good in the meantime. mike chambers mesh@adobe.com

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    This is a good feature on Vista but I don't find myself using/needing it much. I can see where many would (non-advanced users) but I don't find it helpful. The best part though is how it finds solutions to problems in the background and keeps a list of recent issues then alerts you from the taskbar of solutions. It gets annoying if you don't check them regularly (pops up all the time) but if you are concerned about the failures it is a good step by MSFT. I have too seen the problem in some Adobe products but nothing regular (except for beta programs). It seems to be generally bad across the board (when it is bad, that is). Vista runs pretty smooth for me though.

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2007
    oi, arnt my comments good enough??

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2007
    The comment has been removed