Windows Vista

Windows Vista failed because it shipped more than five years after Windows XP, wanted hardware that many PCs didn't have, and launched before many device makers had working drivers. Many customers kept choosing XP, and Steve Ballmer later called it the single biggest mistake he made at Microsoft.

What it was

Windows Vista was Microsoft's PC operating system after Windows XP, built under the code name Longhorn. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley later described Longhorn as "repeatedly delayed." XP had come out on October 25, 2001, Network World noted.

Vista came in several editions. Home Basic, the cheapest, left out Aero, a revamped graphical interface that was one of Vista's most heavily promoted features, Computerworld reported.

Before launch, PC makers sold XP machines with "Windows Vista Capable" stickers in the run-up to the 2006 holiday season.

Microsoft made Vista available to businesses on volume licenses on November 30, 2006. Consumers got it on January 30, 2007, in more than 70 countries and 19 languages, the company said.

What happened

On August 27, 2004, Microsoft set a 2006 target for Longhorn, the system that became Vista, and said WinFS, its new storage system, would come after the release. Jim Allchin, who ran the platforms group, said Microsoft "had to make some trade-offs" to ship in a reasonable time.

In January 2006, Scott Di Valerio, whom Computerworld calls the former head of Microsoft's PC maker division, wrote that support for the graphics drivers Aero needed was now "recommended, but not required" for Vista Capable PCs, according to internal emails later unsealed in court.

Within weeks of launch, Microsoft's own executives were complaining. Windows vice president Mike Nash wrote in February 2007 that his laptop, chosen for its Vista logo, couldn't run Aero or Movie Maker. He called it a "$2,100 e-mail machine."

In July 2007, Microsoft lowered its forecast. It now expected XP to make up 22% of its XP and Vista sales in the year to June 2008, up from 15%, Network World reported.

In September 2007, Microsoft extended XP sales to PC makers and retailers through June 30, 2008, InformationWeek reported.

The lawsuit over the Vista Capable stickers won class-action status in February 2008, and Judge Marsha Pechman made hundreds of Microsoft emails public, Computerworld reported.

Windows 7 followed in October 2009. Microsoft stopped selling Vista at retail in October 2010, and PC makers stopped in October 2011, PCWorld reported. Support, including security updates, ended on April 11, 2017.

Why it failed

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer blamed Vista's long release cycle and, later, a wrong technical strategy. Reporting at the time pointed at hardware demands, missing drivers and buyers who stayed with XP.

What Microsoft said

When Microsoft extended XP sales, it said some customers "need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista." Nash said Vista was "on track to be the fastest-selling operating system in Microsoft's history."

On April 17, 2008, Ballmer called Vista "a work in progress" at a Seattle event for Microsoft's MVPs, Network World reported. In TechCrunch's transcript, he says "you never want to let five years go between releases" and that a lot of customers were "choosing to stay with Windows XP."

At a hardware conference in November 2008, Windows executive Jon DeVaan said more than 90 percent of PCs had all the drivers they needed for Vista. "We want you to believe us on our shipping dates," he told developers, Redmond Channel Partner reported.

At the end of November 2013, after announcing he would step down, Ballmer told ZDNet that "Longhorn becomes Vista" was "the single biggest mistake I made."

He said the product "wasn't a great product" and "took us five or six years to ship," and that Windows 7 was the fix. "It was a technical strategy mistake," he said. A group of Microsoft's best people was tied up for years, he said, when they could have been working on things like phones.

What reporting showed

InformationWeek reported in September 2007 that buyers had "railed against" Vista's price, its lack of compatibility with existing software, and system requirements that exceeded PCs "more than a couple of years old." Its own survey found 30% of businesses had no plans to buy Vista, and Dell, Lenovo and HP were offering discs to downgrade Vista PCs to XP.

"Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have," Network World wrote.

The lawsuit charged that the stickers went on PCs that could run only Home Basic, Computerworld reported. Jon Shirley, a Microsoft board member, wrote to Ballmer that his printer and two scanners had no Vista drivers, and that he couldn't understand the shortage "with a product this long in creation."

Nvidia drivers were recorded as the cause in 479,326 of 1,663,327 Vista crash logs filed with Microsoft in 2007, or 28.8%, against 17.9% for Microsoft's own software, The Register reported. It added that these were presumably only the crashes users had submitted.

What later analysis found

In 2012, PCWorld's Jared Newman wrote that Vista was "widely regarded as one of Microsoft's biggest failures," citing "bloat, sluggishness and hardware incompatibilities."

Steven Sinofsky, who took charge of Windows development the day after Vista's retail release, wrote in his Hardcore Software history in 2022 that the Vista Capable stickers were meant to soften the fact that Vista "missed the back to school and holiday selling seasons."

Intel had fallen behind on graphics, he wrote, and few XP PCs, "especially laptops," could run the Home Premium experience. The drivers "still had problems in Vista," he wrote, and that was "the root of the Vista Capable lawsuit."

The stage it reached

Windows Vista reached the growth stage, where sales climb fast on new customers. I don't think it ever reached maturity.

Microsoft said it sold 20 million licenses in Vista's first month, 100 million in its first year and more than 180 million by July 2008, Redmond Channel Partner's editor in chief, Scott Bekker, wrote. Once you "take away downgrade rights," he added, he wasn't sure the number meant much beyond Windows' market power in general.

Windows 7 followed less than three years after Vista's consumer launch. In my product life cycle terms, that makes Vista a growth-stage failure, with big license numbers and a successor that cut it short.

The lesson

I think Vista is the clearest case I know of a release cycle doing the damage.

Ballmer named the cycle himself. A five- or six-year cycle is a bet on what PCs and drivers will look like years out, and Microsoft's bet was wrong. When Vista shipped, many of the device makers it depended on still didn't have drivers ready.

The sticker is the part I'd study. Microsoft let "Vista Capable" mean a PC could run the cheapest edition, then promoted Vista on features that edition left out. If your product depends on partners, ship it in steps they can keep up with, and don't promise more than the weakest supported setup can deliver.