Microsoft Windows Vista is only a year old and I am already tired of hearing about it. The media and highly vocal opponents continue to berate it at every chance. The users who are happily using Vista are doing so quietly. So basically all you hear about Vista is the bad stuff.

Those of you who follow my writing know that I like Vista. I find it has some good new features and is more security than Windows XP. However, Microsoft did make some mistakes in their Vista planning. First is the number of different editions. How confusing is that? Vista Basic is useless and was introduced only to be able to run on cheaper hardware, but it doesn’t deliver a good Vista experience. The Mac OS comes in only 1 edition. It would be nice if Microsoft would follow their lead.

The many different editions are a big headache for end users, but an even bigger mistake was allowing Vista to be released before Vista drivers were available for many printers, scanners, and other devices. After a year that situation is much better, but the harm is already done.

Last but not least, Microsoft should have produced an operating system that was faster to boot up and runs faster. They did not. So they are taking a lot of heat for that.

The solution: Put out the next Windows as soon as possible. Sell only one, all-inclusive edition. Make sure that drivers are available. Make it faster. Add some really compelling new features that are highly publicized. Oh, and please —–give it a better name than Vista.