ChannelWeb has published a helpful and accessible comparison of Windows Vista with Ubuntu, a version of Linux that is gaining acceptance among personal computer manufacturers and users.

Although it sounds like many computer users could make the switch to Linux, I’m not one of them. There are too many web sites that I use on a regular basis that require – or at least, work much better with – Internet Explorer. Most of these are Microsoft sites, but not all of them. When IE for Linux comes out, or when Firefox manages perfect emulation of IE, I’ll give Ubuntu another look.

Microsoft seems to be trying to channel the Pepsi Challenge with its new plug for Windows Vista: the Mojave Experiment. They’ve rounded up a bunch of Vista haters (or at least Vista skeptics) and they’ve led them through a sham market research study. Subjects were told that Microsoft, in response to criticism of Vista, had developed a new operating system called Mojave. They wanted to get some early feedback. Turns out that the Vista haters really liked Mojave … and it turns out that Mojave was really Vista. See? All you have to do is try Vista, and you’ll like it better.

Of course, not everyone has read Blink, and I wonder if that that includes the folks at Microsoft market research, and perhaps some of the bloggers who’ve been impressed with the Mojave Experiment (this means you and you and you and you, among others). Because here’s the thing about the Pepsi Challenge. Although the results were accurate, they were also very misleading.

It turns out that people really do prefer Pepsi over Coke … when they’re drinking them both one sip at a time! But give those same people the opportunity to drink full cans of both sodas in a natural environment, and it turns out they’d rather drink Coke. How do we know this? Because Coke responded to the results of the Pepsi Challenge by creating New Coke, which was engineered to taste more like Pepsi. And New Coke turned out to be one of the biggest marketing debacles in history. After returning to the old formula, which supposedly tastes worse, according to the Pepsi Challenge, Coke re-established its market dominance.

Microsoft seems to be suggesting that the Mojave Experiment is evidence that people would really like Vista if they only gave it a try. That assertion may be true, but it’s not what the Mojave Experiment shows. What Mojave shows is that Microsoft can design a short, controlled demonstration that makes Vista exceed expectations. That’s really not that hard to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could replicate the results by doing a demo of Windows 98 instead.

Some questions NOT answered by the Mojave Experiment:

• What would Vista skeptics think of Vista if Vista suddenly got installed on their own computers and they had to work with it for a week or a month?
• Which operating system would Vista skeptics choose if they were given side-by-side demonstrations of Vista, XP, Mac OS, and Linux?
• How much would the new fans of Vista be willing to pay to upgrade from what they have now to Vista? Would they be willing to upgrade their hardware as well if that were necessary to get Vista’s benefits?

I’m not anti-Vista. But I’m not pro-Vista, either. And a cheesy marketing gimmick like Mojave won’t change my mind.

Support is available 10 AM to 7 PM Pacific time, or 1 PM to 10 PM Eastern. (In case you’re wondering, that’s 10:30 PM to 7:30 AM in Mumbai, so THAT doesn’t explain it! Could it be that they’re actually providing this support from the West Coast?)

More details on the program available here and here. Now here’s the question: Is there anything in the description of the benefits of Vista that makes you want to upgrade your PC from XP? Or that makes you want to introduce a new PC running Vista into a business where everyone else is using XP?

What’s that? Some of the new features in Vista sound interesting? Did you know that you can add lots of Vista features to XP?

I suppose I like the idea of having my clients call someone other than me when they can’t figure out how to do in Vista what they’ve been doing for years in XP, so I don’t knock Microsoft for trying the free support idea. But it’s certainly not enough to make me start recommending it. As long as I can still get XP preinstalled with free upgrade rights to Vista, that’s what I’ll be buying. (Yeah, yeah, I know … I’m not really getting upgrade rights to Vista, I’m getting downgrade rights to XP. Same difference.)

By the way …

Although Eric Ligman proudly announced the program on his blog, he obviously didn’t write the copy for the WVSBA FAQ. The FAQ includes a question about the difference between WVSBA and Microsoft’s Software Assurance program. The FAQ’s answer is that “the Software Assurance program is an ongoing licensing agreement for larger enterprise organizations.” Really? Try telling Eric that small businesses don’t need Software Assurance.

Of course, before installing you should take a look at the SP1 technical documentation and make a full backup of your computer using Vista’s “Complete PC Backup” functionality or a similar imaging tool.

I’m about to go through the installation process myself and I’ll let you know if anything explodes.

And they even show you your picture when you put in your password:

The Start menu isn’t labeled Start anymore, but it’s the same basic idea:

As you can see, you occasionally get some warning messages. But the Microsoft team has taken pains to make them much more understandable by the lay person:

Note: all screen shots above are unretouched, and I didn’t do anything special to make Vista behave like this. All I had done was log off and log on again. Fortunately, after a restart things are back to normal.

» Is Windows XP too good for Microsoft’s own good?

I take the view that XP ain’t broke and am only recommending Vista on new computers in rare circumstances. Looks like I’ll be able to continue to do that for longer than I thought.

Please note that since this is a new account, you may not be able to reach your site just yet. It can take from 24 – 48 hours before your domain name information has been updated at your ISP, which is required before you can view and manage your site using your domain name.

To view your site, while your domain is being setup or transferred you will need to make an entry into your local host file to resolve your server address. Your host file can usually be found in the following location on a Microsoft Windows operating system: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ but this will vary based on the operating system. If you can’t find it, do a search for ‘HOSTS’.

Once you have the file open, you will see an entry like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost

You will need to add this second line

168.xxx.x.x yyy.yyy.com [real IP and hostname concealed to protect the innocent]

Once you’ve completed this step and re-saved the host file you will be able to view your site, but only on the computer where you have made this modification. We recommend that you remove this entry once your domain name has been transferred and subsequently use your yyy.yyy.com for access.

That’s all well and good, but they didn’t anticipate that I would be using Vista. Because changing the hosts file is a common malware practice, Vista makes it really hard to do, even for users with administrative credentials. Instructions for getting around the restrictions are provided here.

Goal: create a Windows SharePoint Services application via the Internet based on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Simple enough, right?

Process: Start with basic procedure described here. From WSS home page, click Site Actions button and choose Create. Under Custom Lists, click Import Spreadsheet. Fill in Name and Description boxes, click Browse and navigate to file location. Click Import.

Problem #1: you forgot to close your spreadsheet before importing it:

Close the spreadsheet. Continue to select data range as described in article linked above.

Click Import.

Problem #2: You’re using Excel 2007, not Excel 2003. You get an error:

Note: you may not get this error if you are doing the import on a local network; that is, it may be Internet-specific. I’m not sure yet. Anyway, enter the text of the error message into Google. Find this solution.

Cancel the import procedure. Locate and open EXPTOOWS.XLA.

Problem #3: Microsoft doesn’t trust its own code:

Click Enable Macros. Press Alt-F11 to see the code. Open the publishForm (Code) window. Edit the code by commenting out lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL) and adding lVer = 2 underneath. (That’s a lower-case “L,” by the way.)

Save the file.

Problem #3: You can’t save the file. It’s read-only:

Cancel the Save As action. You don’t want to save it as a different file. Close EXPTOOWS.XLA. Open its folder location (probably C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033). Right-click the filename and choose Properties so you can uncheck the Read-only box.

Problem #4: It’s already unchecked:

Scream at the computer, “What do you mean, it’s not read-only? You just TOLD ME it was read-only!!!!” Take a deep breath. Open the Security tab. Note that Administrators have full control of this file, but as a lowly “User” in Vista, you have only Read / Read & execute rights:

Curse Microsoft for creating the bug in the first place and then thwarting your efforts to fix it. Click the Edit button so you can give yourself the permission to modify your own damn file. Hit Continue to get past the annoying User Access Control prompt (can’t show you that one — the screen capture program is disabled while that prompt is displayed). Assign Full Control for Users (hey, maybe you get get away with just Modify rights but at this point why take the time to find out?).

Open the .XLA file again, clicking through the same annoying warnings. Try to save it.

Problem #5: You still can’t save it. You must have had some other spreadsheet open:

Get completely out of Excel. Open the file again, make the change again, try to save again. Get the same viking error. Ask yourself what the hell is going on. Close Excel. Go back to Internet Explorer and close the SharePoint window you had open to do the import. Try again. No, that wasn’t it either. Close all the programs you have open — all of them! Try again. Do I even have to say it? Same error. Reboot your computer. Try again. Fail again. Go back and read the error message closely. Wait a minute … It’s not a file that Excel can’t access, it’s the entire viking 1033 folder! Why didn’t it just say so? Give Users full control of the 1033 folder, too.

Try saving again. Don’t be too suprised when it doesn’t simply work, but instead you get another security warning:

Consider getting a Mac, but think better of it. Click “Save changes and discard signature,” hoping this doesn’t come back to screw you later on. Close Excel. Go back to your SharePoint window. Try the import process again. View the results:

Like I said, simple enough.

Unfortunately, the quote doesn’t really make much sense. The article is about a panel presentation at which Microsoft and some Microsoft-using companies showed off some fancy things they’ve done with the new software. It notes that they “faced some down-to-earth questions from attendees.” Then comes this part:

Another attendee, David Schrag, who identified himself as a problem-solver for Schrag Consulting, Brighton, Mass., said the solutions demonstrated on Wednesday would likely be too costly for small businesses that have an annual budget of $1 million to $5 million and can only spend $10,000 to $20,000 on products and $15,000 on services in one year.

“Do you see small companies buying hosted applications rather than buying software in-house?” Schrag asked.

OK, the first paragraph I understand. But what the heck was I getting at with that question?

If I remember correctly, one of the speakers from Microsoft was saying that in the past, developing complex applications was so difficult and expensive that companies were going with ASP solutions like salesforce.com and NetSuite rather than building their own applications, and that with the Office 2007 system it would now be easier for companies to buy Microsoft products and build their own applications. If that’s what he said, then it would have been reasonable for me to ask what Microsoft had in mind for the very small businesses that couldn’t possibly develop the kind of applications that were being showcased during the presentation. But I must admit, I really don’t remember what the hell I was talking about. Oh, well. All PR is good PR, right?

Here’s a link to the full article.