Software Compatibility
According to Gartner, "Vista has been dogged by fears, in some cases proven, that many existing applications have to be re-written to operate on the new system." Cisco has been reported as saying, "Vista will solve a lot of problems, but for every action, there's a reaction, and unforeseen side-effects and mutations. Networks can become more brittle." According to PC World, "Software compatibility issues, bug worries keep businesses from moving to Microsoft's new OS." Citing "concerns over cost and compatibility", the United States Department of Transportation prohibited workers from upgrading to Vista. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said the rollout (of Vista) is significantly behind schedule because "several key programs still aren't compatible, including patient scheduling software."
As of July 2007, there were over 2,000 tested applications that were compatible with Vista. Microsoft has published a list of legacy applications that meet their "Works with Windows Vista" software standards as well as a list of applications that meet their more stringent "Certified for Windows Vista" standards. Microsoft has released the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 application for migrating Vista-incompatible applications, while virtualization solutions like VirtualBox, Virtual PC 2007 or those from VMware can also be used as a last resort to continue running Vista-incompatible applications under legacy versions of Windows.
Microsoft also provides an Upgrade Advisor Tool (.NET must be installed and an Internet connection is required) which can be used on existing XP systems to flag driver and application compatibility issues before upgrading to Vista.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Windows Vista