Vista named #1 biggest tech disappointment of 2007 -- by PC World

First PC World gets all up on the soapbox that (until a certain date) the MacBook Pro is the fastest PC the mag had tested, but consider the next step taken: PC World has boldly declared Vista #1 with a bullet in their Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007. Ok, sure, we get that it's "disappointments" and not "crappy products" -- the two imply very different things, and it's hard not to be somewhat disappointed by any product that took the better part of a decade to come out -- but if PC World harshing on Vista this bad doesn't smack at all of linkbait, well, we don't know what does. Oh, and here's that link.

P.S. -Seriously though, can Vista get a break here? We mean, honestly, it ain't all THAT bad.

[Blake Bowen @ Dec 17th 2007 2:01AM]

Speaking as a person that uses Vista on a daily basis - No argument here.

[LordFarkward @ Dec 17th 2007 2:36AM]

Speaking as a person that uses XP on a daily basis with my (free upgrade) copy of vista sitting in the drawer since Feb (because all forums/reports are telling me to hold off the "upgrade") - I guess also no argument here.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Dec 17th 2007 3:43AM]

To be perfectly honest, I've had a rather pleasant experience with Vista. I purchased two copies of Vista Ultimate the day it came out in the US for my lappy and a desktop (I was interested in the BitLocker app, and a few other features).

The only real issue at first was the lack of peripheral-specific drivers from a number of manufacturers. Most of those peripherals had basic support from Microsoft, but bespoke software and drivers from the various manufacturers took another month or two. Since then (late April to May), everything has been working fine, no hiccups, very stable, perhaps three or four crashes over the last 9 months.

I was disappointed with the slow roll-out of drivers by certain manufacturers (Creative, Western Digital), and pleased with others (Nvidia, Logitech, Dell). Aside from that, I was also a bit disappointed with the whole Ultimate Extras (but that’s old hat by now), as well as the memory cap in the 32-bit edition. Of course I was thrilled that MS included the 64-bit edition as well, which seems very well supported at this point (something which couldn't be said for XP 64 for a long time).

All in all, it’s been pretty decent. In the grand scheme of things, other OS's could more aptly be called a true 'disappointment', such as Windows Millennium, MacOS System 7, WinNT 4 SP2, Redhat 5.2, OS/2 Warp, etc...

Just my two cents/pence/centimes/roubles/baht/ringgit/won

[purezerg @ Dec 17th 2007 4:15AM]

comparing to OSX 10.5, vista is way much better. at least vista still allows programs to run. 10.5 keeps crashing lightroom and pretty much any other imaging software.

I was expecting OSX to do better.
If vista is the biggest disappointment, OSX10.5 is the greatest disappointment.

[mex @ Dec 17th 2007 4:26AM]

me too - they are just trying to get hits for the website. Just like People magazine do about celebrities - more people talk about it - meaning more people get see their sponsor ads which leads to more money by the hit. Cheap move! Money rules the world.

[Garst @ Dec 17th 2007 5:02AM]

I agree with Fraggle.Rock. I have had almost no problems with Vista. Yes, I have had some. When I upgraded initially, I just did an upgrade. I was already having problems with XP before I upgraded so I did not expect it too well. And it didn't. But I've had few problems since I did a clean install. I installed the 64-big version of Ultimate, which could have been contributed to most of the problems a year ago, but 3rd party hardware and software venders have had long enough to put out more stable drivers and software. Actually, all my hardware had drivers for 64-bit except my Linksys USB wireless adapter. Hauppauge and K-World TV tuners had drivers for 64-bit. It's Linksys fault there aren't drivers for my adapter, not Microsoft.

As far as software, it not a big problem. Vista has x84 emulators for older software if you need it, and most software still needs it. Most software has no problem running on 64-bit Vista. Most problems come from add-on for IE. Yes, it does say why IE crashed if you click on "More Information." The other problem isn't a problem at all. I have hardware DEP enabled on my PC. So if a website tries to install software on my computer without asking me, my computer forces IE to close. It's annoying, but it's better than getting viruses that try to force their way on my computer. I think it was these programs caused problems with XP for me, because IE never forcefully closed on XP and told me that it was stopping a program from installing.

These reports that dismiss Vista because of a lack 3rd party support should be ashamed of themselves. It's like shooting a runner in the leg and then yell at the runner for coming in last. Or if you will, saying a new game console sucks because no one has made any games for it yet.

[Garst @ Dec 17th 2007 5:10AM]

Oops. I meant x86 emulators. And also, I think I lost 16-bit compatabilty, but I have nothing that old except maybe that old DOS golf game that I haven't played in 5 years. Mainly because I don't know where the disk is, but Ski Free still works so I don't care about the golf game.

[Saad Rabia @ Dec 17th 2007 6:29AM]

First of, I can't agree more with you, not just agree with you, but I also share the same whole feel of using Vista for about a year now.

Here is the thing you guys, based on my use and experience with Vista I can definitely say that this OS is the best OS I've ever used in my entire life; wait a second there, don't get all pissed off at me, I want to share my thoughts and all what I'm saying is really and truthfully my sincere thoughts through my one year of experience with Windows Vista Ultimate.

Let me say that again, for me, Windows Vista is the best OS I've ever used in my last 10+ years of PC experience; I've tried all Windows old products, Apple's, and others such as Linux and friends. I can't but say that my experience with Vista was "full and complete", this OS has taught me a lot about how people think of stuff around; I might sound little "poetic" but believe me I did really learn a lot from Vista.

When I bought Vista Ultimate, I was kind of scared, thinking: What the hell did I just do? buying an OS that has only 10% or less support from companies all over the world! I thought that what I did is a mistake, buying something this early. So I went back home opened the box and loaded the disk and in a matter of minutes the OS installation had started, so I thought: I have to continue this, no returning back.

When Vista finished installing I went through the settings, walked around the files just to learn how stuff is structured, I tried stuff, missed up with other stuff and then started "hunting" down the required drivers to make everything work well. I wasn't all that happy from all of this, but I just kept going through everything in the OS so that I could learn where to go every time I needed something, just like what I did when I first used an Apple OS and a Linux OS.

And now, after 11 months, I can tell what I found out from using Vista and from the people who used Vista (my friends and family):

1. My sister: she is new to PC's, Vista was her first or maybe 2nd real experience in the world of personal computing, so I didn't have lots of choices, I made her use Vista. She was "normally" enjoying and playing around the OS, I watched her start programs and close others, told her to ask for any help if she needed it, and told her to check out the "help" documentation before she asked me for help. So, just last week, she was using her friend's laptop which had Windows XP on it and guess what did she tell me? She hated everything about XP!! She told me that it looked a lot like Vista but everything was in the "wrong place and looked lame"!!! lool, I seriously laughed at what she said and told her that XP is old and bla bla, the whole story which she wasn't interested in at all, hehe.

2. My brother: me and my brother started using PCs at the same time, only my brother is not very interested in technology advancements of the everyday world, he is more into cars. He has his own PC, so I convinced him to upgrade to Vista just 4 months ago. He installed it, and he told me what I was expecting: What the hell is this? Where is everything gone? Where is "File" and "Tools" and questions of this type; I helped him learn and told him to chill and look for stuff around, I asked him to forget about XP a little. So he bared with me and since then, he still uses Vista until now, his PC had some issues with the "Creative" sound card, but it got solved before a month or so, and since then he tells me that everyday he goes to the library at his university he feels outdated by using the XP computers they have, he says that XP is dull, "things do not tell you where to go", in other words each window feels different; which I have agree with, Vista has really done a great job in unifying the system window components, meaning that wherever you are you feel that you just were there and links are provided in a clean clear friendly look.

3. My friends: Some where like my sister and others like my brother and some still fight with me about making them buy Vista, huh.

Based on these incidents and on my experience with Vista I can say this: Vista is great, in every way possible to explain, it is just that it isn't an "XP" anymore, it is more of a first version of the next generation of Microsoft's OS's; I'm in love with everything about it, the UI, Windows Mail, Calendar, Movie Maker HD, DVD maker, Contacts, Photo Gallery, Defender, Media Center, the way games get organized, the way folders show you information inside and outside, the sidebar, gadgets, adding to that the Windows Live services for "FREE"!!!! (Not advertising :p)

Now listen to me, I don't want to sound like a fanboy, as a matter of fact there is a fanboy inside each one of use "Tech readers", but I sincerely am expressing my true thoughts on my experience with Windows Vista; With Windows XP I use to do computer stuff, now with Windows Vista, an OS to me is more like a life style, meaning that if I'm loyal to it, it is loyal to me. :)

Don't get all pissed at me for any misspellings or for the long fat post, but I felt like sharing my thoughts with you guys. Have a nice day.

[shamrock593 @ Dec 17th 2007 7:52AM]

I use Vista Ultimate on my quad core PC, very disappointed, my brother uses Vista Ultimate on his low-end laptop and it runs beautifully - even faster than XP according to him.

Just shows how two people can have two entirely different experiences, thus two very different opinions. =)

[E71 @ Dec 17th 2007 8:02AM]

Most expensive version of Windows I've ever purchased and all it's done is reduce my system performance dramatically and add annoying access rights popups everywhere.

My dual ATI x1900 system running an 8 year-old game (Half-Life: TFC) under Vista produces me a whopping 50-70fps with 40fps spikes when turning on a flashlight.

I'm pretty sure it's not all ATI's fault or the hundreds of other corps with under-performing vista drivers.

[peternj @ Dec 17th 2007 9:14AM]

As someone who uses Vista ultimate everyday since switching from Mac after Apple brought out Leopard I cannot but totally disagree that Vista is a disappointment. I've had the system locate needed drivers on the internet... something OSX cannot do. As Macs get more like Windows it's very easy to switch. Vista is my favorite OS ever... though my favorite MacOS was 8.6

[nd @ Dec 17th 2007 10:18AM]

i bought a vista home premium upgarde for my lappy (amd athlon 64 dual core 3800+ (yup- the real processor in a lappy- sucks power, but its fast!), ati radeon 128 mb dedicated video card and 256 additional shared video ram, 2 gb ram...). it bogged the system down so bad, and i never did find drivers for some of my stuff. i sufferred through it for about 4 months (still having some things, like a printer, that i couldn't use), hoping that updates would make performance and compatability get better....but it never did. i eventually "downgraded" back to XP (which you cant really do, you have to do a clean install of XP!), bought a macbook (yup, vista made me switch!), and now the old xp lappy sits collecting dust on a shelf.

i did however put the copy of vista on my htpc machine, and it seems to be pretty good, just a little slow to load programs and stuff (which does not bother me since i literally almost never exit media center on this box). i love the new media center in vista.

all of that said, i had a fantastic experience learning a new OS on my macbook (first time ever touching a mac OS since back in my high school days on LCiis!), and a horrible experience learning the new microsoft OS, bought the mac, love it, wont ever buy a PC again- although I will be biuld another PC for media center.

theres my experience...

[Student Driver @ Dec 17th 2007 11:34AM]

Well, I can see that from a consumer perspective it's a big disappointment. Apple's OS will never reach this level of disappointment though, since very few expect anything from it and those that do are usually fanboys. Hence, PC World should be safe from Apple's ire...

[Craig B. @ Dec 17th 2007 12:16PM]

I think Vista is pretty cool. I like the interface, the options, it's a nice step up from XP. Now, as for reliability: that's an issue. Rankedshamrock593 is totally right. I bought identical 2 PCs at the same time, 3 months ago, with exact same specs. 1 was for my mother, 1 was for myself. She doesn't know much about PCs, while I dual-booted my XP system with Fedora. I can tell you that even though I've installed almost no applications into my Vista, I'm having a boatload of problems - crashes, inability to update, errors, etc. She has had absolutely none. Zero! Strange! I guess luck!!

[Scott @ Dec 17th 2007 12:24PM]

The question people don't answer is whether it is really $400 better than XP. Some people say how "it's not so bad" or "they don't have any problems with it" but those are hardly convincing arguments to spend $400 (or $200 even) when XP works fine and is FASTER on the same hardware.

[snitch @ Dec 17th 2007 12:32PM]

Its not that bad but for a OS that took more than 5 years in the making its pretty bad. I have a mac running leopard and Xp and a new Sony notebook running vista and Dude nothing comes close to leopard or not even the old Tiger OS. Someone said that they when from leopard to vista and its loving it?? Yeah right dude maybe if you keep saying that to yourself over and over your might start to believe yourself but let me tell you my friend, its impossible once a person goes to apple there gone for ever, and that's a fact my friend, why?? Microsoft is just too sloppy right now they are getting better but they are taking too much time to do so

[jsn @ Dec 17th 2007 12:41PM]

I love vista. It runs great, is stable and while XP gave me no problems, vista also gives me no problems. I've been using it since the later RC's and apart from the usual early driver problems (no different than XP was), it's been great. The UAC works and while it's annoying to me, it keeps people who don't know what they're doing from screwing things up by accident. My parents and some friends that I've built vista based systems for need that extra level of nagging to keep them from doing stupid stuff.

It's funny that people bitch about lack of drivers. It just shows how many of these self proclaimed "experts" weren't in the market when XP came out. The same goes for UAC. The people that bitch about it most are the ones who need it the most. The first thing they do is turn it off and then a week later they start blaming vista for all the garbage they've installed. I mean it's just a cat that watches your mouse curser, how could that be bad right? Oh and that toolbar..and the other toolbar (I don't remember installing that!), and then there's the screen savers and a few games. oh and that other toolbar with the smiley faces, I love that one!

[Carl Vitullo @ Dec 17th 2007 2:17PM]

I think that Microsoft would make so much more money if they made a Vista theme for XP that came with DirectX 10 for $30. But that's just me.

[ChiWax @ Dec 17th 2007 3:58PM]

This is only embarassing for one reason. I have been telling everyone I know how great Vista is and how much I like using it. I also enjoy telling people how many doors the OS opens for the future technologies that are currently over-priced or just not out. So a PC mag comes out and says it's a dissapointment. I feel like I'm doing somehting wrong here. What kind of stuff are people trying to do with Vista that Vista can't do? And how much do people expect an OS to do anyway? For me, this would be like complaining that the iPod shuffle isn't as small as we expected it to be. Come on folks it's as small as it's gonna get. I have had no more trouble with Vista than the trouble I had with XP years back. And will someone tell me what the other OS's are doing that's so special...mike

[Reader @ Dec 17th 2007 7:38PM]

No kidding Carl, I would buy that so fast. Call me superficial, but the biggest pull to upgrade to Vista is that beautiful UI, StyleXP only gets you so far.

[Fitz @ Dec 17th 2007 8:34PM]

In the same report were also listed as Top 2007 Tech Disappointments:

#5 iPhone
#8 Leopard

But Engadget wouldn't want to mention that or provide the link!!!!!!!!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583/article.html




Shame on you Engadget!, you provide a link to almost every story you blog about but this one.....wonder why?

[steve @ Dec 18th 2007 11:02AM]

@saad rabia
You sound like a ubuntu adopter. Just replace every instance of Vista in your story with Ubuntu and it would still sound the same. The difference is that Vista Ultimate is $400 and Ubuntu is free. Why does a $400 OS need as much babying by tech guru family member as a linux based machine? Your family spent $400x4 on Vista. Those $1600 could've bought you lots of steak dinners for the help you needed to give your family members to get things going.

[or_alfred @ Dec 18th 2007 8:05PM]

Guys... you confuse myself sometimes, I guess it’s simply, if you like it you use it, if not you don’t.

[Shadow08 @ Dec 22nd 2007 6:32PM]

After reading all the gadgets they listed as the "biggest disappointments," this article has NO CREDIBILITY at all. They basically put EVERY MAJOR tech product of the year on it, including:

1. The iPhone
2. Vista
3. Leopard
4. Vonage
5. Yahoo
6. Wireless Carriers
7. Office 2007

While some of these products may not have lived up to their fullest expectations--these are FAR from being a huge disappointment. I don't know what they were thinking. The iPhone was a huge step forward in the mobile market, even though it has its flaws. Office 2007 was a nice step forward. Verizon Wireless announced its plans for an open network, and Google is making a universal cell phone platform. This is probably one of the best years in the mobile market!

It annoys me that they would bash almost everything that's out there because its not 100% perfect!

[Will @ Dec 17th 2007 2:01AM]

Let the fanboy wars commence!!!

[Michael LaFramboise @ Dec 17th 2007 2:39AM]

What? you mean the war isn't over?

w/e - I'm going back to playing games on my mac w/ a bottle of champagne to celebrate the victory

[Zeus the God @ Dec 17th 2007 3:35AM]

Games? Mac is the PS3 of computers. THERE ARE NO GAMES.

Nah, I'm just joking... You do have some shitty ports.

[Noshino @ Dec 17th 2007 3:41AM]

although I don't really like Mac, based on your comment, I think you haven't used either a PS3 and/or Mac....

and no, Im not kidding...

[3rdsun @ Dec 17th 2007 4:59AM]

Mac: Im a Mac
PC: Im a Pc
Mac: Im better than a Pc, PC World just confirmed it
PC : You're right time to find a new purpose in life

[Andir3.0 @ Dec 17th 2007 5:42AM]

I hope your getting paid Zeus, otherwise, I'm sorry that your life is so empty that you find reason to PS3 bash even when the OP has no mention of it.

Grow up.

[Jamesology @ Dec 17th 2007 6:04AM]

He's just mad he can't afford any of them. Mommy won't pay that much. Low-Income doesn't support that kind of inventory.

[Ed @ Dec 17th 2007 7:31AM]

The PS3 has awesome games, but apparently someone's stuck in the dark ages (2006)

Also, my friend has Unreal Tournament 2004 on his MacBook, and i would say it is a very good port if it can look that good on Integrated Graphics.

[Jason @ Dec 17th 2007 12:06PM]

Ed - I would hope so, being that it's a 4 year old game.

[Reid Sorenson @ Dec 17th 2007 1:57PM]

Well, they did also list Apple's iPhone and Leopard among the top 15 disappointments. So, given that these two have both proven to be huge successes for Apple (despite some legitimate complaints at the launch of each), PCWorld clearly has a skewed idea of what constitutes a disappointment. If they were going to pick on an Apple product as one of the top tech let-downs of the year, where's the Apple TV on this list?

[Ed @ Dec 17th 2007 3:20PM]

Jason - What I meant was that it looks much better than most games on integrated graphics. The fact that it is playable on a base model MacBook at a reasonable quality is amazing.

[Eric R @ Dec 17th 2007 2:04AM]

Not sure what is so bad about Vista. I guess it takes a truly technical mind to understand why things are the way they are. Considering 99% of the bad mouthers out there aren't _truly_ tech savvy enough to know how the development process works, it doesn't surprise me they don't understand Vista. If it's not a total overhaul, apparently it's not worth anything.

MS did create an entire rewrite, early builds of Longhorn show something quite amazing but it required too much sacrificing of driver compatibility and hardware back in 2005 was not up to par. They began anew after 2005. Vista was born of XP code, but 'bettered'. It is better, even if the newbs don't understand it.

[mmh @ Dec 17th 2007 2:19AM]

Personally, I don't care "how the development process works", or how "technically advanced" the system core is or whatever.

As the end user, all I care about is whether or not it's easy to use, and allows me to get my work done or play the games I want. With all the incompatibilty issues and nagging "please confirm to continue" screens, it is certainly entitled to a "bad" description. I don't need to be a "tech savvy" to see that.

[DWells55 @ Dec 17th 2007 2:27AM]

Amen, mmh. Although I don't know how it works at the kernel level, the surface result that's viewable to me as the end user is an operating system which: consumes significantly more resources, adversely affects gaming performance, has compatibility issues with certain hardware and apps, and overall feels less responsive when compared to Windows XP. Maybe there's some great reason for this, but it doesn't offer anything over XP as far as I'm concerned and the real deal breaker is the amount of RAM and CPU cycles it uses. My experiences with Vista have all been negative so far and this is even on high performance machines. My friend's laptop with a Core 2 Duo, 2GBs of RAM, and a 7900GS felt sluggish even after a fresh reformat wist Vista Premium. The time spent hunting down all the proper drivers and slipstreaming the SATA driver onto a XP install disc was well worth it; the system is now noticeably faster.

XP has proved to be a reliable and compatible operating system based on my years using it. Vista doesn't offer me any benefits or reason to switch. Even though I'm building a new gaming machine with a DirectX 10 video card (8800GT), I'm willing to go with DX9 instead to use XP. In the event some truly amazing DX10 games come out, I may install Vista Basic as a dual-boot and disable all non-essential services and use it strictly for DX10 games.

[jaalin @ Dec 17th 2007 2:55AM]

as a long-time xp user who has used vista for the past few months (too lazy to downgrade), my issue is that i'm much more productive with xp. what i want gets done in xp with little or no drama when compared with vista. sure, i've learned where everything is in vista, but it just doesn't seem as intuitive (or perhaps "simple" is a better word) as xp was. i used osx for a couple days, and was doing pretty well after a few minutes of poking around - everything is where i expect it to be. vista? meh. I know little of what's "under the hood" - i imagine the vast majority of home users are the same - beyond the pretty aero (is there a stylexp for vista yet?) and the nice window effects, what's better about it? i hear there's some improved functionality with tablet pcs, but uh.. i don't have one either.

it just feels like a crippled, albeit pretty version of xp. and it's not even that pretty.

[Carl Vitullo @ Dec 17th 2007 2:27PM]

Unfortunately they seem to have forgotten about "optimizing."

[wasabi @ Dec 17th 2007 2:05AM]

vista is bad, but yes I agree, it's not THAT BAD! Honestly, does anyone remember WIN 98 and WIN 98 SE? come on.

[Nirmal @ Dec 17th 2007 4:06AM]

I agree that the ME was a poor try.But try opening the windows explorer in ME and VISTA and try timing it.VISTA takes twice as long.When a basic task is poorly executed thats when everthing else becomes a let down.Remember the operating system is just a base over which all the applications work.So get the basics right.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Dec 17th 2007 7:00AM]

I got a lot more use out of the fast-booting and relatively stable 98SE than I plan to get out of Vista. I've used Vista and they'll have to pry my copy of XP out of my cold, dead, hands. Vista is bloatware, plain and simple.

Some writers are putter-inners, and some are taker-outters. This is what my college lit professor told me. Hemmingway, for example, was a taker-outter. He would trim a story down until only the bare essentials were there. Just enough clues to let you see the subplot. Just enough for you to REALLY get it.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is a putter-inner. They just keep piling on until they cripple the damn thing. I like all the "features" of Vista; the meta-data that keeps track of stuff for you, the integrated contacts stuff (that survived from Longhorn, right?), the sidebar. But they failed to give you any GOOD apps that come boxed with it. So after they bloated the bejesus out of your operating system, you're still left with a bells-and-whistles interface that requires you to buy more software to actually do ANYTHING USEFUL with your computer.

I still use Windows because of one program, and only one program: Corel Paint Shop Pro X. For every other program that I use, I have a suitable Ubuntu or Mac alternative. Unfortunately, I just can't gel with Photoshop or the GIMP. I need my PSP.

This weekend I installed the parallels demo on my work laptop (mac). I ran Paint Shop Pro smoothly and quickly even with only a gig of ram. Suffice it to say my next personal computer will be a mac running windows (xp) on Parallels Coherence.

[wasabi @ Dec 17th 2007 2:06AM]

The real problem is that it was wayy over hyped. This makes exaggerates any shortcomings.

[Eric R @ Dec 17th 2007 2:09AM]

Longhorn was hyped... it never happened though. Vista hype began due to the confusion that Longhorn WAS Vista when it was not! Windows 7 should be uber-lightweight and highly sandboxed/virtualized. A rather large departure from NT codebase. Vista is just XP 2007 - we all admit that. It had to be done because Longhorn would have failed miserably amongst the masses. Destined to be a tech demo ahead of its time.

[jdclarke @ Dec 17th 2007 6:37AM]

@ EricR

Are you hyping Windows 7?

[Alex K. @ Dec 17th 2007 10:04AM]

not only are you hyping windows 7, but you forgot that it took so many years for vista to come out - and you're saying it's just "xp 2007"

how is that acceptable? it would be understandable if vista came out sooner, but we had to wait 6 years for a new windows version. what we should have gotten was xp sp3 without the memory hogging effects and the real longhorn version when it is ready. instead we'll have to wait another 6 years for windows 7.

[Shunnabunich @ Dec 17th 2007 11:07AM]

I'm not sure what you mean. Vista IS Windows XP SP3.

[L.M.L.Y.P @ Dec 17th 2007 2:10AM]

i remember when vista came out , the night before Bill Gates was on the daily show and i remember waiting for it to show up on a torrent site, then reading reviews after school and not wanting to bother with vista until a new laptop. :( vista sure is lame but its not the worse thing

[L.M.L.Y.P @ Dec 17th 2007 2:11AM]

^ clone zoidberg ^