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Microsoft to Allow PC Makers to Downgrade to XP
mytrip pointed out a News.com story about a new Microsoft program to allow PC makers to downgrade from Vista to XP if they so choose. They're still pushing the new version of Windows very hard, but the option now exists for PC resellers to offer the now venerable OS. This is especially interesting as the article points out that OEM licenses for XP officially run out at the end of January. "Hewlett-Packard also started a program in August for many of its business models. 'For business desktops, workstations and select business notebooks and tablet PCs, customers can configure their systems to include the XP Pro restore disc for little or no charge,' HP spokeswoman Tiffany Smith said in an e-mail. She said it was too soon to gauge how high customer interest has been. 'Since we've only been offering (it) for about a month, we don't really have anything to share on demand.' A Microsoft representative confirmed there were some changes made over the summer to the options computer makers have with respect to XP, but the representative was not immediately able to elaborate on those changes."
Users are permitted to upgrade from Vista to XP.
See, fixed.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Why do they insist on calling it a downgrade?
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
I'll downgrade to XP in the same way I'll "downgrade" to a first-class airline ticket or a supersized meal.
On the other hand though, it is Microsoft making a correct move by giving consumers what they actually want while keeping the marketing in line with their "forward thinking."
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Originally, Dell switched entirely to Vista just like everyone else. Then after a month or two they strong-armed M$ into letting them offer XP to their business customers. (I would love to have been a fly on the wall listening in to the conversation that got that concession out of M$.) This is just M$ offering the same thing to other vendors, who are probably losing a lot of business to people who want XP and can only get it from Dell.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
See, I know MS develops buggy code. Even their license generator stop working!
I understand the plight. After setting up Vista for the first time the other night I could not believe the amount of GUI changes in Vista. Especially when it came up on a cable modem PPPoE. Took me an hour to figure it out, it though we had a DSL dial up. Don't look for properties any more in the OS, they are now calling it "Settings" and is where the help used to be on many screens.
People would have less learning UI if they loaded Fedora 7 or RHat.
Sure glad I bought my last PC when I did. Still had XP on it with a promise of a free upgrade. Have the new disks. Just never applied the upgrade. Will not be applying any time soon either.
I need to buy a new system (current motherboard got damaged, might as well upgrade), and I've been weighing my options. Vista is simply not an option at all. XP Pro 64-bit is orphaned, with virtually nonexistent driver support. XP is 32-bit, and I already was running Win2k with 4GB of RAM (well, as much as it will use of that) and need to grow.
After all these years of Windows desktop and Linux here & there on servers and VMs, I'm going to finally make the jump the Linux desktop, VMWare'ing Windows where I need it. I don't play PC games anymore (besides minesweeper), I'm going to get a quad CPU with 8GB of RAM, and Microsoft simply isn't offering anything viable for that configuration.
Sorry, I know a lot of people think it's better than Vista, but when did XP become venerable?? Is there some secret meaning for that word that I don't know?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I look at Windows Vista and realize how vastly different it looks from Windows XP. The same goes to my customers that I speak with, they are confused as well with all of the graphical and placement changes. Windows XP started a very solid trend on what the look of Windows is, but Vista shattered that.
Take a look at Mac OS X. The interface is pretty much the same for more than ten years. There have been improvements, but the basic functionality has stayed the same with some graphical upgrades.
If end users are requesting that they get XP instead of Vista? What does that tell you? When so many people ask for XP over Vista that dell starts to offer it. Let me clarify this: "Don't know nothing" end users are asking for something else. That just speaks volumes for the resistance against Vista.
I hear Netcraft confirmed it.
Its interesting that Microsoft might have got several things right in windows XP and have out done themselves. That or maybe they just waited way to long to have the whole world just switch out everything. People tend to hate change, and maybe similar to some not wanting to use linux because of change are not interested in changing to Vista. Maybe this is the chance for Linux and mac to break further into the market. Or people just don't want to spend $2000 on a receptionists computer just so that they can chat, browse, and view docs. (disclaimer: And not I don't think that's all they do)
No. It took them a while to muscle MS into allowing them to sell XP. Even then, it's only on 1 home laptop option and 3 gaming machines.
Those ordering for small business have to eat the cost of additionally buying a Windows XP client license in addition to the Vista cost of buying a Dell.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/winxp_inspn?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
No pretty linkage for you!
How the hell is this news, downgrade rights have been available for consumers of ultimate and business since launch, it is how they get so many corporate sales of vista (since they ignore the vista part and just load xp pro as always.
I had one of the senior MS sales people for Australia recommend for our store to buy a 1 user "mass license" and then use that for installing downgrade rights, this is an option that has been open to OEMers for quite a while, its just they are finally waking up and realising that not everyone wants the latest POS from Microsoft.
...
It boils down to the fact that Vista is simply not mature enough yet. I run XP Pro and am happy with it and I have no intentions of switching to Vista anytime soon. Now in a year or two when it's up to service pack 2 AND you can run DOSBox inside of XPBox AND software compatibilities are a thing of the past because Vista is the target not XP then I'll upgrade.
And this old XP machine will probably become an Ubuntu box then.
Shh.
Anyone else foresee the re-release of Vista sometime in the future? I mean, it's failed with businesses (no one in their right minds is installing it for their lay corporate workers). It's failed with enthusiasts. Why not just change the UI back to what made Windows "Windows", make some resource requirement adjustments, work with major companies on driver support for a a year, and release it like an entirely new OS. It worked before. And we, for the most part, loved 98SE.
I waited an extra month or two to purchase my new Dell XPS M2010 just to get Vista since it was on the horizon and as far as I could tell all my hardware/software worked for the most part or new drivers were already in beta for one of my Epson printers. I would have not waited six months for Vista, nor do I have any plans to go out and purchase it for any of my other machines, but I can't say I'm unhappy that I waited a month to get it on my new-ish system. The Vista Media Center is EXCELLENT and in my opinion is unmatched by any other software or dedicated box. Microsoft could dominate the PVR market if they released a Zune TV device that basically booted straight into WMC without the Windows UI anywhere to be seen. Let me sync recorded shows to a Zune 2.0 device and Apple's hold on the handheld media device market would begin to wane. Some of the adjustments to Explorer and the Start menu are nice and improve the usefulness of both a little bit. My biggest problems with Vista aren't Microsoft's doing, they are the third party developers who dragged their feet even knowing full well that Vista was coming out and they knew what they had to do to make their software compatible. There really is little Microsoft can do to get developers to use user accounts properly (which have been a apart of NT from the start, Vista is the first time Microsoft has enforced their use). I really don't see the need for anyone other than corporate customers to downgrade to XP.
My boss bought me a vista machine for work. It's gathering dust nicely.
Oh, I'll put it to use eventually, but likely after the first major patch level
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This just goes to show you that Joe Consumer out there will use whatever he is comfortable with. I know several non-technically-inclined people who took advantage of an "OS version revision (not a downgrade necessarily)" to XP just because they don't like how slow their new computers were running and they didn't like the San Quintenesque security of Vista.
I also know several people who still use Windows 98 on their home machines just because they like it. Sure they can't get new Windows Updates and finding new software is damn near impossible but they like it.
On the other hand, I do know a handful of people who like Vista and actually prefer it over XP. Not for the security, but for the "WOW". Of course their systems are superlative in every respect to performance.
This "use what you like" thing may be why Mac OSs do so well. I mean, what really has changed from UI, performance and security perspectives that can be easily seen since OS 10.0?
Change is a bitch. I know. I know. Get off my lawn.
The game.
Ditto. I'll buy a linux pre-loaded laptop before I get Vista.
www.purevolume.com/martyd
I thought this was a joke and then looked it up and it's actually true: The post-Vista version of Windows in development has been dubbed "Windows 7. So it's really true -- the Windows OS is finally catching up to that revolutionary MacOS from 1991, System 7. Windows users will finally be able to take advantage of such innovations as QuickDraw and Balloon Help Congratulations Microsoft!!
By some people, maybe, but I got Windows 95 on my first Pentium machine, and it was superior in every way to the Windows 3.11 on the machine it replaced. Vista hasn't shown us that they sort of night-and-day difference between itself and XP. Yes, Vista will be shoved down our throats eventually, but it will be a very long time before the Vista installed base is >= the XP installed base.
So what are the chances that this refocusing will means that the friendly people at Microsoft kindly force down peoples throats "security updates" or "new features" that are the hallmark of Vista's 'digital-content protection comes before basic OS functionality' program to either:
A: subtly cripple XP in the name of security to make Vista less unappealing; or
B: Bring XP 'up-to-date' with Vista's most important 'features' so they can get their new DRM platform either way?
Or Xp = Slurm Classic?
Brett
1. Ultimate, Premium, Basic, Business, Enterprise... versioning rip-off. If Xp Home vs.Pro didn't piss enough people off? 2. Licensing - A 1x transfer? Businesses should stay away just for that reason alone. 3. Resource inflation. The amount of hardware you have to throw at Vista is ridiculous. 4. UAC. The epitomy of the Are you sure? box. 5. WinFS? ZFS? 6. The changes in the windows interface since 98 is schizophrenic I like the search implementation. I would guess if you bought ME you'll buy Vista. Otherwise there's a _LOT_ of work that needs to be done to convince me (and my customers I support).
Not so much because of "huge" business demand - businesses would probably be happy to sit on their hands for a while and let vista mature - but the OEM's, HP et all., will not want businesses to sit on their hands (i.e. not spend money), and if a "Vista only" machine is forcing buyers to be more cautious when ordering 100 new machines then HP will want XP back in the catalogue to make the sale a bit more likely.
Last evening, I met with the IT chief of a large transnational bank, for whom we develop Enterprise code. I asked him about what software platforms are envisaged in the long run, and the process behind evaluation. He said, "Basically we have a Red-Amber-Green colour scheme for software."
.Net; I was surprised to learn that Visual Studio as a whole is 'Amber'! SuSE and RedHat Linux are both green, so is PHP, RubyonRails, Eclipse, Websphere etc. Interestingly, he said the IT staff of several banks get together and discuss matters affecting common issues like this.
Under this scheme, Vista is Red, so is IE7, ActiveX controls, Visual Basic and Visual Basic
So I guess it's the OEMs who are FORCED TO OFFER XP and XP-compatible hardware, drivers and support to their biggest customers. This isn't some gift of charity from His Billness or the new acting Chair-man from Microsoft. Nobody sane would like to willingly downgrade to Vista - simple as that.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
OOh, I figured out how to burn bootable dvd and cd iso's without any 3rd party programs.
Seriously, I just consider it another incremental upgrade. I haven't touched B itlocker and the "Ultimate" apps are vaporware. Its not such a bad OS. Bill Gates scared away all the corporate customers with the "Wow factor" crap. He should have just concentrated on useful new features like the ability to get a commmand window at any folder. IIS people might have some interest in things like that.
And I have not had any problems running Office 2003 and other MS apps that don't require drivers. In fact today, I just got service pack 3 for Office 2003.
People are starting to get all nostalgic about XP. This is weird. It's still the same shitty OS it was 12 months ago. What's next - DOS 3.3?
"... but vista is not where I want to go today or tomorrow. It's a dead end."
If only
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Everything else available at the time was superior to Windows 3.11. Also Win95 was a huge upgrade to DOS and the graphical shell on top - Vista is not a large upgrade to NT but there are a lot of changes in the graphical shell. A lot of us care a bit about graphical shells but not enough to put up with Vista: if the applications cannot run as quickly on the same hardware then it is just not good enough. Currently many of the applications that run on Vista still run on win2k and XP - also some applications do not run reliably on Vista.
If I understood TFA correctly.
[But I get your point.]
XP has been several years in the wild, Vista, not even one.
XP is a solid platform, even if it isn't as secure by design, it still works and can be secured with the right knowledge (i.e don't do stuff as 'root')
Of course Microsoft will offer the more stable platform is customers really want it. Who is dumb enough to really think Vista is yet as mature as XP yet - and even with the same level of support, even now? Either way, the licence fees are the same and go to the same place, so guess what, Microsoft still win. Nothing to see here, move along please.
throw new NoSignatureException();
This is just M$ offering the same thing to other vendors, who are probably losing a lot of business to people who want XP and can only get it from Dell.
I thought business users with "Software Assurance" had "downgrad rights" all along, so that this only really has an effect on SMB and the vendors themselves - people hate Vista and sales are down all around where people have no choice. Oh wait, the downgrade rights were just theoretical, not practical:
Anyway, this little consession seems extremely limited. It only applies to the most outrageously expensive versions of Vista and XP comes as a disk, not installed most if not all the time:
The terms are confusing but my guess is that they are trying to drum up interest and sales, not really make things easier.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Business users can see that Vista will:
a) Cost them millions.
b) Most likely cause a lot of incompatibility problems.
c) Not increase their productivity one bit even when they finally have it all working.
It's a lose-lose proposition for them.
No sig today...
It's the natural evolution of a market. Frankly, it took a perversely long time, most likely due to Microsoft's monopolistic hold on pre-installed operating systems. They can't complain. They made a few bucks while it lasted, and are making more still.
Don't forget that you can use Boot Camp (which should be out of beta and installed by default for the Leopard release) to install Windows XP (or, perish the thought, Vista) and then play your PC Games anyway. Of course, you're probably better off sticking to the Wii, but the option is there.
I ordered a Dell notebook recently with XP Home - cut a few $$ off the price since Dell ain't shipping with Ubuntu in my country (yet). XP is now confined to a 20GB partition for use on "foreign jobs".
One thing I noticed is that after removing all the crapware, XP bells & whistles and tweaked the services (including the ream of services and process that make up the Intel PRO wireless bloat) I had a lean and efficient OS.
If they chose to, I'm sure MS would sell more copies of Windows Fundamentals than some flavors of Vista. The egg on face may hurt their pride, however.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Several weeks ago I had to buy a system from a local brick & mortar store because one of our accounting systems was beginning to fail. However all of the systems were preloaded with Vista and the company that developed our accounting software wasn't "certified" that is would work on Vista yet. So I had to buy Windows XP erased the preload Vista and then migrated all of the files from the old system and it started right up. This made me think, why does a hardware manufacture have to load the OS on the system. I know there is some stupid marketing agreement between MS and the HW manufacture but shouldn't the buyer have some say in which version of OS they have to load? I know that Vista is the latest and greatest but like other major OS updates in other operating systems developers the applications and hardware drivers may not work when upgraded so like most IT dept and people I have to wait for the application to be "certified" for Vista. MS and the HW manufactures need to stop forcing us to buy only certain configurations in stores and have some flexibility in buying HW.
The fundamental security flaws in the APIs that Windows has been burdened with are still there. They're not going to go away, if Microsoft is still keeping them there after 10 years of vigorous exploitation. Adding more "mitigating factors" to try and reduce the danger once your system is penetrated through one of them is useful, yes, but the bottom line is still the same... security is like sex... once you're penetrated you're ****ed.
The article states that MS will no longer issue licenses for XP after 2009. If I download a copy of Win XP, will MS be able to claim lost income (since they refuse to sell XP)?
And should a software company be able to shut down free distribution (bittorrent, etc) of an older, but extremely popular OS, that they don't want to sell anymore?
and hated it, unstable and buggy to say the least. Installed Vista Business x64 last week and I'm very satisfied. It won't boot Fedora 7 off my main machine, but many of the issues are being ironed out. It is different and requires some re-learning and discarding of old habits/notions, but it isn't the junk that so many make it out to be. Too many people on tech forums have begun to sound like old women to set in their ways to learn something different.
Quote: "... I also feel my stomach turning upside down seeing what they did with Vista as a whole."
As others have suggested, maybe it is better to skip Vista completely, the non-drug method of curing stomach upset.
Dr. Death has arrived. After only 3 years, requiem for an OS: Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death, ready to kill software prematurely that customers want to use. He has decided that Windows XP will die soon: January 31, 2008.
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and some of the fixes were not documented. The really major problems in Windows XP stopped only after SP2 was released, on August 25, 2004. That means we have gotten only 3 years of good use from Windows XP.
Rule number one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by circumstances, never move to a new version of Windows until the second service pack is released. Let other people have the grief.
(Someone said that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service packs much more often. If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule to "until the X service pack...")
It has been 3 years since WinXP Service Pack 2 was released, even though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170 Megabytes of files, a difficult problem when there is no internet connection or only a dial-up connection. The Windows XP updates of just August's Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes. Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using Windows XP.
New versions of Linux are released to make a better OS. New versions of Microsoft Windows seem to have the purpose of 1) killing the old version and 2) using more CPU power so that it is necessary to buy new hardware. When you partner with Microsoft, you partner with a company that may sometimes choose to be your enemy, in my opinion.
It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive. Microsoft's adversarial behavior is expensive, too.
but I was at home visiting my peoples last month, and I scanned a class reunion photo at a high DPI for archiving. Windows Vista Home (new Dell desktop). The file was 300MB. I stuck a blank CD in the drive, some software popped up, I dragged the file over, and it burned the file to the CD. Well, actually, it kinda hung. So I rebooted and tried again. Same result. Had to catch my flight, so I got back and tried the CDs in my computer. Coasters. Is there some clever way to burn data CDs in Vista? I hope DRM controls weren't the problem.
Heh, exactly. When going back to an older, more stable, less bloated version of something, I prefer to call it "retrograding" (sounds a lot nicer besides more accurate ;)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
The reason they are starting to do this is because the US government has just bought licenses to put it on their networks. The new Standard desktop Configuration (SDC) next month is going to be Vista. Microsoft figured that once they got the gov to use Vista they are now home free. Now it is only a matter of time for gov techies experienced with Vista to trickle into the civilian market. This is only a show of their new found confidence.
t
Only if I want to.
Maybe I'm doomed to upgrade from XP, but it will either be a complete negation of my Windows use (I already run Linux 99% of the time), or I'll upgrade to some version after Vista. Maybe another service pack, maybe a whole other OS.
Remember ME? I never had to upgrade to that piece of shit. I just went straight to Linux, nuked my 98 partition until 2K became viable.
Not as many, but still plenty. Also, to many people, WoW is gaming, and that has a native OS X version, and works well under Wine.
By the way, gaming is completely irrelevant to the question of Windows on the desktop. It's corporations that rule the desktop. What they demand, Microsoft delivers. If they want XP, then they will get it. If they want certain things fixed in Vista, they will get it.
Ever heard of a little company called "Dell"?
Microsoft may not give a shit about their consumers, but Dell seems to.
No, the UI change is to make them have to use less of your brain. XP didn't seem to make people smarter, did it?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If Dell/HP have to pay vista-like prices for the XP licenses I could see Microsoft having no problems at all.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
This is the same old thing just a different name.
Every single OS was a terror to use when it first came out.
(Examples Windows 98 was junk till SE, Me was junk and was replaced by 2000, XP was junk till SP2)
This is just like all the rest.
As a Dell Reseller, We told Dell that we would look else where if they didn't Offer Xp Pro on there Business class systems.
With in a week they switched back to XP.
Installing vista on a business machine would be like installing "Longhorn" ( now known as Server 2003 )when everyone else was using Server 2000. Its just not Smart. (From a business perspective)
As an IT Tech. The newest OS is only for games and those on the bleeding edge of technology.
The Business world always stays one step behind. Its safer there.
I used Vista today - it's more of the same.
Microsoft internal text: Primary changes per release
1) Change location of 50% or more of system utilities.
2) Change "theme" of GUI.
3) Change names of common default programs.
4) Require faster hardware for "shiny" effect X.
?
Windows 1.0 --> Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1/3.11 --> Windows 95
Windows 95 --> Windows 98
Windows 98 --> Windows 98SE
Windows 98SE --> Windows ME (ugh)
Windows ME --> Windows 2000
Windows 2000 --> Windows XP
Windows XP --> Windows Vista
So....again, I fail to see how they're breaking their self-induced mold.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I've already done this myself several times. The end user can do it themselves. When was the last time you did anything other than *read* about computers?
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
I was standing at the customer-service desk of a computer store yesterday (MicroCenter, a slightly more clueful big-box store than CompUSA or its ilk) and a guy walked up to the desk next to me. Basically, the guy wanted to know "what the hell was wrong with his computer." Some sales drone had sold him on a Vista laptop, and he got it home before discovering that it wasn't what he expected a computer to look or feel like. Long story short, the guy ended up returning the unit and exchanging it for one of the two models they still stock that come preinstalled with Windows XP.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'm curious why people choose to leave Microsoft for a company which does even more DRM and lock-in...
Maybe because their stuff works?
But it does raise the question -- why not Linux? It'd be much cheaper.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Maybe I haven't been keeping up, but wasn't there a performance issue specific to soundcards and network cards? Not just some, but all? (As in, play music and your network performance drops to 10% -- not by 10%, but to 10%.)
Maybe for the eight-core, sixteen gigabytes of RAM, or 3 terabytes of storage?
You get what you pay for...
Wait, are you talking about Linux or Vista?
Linux has been ahead of Windows for a long time now, in every way except ease of use and application support. Ease of use is subjective, and largely a result of how familiar something is -- obviously, if you've used Windows all your life, Windows is easier for you to use. Application support is a direct result of which OS is most popular -- a chicken and egg scenario.
It's only very recently that Microsoft has started to catch up in things like security -- by basically ripping off sudo. In fact, just about every improvement you see in Vista was taken from somewhere else.
Why bother, when I have a perfectly functioning Bash?
But no matter. With Mono, there's a good chance I'll have PowerShell eventually, if I care.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Well, this just proves that Microsoft is retarded. I've never ever heard anything else like this before. It's almost as if they want Vista to fail.
Bought a new Acer laptop yesterday, one which came with Vista Basic. I've been MSFree for 8 years, but I'll leave it on there, since I can use IE to check websites during development. Thought I'd see what all the Aero buzz was about, too - though I had my doubts aboutit running very well, what with only 512M RAM.
:rolleyes:
Setup of the win partition of the laptop - how it *should* be done (remove all extra crap - trialware and Norton etc, turn off unnecessary services, install FFox/AVG/ZA/etc) - took _over 3 hours_, and this is with the OS ***pre-installed***, and even more amazing - without doing any MS updates... This is still a bare bones OS at this point in time - no office/productivity/fun software, nothing but the basics, a bare minimum. And it won't even let me try Aero - for some reason (might need more RAM, or a better vid card/chipset, or both, or more).
Then I partitioned the drive, installed Mepis 6.5.02 + an additional 225M of updates and my favorite/needed apps (graphic, code, & video editors, etc), and that whole process took just a little over 1.25 hours, with no reboots at all. Wireless (Broadcom chipset) worked right out of the box, as did proper video resolution, sound, touchpad, etc etc. I've got more software than I'll ever use, and as a bonus - the Beryl 3D window manager works just fine, and is quite impressive.
Funny that this story got posted, one of my searches today was checking to see if I could downgrade the win OS to XP. But the more I think of it, the story of my experience just yesterday only hammers home what I've known for the last 8 years:
MS Windows pretty much just sucks, for me. In every way imaginable.
My experience with Vista underscored just how much Freedom I have had these past 8 years, and how much that means to me.
Time to make some more donations...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
When you have no internet connection, the vast majority of those 170 MB of files are completely unnecessary. It's hard to get hacked over a non-existent wire, no matter what vulnerabilities you leave wide open.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
It has been 3 years since WinXP Service Pack 2 was released, even though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170 Megabytes of files, a difficult problem when there is no internet connection or only a dial-up connection. The Windows XP updates of just August's Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes. Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using Windows XP.
I don't mean to defend Microsoft, afterall their actions that treat me like a criminal have caused me to migrate to Linux and OS X, but doesn't MS offer upgrade disks now? I ordered one online several years ago and paid $20 for it. I got it in the mail within a few days.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So far, very few VPN clients have been released/recoded for Vista. That's a definite deal-breaker for me, and the reason I 'unofficially' asserted my downgrade rights with my recent Dell laptop. Like I'm gonna run an an XP VM just to have some IPSEC love! Right!
It would be interesting to see how MS count this. Have they now doubled their sales and halved the price?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Hmm, there has been ISO burning tools in the free Microsoft Resource Kit Tools package for many years http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I build the software images at a high-end boarding school and Vista offers us -nothing- that we don't already have with XP. We already dial the UI back to Windows 2000 (we even turn that down some and disable almost all non-functional eye-candy), we already have normal users restricted so they can't infect or break their own systems, we've got DEP and the firewall turned on and exceptions made, and we have indexing on to make content searches super-speedy. When a user wants to install something, they call and ask and if we're comfy with it we can put them (temporarily and remotely) into a group that can admin machines.
All Vista is to me is an updated kernel with higher memory requirements wrapped in a big headache. Our flagship groupware product has a Linux and OS X version, and we're seeing lots of traction on the Mac side this year, and IT is starting to experiment with Linux desktops. I imagine we'll actually switch to Linux with users remoting into Windows terminal sessions rather than try to make Vista work for us. The entire Desktop group is running Macs right now, hidden behind our mandatory PCs, and I've been hosting several 'servers' on my Linux desktop running VMWare for three years and nobody has noticed.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
should be:
Vista: It's New. . .er! Now with even more of the same but in Mac style!
I don't think that would be a wise move. I can see what Apple's response would be, "Why get an imitation when you can have the real thing?"
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't want vista either, I'd rather stick with XP, but I'll be buying it next year, several copies in fact. So will almost everyone on slashdot, unless they're really linux only bods.
I won't touch Vista with a ten foot pole unless I absolutely have to. And I'm not a Linux only person. Actually, while I do have two PCs running Linux one dualbooting Linux and NT 4.0, I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. If Microsoft hadn't decided to treat me like a criminal, which is what Activation, WGA/WPA, and all the spyware is there for, I might of stayed with Windows.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I purchased a Dell for a customer a few days after Vista was launched in Australia (Jan 31st?).
I specifically asked for XP, which they gave at the same price, but also gave an opportunity to download Vista Basic for around $47.
Now that was interesting for me, as I would of been one of the first to demand XP.
I also refused their offer of a widescreen 19" and went for a standard 19" instead.
By the way, Dell Sales still have no idea that their onboard sound chip drivers are crappy and buggy.
I dunno what MS is going to do, but the sales of XP stickered 2nd hand machines here are going to skyrocket, as those who want legal Windows OS that's NOT Vista are going to be hard pressed to find one after Jan 2008.
Here, you can get a 2nd hand Lenovo/Dell/HP on auction sites for around $200 (Intel 2.4-3.4ghz) with XP productID stickers on them. That at least is worth $150+.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
LOL!! My mental 'cue card department' visions of this almost had me wetting my pants from laughing so hard.
/. (Relax on /.? What am I thinking?!!?!?)
Picture this:
A nice little laptop- not fancy, but serviceable...a small but okay battery- gets 2 hours on a full charge...built-in hand crank generator....Hmm!! Need more power!....Ahaa! A human sized hamster wheel hooked to a large generator!...that can be broken down into it's own cart! *hears Frank Zappa's 'Dynamo Hum' in background*....Yes! Yes! The crowd roars!!!
*wakes up*
Thanks for the good old fashioned 'belly laugh' you provided, much needed after a hard evenings work, trying to relax on
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
in 5-10 years we will be complaining about migrating to MS 7 because "It is too buggy and unstable and unfamiliar and resource hungry and... After all, Vista "just works" and is mature and stable and...
I'm curious why people choose to leave Microsoft for a company which does even more DRM and lock-in...
The only lockin Apple has is the OS running only on Apple hardware. Seeing as how Apple is a system's integrator and makes the hardware as well as software, I'm not surprised. That's why and how Apple is able to make sure things "just work". However Apple did at one tyme license the Mac OS to third party OEMs. This was while Steve Jobs was gone. When he was brought back he looked at the numbers and saw that by licensing the OS Apple was losing more in lost hardware sales than they made in licenses, so he ended it.
Maybe because their stuff works?
Yeap! My first computer was a used Mac SE30 I bought in 1992. Up until it died in 2000, 8 year later, the only problem I had with it was that it wasn't expandable. My first new computer was a Windows PC from Gateway I bought in 1997 and it ran Win95. A few months after I got it the harddisk died. One week shy of having it a year the motherboard died. I used it 2 years and in that tyme I called tech support and after going through diagnostics they had me reinstall Windows a half dozen tymes. In 2000 I bought a new HP PC Pavilion running WinME. Again within a year the hdd and mb had to be replaced. Also in 2000 I bought another used Mac, PowerMac 7300/200. It worked until 2006 when it refused to bootup. It lasted me 6 years, and it was a few years old, well maybe 3, when I got it.
But it does raise the question -- why not Linux? It'd be much cheaper.
I bet the single biggest reason why more people don't use Linux is because there aren't many PCs that come with Linux preinstalled. And most people don't install an OS, they just buy a computer from the store, plug everything in and power up. They want it working right out of the box.
FalconShould there be a Law?
.. If you don't like it, DON'T BUY IT. They will get the message VERY QUICKLY after doing that in large numbers.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Openoffice. KOffice. Kontact. Evolution. Gimp. Kopete. Pidgin. Abiword. Gnumeric. Ardour. Scribus. Eclipse. KDevelop. These just off the top of my head.
Face it, Linux has plenty of serious software applications for productive desktop use. They may not have it for what you consider desktop use, which is really too bad, and if Wine can't run your app, maybe there's something worth implementing here. But to say that it has no apps is to... well... not to have tried.
Or, to say there's no "serious" apps is a bit arrogant. Many people have tried the Linux apps, and prefer the Windows/commercial counterpats -- but many people actually do prefer the Linux/free ones. Ardour is a good example here -- many people seem to think there's no competition for ProTools on Linux. And many people seem to think that there's no competition for Linux' entire sound system (JACK, etc), apps included, on any other platform.
Oh, and by the way -- there are actually some very serious apps for Linux which are not free. Maya, for instance.
This goes for you, too. Either you can continue bitching about how bad you think Linux is and spend the next decade putting up with Microsoft's bullshit, or you give it another shot -- after you deal with the hardware issues, by the way, seeing as Linux has to deal with both legal issues and not being preinstalled / having drivers come on CDs from the manufacturer.
I accept some people cannot work with Linux, and applications are the main reason for that. However, GP was generally not talking about applications, and for the people who can work with Linux, I don't often find people who prefer Windows after having given each a fair shot.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Would you like to downgrade your upgrade to a grade that is faster than your current grading? http://www.fonejacker.tv/upgradeings.shtml
The Win API's have never been particularly friendly but "fundamentally insecure"? Don't think so. Of course if you have some overwhelming evidence on the contrary, let's see it. I won't hold my breath.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
According to MS's Windows XP Pro lifecycle page, "mainstream support" for XP lasts until April 14, 2009 and "extended support" (which includes security updates and paid support) lasts until at least April 8, 2014 (the same dates apply to XP Home). That's actually a heck of a lot longer than any other OS AFAIK.
The really major problems in Windows XP stopped only after SP2 was released, on August 25, 2004. That means we have gotten only 3 years of good use from Windows XP. Since XP will continue to get security updates, paid support, and free knowledgebase support until at least April 2014, you should be able to get at least a few more years of use from XP. If you need a bunch of additional licenses, order them before January 31 (to be safe). If you only need a few additional licenses, it should be easy to find old stock after that date.That said, Linux distros have gotten a heck of a lot better since XP was released nearly six years ago. Also, desktop versions of Ubuntu LTS guarantee 3 years of support, which is pretty darned good for a free download that's updated every 2 years (LTS versions).
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Everything else available at the time was superior to Windows 3.11.
Actually, that is far from true. With Windows 3.11 there came some important protected mode features that allowed the user to run multiple MS-DOS programs simultaneously on 386+ hardware. And if you installed 'PC Tools for Windows' you got a vastly improved File Manager, with powerful features that Microsoft actually licensed in to become part of the new Windows Explorer ('hit F2 to rename a file' is a keyboard shortcut that came from that, for instance). The peer to peer networking in Windows 3.11 is essentially the same as that in Windows 95.
There were a LOT of reasons to not immediately abandon Windows 3.11 and (more importantly) Office 4.3. It took Microsoft YEARS to come up with an Office version that was less stable and buggy than Windows 3.11 with Office 4.3 on it. It was one of their 'quality plateaus.'
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. There were MANY big problems until Service Pack 2 was released on August 25, 2004.
So, the first 3 years of Windows XP were expensive to support because of problems that were not fixed until 2004. Now, only 3 years later, Microsoft is interfering even more with the use of Windows XP!!!
The interference began when Microsoft failed to release a service pack in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Now, not selling XP is an indication of Microsoft's intentions. Small companies may have installations of Windows XP, but not be able to buy more licenses. Forcing the sale of Windows Vista and then allowing "downgrades" inflates the apparent sales of Vista. If the past is any indication, expect numerous other deliberately generated hassles.
Is that acceptable for an OS? Three bad years and three good years?
I'm just going to wait for Vista SP1 and have it downgrade to XP for me.
There are legal considerations which require a company to support an product (OS) for five years after it is EOL'd. That clock doesn't start counting down until M$ stops shipping XP. Hence the desire to cut off the OEM license.
You obviously are talking about yourself, not those who agree with me. I've been in the industry plenty long (since '85?), and know its history in general entirety. Microsoft's game has never changed. Bait and switch tactic. Mac is pretty much the same, only they're jealous of MS's fanbase.
Linux is an exception because they aren't motivated by money. You can accept the same flaws that are shared between operating systems, but when you're paying $150-250 for an OS and you get the same bullshit error messages and glitches, you feel like you've been jipped. With open source software, you are actually motivated to help report bugs and get involved, because you want to see it thrive and succeed, just as the money-driven OS companies try to do with pushing new products onto customers who don't know any better. When's the last time any of you have hit 'Send error report to Microsoft' when a program/Windows crashed? "Fuck them" I say, they don't deserve to have free bug reporters for their billion dollar company.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You can buy a PC with XP but XP OEM licenses will become unavaililble at some point (according to the MS site linked in the slashdot summary big brand OEM and retail ones will stop in early 2008 and whitebox ones will stop in early 2009). Of course there will be odd copies of whitebox OEM and retail hanging arround for a long time but that doesn't help big manufacturers much.
As a customer you have always had downgrade rights with OEM licenses of vista buisness and ultimate but you had to use your own media (forcing you into a telephone activation for each machine unless you already have big brand OEM media of the right brand or VLK media and forcing you to buy at least one copy retail if you don't already have usable media). According to TFA the big brand OEMs can now ship XP media (and even preinstall XP if they wish) with machines that are licensed for vista buisness or ultimate.
As before home users who buy from the likes of PC world and get vista home basic or home premium OEM are screwed, the only legitimate way for them to downgrade is to buy full retail.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
XP even with no service packs comes with a servicable firewall that blocks incoming connections. Enabling that before connecting the network should be enough to stop you getting owned while updating.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If they want XP, then they will get it
corp licenses come with downgrade rights all the way to windows 95!
Just because MS does something for thier corporate customers doesn't mean they will do it for home and small buisness customers. Small buisness customers have been thrown a bone of one version of downgrade this time and home users basically don't get the choice at all unless they are very savvy (OEM versions of vista buisness and ultimate come with downgrade rights but upgrade versions don't).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Are you kidding me?
Here's a counterexample:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/latit?~ck=anav&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Dell offers XP Home or Pro, in addition to all the Vista licenses, on every single model they sell. I dont know where you found that page, or if its even linked from anything anymore, but you went to some great lengths to cherry pick one old/inaccurate page to try to make a point.
I'm not going to go to the trouble to repeat my research here, but Lenovo, HP, and Dell all offer XP or Vista on every model I could find.
New versions of Microsoft Windows seem to have the purpose of 1) killing the old version and 2) using more CPU power so that it is necessary to buy new hardware.
When an OS becomes "good enough" and people have learned to live with and work around the shortcomings, why upgrade? To provide software developers with jobs?
Automation of boring administrative tasks/ease of communication has gotten about as good as it can get.
iTunes doesn't lockin music. With iTunes I can create a play list and burn it to cd. The only limitation is that I can only burn a specific play list 4 tymes. But I can rearrange the songs and bourn them 4 more tymes. Or I can burn the songs to cd then reimport the cd and do whatever I want. You lose a little sound quality, but then again you loose quality digital vs analogue anyway.
It would seem to me that the smart thing to do here would be to increase the cost of the OS on non-Apple hardware. Remember, not everyone buying a PC is a lost Mac sale, even if they run OS X on it.
And what would the price point be to eliminate lost sales of hardware? $500? $1000? If OS X is licensed at a high price what OEM would license it? With a starting price of $2500 for a Mac Pro if a license were sold for $250 10 clones would need to be sold to make up for the lost sale of 1 Mac Pro, actually it would be more like 8 or 9 because of the saving in the cost of the hardware. And then, who's going to pay for and test the clones so they "just work"? Because when clones start crashing Apple will start to look bad, "Macs aren't any more stable than Windows PCs". I wish it were financially feasible for Apple to license OS X, but I don't see a way for it to work.
I bet the single biggest reason why more people don't use Linux is because there aren't many PCs that come with Linux preinstalled. And most people don't install an OS, they just buy a computer from the store, plug everything in and power up. They want it working right out of the box.
Every time I hear this, I wonder if there's any money to be made in the pre-installed Linux market. Dell seems to think so, and they haven't even bothered to do it right.
More and more OEMs are preinstalling Linux on PCs now, I bought one about a year ago. One thing that prevented this before was Microsoft's licensing of Windows, in order to get the OEM pricing for Windows OEMS had to pay a license for every PC sold whether Windows was installed or not. It may still be the case but I don't think so now, so some OEMs are willing to try Linux in their lineups.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Iirc, with no service packs, in XP the network came up before the firewall. You had to make sure you weren't connected when you booted XP. I believe that was fixed after it became widely known. Not positive as I was natted to a Debian box running a firewall which had dialup access the only time I ran XP w/o updates. (I had restored the factory image after repartitioning the drive to dual boot with Knoppix.)
OS/2, Xenix, Linux, Novell, whatever apple was doing - everything else available at the time was superior to Windows 3.11. That is why I moved to linux back then, so I could get my 14,400bps modem to run at the speed instead of the software limited 9600bps.
Remember when Windows Me was supposed to be the next step for home users? Most people ended up staying on Windows 2000 or Windows 98 after they found out what a steaming pile Me was. Seems the same is happening to Vista. After 5 years of debugging, XP works pretty much the way it should, and no one wants to switch to yet another M$ product which is 3 years of development away from being prime-time. They reached their peak with Windows 2000. Maybe they should have taken the lessons learned from that: make an OS that just works.
You're parroting a lot of dogma. And lining up an assortment of apples, orange, tomatos and melons, and making claims about which one was 'best' at the time.
All the OSes you cite had 'better' and 'worse' attributes depending on the need and the application. You're surely not going to claim there was a better office suite for Linux or Xenix back then than Office 4.3 for the 'doze?
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Windows 95 was superior in every way to 3.1. Same way that Windows NT/2000/XP was a major jump in architecture over Windows 98se/ME (MicroKernel, NTFS support for large files).
Upgrading required some effort and carried some risks, but when you were done, you could do stuff you couldn't ever do before! That drove new adopters.
Vista offers us nothing but lipstick on Windows XP. The slightly improved (and majorly annoying) security model and improved memory usage are OK, but they don't make any possible that isn't already there for Windows XP. And the hardware burden is obscene.
I'm making good money putting together machines for non-business customers who want XP on a new machine. I just went through huge hoops to get XP installed on a couple of Toshiba laptops, because they don't have any XP drivers available.
People are only moving to Vista because they are being forced to. By a Monopoly.
That really sucks.
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
Wordperfect. MS Word before truetype fonts were sorted out was garbage and Excel was on Apples and not part of MS Office.
I thought you made a good point and weren't trolling.
Marketing people have different groups of information and they cherry pick whatever puts their company in a good light. Not exclusively MS either.
And you're right that WGA will show lower #'s after people install XP.
MS marketing will still use whatever figures are most impressive even if the implications are dishonest.
Is this really something new? I noticed in the middle of August that the not-so-august " Tiger Direct" was selling some of their machines with either Vista or XP. Of course, the ones that were offered with either OS were about $30 more for XP than for Vista.
The only thing WordPerfect had going for it was the rich amount of tech support the company offered to Secretaries across the land. It was very EMPOWERING, we should say, for the 'guru' in each office who knew all the alt-control-flipperdoor-F4 and such key combinations to accomplish each task. It promoted an oligarchy of 'gurus' nationwide and let them feel important.
That's what WordPerfect was. It died when Truetype fonts came into being, BTW, because that deadweight of 'Wordperfect gurus' couldn't maintain their status of 'power' in the office when everybody got better, more graphical tools, but they clung to the feeling of power the old WordPerfect (which they were THE EXPERTS in using) gave them and essentially held it back long enough that the Windows version was never a success. WordPerfect was already near dead, BTW, when the Office 4.3 that I cited had come into being, so I was talking about a later period, when WordPerfect was already a rusty wreck.
I am far from a zealous Microsoft advocate these days, but the 'computers for the regular people' thing gelled bigtime with Windows 3.11 and Office 4.3. That's just history the way it was. You probably were still coding dBase stuff (or had you jumped on the 'Clipper' bandwagon) at that time.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Linspire is neither free nor open source, which kind of defeats the point.
When you pay for Linspire you pay for support and for some of the codecs and other software. While Linspire does include some commercial software there's also Freespire.
As a guy who knows what he's doing, I like taking a vanilla Kubuntu, stripping out the parts I don't like, adding the stuff I know is good (Medibuntu, nvidia-glx-new, the WineHQ repositories), and ending up with my own system.
At first I was thinking of installing Ubuntu once I got my Macbook Pro, however now that I have it I'm wonder what good installing it would serve. I installed X11 as well as Fink so I can download, install, and run X software. Other than learning Ubuntu, I know of nothing I could do with Ubuntu I can't do currently on my MBP. I can use the terminal to learn at least some basic commands. And while I can install either or both WINE and CrossOver, I don't know of any Windows software I know I want to use. Maybe XMLSpy which I've used and like on Windows however I first want to tryout <oXygen> XML Editor
FalconShould there be a Law?
http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/13/enable-vista-aero-in-windows-vista-home-basic/
Haven't yet tried this, but will - and will update w/results when I have.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
The parent to the above was correct - there is an 'Aero Theme' that can be enabled for Vista Basic, but no 'Aero Glass' transparency or 3D effect/desktop like Beryl.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain