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Microsoft Extends XP's Life By 6 Months
hairyfeet writes "Despite Microsoft releasing Windows Vista more than nine months ago the adoption rate has not been as Microsoft hoped. Bowing further to pressure from OEMs and consumers, Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP, which was due to end sale by OEMs on January 1 next year, to a new date of June 30. Asked if this was an indication of a strong demand for XP, a Microsoft representative sought to downplay the extension, stating 'We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.'"
Depends on what your definition of "is" is...
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Jan 1 -> June 30? Isn't that 6 months?
Jan 1 to June 30, wouldn't that be 6 months. Or did they use Excel to do the math?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Microsoft made a product so appealing to the users that they don't want to switch. Not even to a newer version.
Sooner or later this was gonna happen.
Ahem...On my calendar, January 1 to June 30 is SIX months, not five.
-- John Dierdorf, Austin TX
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
What happens to the activation servers long after the products (ie 2000 and XP) are out of extended support?
Plain and simple. I'm no big fan of MS, but XP is really a decent piece. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
> We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.
A certain element? What a lovely way to degenerate paying customers who have no interest in being force-fed your latest horse shit product!
Pressed for clarification, the Microsoft representative continued:
Q: "Would you term the market's adoption of Vista as slow?"
A: "We wouldn't term it slow, we would describe it as approaching that of a sloth on valium."
Some factors affect the uptake of Vista:
1. It needs a lot more RAM. Or atleast people seem to think so.
2. People are waiting for it to "settle down" - probably until Service Pack 1 is released.
3. There is a lot of confusion about different Vista versions.
There is also the issue of some drivers not being available. But things will settle down soon enough. One year is not that long of a timeframe to wean marketshare away from one operating system monopoly to another.
2+2=5 for very large values of 2.
Shouldn't this posting say VISTA extends XP's life by 6 months?
;)
"A certain element" brings to mind people like communists, terrorists and deviants. Now we'll have to add Vista deniers to the list. Maybe they should be branded as as "countervistarian subversives" and shunned appropriately.
With the release of this story - Doesn't this appear that MS may have been pressured a little too much in getting the Vista product out the door?
Charge people buying the internet FUD on Vista for XP today..... and then charge them again a year later when they have to upgrade to Vista!
That element being, y'know, everyone who's tried it...
...but it was inevitable. Think about it: while Windows Vista is a great operating system and a recommended upgrade from Windows XP, it has been shown all too many times that there are still growing pains evident with it. There are many drivers that are still being tested and revised due to vastly new frameworks implemented by Microsoft (Creative's situation immediately comes to mind, even though it's thankfully been resolved). Furthermore, there are many software packages that have or will definitely have compatibility issues with Vista (financial applications are a huge example of this, since they tend to be much more conservative. I'm not including the super-large firms that absolutely need to continue relying on extremely antiquated software).
While officially removing Windows XP support will be mostly transparent to end users, developers will be forced to migrate all of their time and energy to a new operating system with a lot of changes under the hood instead of spending time steadily updating current software while researching and testing compatible Vista software as well. Many IT managers and decision-makers will have to devote much more energy to supporting Vista faster, which can result in less-than-stellar results (it's corporate habit to accept a new operating system much later than their introduction).
I think this is a good way for Microsoft to ensure that they keep the risks of transition as minimal as possible. Vista migration will undoubtedly happen, but it's best that it is slow and exceptional rather than rapid and disappointing (as many users are quickly finding out).
XP = Reliable sports car, great aftermarket support, uses regular gas Vista = Unreliable exotic, bad aftermarket support, uses premium only
...the allegations that their users claimed Vista is a pile of manure, the representative said "We wouldn't term it manure, we'd say it has very strong properties, promotes groth and has fertilizing capabilities."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are a lot of areas where Vista isn't really up to par, for example, A lot of pro audio hardware doesn't yet work with Vista, and also there are latency issues when doing pro audio work in Vista. Also IMO opinion Vista isn't suited for doing development work yet.
With so many applications where Vista isn't suitable, to not continue to offer XP would just hurt the computer sellers.
"We need to find a way to screw up XP so much that people will want to migrate to vista"
"We need more time to deaccommodate a certain element that has been better than we expected"
Go figure.
Whoever came up with that tag is my hero.
Technoli
That certain element is carbon. As in every life form.
like all unix and unix derivative operating systems organizations. Yes, yes, I've often heard that Apple makes stuff for geeks only and that people who are new to computers should steer clear of Apple and stick with good 'ol proven Microsoft Bob.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They're doing this because Vista has been such a flop and almost a waste of money at this point. People are backing out of Vista and rolling their OS's back to XP (some of the smart ones are switching to linux entirely). Vista is a complete nightmare and the only way to somewhat satisfy the customers is to extend support to XP. I guarantee you XP will be extended past June because there is no way they are going to fix it and gain customer confidence in Vista all before that date.
"Extends XP's Life"
If I were a Windows user, this language would make me sick to my stomach. This is the reason I use GNU software: the "life" of that software is as long as somebody wants to use it. RMS isn't sitting in the offices of the FSF waiting to pull the plug on Linux 2.6 so that people have to buy Linux 2.8; (this might upset Linus a little bit too). Moreover, even "dead" GNU programs can come back to life, if somebody is willing to dig up the body and run it through the compile-o-matic.
If the market wants Windows XP, let them buy it until there isn't enough plastic left on Earth to mint another CD. Software can't "die" unless a very greedy vendor decides to murder it in cold blood. "Extends XP's Life" should be rewritten "Decides Not to Shank XP/XP Users".
Microsoft is playing chicken with the free market, and they are going to lose.
by its real name? MS Windows Ooops, thereby making it more compatible with Gooooogle ???
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Microsoft should abandon Vista, port the spiffy graphics back to XP, add a few more bells and whistles, and release the incrementally enhanced XP under the name Vista.
That plan worked for Apple with Mac OS 8, didn't it?
Oh, wait--Microsoft made the mistake of releasing VIsta. Too bad.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
This doesn't seem like a huge disaster for Microsoft to me.
These people are still buying a MS Windows license. Maybe they'll even buy an upgrade to Vista later.
-Dave
By 'certain element' they mean almost everyone, and by 'more time' they mean 'forever since they refuse to upgrade'.
And they said zombies weren't real!
I sure wish people would apply the same pressure on ALL products that require activation or one to jump through hoops after the purchase is made. Maybe boycotts do work...Watch out, Walmart.
What?
They obviously thought they'd give it a few extra months of effort to perfect the new features introduced by the service pack.
http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/09/28/vista-rants/
Deleted
Microsoft has learned the lesson of the boiling frog, and this is a really smart move on their part. It's going to take a while for their customers to get used to the shackles of DRM (or Microsoft Genuine Advantage TM) before they stop chafing with all the new checks, slowdowns, monitoring, and restrictions. They wouldn't want to many customers to jump out of the pot while they still can.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
XP sucks. It simply sucks less than Vista.
Deleted
Microsoft representative sought to downplay the extension, stating 'We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.'
Hmm...
Journalist: "Did Vista fail?"
Microsoft Representative: "I wouldn't say it failed. I'd say it successfully failed in succeeding to fail in successful failure."
Journalist: "Oh.. right, exactly what I had in mind!"
It's just so transparent when companies spin things, it hurts. And you know behind the curtains they shout and curse and spit, and say things like this:
"I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) [..] our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, [..] I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products. I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft."
And, as you know, this is an actual quote from Jim Allchin's private email to Gates and Ballmer. Regarding Vista. Not quite like their public claims of vicious unstoppable wildfire Vista success, now, is it.
Who got their man unit fried exactly?
Or is it that users remember the havok it caused when the switch from win98 to winxp occurred and are just afraid?
Those of us who support Linux, I stated on the last article like this, the slower adoption of Vista is, the more time it buys Windows users. So consider this. What happens if we get a "Golden" Wine that can run some killer Windows App XP can, Vista can't. All the sudden you have a small targeted dent in MS's market share that makes a big dent.
What are some ways the calculating Linux user can use this to further undermine MS?
I've used vista and there are many thing that I dislike about it, not least it appears to have been designed by people from Marketing. I like my interfaces to be simple and clean, where as vista has too much going on, too many controlls within controls and special effects. I was very happy with the Win 2K and XP's interface.
Another thing that bugs me are the X million flavours, can we just stick to Server, Pro and Home! and as to why the new functionality can't be integrated into XP is beyond me.
Finaly the resourses it take to run (largely because of a bloated GUI IMHO) are way out of proportion.
Now I'll admit I am a bit of a technical Luddite but I will move forward if I can see a benifit... with vist I see it not.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Why should a product that's designed to be used in a production environment receive an end-of-life? Shouldn't they have various platforms with ongoing support for different end-use? For example, companies have built software on Windows XP that refuse to work on later versions, or later versions have different properties (i.e. certain APIs no longer supported, 3rd party companion software that won't run on the new OS, different security model imposes different behaviour in the new OS, different licensing schemes not compatible with the software)... if MS cares about its developers that have invested in the platform they put out, wouldn't they keep supporting them? How could developers choose to program for a platform that's essentially a moving target that they can never lock down, and that they have to keep paying MS to use their own software, and even make changes to their software to accomodate MS's changes in their OS? Plus, every time you want to sell your solution to a customer, you have to charge them for MS's products as well. If you have software that requires Windows and Office, and you sell it to someone, you have to sell them Office and Windows and whatever other applications along with it, promoting MS's product, or at least putting your customers in the same position that MS is putting you in as a developer. Except that MS's support and guarantees are limited by their EULA. Isn't programming on Windows like an endless chase? Does it pay off in any way?
Twinstiq, game news
"We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time."
Like I said, Microsoft sells lies, not software. No Microsoft employee authorized to talk to the public - and most that aren't - are anything but liars.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Argue financial success and marketshare all you want... Apple is known as the "easy to use" brand and Microsoft is not. Apple gets heaps of praise for making attractive and intuitive products, and Microsoft usually does not.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Some people won't move to the next Windows until SP2. A lot won't move until SP1 is out. SP1 isn't ready yet, ergo, accomodate the wait-for-SP1 crowd.
You'll see a lot of other interpretations on Slashdot, but I just don't see them bearing out for most businesses or in the non-Slashdot world in general.
Ouch!!
* Windows 3.10 was introduced on 3/18/92.
* Windows 95 was introduced on 8/24/95, with people at the stores at midnight.
* Windows 3.1x outsold Windows 95 in 1995 and 1996, despite many OEMs offering Windows 95 only. Windows 95 finally outsold Windows 3.1x in 1997.
* Microsoft stopped selling Windows 3.1x and 95 on 12/31/01.
___________________________________
So, if XP was offered with as much longevity as 3.1x was, would it outsell Vista???
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Several articles on this story have pointed out "In addition, the company will continue to offer Windows XP Starter Edition in emerging markets where it is currently available for the rapidly growing class of hardware-constrained ultra-low cost PCs until June 30, 2010." So it looks like third world countries will be able to buy for an additional 2 years.
Microsoft isn't going to sell more copies of Vista until they do stop selling XP, and people no longer have a choice. But stopping all sales of XP now would be suicide for them, so either way they're screwed. I doubt if anything will happen in the additional six months of XP's life that will alter this scenario much, but I guess we'll see.
I was a bit worried about their end of life. Many people in the kiosk industry haven't upgraded from 2000 let alone XP to vista.
My guess is the majority of kiosks you see in stores will be running XP for many years. There is little (no?) reason for these kiosks to upgrade to vista which means in a very short time tens of thousands of machines around the world will be unsupported, unmonitored and over taken by bot networks or trojans.
TruePunk | Games
I work in an organisation who has a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement license so on Vista's launch I installed Vista Enterprise on a pretty crappy work PC (Dell GX240) and Vista Ultimate on my home PC (self made Athlon XP 2000+) to see what it was like and I still use them daily.
And I have had no problems with instability and apart from an obscure Belkin USB IrDa device I have had no problems getting other devices to work, either with Vista drivers or XP Drivers and I find it stable and fast, apart for copying files which is a dog.
At this point you may be thinking "Ah, he thinks Vista is great", but you'd be wrong. I quite like Aero, I love the way Vista Ultimate talks to my XBOX 360, but I'm left thinking "Is that it?" There is nothing there worth the £350 Microsoft is asking for the full version, asking that is taking the piss. The basic version I think is £100.. is it worth that.. even then probably not.
While we have no plans to roll out Vista at work at the moment, we said to any of the IT support staff they could install it if they liked on their PCs/Laptops and only 2 of us (including me) did it out of 120 people.
It seems no-one is really interested or cares about Vista.
Jonathan
~~~~~~~~
http://www.irvtheswerve.net/
'We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.'"
No wonder MS sucks when they hire represantitives who don't know the difference between 'who' and 'which'.
Yeah, plugging in your USB thumb drive and finding out the helper software won't run on Vista is really increased usability. Finding out that your two year old scanner won't work for lack of drivers is increased usability.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
did microsoft find a replacement for vista in just 5 or 6 months?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I'm also supporting about 500 users, all on WinXP pro, and we've got half-a-dozen acting up right now (including one that continually reboots, even after having the HDD moved into a new chassis). XP *is* really good, and Microsoft is pretty lucky that Vista didn't come after, say, Windows 98 or ME, because those are not something they'd want to fall back upon in a situation like this. I guess you don't remember that they also extended 98 because of the instability of XP prior to service pack 2?
XP is useable, and has a nice interface. Same goes for 98, though XP is more evolved. Vista is still half-baked. There are no "stable" non-free operating systems for PC hardware. Yet. There are very few stable free OSes for that matter. Once Vista goes through a couple of service packs it'll most likely be as stable as XP, or better.
MacOSX fanatics can just STFU now. We don't want to hear you prate about your stability, which is no better than any version of BSD or linux and considerably worse than most. You just think your OSX system is stable because you are comparing it to MacOS9.
It seems no-one is really interested or cares about Vista.
That's the bottom line. People don't upgrade their operating system unless they have to. Upgrading is, for most people, traumatic and expensive... unless you get a huge win (like you got going from Windows 9x/Me to Windows 2000/XP) who's going to bother?
This is, I suspect, one reason Apple doesn't want to be making their money from selling the OS. They get their profits from hardware, they don't lose much if someone doesn't bother to upgrade from Jaguar to Panther to Tiger until they finally replace their aging iMac with a new Aluminum one running Leopard.
(you really like those translucent title bars in Vista? I hated the equivalent on Jaguar, and used the Milk theme to make the UI less 'glossy')
I think Vista is slow to be adopted for a few reasons. It's different and non-technical people don't like different. I heard similar things about XP when it came out. It's more restrictive. Getting prompted to do little stupid things is annoying and not being able to do things you did in XP is equally frustrating. Need to upgrade PC's. Many people don't want to run it on their 3 or 4 year old PC and have it run sluggishly. Oh, and activation. I have to say though, I just bought a new laptop with Vista Business and I didn't like it at first either. Now that I've been using it every day along with office 2007, I like it. Of course I had to turn UAC off though. Can't stand that. I think people will warm up to in once they start using it everyday.
"We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.'"
Microsoft Sales Reps
"That's five months--"
"Three, sir..."
Essentially, they spent countless millions on something that is going nowhere and their revenue stream continues to come from a product that has already been established. Since the stock market is forward looking, this completely shakes investor confidence that MS management knows their head from their arse.
...
Armchair all you want, but
Microsoft's 2007 FY financials
scroll down to 'financial highlights':
Revenue is up 15% from last year.
Operating income is up 12% from last year.
Our revenue growth was driven primarily by licensing of the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, both of which became generally available in January 2007, and increased revenue associated with SQL Server, Windows Server, and client access license suites. Foreign currency exchange rates accounted for a $231 million or a two percentage point increase in revenue.
Our operating income growth was driven primarily by the increased revenue and decreased costs for legal settlements and legal contingencies, partially offset by increased cost of revenue associated with Xbox 360 and Windows Vista and increased sales and marketing expenses
They attribute increased income, in part, to Vista. I'm not sure who I believe, you or them
Somebody at Microsoft must be a James Watt fan...
rj
It wasn't long ago that the Mickey Mouse Protection Act extended copyright term by 20 years. Meanwhile, what exactly are they doing about the tens of millions of bot infested PCs, of which the vast vast majority run Windows operating systems, and which increasingly constitutes a threat to national security?
RTFA ... it's 5 months from Jan 31 to June 30.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Suppose a company sells smaller low end computers with slower (fanless) CPUs and tiny RAM (like 128K) as well. Is Microsoft saying these have to switch over to Linux after June 30, 2008? They sure can't run Vista. Even XP would be kinda tough.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That 'certain element' is no doubt Vista. Which is NOT READY for primetime by anyone's standards.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
If the demand for XP is not enough to be termed "strong", then I hate to think what terms might apply to the demand for Vista at this point. The first word I can think of that means "less than ten percent as strong as something that isn't strong" is "weak", but I'm not sure that's really adequately severe.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Vista was designed for the movie industry, but Microsoft forgot that the movie industry is not buying vista, the customers have to. Speaking of lost focus.
It makes no sense to me for MS to stop selling XP. The demand for XP and Vista should occur naturally through consumer demand. Either way, MS gets a sale. Why try to artificially control demand?
But this extension for XP is really about OEMs needing to sell their basic systems. On those computers, Windows XP runs very nicely. Vista doesn't.
When a basic PC comes with 2 GB of RAM, vendors will happily load Vista.
N/A
Why is everyone comparing XP and Vista as if they were Microsoft's only operating systems?
Windows 98 SE is the second-best version so far. Requires patching for current hard drives (>60GB) and processors (>2.1Ghz). Requires Mozilla and ZoneAlarm for security. Unavailable for purchase and unsupported since July 2006, but included here as the previous benchmark.
Windows 2000 did not have driver support for gamers.
Windows XP is a security hole disguised as an OS. Six years of constant patching and constant vigilance by techies installing much "protection from malware" software cannot prevent the average businessperson from being infected at least annually.
Windows Vista is still in development. The OS is incredibly buggy and should only be used by masochists.
Windows 2003 is the current best version. The OS has all the benefits available in any version of Windows. The negative is the poor pricing model: $999 for first 5 licenses, $199 for each additional 5 licenses. Buying one license is expensive, but twenty are only $79.80 each, less expensive than the least expensive version of Vista ($89.95 for Windows Vista Basic Upgrade.)
If you need Microsoft Windows, team with a large number of people to buy Windows 2003 licenses in bulk.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
* BOB was still outselling ME as of 12/01/99
Thats how long of a uptime I had on my home machine (xp pro) that i use quite heavily everyday. I'd never even come close on 95-98, never really tried ME other then in some relatives' houses (pissed me off completely). I'd probably still have long uptimes if I hadn't been messing around and installing random softwares that force resets and my local electric company having short blackouts once a week as of last year >.
Hmmm... Pie...
Absolutely typical of MS to play this sort of thing down. They just don't want to admit that Vista is failing miserably. Another question that needs to be asked: if a user tries to install Windows XP after June 30 2008, will they be able to activate it? If a user needs to reinstall Windows XP a long time after June 30 2008 because of computer problems or reformatting, will they be able to activate it?
who needs "helper software" for a thumb drive? it's a device to store things. not having helper software load sounds like a good thing as far as i'm concerned. oh and i use random thumb drives all the time on my vista box at work and have never had a problem.
I have the feeling there are a number of higher-ups at Microsoft who are simply stunned that Vista wasn't the immediate and total success they've been publicly predicting for some time. What, you people aren't awed and amazed at our technical prowess? Can't you see the wonder that is Microsoft? You need more than eye candy? Really? I think they're completely out of touch.
I also won't be surprised if this extension is extended. People won't readily give up something that works for them, and certainly not when it's going to cost them substantial sums for little benefit. That's why there are still, to this very day, untold numbers of Windows 98 machines still out there. XP does the job, does it well, and people are still willing to give Microsoft money for it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I worked on a vista laptop today, a band new one, took 5 minutes to actually start up and this is using a really powerful intel processor. Later in the afternoon I worked on a windows 98 box, took like at most 30 seconds to shutdown and like 2 minutes to start up, and thats using a pentium 3. Honestly I wish microsoft would make a faster, more stable, and a little less restrictive(xp's was ok) OS, unlike the mutant baby vista they gave birth to a year ago.
Hardware encryption. Nuff said.
Yesterday I bought a copy of XP. The reason why I don't want Vista is that apparently MS has decided that OpenGL shouldn't work on it. If that isn't misuse of monopoly I don't know what is. Many many new adventure games made by independant developers use OpenGL instead of DirectX. I need Windows only to play adventure games, so the choice was a no-brainer. O, and Neelie! We need you to fine them again! Make it 1.5 G$ this time, maybe that helps?
-- Cheers!
So, what is 6 months...
Well, it is among other things another Ubuntu release cycle. It is 6 months of ATI driver development. It is more than the time left in the OOXML process in the ISO. This could be bigger than it appears on first sight...
This post is responding to an AC post likely to be modded to oblivion. I had learned to ignore them, but felt more information might be useful. Hopefully, this post is informative enough to avoid that fate.
My "average businesspeople" do not run Windows XP with administrator rights. I know three people successfully attacked by malware in the last two months. Two do not know the Administrator password because their companies' IT policies are strict. All three are in responsible positions and avoid obvious spam. One reports directly to the Directors of a Fortune 500 company. Another is a CPA finishing a law degree; he was attacked while researching a legal case.
In spite of your poor communication skills, you claim the sense to practice safe computing, but give no basis for judging me. I (painfully) remember Windows 2.0. I do not install protection software on my PCs, yet my computers have never been successfully attacked by malware. I scan MSWord files. My sense is valuable, not common, as proven by my career.
I know many people happy with XP. Ignorance is bliss. XP was designed poorly. Microsoft has written a better operating system, and so my previous post recommends Windows 2003.
Before this thread, my last post was over 14 months ago. Thank you for the very warm welcome back. I think your name is rather appropriate, but you will need to choose another to join this community.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Rotten attitude Microsoft has to call people who are still trying to figure out some way to give Microsoft yet more money for what I see as an overrated product. I have started to become aware that these companies really are disconnected with the understanding that it all really boils down to us, you and me and everyone reading this - ultimately handing CASH over to them for their product over other solutions that may be available. I will be charitable and say that Vista has "issues". Some people, actually many people, don't want to deal with these issues. XP has "issues" too , but people have over time worked with them and accepted all these negatives not to mention it works with the hardware they purchased already. Now, if you keep introducing negatives that are designed to only help Microsoft and its monopolistic ways and they outweigh the benefits of dealing with them you mean hit a point where customers will stop handing over their hard earned cash. I recently removed the last Microsoft product from my machines by erasing Windows XP in favor of a BSD system. I know this is not practical for most folks, as you don't really feel you have a choice because dealing with the hassles outweighs the hassles of a new system. But try to once in a while realize you always have the choice to put up with this sort of nonsense or not and these guys are only able to do what they do because we give them the money to do it (Microsoft tax aside). By the way, my IQ has gone up since removing Windows from my computer.
It took a while, and many false starts... But, I decided to go cold turkey and remove Microsoft from all my computers in favor of some Linux and BSD stuff. Since quitting I have also noticed that my health has been improving. I can actually breath better, and food tastes so much better to me now! I have started exercising, and I am in the best shape of my life. And financially? WOW. I now have far more money then I had before as I am not wasting it with Microsoft. It may seem like your not spending a lot of money with Microsoft, but once you quit, you realize how much it can really add up! My time is more free as well, because I don't waste so much of it during the day constantly having to use Microsoft products rather than be productive. I have noticed that this has caused my IQ to increase and it allowed me to spend more time with my family. I know for some folks out there it may be difficult to quit or you feel you CANT quit, but let me be an example to you that it can in fact be done.
I will need the new machine to run Dragon Age :)
But I strongly hope BioWare is not insane to have a DX10 only version.
Heck, i even hope they'll make a Linux version.
And, if there is only a DX10 version, I'm not THAT craving for a game to buy Vista just to play it.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Refund is good to have, but I wouldn't want to bother with it.
If they can't sell me a machine without crap, i won't buy it.
But I recommend it to people who got time and patience, the more the refund requests the more the hardware vendors think about their Vista offerings.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
"I work in an organisation who has a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement license so on Vista's launch I installed [...] Vista Ultimate on my home PC"
Does your license agreement actually cover installing MS software at home?
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Well, the Windows API hasn't really been a "moving target" for quite a while. Since Windows NT. Yeah, things have been added, but if you followed the rules, a 32-bit app written in 1995 should work just fine on Vista. Games being the exception.
If you follow the API like you say, then you're hamstrung into whatever the API allows you to do... there've been many times when developers needed to use undocumented features and build custom low level code because the functionality wasn't in the API. So in effect, you could only implement whatever MS has implemented already. I'm sure things today are a lot better than they used to be, but there will always be features developers have to implement themselves. If you're always behind MS, then you'll be behind whatever solution they offer, and you might be behind in patents as well. And if you patent it, would MS implement it in their OS and give you royalties on every copy they sell?
Twinstiq, game news
I do agree that Viista is very good, but there are lot of people who think that they cannot use a computer without Wndows XP. i think they need some time to get out of that mind set.
Complete Web Hosting Solutions at eUKhost.com
Do not believe the numbering. My recommendation (and the pricing mentioned earlier) is for Windows 2003 Server R2 Standard edition released in 2005. The OS should have been called Windows 2005 Server since upgrades from Windows 2003 Server R1 were not free.
Windows XP and 2003 both forked from Windows 2000. Microsoft's current development system uses desktop forks as experiments for the next server version.
Windows 3.1 -> Windows 95 -> Windows 98 -> Windows ME
Windows NT 3.1 -> Windows NT 3.5 -> Windows NT 4.0 -> Windows 2000
Windows 2000 -> Windows XP
Windows 2000 -> Windows 2003 Server
Windows 2003 Server -> Windows Vista
Windows 2003 Server -> Windows 2008 Server
Microsoft handles server releases different than desktop releases. Desktop release dates are decided by marketing. Servers are released "when done." No bad servers have been released since NT 3.5 was quickly replaced by NT 3.5.1.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.