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The Myth of Upgrade Inevitability Is Dead
Several readers pointed out a ComputerWorld UK blog piece on the expanding ripples of the Vista fiasco. Glyn Moody quotes an earlier Inquirer piece about Vista, which he notes "has been memorably described as DRM masquerading as an operating system": "Studies carried out by both Gartner and IDC have found that because older software is often incompatible with Vista, many consumers are opting for used computers with XP installed as a default, rather than buying an expensive new PC with Vista and downgrading. Big business, which typically thinks nothing about splashing out for newer, more up-to-date PCs, is also having trouble with Vista, with even firms like Intel noting XP would remain the dominant OS within the company for the foreseeable future." Moody continues: "What's really important about this is not so much that Vista is manifestly such a dog, but that the myth of upgrade inevitability has been destroyed. Companies have realized that they do have a choice — that they can simply say 'no.' From there, it's but a small step to realizing that they can also walk away from Windows completely, provided the alternatives offer sufficient data compatibility to make that move realistic."
all they have to do to get their market back is stop releasing security patches or release lower and lower quality patches.
Running XP at 300mhz/64mb RAM might have worked prior to any service packs. However, SP2 in particular increased the requirements quite a bit.
Besides you need to find software that is enjoyable such low-end hardware. My 900mhz/256mb laptop was faster than my desktop when I got it, weeks after XP was released. (Narrow escape from ME there!). Today, just Firefox alone can be pushing it on that machine.
I would guess that is more a problem with Office rather than with XP, as the files mentioned open without problems on a fully updated XP with OpenOffice.org.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
wine?
Why, thank you. A glass of Chablis, please.
Or, if you mean Windows emulation, my experience is that it still breaks more than Vista does. But maybe it won't by the time MS withdraw XP support.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Sounds like you have a virus thats hiding and installs itself from one of your flash drives!
...All in all, I got rid of some showstoppers caused by updating Windows XP, just to be annoyed by simple problems in Vista.
Considering the price tag this software comes with, I can't say I'm impressed with the problems, neither am I impressed with the observation that Microsoft forced me to upgrade to Vista by utterly messing up XP *after Vista was shipped!*
*sighs*
(No, using Linux is unfortunately not an option, as we use software everyday that runs only on Windows... using a Mac would bring forth the same problems, its either Windows or not get any work done!)
Well, while it sounds like you've definitely done your troubleshooting homework, I fail to understand the "several minutes" issue when opening up docs, as we still purchase new machines with XP, patch them up to SP3, install Office 2003, and have never reported that kind of issue.
Yes, SP3 and other updates of late have seemingly bogged down the OS a bit, but still not worthy to weather the pains of Vista compatibility, at least for our business.
It also seems like some kind of cult or addiction the way folks with dodgy Apple equipment (which does look nice) keep going back for more.
I own a iBook, a Macbook Pro, an iPhone, iPod, iPod Nano (recently donated to someone else) and a shuffle.
Not a single one has malfunctioned in anyway. And these machines are the most stable I have had except for a Debian box I used to run all those years ago.
What does this tells us? Not much. It's all anecdotal.
Actual stats from Consumer Reports tells us that of May 2008, Apple notebooks are just as un/reliable as any other manufacturer, and their desktops are statistically more reliable than other manufacturers.
You are merely unlucky.
More likely, it's (yet another) buggy Vista driver by the manufacturer. First NVidia Vista drivers bluescreened all the time, too. Haven't seen a BSOD from them in a long while now, but I guess some more minor manufacturers might not have bothered fixing their drivers after the initial release.
I don't think that is entirely the case. I know from personal experience that every last user at my office who has recently purchased a new laptop or a new PC has asked me to downgrade their operating system to Windows XP after trying it... some even after more than a month of trying it.
People at all levels simply do not like Windows ME... err I mean Windows Vista.
Microsoft needs to own up to its mistakes.
may i ask about details on how vista benefits the support infrastructure?
Off the top of my head:
* Better deployment tools
* Lots more GPOs
* UAC
* Improvements to Folder Redirection
* Improvements to Remote Assistance
* Improvements to Offline Files
* Improvements to diagnostics and error reporting
* Improvements to Task Scheduler
Sorry but this isn't even almost a universally true scenario. I deal with fully patched and current WinXP/Office2k3 (and 2002 and 2007) systems on a daily basis and have yet to encounter this. There's something in your environment causing this and it's not the OS or Office itself. Look to your 3rd-party software and drivers. Like virtually every show-stopping "Windows sucks" bug.
"Oh no... he found the
Thank you!
./) that they are just now ending sales of Windows 3.x licenses.
I wish more people would realize this. Microsoft makes it sound like XP availability is going away completely, but the other day I read an article (probably here on
There is no reason whatsoever NOT to continue using XP after it's support has ended. It has finally stabled out, so further updates are likely to be security only and, as you said, that's not a real issue.
Don't worry, you old pal PC repairman hairyfeet to the rescue. Now what you need to do is download a program alled Dependency Walker. This program will help you to hunt down the source of the problem..
You see usually what happens during a Windows update breakage is a critical DLL gets replaced with a version that doesn't play nice with your apps. Dependency Walker will highlight any missing DLLs that are required for the program in question, which you can then easily download from the web. To use simply launch Dependency Walker and pick file/open and the navigate to the app in question and open it in Dependency Walker. Then Dependency Walker will find all the DLLs and any other files being called by the app and put a large red flag next to missing or incompatible versions. From there it should be easy as pie to fix. I hope this helps, good luck!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Windows Explorer == File Browswer
Internet Explorer == Internet Browser
They share libraries, but are different beasties.
My Babylon
You cannot hotsync a palm pilot with Vista. At All.
On my desktop, I have 16 gigs of RAM, four high-res monitors, and 8 cores @ 3 GHz; that machine hardly even *notices* when XP is running. My laptop has 2 gigs of RAM, just one of which I hand to XP, and 2 cores @ 2.4 GHz. It somehow stumbles along [laughing.] I have to say, you have an amusing perception of "proper" hardware management. I thought these machines were here to do what I wanted them to do. Silly me!
I'm sorry, I thought I'd made it clear that I ran XP in a sandbox, off the net. All my communications, calendering, etc. run under OSX. With this in mind, why would I use Outlook? And why would any XP process use less memory in a virtual machine than in a hardware environment? Do you know what a virtual machine is?
I'm running XP in a VM without network access, and yes indeed, I do not need, and do not use, a virus checker.
I'm very sorry.
Doesn't apply to a virtual machine. This isn't OSX running Windows apps, this is Windows running windows apps.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.