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."

Comments

Re:Upgrading must be for a reason

[dougisfunny]

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.

Re:Upgrading must be for a reason

[geekmux]

...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.

Re:Depends of your point of view

[erroneus]

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.
 

Re:Upgrading must be for a reason

[drsmithy]

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

Re:Upgrading must be for a reason

[PsychoSlashDot]

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.

Re:last sentence

[lytithwyn]

Thank you!

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 ./) that they are just now ending sales of Windows 3.x licenses.

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.

Re:last sentence

[ericrost]

Windows Explorer == File Browswer
Internet Explorer == Internet Browser

They share libraries, but are different beasties.

Re:last sentence

[fyngyrz]

What a waste of hardware resources.

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!

If you tell me that Outlook in a winXP VM uses less memory than the same Outlook process in native winXP, I'm calling bull

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?

Don't give me the BS about "I don't need a virusscan/malware checker" if you're running XP in a VM.

I'm running XP in a VM without network access, and yes indeed, I do not need, and do not use, a virus checker.

My main applications at work at Outlook (plus plugins), Visio and various internal websites that use ActiveX controls or require IE (Oracle Projects!).

I'm very sorry.

Btw... don't forget the lessons of OS/2. It could run windows 3.11 applications, but not nearly as fast or efficiently as a native OS/2 Warp app.

Doesn't apply to a virtual machine. This isn't OSX running Windows apps, this is Windows running windows apps.