Microsoft Responds to 'Save XP' Petition

DaMassive writes "Computerworld Australia is running a story with a response from Microsoft to Infoworld's SAVE XP petition Web site, which has gathered over 75,000 signatures so far. Apparently Microsoft is aware of the petition, but says it is "listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs, that's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us" — a somewhat strange response given that the vast majority of people signing the petition ARE Microsoft customers! The Save XP movement has attracted the attention of the software giant, despite its claims that Vista has sold more than 100 million copies and its adoption rate is in line with the company's expectations. "We're seeing positive indicators that we're already starting to move from the early adoption phase into the mainstream and that more and more businesses are beginning their planning and deployment of Windows Vista," the company said. Nevertheless vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and more recently NEC, all offer the opportunity to downgrade to XP Pro."

OH GOD

So what they are basically saying is, directx 10 costs $300 and youll never ever have it without ruining your computer

Re:OH GOD

Except for the part where Vista Home Premium costs around $200, and $100 if you get it OEM when building a new computer (or not, newegg really doesn't care). And it doesn't ruin your computer, but thanks for trolling.

To quote a Monty Python episode ... "You're no fun anymore!"

Re:OH GOD

I know I can play Halo 2 on XP using a third-party tool that basically tricks Halo 2 into thinking it's on Vista. I'd link to the site, but I just checked and it's been taken over by advertiser domain squatters.

That's because Halo 2 doesn't actually need directx10. It has a 'is this vista check', and it might use a couple of minor new directx 10 direct3d calls (which can easily be captured and reimplemented in direct3d 9).

The real features of directX10 like Video memory virtualization and gpu multitasking (which allows Vista to have multiple direct3d accelerated applications (including the desktop) all running at the same time in (possibibly overlapping windows).

-That- is (amongst other reasons) why Vista has a new driver model, which in turns needs kernel support. -That- is why it hasn't been backported to XP. -That- is why its not likely to ever get backported to XP.

DirectX10 itself is a MAJOR milestone for windows, for the windows desktop, a step that brings it to parity with what linux and osx can do, in fact.

You aren't going to get a proper Compiz or Aqua class desktop for XP because XP simply can't do this stuff. Vista/DirectX10 can. But, this isn't really important 'for games' and games requiring directx10 is mostly marketing puff using minor features that can be easily redirected via a directx9 wrapper.

This is unfortunately because it undermines just how major directX10 really is, leaving gamers with the impression that its just a cheap tactic to sell Vista. (Which, to the extent of its use by current games; requiring directX10 IS a cheap tactic to sell vista.) But directX10 is quite a bit more than what these games are using. And this cheap tactic is masking that.

Give 'em time

They will push Vista as hard as they can, as soon as they can. Its nice to appear friendly to the XP clients in the meantime, but in the end they want to make sure every computer now comes equipped with their latest VistaWare.

Re:Give 'em time

Exactly.

"...listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs..."

Hearing Microsoft use the term partners and customers always strikes me as resellers and vendors not consumers of Microsoft products.

Downgrade???

"We're seeing positive indicators that we're already starting to move from the early adoption phase into the mainstream and that more and more businesses are beginning their planning and deployment of Windows Vista," the company said. Nevertheless vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and more recently NEC, all offer the opportunity to downgrade to XP Pro."

I'm sorry, did I see the word downgrade there? I'd consider Vista to XP an upgrade myself. Anyhow, kudos to the OEM's for providing XP as an option. It would be nice if more of them also offered linux as an option when selecting the OS. At least Dell does. (Thanks.)

It would be nice if Microsoft would at least extend the System Builder and OEM licenses for a while longer; there's really no reason not to people like XP, and they get money whether people buy Vista or XP. If they stop offering XP, then people may choose to use Linux or macs, and in the end MS may end up losing money.

Re:Downgrade???

Why hang on to the old?
Everyone should be running the newest of Windows, which is Windows Vista! People who still get by with XP are uncool and stick-in-the-muds. Windows Vista on a Wacom-enabled Tablet PC is the way to go! And Windows Vista to me seems much faster with the new wallpapers! I love Microsoft and everything they do. Products like Vista, silverlight.NET and OOXML powered Office 2007 are brilliant. Going forward vista will be the only way to get the latest version of .NET, moonlight and windows-update. I really have a mancrush on Steve Ballmer, too. I love Microsoft! I want a job at Microsoft!

Re:Downgrade???

If they offer XP for too long, Linux and Mac will begin to look significantly better, not to mention projects like Wine and Reactos are being allowed valuable catch up time the longer Vista sits rotting on the vines. Vista like all Microsoft projects is a forced upgrade, if the upgrade does not occur then there is no vendor lock-in, no lock-in, no Microsoft. Microsoft is stuck between a rock and a hard place now and it shows prominently with rumors of Windows 8 looming in the intarwebs.

Re:Downgrade???

"I don't think the OEMs are doing it out of their interest to the customer. They seem to be offering XP bcos else the customer will take his business elsewhere, never to return."

So in other words, they are providing what the customers want... instead of providing what the customers want? I see...

Definition of business partners and customers

int isBusinessPartnerOrCustomer(user) {
      if (isBusinessPartner(user))
            return TRUE;
      if (isCustomer(user) && accountSize(customer) > TenMillion) /* Thin the herd */
            return TRUE;
      return FALSE;
}

Compiler Error:

OP.java:4: cannot find symbol
symbol : variable customer
location: class org.slashdot.it
if (isCustomer(user) && accountSize(customer) > TenMillion) /* Thin the herd */
^
1 error

No Thanks, Microsoft. I'll Run Linux

Because what I want to do today is get my work done.

Vista marketing strategy:

NAH NAH NAH NAH I can't hear you NAN NAN NAN NAN

Re:Vista marketing strategy:

NAH NAH NAH NAH I can't hear you NAN NAN NAN NAN

Funny. I read it as "We can year you. You're just unimportant".

Funny,,,

I've always read XP as an emoticon.

Wow.

I never thought there would be a day when XP would be considered a step up from the current state of affairs.

Then again, these days, Nixon would be considered a step up from the current state of affairs, so...

Re:Wow.

IMO, Windows XP was never really that bad, and I've always considered it a step up from Windows 2000. Most people annoyed about XP was due to the crappy skin, but that's remedied in some time less than a minute by switching to the classic skin (and saving system resources in the process). After having done that, I can only note that XP has better stability than 2000 (ya, rly! I've had registry crashes on 2000 on a magnitude I've never seen on XP; actually XP with good drivers quite rarely crash for being a consumer OS), much improved hardware support, driver rollback support, fast user switching, networking over FireWire & Bluetooth, etc.

And since XP is getting pretty old, the recommended specs to run it fairly well is still just about 256-512 MB RAM or so on a 300+ MHz CPU.

Incompetence hangs in the air like...

Quote from the article: ... a Microsoft spokesperson in the US told Computerworld: "We're aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs. That's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us."

So much of what comes from Microsoft seems depersonalized, as though employees just go through the motions, realizing that nothing they do will change the basic nature of the fundamental failures in the company.

Incompetence hangs in the air like the cold stench of death. [dilbert.com]

Funny.

How many of us back in 2001 [slashdot.org] could have imagined the day when we would be fighting to save Windows XP?

It is a strange world.

Gullible fools...

... so they think they can make one of the most evil corporations on the planet do a good deed with just a bunch of signatures? (cue evil maniacal laughter [youtube.com])

Evil corporations cannot change. Well, they could change, but they WON'T. Terefore, they must be defeated. I wonder what would happen if all of the 75,000 people signing for XP would have donated 20 dollars to the ReactOS project [reactos.org]. $1,500,000 bucks doesn't sound any bad at all.

On the other hand, this democratic exercise can help to open the eyes of the ignorant masses so they can realize that Microsoft won't change.

Same shit, different date

I've read all the same stories 6 years ago.

Except back then people were bitching about the upgrade from 2000 to XP.

The end result is Microsoft will fix some of the most annoying things in Vista (or offer alternatives), but 95% of their customers will swallow Vista within the next 2 years, and only the anal-i-will-die-proving-my-point types will still run XP... err excuse me, Windows 2000.

Windows 7?

I agree with Linus Torvalds on what he said about operating systems. Basically, a regular user who's upgrading the OS should not notice a too big difference, nor should he have to upgrade the computer. The big problem with Vista is that it runs significantly slower than XP. Most of the annoyances are gone now that a year has passed since the release, so after a year of Vista, I am finally pleased (except for the exceptionally steep hardware requirements).

If only Microsoft can make Windows 7 blazing fast again, I have no doubt it will be a huge success. Imagine the millions of users out there who switch from Vista to Windows 7 to notice that things are running fast like hell now. That's what we need. Linus was right.

Re:what about small businesses!

Making the Areo interface mandatory

5 words in and your comment failed. Aero is not mandatory.

Try again, grasshopper.

Re:what about small businesses!

Except that when you turn Aero off, and all the other eye candy, Vista looks worse than XP. They spent all that time and effort on the bling and forgot to make it look good when bling free. Last month when I was rebuilding my main work machine, I had a choice between XP and Vista. So I installed Vista on a test machine and proceeded to install all the tools that I need. Some of them didn't work right and one caused Vista to keep on trying to Windows update .NET 1.1 SP1 in an endless loop. I then installed XP on the same machine and installed the same tools. They all worked fine. And the XP install felt snappier and more responsive. So now I'm back on XP and have relegated Vista to the "Another Pile of Poop from Microsoft" heap.

Re:what about small businesses!

Yeah, but even with Aero disabled, Vista is unbearably slow. I have a laptop which came preinstalled with Vista. 512 MB of RAM, and Celeron 1.7 GHz. Even with all unnecessary services turned off, it still runs extremely slow. XP on a similarly powered machine would run just fine. Good thing I run Mandriva 99% of the time. That allows me to have all the eyecandy using Compiz, and still lets my computer run very quickly.