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."

Give 'em time

[Fleet Admiral]

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.

Customers.

[gnutoo]

The MAFIAA are their customers. You are what they sell.

Downgrade???

[Z80xxc!]

"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.

Definition of business partners and customers

[syousef]

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

what about small businesses!

[Anonymous Coward]

Making the Areo interface mandatory for the business edition of Vista is the single biggest mistake that Microsoft has made. The average small business with less than 100 desktops is not going to (upgrade) anytime soon, the costs are prohibitive and it is rediculous that Vista Home Basic can run on less powerfull hardware but the flagship OS that is supposed to be secure does not. As any small computer sales outfit will attest, Vista for business is a flop and will remain so as long as Microsoft and their 'hardware partners' continue to commit extortion on the world of small business.

Re:FRISTY POSTTY!!!

[Macthorpe]

Troll you may be, yet I think I'll find this comment slightly more insightful than the avalanche of "durhurhur XP is an upgrade" comments that about 30 people will think they're original and/or funny by saying.

Re:OH GOD

[i.of.the.storm]

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.

Re:Downgrade???

[jkrise]

kudos to the OEM's for providing XP as an option.

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.

If history is any indicator, it is obvious that big OEMs like HP and Dell (even Intel, with their chipsets) are hand-in-glove with Microsoft to make sure customers are forced to pick the latest MS offering of OS for drivers and support. If the end corporate customer rejects Vista, then Dell and HP will start losing business to system builders and assemblers who offer XP.

Inteteresting times ahead.

Re:No Thanks, Microsoft. I'll Run Linux

[NeverVotedBush]

Accomplishing something means administering multiple compute clusters, writing documents, editing spreadsheets, building the occasional presentation (all in OpenOffice), reading and writing e-mail, researching things on the web, and even playing games.

There are plenty of "real" applications for Linux. If you had a clue what you were talking about you would know just how many real applications there are. But you don't.

Might I suggest the Vista to XP downgrade? It might make you a wee tad more pleasant.

100 million copies?

[mathnerd314]

despite its claims that Vista has sold more than 100 million copies

How many of these copies were pre-installed on computers, and then deleted when the user gave up on Vista and installed Linux instead?

Re:what about small businesses!

[jo42]

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.

Gullible fools...

[Spy der Mann]

... 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.

Online petitions...

[saleenS281]

I hate to break it to you, but given the absolute 0 work/commitment required for an online petition, no business worth their salt would bother basing critical decisions such as the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars MS would have to spend to continue supporting XP in the manner demanded. How many of these petitioners have bothered to write a letter, or make a phone call?

And finally... 75,000. Out of how many copies sold? That's not even 1% of their user base. Why would the EVER even consider such a request? I hate to break it to you vocal majority, but for most of us, Vista is as good, if not superior to XP. This is the same game that was played when XP was released. "OH NOES, 2000 IS SO MUCH BETTER!!!" It wasn't and XP isn't.

Same shit, different date

[That's Unpossible!]

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.

Re:Downgrade???

[Vectronic]

"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...

Re:Cock

[kemushi88]

I don't have a great amount of experience with this particular part of OS history, but from my experiences in my school's computer lab, when they upgraded the iMacs from OS 9 to OS X, they became more responsive, crashed significantly less, and ran overall faster. The same couldn't be said for the computers I saw upgraded to vista. When I upgraded my laptop (an original MacBook Pro) from Tiger to Leopard, its performance noticeably increased, despite the fact that it was not apple's top of the line anymore. Apple's upgrades generally seem to increase performance across the board but Microsoft's just target the latest and greatest. But I am only speaking from my own experience. Yours may be different and I could be wrong.

Re:Downgrade???

[boarder8925]

If they stop offering XP, then people may choose to use Linux or macs, and in the end MS may end up losing money.

Don't count on it.

Re:Downgrade???

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

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.

That's ... um, kinda the way it's supposed to work, isn't it?

Re:Give 'em time

[deadlinegrunt]

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.

Re:Funny.

[MT628496]

It's interesting how we seem to fear new technology that comes from Microsoft simply because it comes from Microsoft. Reading that thread, I see quite a few people that had little desire to migrate and now, it's been established that XP turned out quite well.

I wonder if in time, Vista will be the same way. After everyone saying not so great things about it for so long, will everyone praise it a few years from now?

It seems that one of the possibilities is that it's simply fashionable to dislike initial Microsoft offerings. I hardly use Windows of any flavor, so I can't really speak of Vista or XP all that much. But, I hope that this isn't just a 'Vista Sucks' because we hate Microsoft kind of deal. How many people from that original thread still have such negative feelings towards XP? I don't think many do.

Run your old XP in a window on a Unix OS

[gig]

The only way to upgrade XP is to wrap a virtualizer around it as a prophylactic. You need to keep the top the same to run the apps and such, but the guts should not be touching the metal.

A Mac plus Parallels plus the XP you already own keeps all your old stuff working (XP apps on XP) while also opening up new stuff like iLife and Unix and uptime and 64-bit RAM access. XP needs to be frozen in time like a compatibility library, not improved or changed. If you can get by with a non-Mac Unix then that is an excellent solution for running your virtualized XP also.

Vista is different from XP, but not improved enough to make the switch worthwhile. If Vista had Win64 and a XP-in-a-window then that would be worth considering. No matter how much Microsoft wants to ignore it, the fact is you have to upgrade an old application platform to be compatible with a modern system. Win32 was created to run standalone or hooked onto a LAN where you trust everybody, and in 32-bits. Investing more money and time in that at this point is ridiculous.

Go ahead, buy those XP Licences..

[Nemilar]

I doubt Microsoft really cares if you buy XP with your computer instead of Vista. They way they look at it, it's even good for them - Vista is a Juggernaut that will eventually be standard on modern desktops; people who choose XP instead of Vista are going to have to buy a copy of Vista down the line.

So from Microsoft's standpoint, people buying XP is great for them - they get paid once for their old OS, and then they get paid again when you buy a boxed copy of Vista down the line.

Re:OH GOD

[Gerzel]

No. I think what they are basically saying is that:
"We at M$ will never admit openly that Vista was a vast failure and are still hoping that our market share will eventually force users to adopt the new system and pay us 300 bucks."

Re:OH GOD

[petermgreen]

As you imply but don't explicitly state directx 10 isn't really about games, immersive games have always been written to monopolise the system and I don't see that changing any time soon. Sure some of them can run in a window but it doesn't tend to be very practical.

it is about the 3D desktop but most 3D desktops so far have been either highly buggy or underwhelming so that is a feature there is little demand for.

Re:The difference between XP and Vista

[vux984]

XP was LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than win98/ME, which was what a lot of people had at the time
Vista is only marginally better than XP

XP was also a 0.1 upgrade to windows 2000; it wasn't that different at all. It used the same drivers and so forth. Businesses had relatively few troubles migrating because it was essentially the same platform.

Consumers on the other hand got a windfall:

1) XP was leaps and bounds better than 98/ME
2) XP by virtue of its close 2k/NT heritage was already effectively several years old when it launched. So by the time joe home consumers got their grubby little hands on it the drivers were largely mature and stable, and supported much of the hardware they already had... even a lot of the 'older stuff', because if there were 2k drivers, you were set.

Vista in contrast to XP is a major upgrade as far as businesses are concerned, and so its more work. And its new, really new, with a new driver model and everything so hardware even 6 months old is largely unsupported, or "coming soon". On top of all that its biggest feature is enhanced security -- which doesn't wow consumers and in fact annoys them.

Me, I've had Vista now for about 8 months, and frankly I'm very happy with it. I put it on new well supported hardware so issues of it being a resource hog, or driver issues ... haven't been issues at all. Basically I took the same care in selecting my Vista platform as I would selecting a linux platform, ensuring things like the wifi, raid, etc were all supported before I purchased.

The UAC stuff really doesn't get in my way. Fortunately I don't have a lot of programs that need to be 'run as administrator' in order to function. (And programs that DO need this were defective all along IMO; it only took Vista's forcing the issue for us to notice... and then so many blogging idiots blame vista. I mean seriously, not naming any particular software, but why should your personal accounting software need to run as root anyway?! If your annoyed that your software is constantly needing elevation, blame the vendor.)

Vista really doesn't ask for elevation much more than OSX[Unix] or Linux. Its just that the latter two OSes have a long history of security so there isn't 20 years worth of crud out there that thinks it should be running as root. The only complaint I have about UAC, is that I should be allowed into Device Manager and other places without elevation; I should only need elevation if I want to change things... they really should have copied the 'lock' metaphor from OSX. But that's a pretty minor issue. I don't go into device manager THAT much, and even then I go in a lot more than most people. My inlaws bought a new Vista laptop... I doubt they've seen more than 5 UAC elevation prompts since they got it.

Re:Funny.

[Petrushka]

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

To be fair, back in 2001 WinXP was a steaming pile of donkey poo, perhaps almost as bad as Vista is now. With service packs it improved. In a not entirely dissimilar fashion, think back to the difference between Win98 and Win98SE. Basically, for Microsoft new OS releases are downgrades; only the service packs are upgrades. They're very consistent about this.

Re:Downgrade???

[Firethorn]

It's probably a sign of how much MORE problems they're having with corporate customers and Vista - XP, while it would certainly have the occasional problem that 2000 didn't, it was rare enough to be a special case.

That they're offering it mainstream like this indicates to me that you have double digit percentages of customers requesting sticking with XP.

Re:Give 'em time

[therufus]

Partners and Customers != end users.

That just about sums it all up.

Re:what about small businesses!

[Shados]

XP SP2 is almost as different an OS than different versions of MacOSX, when compared to the original XP or XP SP1... it simply doesn't have the same hardware requirement... It was "working" in its original version on my 366 mhz celeron of old... (though crawling). With SP2, it just got a lot beefier...that would be crazy, I think.

And you're correct about Vista's lag being cosmetic. It depends what you're looking at. browsing folders and stuff... yeah. Its actually not cosmetic, its the security sub systems. If you disable UAC, you remove the file indexing, etc, then its just barely slower, and its truly only cosmetic. When I said it was zippy though, I meant actually using it to do some work on it. The application caching system (don't know the real term) is pretty freagin good... I wouldn't be able to stand doing my job (using multiple instances of Visual Studio, SQL Management Studio, douzans of browser windows with tons of tabs each, Office all over the place, etc) on XP on that machine: doing the actual work would be the same, but just opening and closing application would get on my nerve real quick, but on Vista its fine.

We'll see how things evolve I guess. Or we may never know, I, too, will be trying out Server 2008...it looks sweet.

Re:OH GOD

[i.of.the.storm]

Then you wouldn't be buying Vista Home anyway, you'd get a volume license or a business version preinstalled with new computers or OEM. Either way, it's nowhere near the $300-400 people keep throwing around. Hardly anyone should be actually buying the retail full priced versions, just like any other Windows version. Most users will get it when they upgrade to a new computer that has it preinstalled, a few will use an upgrade version, and a few system builder types will get the OEM versions when they build their own. People upgrade based on their needs, and they aren't going to upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Home on a whim.

Re:OH GOD

[omeomi]

Shrug, Bill Gates himself could stand up and say "XP is technically incapable of running DX10" (or any of the lead engineers who worked on DX10, or any Windows XP engineer, or Jesus), and people would still say its all a plot to get you to upgrade.

Of course they would, because it is a plot to get you to upgrade. They wrote DX10, so they could have made it work with XP, but they chose not to.

Re:Downgrade???

[cyphercell]

In a all the years I've posted to slashdot I have never bitched about a moderation, until now. Seriously, Internet Explorer lost market share because it sat there, unimproved, for years. I'm very certain that Microsoft is looking at XP vs. Vista and saying "we've got to look innovative, Now!", I mean I honestly think that most current Linux distros are way more advanced than XP, Mac is more advanced than XP, and if XP looks better than Vista, what the fuck do you think Microsoft is thinking when they schedule a release date for windows 7 (oops! ok, I get it now) next year. I think that if Microsoft doesn't get something out next year, they *will* lose market share, and more of it the longer this situation stands. XP is good enough, but when you can get something good enough plus real tangible perks (unlike a Vista deployment), it's a no-brainer - CIOs are NOT going to let their budgets dry up.

Re:OH GOD

[ozphx]

Theres nothing stopping Microsoft from backporting all of Vistas new features to XP.

In fact theres nothing stopping them backporting the whole lot to Win 95. Sure - it'd be a big upgrade and all, probably replacing everything except notepad.exe - but I have a legit license for 95!

I WANT FREE STUFF DAMMIT!

Re:OH GOD

[paganizer]

Looks pretty interesting; Something I would want to have a good 10 hours of sleep and a free day before taking a crack at it.
I read over the site cursorily and didn't see the answer to the BIG question; is there a DirectX 10 for win2k?
Give us that, and someone at Microsoft release the we-finished-it-but-decided-not-to-release-it 64-bit CPU patch for Win2k, and Life will be pretty darn awesome.

Computer tax

[uvajed_ekil]

I didn't so much "buy" one of their 100 million copies of Vista last fall as much as I paid the "MS new laptop computer tax." I would much rather have bought my computer without no OS, Linux or some free OS, or XP Pro (in that order of preference), and I compared prices of those few models available without Vista. In the end I found it to make more sense for me to buy the one I wanted and pay a bit more than I should have to for it.

I'm sure a LOT of consumers who "buy Vista" do so only because cause their hardware is only available with it pre-installed, and as a result many of them suffer with a crappy, bloated OS or delete it altogether. Vista now occupies only a small partition on this notebook for the very rare cases when I must have real Windows compatibility, which is only true because the manufacturer ahs not seen fit to develop XP drivers for it.

Re:Funny.

[couchslug]

Who's "we", Kemosabe?
I'd like to see MSFT drop XP as fast as possible, cram Vista down users throats, and not listen to anyone asking otherwise.