Microsoft Responds to 'Save XP' Petition 440
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."
Re:OH GOD (Score:4, Interesting)
customer = serf; (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of plowing a field, we're moving bits and bytes.
Microsoft listens to the lords and barons, not to the serfs (barring a massive uprising and the occasional symbolic act of obligatory good faith).
"Customers" vs. "Consumers" (Score:1, Interesting)
I have a friend that works in "Consumer Relations" for GE - basically, that means dealing with you and me. The "Customer Relations" department deals with the likes of Sears.
When Microsoft says they are listening to their customers, that means they are listening to OEMs, Best Buy/CompUSA type stores, or Fortune 500s with huge install bases.
You and I are, once again, the consumer - and we'll get what's available based on what people want to sell us.
It makes sense that companies like Dell will respond to people's demands for XP, just as they did with Linux - we are their customers, and we affect their bottom line. And unless Michael Dell is signing that petition, then it's not going to amount to a hill of beans.
However, the Dells of the world have other lines of communication with Microsoft, not some poxy little web petition.
Anyone who thinks that a web petition is going to get results probably thinks that singing Bob Dylan songs on the National Mall will end the war in Iraq.
Incompetence hangs in the air like... (Score:5, Interesting)
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. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a strange world.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Windows 7? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Downgrade??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same shit, different date (Score:4, Interesting)
Same old same old.
Re:Funny. (Score:2, Interesting)
Vista isn't actually selling well (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista's sales are high for one reason.
Every Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc that you purchase with XP is actually sold as a computer with a Vista license and a XP downgrade license.
Classic Microsoft.
Enough already. (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft posts record performance in its Windows client division.
In office products. In servers. In console gaming...
15-20% growth in the first and second quarters of fiscal 2008. The U.S. economy is weak. The tech sector is down. But Microsoft is on a roll.
The Slashdot response is denial.
In a crapflood of posts that put a increasingly desperate spin on news that - more realistically viewed - would silence a Twitter.
Re:OH GOD (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if they are overly optimistic, or if they have truely looked into DX10 and think they can pull it off?
Re:OH GOD (Score:2, Interesting)
DX10 looks pretty much the same as DX9. _Maybe_ it's the game's fault for not taking advantage of DX10's new features... or maybe it's all just a whole lotta nothing with a ton of hype.
One prime example: Lord of The Rings Online. It recently added a DX10 rendering mode - the big difference is that ponds and rivers now crash "realistically" onto shore, instead of overlapping abruptly like the ignorant polygons they are. There's no reason why DX9 couldn't do this, just look at the first level of Far Cry for a years-old example of gorgeous beach effects.
Even worse example: Lost Planet. Wow. I mean I thought the game was gorgeous in DX9, and I've yet to find a screenshot in DX10 that sports any noticeable differences. Just because the shadows are darker, doesn't mean squat! Darker lighting is NOT a feature of the display engine.
If anything, DX10 is making game developers lazy. They're dropping effects in DX9, perhaps because they're easier to implement in DX10 and thus "not worth the effort". Or maybe they're getting a bit of a push from Microsoft to cheapen the DX9 renderer and sugarize the Vista-infected version. Who knows... today's gaming industry is a terrible aberration, looking more and more like the dreaded film industry with each passing year.
Re:OH GOD (Score:3, Interesting)
And of course, I think most of people will gladly agree to leave DRM parts of DX10 unported.
You don't need new driver architecture for DX10, it can work well enough with the old one. You just won't get hot-swap support and other goodies.
Oh, and using multiple D3D applications simultaneously was supported since DX2 (via DirectDraw Clipper object). Vista allows to make _composite_ applications, i.e. a D3D surface which is in turn mapped into another surface.
So there's NO good technical reason not to port DX10. In fact, there are projects to make DX10 emulation using OpenGL features.
Re:OH GOD (Score:4, Interesting)
Not quite the same ballpark. In terms of MS Office dx7-dx8-dx9 is Office 2000 to Office XP to Office 2003. DX10 is Office 2007 with docx and ribbons.
Oh, and using multiple D3D applications simultaneously was supported since DX2 (via DirectDraw Clipper object). Vista allows to make _composite_ applications, i.e. a D3D surface which is in turn mapped into another surface.
I'm sorry. I meant simultaneously hardware accelerated d3d. You know, so if one program has a spinning rendered textured and shaded cube at 120fps in one window, and you switch to another program in another overlapping window with its own rendered texture mapped shaded spinning regular polyhedron, the cube in the first one doesn't drop to a framerate you can count on your fingers... its 2008. They should both be able to spin at full speed. While a movie is playing in a 3rd window, on a desktop with 3d shadow effects if that's what the user wants.
These things don't even begin to get near where I'm talking about:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa919937.aspx [microsoft.com]
You don't need new driver architecture for DX10, it can work well enough with the old one. You just won't get hot-swap support and other goodies.
Only someone in marketing would suggest that. "Hey, lets take all the revolutionary big features out of DirectX10, backport it to windows 98; and claim we've got directX10 working on Windows 98" Because, hey, you could do that. You could even show some program that checks for directx10 and makes a couple directx10 api calls to prove your programming mojo.
But, sorry, that isn't directx10.
In fact, there are projects to make DX10 emulation using OpenGL features.
See above. That isn't dx10 emulation. That's adding support for some dx10 api's using dx9/ogl. That's great if you want to run Halo on XP or something, but try something actually impressive... get AeroGlass running on XP, while playing a DVD movie in one window and WoW in another. Then click the start menu without having the other two windows choke up.
Re:OH GOD (Score:5, Interesting)
So? DX5/6/7 came out roughly every 1.5 years and driver developers somehow managed to write good drivers. And now they have several years to port DX10.
That was supported since late 90-s. You can create several accelerated graphical contexts and they will work along nicely. Try to run several 3D-graphical applications on XP - it just works. Now, XP heavily balances CPU/GPU power in favor of the foreground application (which makes sense), but it's a purely tuning matter. If you don't believe me - look at Linux, Compiz can work along nicely with 3D applications.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa919937.aspx [microsoft.com]
Yep. DirectDraw Clippers were available SINCE DIRECTDRAW 2.0 IN 1996 - the earliest version of DirectX (DirectDraw 1.0 was known as Game SDK). I know, I myself wrote applications for science graphics rendering with several graphical contexts.
But, sorry, that isn't directx10.
Sorry, but what is DirectDraw/Direct3D? I somehow thought that it was a 3D API. 3D applications don't care about hotswapable graphic cards, they only care about that 'several API calls'. That API calls can certainly be ported to Windows XP, there's no great technical barriers.
Nope. New DX10 features are already present as OpenGL extensions. So these projects just build DX10 API on top of OpenGL. It's not emulation, it's translation.
Not a problem. I can run Compiz while playing Quake 3 and running a DVD player in Linux. All with current OpenGL.
Re:Enough already. (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, if you measure success by economic growth, m$ has always been "on a roll" . However, most slashdot users, unlike you, tend to measure succes of a software/tech firm by the quality of their products.
This "crapflood of posts" as you call it, isn't about economic success.
It's about m$ being arrogant by pushing a product that is not seen as a technical improvement compared to its predecessor, despite all their marketing efforts trying to let you believe otherwise.
Sure I sense some desperation in all those posts too, but I don't believe for a second this is because of economic success of m$.
The fact is that more and more people are frustrated with m$, whether or not it is making more money or improving performance, and as long as m$ isn't going to take a more humble attitude, you can bet
that this "increasingly desperate spin" will continue.
This savexp petition and m$ response to it proves this.
Re:OH GOD (Score:3, Interesting)
I regularly run several copies of Eve Online in XP simultaneously. My record for "visible copies" is two on a 90-degree-rotated monitor, 800x600 each, with another one at nearly 1600x1200 on my main monitor. A bit of slowdown on the rotated monitor, but there's slowdown with just one running, so I assume 3d acceleration and 90-degree-rotated don't play nicely together.
I've run 5 copies simultaneously in windows behind each other, sometimes with some visibility between them. Works fine. I've played Youtube videos at the same time.
Welcome to 2008, enjoy your stay.