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Microsoft Operating Systems Software Windows Businesses IT

Microsoft Sees Stronger XP Sales in FY08 243

Posted by Zonk from the everyone-is-a-winner dept.
Rude Awakening wrote with a PC World article, saying that XP sales will actually be higher next year than they were in 2007. Despite Vista's release, Microsoft admitted this week that it expects the previous version of its operating system to make up a larger percentage of its OS sales in 2008. "According to Liddell, Microsoft will generate the same revenue, more or less, under the new Vista vs. XP numbers, although there might be some slight differences because Vista sales have tended to involve more of the higher-priced versions, dubbed premium by the company, than has XP. The financial forecast didn't spell out that directly, however. The only clue was a US$120 million difference in what Microsoft pegged as the 'undelivered elements' it assigned to unearned income for the coming year."
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Microsoft Sees Stronger XP Sales in FY08 More

Microsoft Sees Stronger XP Sales in FY08

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  • A couple reasons for this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LehiNephi ( 695428 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:09AM (#19936931) Journal
    I can think of a couple reasons why XP sales would be higher, both related to the release of Vista. First, you have people who don't want to switch (rather than "upgrade" or "downgrade"--I'm trying not to troll) to Vista, and so they're buying XP while they still can. Secondly, you have people buying computers with Vista, deciding they don't like it, and buying a license of XP instead. And on top of that, many of the Tier 1 OEMs still offer XP as an option. Sometimes it's the default option. And sometimes it's the only option.

    I'll admit that this is pure speculation, but if true, I find it interesting that the release of the new, "better than ever" version of a product is driving sales of the old (but still serviceable) version. It kinda reminds me of when Linksys came out with their WRT54G v.5.

    • Re:A couple reasons for this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sapgau ( 413511 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:22AM (#19936977) Journal
      Agreed, the other big reason is that corporate users haven't switched to Vista. I still haven't heard of any of our customers planning on Vista yet. If they take months before releasing a security update or service pack for XP, I can't see how they could be preparing for Vista now.

      At the very minimum corporate users will wait until their lease expires on their Dells and then will see if they demand XP to be included in their new machines!!!

      • Re:A couple reasons for this (Score:5, Insightful)

        by aborchers ( 471342 ) * on Saturday July 21, 2007 @08:45AM (#19937273) Homepage Journal
        Exactly. The corporate world is always miles behind. My company is just still malingering on 2K on a lot of boxes, just now getting to XP. Big companies are not known for leaping forward into new and unproven technologies, especially when most of the improvement is just user eye-candy.

        • Re:A couple reasons for this (Score:4, Interesting)

          by FractalZone ( 950570 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:15AM (#19937435) Homepage
          Big companies are not known for leaping forward into new and unproven technologies, especially when most of the improvement is just user eye-candy.

          Exactly. XP was a disaster when it was first released, but like most Microsoft products, it benefitted from being beaten up by users for several years. I know of savvy computer users who still run Win2K, not because of corporate lethargy, but because it is arguably faster and more stable than XP, and has a smaller footprint, even after all the multitudinous Service Packs and other patches have been applied. Honestly, I don't do anything that depends on XP that I couldn't do with Win2K, and think downgrading to Vista would be a major step in the wrong direction. Microsoft OSes need to "age" at least three or four years before they can be trusted in the real world.

          I still say that Windows Vista is the best advertisement around for Ubuntu Linux.

          • Microsoft OSes need to "age" at least three or four years before they can be trusted in the real world.


            Windows != a fine wine

            Windows is more like the fish you put under the seat of your evil neighbor's car three days ago while he was away.

            Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said that fish and Windows are alike in that after three days both stink? ;)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jkrise ( 535370 )

          The corporate world is always miles behind. My company is just still malingering on 2K on a lot of boxes, just now getting to XP. Big companies are not known for leaping forward into new and unproven technologies, especially when most of the improvement is just user eye-candy.

          This is very true. Even huge corporates like Shell are just now migrating from Win NT 4.0 to Win2K on the servers; while the desktops are Win2K and XP - no Vista. And again, on the desktops IE7 has been banned and the old office apps that need the quirks and ActiveX of broken IE6 is still the only choice.

          Moving to Vista will mean changing the entire infrastructure including the Office package, the browser, the server apps, the tools to manage and program the server apps etc. etc. Win2K to WinXP on the desk

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jrumney ( 197329 )

          especially when most of the improvement is just user eye-candy.

          If you think the changes in Vista are just eye-candy, you are sadly mistaken. There are a huge number of new incompatibilities in the new version, hidden by compatibility mode hacks, which get triggered by filename matching, thus ensuring that third party programs will be forever crippled by compatibility mode.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Locutus ( 9039 )
        and the numbers( if true ) show you the power of pre-loading. They're stating over 75% of the systems sold in FY08 will be WinVista yet corporate IT depts are not moving and even with some OEM's having WinXP options, still the vast majority of PC sales are getting WinVista.

        It's all about pre-loading and how dumb/ignorant the population is and therefore, Microsoft continues to rule the roost with its crapware. Mention that the next time someone asks you why Linux has not gained more marketshare on the deskt

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fastest fascist ( 1086001 )
      Your first point doesn't really hold water. What were these people supposedly buying XP "while they can" running before? I don't see Linux people suddenly deciding they need XP because of Vista's arrival, and everyone else will have been running windows on PCs anyway, be it XP or 2000, and the 2000 crowd tend to be the type who made a conscious choice to stick to that OS instead of XP. I guess if someone somewhere was running Windows 95 or something on a PC capable of running XP, they might buy XP while the

      • Re:A couple reasons for this (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NeoTron ( 6020 ) <kevin@NoSPAM.scarygliders.net> on Saturday July 21, 2007 @08:59AM (#19937329) Homepage
        I, for one, run Linux practically exclusively on my machines. However, my sister-in-law, for example, wanted to purchase a new laptop. Now, the particular model she wanted came with Vista, but I advised her to get the shop to install XP instead, for numerous reasons (the incompatibility with a lot of older programs, drivers, etc. (I'm too lazy to list ALL the reasons right now)), so she has followed my advice and is a happy person. The point of this post? Vista, in my opinion anyway, is rather like Windows ME of the past - a bit of an abortion from Microsoft - they have quite obviously released Vista FAR too early - it's an unfinished product, rushed out of the factory, because it perceived its competitor's products (Linux-based, OSX-based for example) being released with certain innovations which it wanted to claim for itself as its own innovations, and now because of that is paying the price of that rush. People percieve Vista to be what it is - a rushed out Operating System with many bugs, failed claims, and as a - to be extremely kind - beta quality product at the very most.

        • Vista, in my opinion anyway, is rather like Windows ME of the past - a bit of an abortion from Microsoft - they have quite obviously released Vista FAR too early - it's an unfinished product, rushed out of the factory, because it perceived its competitor's products (Linux-based, OSX-based for example) being released with certain innovations which it wanted to claim for itself as its own innovations, and now because of that is paying the price of that rush. People percieve Vista to be what it is - a rushed out Operating System with many bugs, failed claims, and as a - to be extremely kind - beta quality product at the very most.

          Which is kind of funny when you think about it, they started working on Vista (or Longhorn as it was known back then in 2001), they dropped a whole pile of features and Vista still gives the impression of being an unfinished product. If I compare Vista's state to that of a major OS.X release, for one thing I don't feel Im going to get anything form Vista that OS X 10.4.10 does not already have and certainly nothing 10.5.X wont have. Not that there aren't any problems with a new major OS X release, you alwa

      • I imagine there are quite a few people out there who are either building new machines or have older machines, who want to run Windows but don't want to install Vista for various reasons (hardware compatibility, software compatibility, performance, DRM, take your pick). Or people who are planning on buying a computer from the Tier 1 OEMs, but don't want Vista, so they're getting XP while it's still offered and supported.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by evilbessie ( 873633 )
      Unless of course you are stupid enough (seriously why are they still shipping Core Solo machines running vista, because that's not a good experience of Vista) to buy a VAIO which ONLY have Vista drivers, damn stupid Sony, yet another reason not to give them money.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
      Even without the slashdot tolling but from ordinary non-computer people. People are having a lot of problems with Vista. The Technical People say it is slow. But the non-technical people are having a hell of a time getting their old software, hardware to work. Microsoft when making Vista was way to ambitious at the start of the project (Longhorn Days) so we are getting pieces that were designed to work with more advanced other sections that hasn't been added... Say for example the Mythical WinFS Which

      • The fact that it hasent had a major upgrade in 6 years now actually makes it a pretty fast OS which modern software supports.

        New software doesn't *need* to be slower than old software. That's mostly a problem of developers rushing to add new performance-robbing features rather than refining current code and optimizing the old features for performance.

        It sounds like a minor point, but I'm just saying that it isn't being 6 years old that makes it faster. Microsoft could have spent the past 6 years increasi

        • XP SP2 in my opinion doubled the system requirements for XP. Computers that ran reasonably fine on 256MB of RAM are unusable with SP2. Still, XP is decent enough, you don't need all the junk that Vista adds. (Of course I said the same thing about 2000 vs XP, but I've warmed up to XP since then)
          • Yes, Microsoft has chosen not to improve performance as part of their "upgrades". I'm just saying that they could have. The fact that it's newer doesn't necessarily dictate that it must be slower.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GLowder ( 622780 )
      Or, you do like my wife and I did, we've changed over to Mac OS X. We still have a few commercial apps that are currently "windows only". I bought each of us a new XP license in order to install them on Parallels. XP is ok for the time being for a few apps, but I'm just not happy letting Vista in the house.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by westlake ( 615356 )
      Secondly, you have people buying computers with Vista, deciding they don't like it, and buying a license of XP instead I'll admit that this is pure speculation

      All Microsoft is saying is that XP sales in FY08 will probably be up a little and Vista sales down a little from earlier projections.

      Systems entering the consumer market this fall will be "designed for Vista."

      They will perform well running Vista and will ship with DX 10 video as standard, perhaps with integrated ReadyBooost flash, hybrid hard driv

      • How many of these buyers are likely to drift back to XP - and can you really believe that the numbers will be statistically significant?


        Exactly. The kind of people who actually know how to remove an OS and install a new one aren't the ones likely to be purchasing Vista in the first place.

    • Re:A couple reasons for this (Score:4, Informative)

      by Petaris ( 771874 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:44AM (#19937569)

      Secondly, you have people buying computers with Vista, deciding they don't like it, and buying a license of XP instead.

      If you have a MS lic for an OS or Office suite you can install either of the two versions before it, you can contact MS for the nessesary lic code. Our new machines will come with Vista Business lics with WinXP Pro installed, and we could have even asked for Win2k installed. I am not disagreeing with you at all, just pointing out a perhaps not so well known MS lic feature. That way you can always install Vista if/when you decide you are ready for it.


      • I suspect that what your business does with the machines is conveniently ignored for the purpose of the 4:1 statistic. If it shipped with Vista, it counted as a sale of Vista, regardless of what you did with the machines.

    • The upgrade train is out of steam [slashdot.org]. M$ has lost it's ability to force broken new crap onto it's customers. There is nothing subtlety about Vista and Office 2007's push. Vista obsoleted 95% of the PCs on the market at release and came with a GUI harder to figure out than KDE. Office 2007 not only foist a new file format on a market striving for sane standards like ODF, it pushed a brand new GUI. People don't want these things and have rejected Vista. M$'s position is going to get worse as their channel

  • Vista sales (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:09AM (#19936933)
    Wow, 78% of sales? That's pretty impressive, considering how many people are actually using Vista. [w3counter.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by lukisi ( 1075563 )
      W3counter stats are based on some 5031 websites.
      Impressive indeed!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )
        I know. Damn Google - WHY did they rip the useful stuff (OS, browser, etc.) out of their Zeitgeist? It was extremely useful from probably the most representative site on the planet.
      • W3counter stats are based on some 5031 websites.

        If high-traffic sites like Yahoo, CNN, Amazon and Disney are on the list - then the numbers are "good enough."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rvw ( 755107 )

      Wow, 78% of sales? That's pretty impressive, considering how many people are actually using Vista. [w3counter.com]
      How representative are these stats if Latvia makes up 4% of all visitors?
    • For the lazy, the chart shows Vista at 2.53% and XP as 84%ish. That means that one out of forty internet-connected computers is running Vista, six months after release. Extrapolating a bit, that means another 15 years or so until Vista reaches the popularity that XP now enjoys.

      It will be interesting to see if Vista continues at a 5%-per-year pace or whether it will pick up.
    • Your link's stats indicate that Latvia makes up 4% of web usage, which is BS.
      See http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid= 2 [hitslink.com] for more accurate stats.

  • The Cynic in me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NeoTron ( 6020 ) <kevin@NoSPAM.scarygliders.net> on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:16AM (#19936951) Homepage
    The Ironic Cynic in me says Microsoft released Vista /EXACTLY/ to increase it's sales of XP :P
    • I was going to come at the point from a slightly different angle:
      It would be interesting to see sales of Win2K after the release of XP,
      as well as sales of XP after the release of Vista, to get an idea of the adoption/abortion rate.
    • I think this is probably their strategy. MS has said they're not working on SP3 for XP (they might be, but I think the aim at least is to leave the impression). This makes the task of corporate support more difficult.

      WIth a lot of businesses using Windows 2000, I suppose if they're not going to upgrade to XP, might as well make 2 sales out of them. Upgrade them to XP while its still being supported and their machines still run it. Then pull XP from the market, with their next upgrade cycle they might have t

  • Vista is a failure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by realdodgeman ( 1113225 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:17AM (#19936959) Homepage
    Vista is a failure. It always has been, and it still is. Microsoft try to tell you otherwise, but that doesn't make it any less of a failure.

    I hope and think that people are starting to realize that newer is not always better, and at the same time realizing that Microsoft doesn't always tell the truth. I also hope and think that this will speed up the adoption of Linux for the desktop, even if it is not quite ready for everybody yet.

    (Excuse my English, I am Norwegian.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MichaelSmith ( 789609 )

      I hope and think that people are starting to realize that newer is not always better, and at the same time realizing that Microsoft doesn't always tell the truth. I also hope and think that this will speed up the adoption of Linux for the desktop, even if it is not quite ready for everybody yet.

      I am a Linux user at my workplace but the Windows systems we have all run XP. Our IT people will buy Vista when they can use it across the entire site. Until then they will deploy new systems with the old OS.

      Excuse my English, I am Norwegian.

      There is nothing wrong with your English.

    • I bought a new laptop a couple weeks ago that came with Vista. It's my first experience with Vista and I have to say that I am completely underwhelmed. There is nothing new worth paying for and the same kinds of bugs I've been seeing for years, just different ones. I even managed to get Vista to lock up so bad it needed a hard-reset, and I wasn't even trying. I decided to keep a small partition for Vista so I could (in theory) run some games and use the rest of the harddrive for Windows. Of course, the
    • Your post has better English in it than the posts of some allegedly native-English speaking AC's I've seen here.
    • and I hate it. I tried to use it for one month, then went back to XP (I even had to buy another XP licence).

      I reinstalled vista in vmware in order to keep on trying it and get used to it, but I can't. It is hard to say why, but I just keep hating vista.

      I've run Linux for years on my server and windows (98, 2000, XP) on my desktops. But if the XP option would dissapear and vista would be the only windows option, I guarantee: either I switch to a mac with OSX, or I would start using Linux for my desktop as we

  • tempting... (Score:2, Funny)

    by jadin ( 65295 )
    I'd vote with my money and buy XP, but then I'd be, you know, voting with my money and buying XP!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Apparently many people voted with their money and bought a mac. [engadget.com]

  • Dear Microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:35AM (#19937021) Journal
    Dear Microsoft - you lost me as a customer about 15 seconds into the 'Monkey Boy' video, the day of which I immediately went out and bought a Mac. (serious). My exact thought process was 'I seriously see no future in a company that has a f**king a**hole as a CEO.'

    Now how to 'fix' your Vista 'issue' - cut the multiple versions bullsh*t and make 'Ultimate' the only version, and sell it for $120.

    Be amazed as profits rocket.

    That is all.

    Dumbasses.

    ps on second thoughts ignore all this and carry on as normal as it's really helping Linux and OSX gain ground.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Baki ( 72515 )
      I disagree, even if vista ultimate were free it wouldn't "sell" compared to w2k and xp.

    • I seriously see no future in a company that has a f**king a**hole as a CEO.

      Um, Bill Gates has always been a f**king a**hole and 20 years ago, Microsoft had an awesome future.

  • Vista Sucks... (Score:5, Informative)

    by CFBMoo1 ( 157453 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:53AM (#19937087) Homepage
    I'm sorry, some people will flat out disagree but it sucks. Reasons I think it sucks and I'm going out and getting a copy of XP before they totally yank it is as follows:

    * 0x80073712 error in doing updates. I've ran in to this problem and did the registry fix to remove StoreDirty, cleaned out the update download directory, and threw up a voodoo doll on the machine to get Windows Updates to install. From what I've read on their forums and other sites I got as results from my Googling, repair install or reinstall is about the only fix.

    * Video drivers, I'm still waiting on a 7900gtx nvidia driver that works properly. I'm not at all happy with Vista's performance and driver compatabilities. I spent over $300 on that card FOR VISTA. Why the hell ain't it working properly on my games which aren't even DX10 games. This is more of an Nvidia problem but it just adds another reason for me to not like Vista.

    * Renaming everything. Jesus christ I can't find Add/Remove Programs because it was changed to something else. Consistancy for god sake people! I seriously feel like I did after I first installed a copy of Linux, which runs great, but I had this lost feeling and no clue where anything was.

    XP may have had more holes in it but it just WORKED. I can't say the same for Vista at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Conor Turton ( 639827 )

      XP may have had more holes in it but it just WORKED. I can't say the same for Vista at all.

      Oh how short a memory you have. For a start SLOW NETWORK SHARES BROWSING which is still a major issue on XP. XP when it first came out had a whole slew of issues and SP1 did a massive job of clearing them up. In fact, it can only really be argued that XP fully matured with SP2. Drivers were less of a problem because XP was based on Win2k, so you could always try Win2k drivers, but for those of us who've been around a while, we can remember the problems with Win2k driver model caused in the early stages.

      Th

    • Vista's Content Protection (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ilmarin77 ( 964467 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:45AM (#19937581)

      * Video drivers, I'm still waiting on a 7900gtx nvidia driver that works properly. I'm not at all happy with Vista's performance and driver compatabilities. I spent over $300 on that card FOR VISTA. Why the hell ain't it working properly on my games which aren't even DX10 games. This is more of an Nvidia problem but it just adds another reason for me to not like Vista.

      Here is the explanation, why it takes so long: Vista's Content Protection: [auckland.ac.nz] In short, apparently it is very difficult to make a proper video driver for Vista.

    • 0x80073712 error in doing updates

      Video drivers

      Renaming everything

      You forgot network drivers, sound drivers, printer drivers, software incompatibility, network incompatibility and DRM. I have had bad experiences with all of these, though on other people's computers, as I refuse to run Vista myself.

      XP may have had more holes in it but it just WORKED

      Actually, this was not true until after SP2. That's why I didn't migrate to XP until Fall 2003, and I'm still ticked off at how much it slowed my system down.

      I'm going out and getting a copy of XP before they totally yank it

      I have already done this. I picked up a couple of cheap copies from a store that was clearing them out in favour

  • I have been considering purchasing volume licenses for WinXP and office 2003 at the office where I work. (At the moment, they all run the OS that they shipped with and all installs are performed manually and individually.) Volume licensing will enable me to create images and deploy software and system loads consistently and uniformly (not to mention quickly and efficiently). The first annoying thing about this, I discovered, is that I have to buy Vista and Office 2007! I'm told I cannot get WinXP and 20

  • Vista is a big change (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:56AM (#19937101)
    XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching. This is not surprising - we saw a similar phenomena back when XP came out. Here is an article from as recent as 2005 talking about the slow switchover from 98/2000 to XP http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_XP_Adoptio n_Rates_Slow/1118943913 [betanews.com]

    I am in the process of learning Vista right now. My first impressions are that there are some things to like (lots of problem diagnosis tools, configuration history tracking, network mapping, etc) and some things that make you scratch your head (I have yet to figure out how to coerce Vista to allow my backup service to start each time I boot - I always have to "give permission". I know I can turn off User Access Control entirely, but that seems a bit draconian and not really "in the spirit" of Vista).

    • XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching.

      The only problem is that you can't get a site license [slashdot.org] for XP any more. You can only get Vista site licenses that allow you to alternatively install XP. So no matter what you do, it still counts as a sale of Vista. In other words, the new 4:1 forecast is...ah....optimistic at best.

      The other difference between the 2000->XP migration and today's XP-

  • But . . . but . . . I thought msft was saying that Vista sales were through the roof? Remember, just a few months ago, msft was saying that Vista was selling twice as much as XP sold when XP was first released?

    Remember that scene from "The Fugive" ?

    U.S. Marshal Erin Poole: Care to revise your statement, sir?
    Prison Guard: What?
    U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard: Do you want to change your bullshit story!
  • 1. Release crappy OS
    2. Sell old OS
    3. Profit!!

    The ?? has been explained!!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • A couple of reasons for this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @08:44AM (#19937261)
    First, companies became aware that a finished MS product has at least a SP2 attached to it. Not trolling here, but look back and think for a moment. Which MS OS was really considerably reliable to produce no undesired effects before it was an SP2 version?

    Then there's that driver issue. For much legacy hardware, you'll not get certified Vista drivers, or drivers that won't work 100% reliably under Vista. Even for current hardware, you sometimes still have troubles integrating it seamlessly. Not really the fault of MS, just a matter of a lot of very different hardware in existance with manufacturers who're slow to adopt to a market that isn't as large as it was predicted to be.

    Then there's TCP/DRM. A lot of people are actually insecure of just how it works, a lot of spin has been delivered and a lot of scare has been dealt. Some of it was justified, but I've heard so much nonsensical BS that I can see why some people think their beloved copied movies will cease to work if they use Vista.

    Then there's the licensing model of "phoning home" at least once every 6 months or it stops working. Not to mention the monthly revelation of just what Vista keeps stored and transmits to MS.

    And finally that a lot of the new features in Vista are not really a seller. Yes, they're nice to have and offer some value, but nothing new that cannot be achived by third party tools. Many people who want these features will rather try to get a tool for free instead of switching to a new OS.

    Bottom line: People prefer to use what they know. Especially when they've learned by now that an MS system takes about 1-2 years after release to be "finished". People don't want to be paying Betatesters anymore. And neither do companies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PingXao ( 153057 )
      A LOT of the DRM fear is justified. Most people's existing movie files will still work. That is true because the DRM protections kick in only when playing "premium content". The downside isn't just the DRM protections, it's the DRM methodology and processes. They ALWAYS run in the background sucking processor cycles and memory to continuously monitor for that "premium content". Regardless of whether you have any or not.

      Another DRM thorn is writing drivers or code for any device that potentially could b
  • With all the sales figures and general negativity about Vista, it's got me wondering if Vista is the modern equilivant for Windows ME. Like Vista ME had a handfull of genuinely usefull features (the high EMS dos mode was a godsend to gamers) but it wasn't considered worth upgrading. With Vista it's the price and the fact it eats resources, with ME it was that it was too unreliable and wasn't worth the upgrade price.

    However after ME they came up with XP which, despite what Linux users say, was a huge leap in

  • We linux users should help promote Vista because.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:09AM (#19937389) Homepage Journal
    ...vista sucking will result in promotion for Linux.

    Only don't promote Vista as a Linux user, Instead promote it like you work for MS.

    Lets all face it, new and improved functionality must be weighed against new and improved problems and user constraints to have to again learn all about and deal with.

    Who really wants to do that?

    I was resistant to XP when it came out and I have never purchased a copy but use it at work and find it installed on systems people toss and I grab up or systems others give me. Do I like XP better than windows 98? Yes, some, as it has improvements that I could do without but are nicer than windows 98. But it also has irritations I'd rather not have that windows 98 doesn't have.

    And that just a comparison of windows to windows. I use Linux 90%, or better, of the time at home. I have used Knoppix, still have it installed on one system but use ubuntu on my main system. (having drive trays is useful as I can swap out for windows98 as I have purchased several third party software packages and installed them on windows 98).

    Of the windows XP boxes, I use one briefly for bellsouth/AT&T and linksys router control, because they only support windows (idiots). But I can and do run the live cd of linux dynebolic on them.

    I have numerious systems including several PPC macs pre-osx and one imac post osx (interesting machine).
    I have systems that have MS DOS - pre-windows and later versions and onece had to deal with MS ME trash.
    Somewhere I have a MFM drive dual bootable (probably doesn't spin anymore) with old Minix on it.

    I still have an Amiga 1000 and an Amiga 4000/toaster system.

    The point is: I've tried a lot of different system, more than mentioned.

    But what do I really want of an OS?

    Of course I want a wide range of quality software I'm interested in, to run on it, thats a given.

    The Amiga is the closest, and I'd probably like BeOS too.

    But the problem here is that they are no longer reasonably supported and off shoots like AROS and BeOS's open source versions are yet to reach production level.

    DragonFly BSD seems promising as does the Hurd and Minix 3, but they too lack in current state.

    Overall I am greatly disappointed with the computer industry in regards to Operating Systems.

    All things weighed, GNU/Linux currently gets the most points, But I don't consider it 100% Free Software, as there really are a lot of built in constraints.

    100% FreeSoftware will only happen when software is easy enough to create that most anyone can do it, just as today most anyone can use a calculator.

    Windows is very much the opposite of free, and the most pathetic example of MS dumbing down the users (a crime against consumers) is changing the names of applications and functionality and in general taking away functionality that should be considered fundamental. Philosophy being - make the users think they are stupid while giving teh professionals more to re-learn and charge for.

    While GNU/Linux applies has it constraints one what the users can do for themselves.

    So promote Vista ..... Remember you are an IT professional and must support your income. When the users see past windows you still can have a go at them via Linux.

    And remember, when this barbaric OS mentality is finally overcome, it won't matter to you cause you long be dead.

    • So...you don't want to use Linux because it's harder to program for it than to use a calculator, and thus misses one of your requirements for being free software.

      WTF?

      I see the barrier to entry argument, but while that can be lowered slightly, programming is inherently difficult. Not everyone could do it, and some people can program much better than others.

      Be happy when there are no *artificial* barriers to entry. There's jack you can do about natural barriers to entry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 3seas ( 184403 )
        educate yourself...

        http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html [threeseas.net]

        The artificial barriers are keeping us all away from using the natural barriers to our advantage.

        With correct understanding of the natural barriers, we can do a lot more and that includes users as well.

        Math is inherently difficult to, especially if you are using the roman numeral system to do it with.

        But we have this new abstraction set we use instead. Its called the decimal system with its "only a fool would think nothing can have vale" zero p
        • There are limits to the degree to which you can abstract an issue while retaining functionality. In point of fact, almost every abstraction is a loss of power. C doesn't allow you to write programs that are as optimal as assembly language (unless you actually use inline assembly language); most other programming languages don't allow you to do pointer arithmetic. What would you have to give up in order to get a programming language that is as easy to use as a calculator?

          And why are calculators easy to use?
  • I bought my niece a computer that she wanted. It only came with Vista. I ordered it anyway.

    The machine arrived from Dell yesterday. I fired it up to see Vista. The damn thing blue-screened on first boot. It has since booted fine.

    This tells me that either the software is broken, or the hardware is. Either way, it is going back for a refund.

    Nice job, Dell. Nice job, MS.

  • Nothing New Here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Prototerm ( 762512 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:45AM (#19937579)
    I'm a consultant and get to talk with IT folks in various organizations. When I ask their opinion of Vista, it's like they just sucked on a lemon. XP is bad enough -- a lot of their computers are still running 2000 -- but Vista is not an option. There are two reasons: hardware drivers that they've heard are either buggy or unavailable for existing equipment, and the inability of existing computers to run it. Not to mention the high cost of new computers capable of running it. Everyone has gotten used to being able to buy cheap, name-brand machines for the organization. Then there's the concern about mixing Vista with XP in the organization. Supporting the users on Vista is no slam-dunk.

    It will take a while for these organizations to start buying into the whole Vista thing, and will only happen once the older computers and peripherals are retired. Until then, and only then, XP will remain the preferred operating system over Vista. This shouldn't be earth-shaking news, since a lot of old companies are still using older versions of windows (I wouldn't be surprised if there are still a few Windows 98 and NT4 installations out there), and are only now considering a migration to XP. Microsoft justs needs to have a little patience. Vista will start gaining traction with these organizations in 2009.
  • If this can be confirmed, then I hope Microsoft takes the hint... their PR always says if there really was a better alternative, that more people would buy that one.

  • XP (Score:2)

    by Keruo ( 771880 )
    If given choice, I'd buy new computer without any OS at all and run linux on it, but if I had to choose between microsoft systems, I'd buy XP SP2 over Vista anytime.
    XP is just much more tested, stable and user friendly than Vista.

    Vista does not offer anything which would benefit home users by upgrading.
    Like all other MS operating systems, Vista won't be useable before service pack X,
    where x seems to range from 1 to 6.

  • 1.Adding extra crap just to keep the movie studios and record companies happy
    2.Adding features that make Vista appear to be more secure instead of features that actually make it more secure.
    3.Changing the driver model and forcing hardware vendors to rewrite the drivers
    4.Too many editions. Aeroglass should have been part of Home Basic with the media crap (like DVD authoring, HD movie maker, media center etc) and other Home Premium addons being released as a seperate extra pack. Enterprise should not exist as
  • I not surprise that people are choosing XP over Vista. Windows user have weathered a stormy 6 years with XP. People as a whole have learn to secure the OS and I haven't heard of a major malware outbreak in years. No one going to abandon a devil they know for one they don't . Instead of foisting Vista on the consumer, continue to sell both and let people naturally migrate over to Vista. If Vista is truly better than XP, people will migrate. Microsoft would be wise to use the time to listen to user feedback a
    • But we've been hearing for years from slashdotters that XP was utter garbage that blue-screens daily (if not hourly) and suffers major malware attacks every couple months. Was all that just bullshit?
  • The ridiculous hardware requirements.

    You want a machine with bare minimum 2 GB of RAM and a very fast CPU to run Vista Home Premium edition properly. Meanwhile, Windows XP Professional works quite well with as little as 768 MB of system RAM with an Intel Celeron 466 MHz CPU. My current home machine running an AMD Athlon CPU clocked at 1.664 GHz and 1.5 GB of RAM runs Windows XP Pro extremely well, and I don't see the point of upgrading to Windows Vista.
  • So....they'd have made more $$$ if they hadn't bothered developing Vista?

    If they'd just sacked most of their developers in 2001 and kept on selling XP they'd have made far more money.

  • It seems the main selling point for Vista is DX10 exclusivity, which is aimed at gamers.

    But Vista is slower than XP for games and now it appears that Vista has a second problem, it memory maps the entire Video memory into user address space, wasting this precious resource:

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=3044&p=1 [anandtech.com]

    Also this is not done for performance reasons, but seems to be part of Microsofts efforts to tighten the DRM screws.

    So vista gives gamers DX10 which is currently pointless, s

  • Meanwhile, in other news ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @01:23PM (#19939053)
    ... Ford announces continued strong sales of the Edsel.


    Requisite bad car analogy: The incorporation of numerous 'advances' in automotive technology have fueled a healthy market for older models.

  • but (Score:2)

    by toQDuj ( 806112 )
    Were they not going to discontinue XP at the end of this year?

    B.
  • "Most of the machines I see pitched in catalogs are in the $700 range, certainly under $1,000," said Cherry. "Computers with that amount of hardware are a better fit for XP. With Vista's requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware."

    OK, let's put this into perspective. We're not talking about some processor-hungry application here, we're talking about the overhead of teh OS itself.

    Several years ago I was dual-booting FreeBSD and Windows on my main com

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