The Japanese computer supplier NEC has officially launched a product to let network administrators downgrade machines running Windows Vista to XP. The OEM first made the product, NEC FlexLoad, available to customers on 25 January. However, the product was officially launched on Tuesday. Customers with a Vista licence can purchase the two-DVD pack for GBP 7, according to David Newbould, NEC UK’s product marketing manager. The first DVD sets up a partition on the hard drive and installs core XP files and drivers, while the second DVD installs the remaining XP files in the partition, said Newbould. NEC recommends that customers burn a Vista recovery CD before installing the XP partition.
2 dvds for XP, that seems quite big… unless they contain many localized versions of it.
Wouldn’t it be inifinitely better for NEC’s customers if NEC offered them an upgrade to Ubuntu?
NEC could even do that for no charge.
No
Actually, yes. If you read what I posted, I was talking about what would be of immense benefit to NEC’s customers. Not NEC’s suppliers.
After all, it is NEC’s customers to whom this offer is being made, and NEC themselves say they cannot continue the offer past June.
NEC could easily support their customers past June by offering them an upgrade to Ubuntu instead.
NEC’s competitior mentioned in the article, Dell, seems to have a far better understanding than NEC does.
Edited 2008-02-06 01:11 UTC
Yep, and they will let you fill all the thousands of phone calls asking why their windows games dont work anymore.
Edited 2008-02-06 02:08 UTC
I think you might have that confused with the Vista install.
http://wastingtimewithmikeandari.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/linux-has…
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/02/0236200&from=rss
🙂
I dont think so, I have yet to find a single piece of software that doesn’t work. Im not saying that there isn’t software that doesn’t work, but most of it is hype because its popular to hate MS.
Yeah, I think I made my opinion known on that Linux has better game compatibility than windows.. In short, its utter b.s.
Hell, none of the games listed on the article you posted work in linux either
Someone decides to pick 5 obscure dos games and complains that they dont work in vista.. well I wonder why?
Name one game made for windows xp that works on linux but not windows vista (From this decade, not some 16 bit windows 3.1 game, or dos game that just barely works in xp). One. Name it.
Edited 2008-02-06 02:39 UTC
Whoa! I did put a smiley in there. I wasn’t being serious.
If you really want to play games like that, however, I do have an alternative question for you. Name one game made for Vista (and directx 10) that works on XP. One. Name it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#DirectX_10
Edited 2008-02-06 02:50 UTC
I wasnt really being totally serious either. But games made for direct x 10 that dont work on xp are a very different situation all together. That isnt an accidental flaw, that is a purposely manufactured incompatibility between xp and directx 10 made by microsoft in an attempt to force people to upgrade.
Im not a microsoft fan boy, im just a bit tired of seeing people stretch facts far beyond the border of imaginary to push whatever thing they happen to be pushing. It happens everywhere, microsoft, apple (especially apple), and yes, even in the linux community.
It just drives be nuts to sit by and watch these huge glaring turds people try to pass off as reality go unchallenged. And if that means defending microsoft at times, well..
Edited 2008-02-06 03:07 UTC
The subject article talks about a major PC vendor recognising that is has customers who don’t want its standard offering (Vista) at all, and that vendor is offering to supply machines with XP installed instead, in the hopes of keeping such customers.
At the exact same thime, the vendor seems to be saying that this option is strictly a time-limited dead end … and that after that time expires then they will be offering no choice at all … they effectively admit that they are abandonning those customers.
I simply cannot see why it is in any way wrong to point out that NEC neededn’t abandon such customers, and to question why NEC apparently finds it impossible to admit that not only does it have customers that don’t want Vista, but also that there might be major customers out there who don’t want Windows at all and who might consider NEC’s product if it weren’t for the fact that Windows was the only option offered.
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9864312-16.html
Ok, I agree with that on the business end of things, your completely correct. But its not likely to be feasable with home users. Thats all I was saying originally.
“Name One Windows Game that Works on XP and Linux that doesn’t under Vista”:
Battlefied 1942-Only about 5 yrs old(in fact they still sell it) runs perfect in XP and more then decent with wine in linux. But under Vista, logging into an oniline game more then 50% of the time produces a total crash with an error message telling me to “contact my software manufacturer”. I have also had issues with Star Trek Starfleet Command 3, Rise of Nations(The game won’t update under vista..and an MS game no less)and Red Faction…which is filled with bugs and crashers that were never present on XP.
yes, I know tons of companies that will allow network administrators to install games on a corporate network.
read the article
Edited 2008-02-06 11:18 UTC
if NECs customers want XP or need XP, offering them Linux doesn’t help them at all. If they want Linux, and need Linux, they can put Linux on the machine themselves.
“NEC could easily support their customers past June by offering them an upgrade to Ubuntu instead. ”
XP is not going to just become unsupported in June. You just will not be able to get OEM or Retail copies. System Builders aka Dell/NEC/HP what have you, will be able to get XP until Jan 31 2009, and XP will get security updates after that until 2014.
See here:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=window…
and here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx
Read for comprehension: They’re running Windows. Ubuntu doesn’t help them.
Read for comprehension yourself. The customers in question are buying new machines (they are not running anything on them yet, as they are new machines). They don’t want Vista (customers that do want Vista are already catered for, and are not therefore the subject of this discussion). NEC’s only offer to them is a downgrade to XP, and only then up until June. If a customer wants to roll out a whole series of new machines phased in batches over the whole year, then NEC’s offering is not viable.
If instead they can get an upgrade from Vista to Ubuntu/Fedora/SuSe from Dell or from HP, then NEC’s offer is very poor in comparison.
This is especially the case when you consider that anything legacy and Windows-only that a customer company must still support could be run either on Windows machine via remote desktop, or on a virtual machine under Linux.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9105885588.html
Edited 2008-02-06 02:12 UTC
You have got to be kidding. Just because they’re buying a new computer doesn’t mean that they do not have any legacy applications that they want to run. Sure, you could tinker with Wine and hope it works on your app. But that requires far too much hassle for the common user who doesn’t really care about what the computer runs so long as it runs.
Nor does it mean that they all have legacy applications to run, hence why this kind of things are called “options”.
I think you need to read some closed-source EULAs more closely. You might well find that if you do have a legacy application that is binary only and closed source, you would not be allowed to simply install it on your new machine anyway.
You would need to purchase a new copy for your new machine, in order to be legal. In all likelihood, you won’t be able to buy a new copy at the same version as that which you previously had installed.
That means you are going to have to switch at least to a newer version of your application. You are more than likely to have as much trouble with that move as moving to a Linux native contemporary alternative.
I take it you have never tried to run Autocad or 3d studio max or any other app that requires even a bit of resources on a VM or over remote desktop
Yeahh.. there are Linux trolls, too, did you know that? Some people are just stuck with MS. My last company had two IT guys taking care of four business sites – max 60 employees I would guess, but connected to other sites across Europe. This is a Windows environment because you don’t retrain the admins over night and there are also practical issues. It is not even about MS/Linux only, not even OOo can do the easiest things “correctly” sometimes (this is owed to file creation with MS). For example, I am having a CV here which is two-page opening it with MS Office, but two and a quarter in OOo. Great – it is not supposed to exceed two pages and so I cannot work on it at home because I don’t have MS Office. If they had switched my past employment only from MS Office to OOo, not to talk about Linux, they would be out of business now because not a single precedent would work for them anymore and the sales guys would quit their job next day if their Excel tables wouldn’t open in a reliable fashion when they come in from a customer using MS. It really is a lot cheaper buying an OEM license that comes with a laptop instead of installing Ubuntu for many companies. Even though this was a tech company, doesn’t mean most people there have a clue about tech – and rightly so they don’t have to. There are accountants, lawyers, marketing guys, etc.. many of these are just so PC savvy. If you switch the average business to Linux you don’t do them a favour. So for comprehension: Ubuntu is probably useless at best for NEC customers. We suggested to switch a denist to linux when he bought the practice with outdated IT from a retired colleague. He didn’t even seem to be aware of the concept of operating systems – he just couldn’t understand what that Linux-thing would be and what about Windows then..? – He’s totally clueless and he knows that, so he holds on to what is “there”. There is a long way to go… and of course: Ubuntu is an operating system, that is, it is to operate a system – that is not an end in its own except at IT-website forums. The dentist needs special client software for dentists – do you happen to have one? Years ago, my hair dresser asked me about software and he had a prospectus for MS. So apparently, there is even specialised hair dresser software – do you happen to have hair-magic_pre-alpha_0.00.02.tar.gz precompiled for Ubuntu, maybe even with Euro support already..? I think some people really don’t have a clue what is going on in a business in terms of software. The same reason btw why there are no Macs in business. Of course, there have been even more reasons why you wouldn’t buy a Mac for a business than Linux in the past.
We KNOW that the customers are planning to install some version of Windows on these new machines because they are NOT offered with Linux; that is, the customers would not have chosen them if they wanted to run Linux. So, any suggestion that NEC should supply the customer with Ubuntu (a product which they neither need nor want) is completely useless. But thanks for playing, anyway.
About the bit in bold, you are correct, and that is precisely my point. Quite a large number of potential customers will not choose NEC because Linux is not offered … only Vista or a downgraded XP (to be available only until June) is offered.
HP and Dell and now even Lenovo all now offer Linux as an alternative. New low-end ultra-portable and low-cost machines with a Linux OS are cropping up everywhere.
More choice is always better. Better for the customer and better for NEC.
I do not suggest that NEC should not offer Vista and also offer a downgrade to XP … rather what I suggest is that NEC and NEC’s potential customers would be better off if NEC offered in addition an option to pre-install Linux.
Contrary to your suggestion that Ubuntu is completely useless, it is actually significantly more functional out-of-the-box than either Vista or XP.
Ubuntu running OpenOffice.org 2.3 (and later this year upgrade to OpenOffice 3.0) would be more secure than, significantly faster than and way cheaper than Vista running Office 12 on the same hardware, and probably would be more inter-operable with legacy documents, certainly more inter-operable with ODF and PDF documents and with the advent of OpenOffice 3.0 will be capable of importing Office 12 documents.
Couple that with something like Citadel and Samba 4 on the server(s), and a mixed legacy-Windows and new-Ubuntu IT environment for a small business becomes easily the best choice going forward. Far, far better and more cost effective than adopting a Vista future path.
Sure, more choice is always better. But it’s not clear whether NEC can support BOTH Windows and Linux as well as it can just Windows (or just Linux). *If* that results in reduced support quality for customers, that wouldn’t be a good thing.
I didn’t say that Ubuntu is “completely useless”. I’m quite certain that Ubuntu customers get a lot of value out of the OS. But Windows customers don’t.
Downgrade to that deficient by design, “un-operating system SE” (I’m just read “The UNIX-HATERS Handbook” 😉 ) to do what ?
Learn Bash ?
Get a life!
😉
NEC recommends that customers burn a Vista recovery CD before installing the XP partition.
Hehe, so vista really must suck.
I didn’t even know NEC sold computers. I just did a quick check on their website and tried to “Find a seller”–it turns out their laptops are sold … practically nowhere. It’s too bad, because this downgrade ability it a really nice feature. A friend of mine is kicking himself right now for buying a Sony laptop, for which Sony provides absolutely zero support for installing XP on.