Windows XP just refuses to die. Have you ever notice that in movies they hit the bad guy just hard enough to stun him, then go about their business with their back turned to him while he slowly gets up and surprises them by attacking again? In this allegory, Microsoft management is the cute couple and XP is the villain: “Microsoft’s deadline for allowing OEMs to sell PCs with systems that are “downgraded” from Windows Vista to XP is still a moving target. Initially planned to expire on June 30 of this year, Microsoft at first granted an extension to July 31. However, OEMs are still selling the downgrade option (often for a premium) and, according to new reports, the deadline apparently has been officially extended for six more months to January 31, 2009. The information is based on one leaked email sent to an OEM.”
Another interim method would be to run windows XP under Vista until MS finally fix the drivers compatibility problems in Vista
You can use a solution such as ThinServer XP
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
Microsoft fixes the driver compatibility problems? How about the hardware vendors fix their own driver problems?
The things people will try to blame Microsoft for never ceases to amaze me.
What driver problems? For my PC Vista has better driver support than XP. And its more reliable. The only driver that sucks is the ATI driver for my Radeon card, but even that is better on Vista, as Vista just restarts the graphics-subsystem when the graphics driver crashes (just a flickering screen for a moment). Windows XP shows me a bluescreen and all work is lost.
i was gonna say the same thing, windows vista only driver problem was with crappy video drivers from nvidia and the drivers from creative., who apart from the fact the beta of vista was in the public domain for such a long time still couldn’t get their drivers togeather.
Creative are well known for being the slowest when it comes to drivers for their products. Most of the drivers than were on the CD’s for windows XP felt more like beta releases then finals.
I would say that the only problems vista suffered at the begining was that some of the newer tech introduced was a little rough (i.e. new file copying routines, network copying and some memory management).
I use Mac OSX at home and Vista at work. At the beginning i wasn’t to impressed with vista, however the various updates and SP1 as polished it off. It’s now quicker and more hard wearing, which i know is a weird term which ill explain. I use virtual machines, sometimes maxining out the memory in Windows XP and then releasing it, windows xp would still thrash the hdd after as if it was still maxed out of memory. Vista however seems to handle this process a lot better.
There are other things as well such as the impressive network speed when used with Windows 2008 server.
The only problem which still remains and will always be their is resource requirement. It has sacrificed being lean for adding features which is not a bad thing on today’s desktop.
However on netbooks and lower spec’d PC’s this is a major problem. Hindsight is a great thing, however this is not a critisim as such as netbooks suddenly came out of nowhere in popularity (i know that netbooks or ultramobiles had been around for longer, but these were very niche such as the sony TX Series and only used by a few due to high price). Microsoft could have repackaged XP as Windows “light” to run on lower grade hardware.
It seems that Microsoft are leaving open a market in which they are only plugging it with an older product, which is good on one side as XP works, is familiar and very matured/stable. However from a marketing/blog worthy side it’s also pretty damaging as they still have this 7 year old OS out there confusing consumers.
The only other thing i would say in defense of Windows XP and why it’s still about, is that Vista, apart from some small things (most of which are covered by third parties) it offers very little reason to upgrade from Windows XP on the business desktop. For example for my network i would have to purchase a whole set of desktop’s just to get everyone to where they are now. Windows XP works well, it’s stable and it gets the work done. If there was some amazing incentive then i could understand it, but there’s little to entice.
And that always so far has been the problem with Vista, for people without top of the line hardware at the time when they first bought it.
Vista almost certainly needs them to do some upgrading and that costs money, plus Vista costs money, yet on a small percentage of people see any real benefits moving from XP that they have already paid for to Vista.
What I always tell people is wait till you buy a new machine. It isn’t worth upgrading an old machine to the point where it will run it, you may as well wait till you are ready for something completely new. If you buy from a major vendor, chances are the oem version will barely cost you anything too.
Look, lets face it, there are problems with drivers in Vista. Is that Microsoft’s fault? No.
Creative drivers come to mind from my own experience. I don’t blame Microsoft at all. I blame Creative.
Edited 2008-10-05 11:35 UTC
It is as much Microsoft’s fault as any hardware incompatibility on Linux is Linux’s fault.
Does that change your views at all?
If not, then i’m with you on this one.
Sheesh, you’d think Creative would get their act together by now. Anyone else remember the first few versions of the Creative LiveWare drivers/software for Win2k? If memory serves, they were widely-nicknamed the “deathware” drivers.
If there are driver problems in Linux, say with a Broadcomm wireless device … who to blame then? Until recently Broadcomm refused to release drivers for Linux, even though Broadcomm had them, and even though a customer had paid for their device (say as part of a laptop purchase) and that customer wanted to run Linux.
Yet most “internet gurus” would want to blame Linux for that.
If Linux cops it for poor driver support, even when it is clearly not the fault of Linux, then so too (by the same illogic) should Vista cop the blame when it has poor drivers.
> Microsoft fixes the driver compatibility problems? How about the
> hardware vendors fix their own driver problems?
And what if they don’t? Microsoft would lose even more customers that migrate to Linux or OS X. The Linux people have tried pointing their fingers at the hardware vendors for crappy drivers, and it didn’t work. I don’t see why it should work for Microsoft. Customers are staying with Windows because it solves a problem well enough, but that is no longer the case when even drivers don’t work.
> The things people will try to blame Microsoft for never ceases to
> amaze me.
There is no point at all in *blaming* somebody for the problems, since that would not solve them.
but it does point out who should solve the problem.
> but it does point out who should solve the problem.
Why should the hardware vendors solve the problem (I assume it’s that what you mean)? After all, it will not be them, but Microsoft, losing money if stability does not improve. I see little incentive for the hardware vendors at the moment, although they would sure be wise to prepare for the future and be ahead of their competition in terms of Vista stability.
what i meant was that the one to blame is the one who should solve the problem
. who is to blame is a different question. but placing blame on someone is in this case very useful.
i think both microsoft and the hw manufacturers are to blame. the hw manufacturers are to blame for not writing proper drivers (that’s their task). but also microsoft for releasing before all the drivers where ready/vista was properly tested.
can someone shed some light on vista driver development? is there good documentation and migration tools for xp -> vista?. it seems the windows driver kit is a good product. it that case microsoft is only to blame for the too early release (but they did release a lot of beta’s and rc’s)
I doubt it’s that black-and-white. Let’s imagine a Joe Typical user confronted him a video card that has driver issues under Vista. Which is going to be easier for him – switching to a different video card or switching to a completely different OS?
The way people on forums like this will cover for Microsoft never ceases to amaze me.
Is this news? :p
Nope, it’s not. When Windows Seven gets out and people still want XP it would be big news to everybodyö.
There probably will be a vocal contingent who’ll do just that.
this is getting beyond a joke with the vista complaints. shouldn’t these people be using something else now and not complaining?
one of the places i work at still needs xp because the software they charge a few grand for is still in RC on vista and they can’t sell it without it being stable.
vista has been out long enough for you to either have fully spported hardware or a seperate operating system.
the only thing that is left should be software like that which relied on xp for too long.
Run Windows XP in virtualbox within linux. All the stability you need with the ability to run a few legacy Windows apps when required.
Vista? Windows 7? What is the compelling reason for me to upgrade my hardware and upgrade (downgrade) my software…at great cost?
I was just thinking that I frequently see new machines running old operating systems. Windows 2000 is still floating around today. I was still seeing Windows 3.1 floating around half a decade after the release of Windows 95. Quite often, these operating systems are running on 2 or 3 year old machines.
Some people are slow to upgrade. There are a bunch of reasons for that: driver support, application support, retraining costs, licensing costs, and maybe a few other things.
So what has changed this time around? I suspect that it’s XP’s activation scheme, which makes it harder to transfer an XP license, and the increasing dependence on large PC vendors that either tie the OS media to the hardware or don’t bother to deliver OS media with the hardware.
On the whole I don’t think that there are more people avoiding Vista than there were people avoiding XP (remember, XP was hugely unpopular at the time: activation was an issue for many, and many games didn’t run under it). I think the difference is that this backlash is more visible.
I agree. But one of the things I *really* hate is when people say it’s expensive for their company to “retrain” their people. What?!? Retrain? WTF is that?!? It’s the same damn O.S. with a slightly updated GUI! You still have the same C:/ drive, same way of copying files, sending e-mails/browsing etc. etc. etc. It’s not like you’re switching to *nix or some other more complicated and unconventional O.S.
This what I think is truly ridiculous. Anyone with a PC should know that they need to adapt and keep themselves up-to-date with the latest technologies. If you’re unwilling/unable to do that, you don’t belong near a PC (or anything computerized, for that matter). Crawl back into your cave and let everyone else enjoy the newest innovations without interference of some stubborn, old-fashioned and set-in-their-way people.
Seriously, you should get in touch again with people who do not frequent OSNews. You would be surprised how many people get confused by a different background image on the desktop, let alone a completely overhauled UI. And yes, these people have jobs that involve computers.
then Microsoft should rethink the campaign that computers are fit for joe six pack.
After close to a decade of doing support and training with Windows, I’m inclined to agree. The biggest fundamental problem I see with Windows is that, in order to use a Windows system safely/effectively, you need to be more of a computer administrator than a computer user. Most geeks aren’t capable of – or interested in – that, nor should they be. Sure, Windows systems can be locked down and secured by a competent admin, but home users aren’t going to accept the sort of limitations that implies.
Of course, Microsoft never had any qualms about profiting from products that are essentially marketed as “Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, with Microsoft N YOU TOO can do X!” (E.g., with Word, now Secretaries can be print designers! Or… with Powerpoint, now even MBAs can create quality multimedia presentations! Or… with FrontPage, now even CompuCollege graduates can create a professional website!).
Microsoft should remember you don’t have these problems with pirate copies.
As for the Vista driver problem – maybe MS should work with the open source community to encourage hardware vendors to open up the specifications of their products then MS could write its own Vista drivers
It makes perfect sense as to why Win XP refuses to die. Why would it, really?
Windows XP with SP3 is mostly secure, works well, utilizes all of the features current machines has to offer (32/64 bit, mutltiple cores etc.) and is pretty light on resources for machines nowadays.
A good Windows iteration, and Microsoft should be proud of themselves if you ask me.
Seriously.
Edited 2008-10-07 19:22 UTC