PC Vendors that ship Windows-ready machine can currently offer two Windows flavors preloaded onto a hard-drive. New users can simply select the version they want, and then boot directly into that OS. But Microsoft is about to pull that option, and require PC vendors to only install a single Windows flavor on each PC they sell. Read the report at ExtremeTech here and here.
Microsoft To Cut Off Dual-Boot Windows Option
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I’ve *never* seen an OEM machine offer dual-boot MS OS’s.
I’ve only seen *one* MS OS at a time from an OEM, unless special ordered.
And, most folks who install another OS do it themselves anyway, circumventing the orginal setup.
“real death fro x86 Os alternatives” ?? How?
Feh …
where is judge jackson when we need him?
>”real death fro x86 Os alternatives” ?? How?
Ask poor Be, Inc. Ask my husband’s lost job.
>Where is that judge when you need him?
Sleeping on top of a big pile of money, with a lot of beautiful
women/men (depending on the judge ;oP)
“This is real death for the x86 OS alternatives, literally.”
As fas as I am concerned, this is the death of Windows. I’ve had win2k and win98 partitions on my machine for a couple of years, pretty much unused except when I feel the need to blow something up, or have some uni assignment in VB.
Other than that I’ve been using a linux system the rest of the time.
Not able to multi boot with windows any more? Fine:
mkfs.ext2 /dev/hdc
The article referred to Windows only. It said nothing about not dual booting with one Windows and Linux….
Actually none of you seems ever to have stumbled upon a machine MS is talking about.
In my company the HP Kayak’s we bought at a time shipped with both NT4 and Win2K installed. Upon first start, the user could choose which OS he/she/it wanted and the other one got erased.
That’s probably what it’s all about.
Microsoft may be claiming for public consumption that this is nothing but a way to stop priracy or a way to “help” move customers to XP but the real focus is to try and stop the eventual Linux desktop appearing as a dual-boot option. Exactly the same thing was done to BeOS, a much superior operating system to anything Micrsoft has produced.
As as I know (I’m on a 15 minute break at work so can’t read the articles), it says dual botting Windows only, not any other OS. I thought one of the results of the anti-trust trial was that they couldn’t do the latter anymore (force OEMs to single boot only Windows)?
Anyway, from what I gather, it is still technically possible to dual boot Windows and Windows on the same machine, only MS won’t let OEMs do it anymore, but you should still be able to do it yourself.
As a side note, I currently have two partitions on my main workhorse dual booting WinXP. One is a ‘test bed’ where I can do whatever I want to it and wipe it out/ghost over it as many times as I want. This gives me the chance to test different apps/driver combinations/versions without messing up my main install.
The point isn’t that MS is stopping you from dual booting windows with another OS. It’s just that you won’t be able to buy a computer with win98 and win2k preinstalled. It says nothing about you installing the second os (even linux as the second os) later.
//Ask poor Be, Inc. //
Er .. I may need to plead stupidity, but just how many OEM’s ever offered a dual-boot of BeOS and Windows? Hundreds? Thousands? or a dozen?
Plus, isn’t the article referring to dual-booting two *MS* operating systems? How could that possibly affect a dual-boot with a different OS?
I may be missing the point entirely, but what’s the big deal? Wouldn’t most folks simply order the *single* OS they wanted? Most IT depts over 10 people simply ghost their own customized install anyway, so who cares?
>Er .. I may need to plead stupidity,
>but just how many OEM’s ever offered
>a dual-boot of BeOS and Windows?
>Hundreds? Thousands? or a dozen?
AFAIK, only one big company once offered that.
Fujitsu-Siemens dual P3, I think…
Microsoft is freeing itself from the aggravation of having to support dual-booting. You can always get a third-party boot manager (various Linux distros DO offer several) If you have trouble, it’ll be up to the boot manager provider to support it. Imagine, people crying about Microsoft taking a feature OUT of Windows!!!
the whole OEM concept is kind of stupid, IMHO. new computers
should all be sold without an operating system on them. This
pre-installed OS malarky is part of the reason Monkey Boy
Ballmer and Co. have such a huge monopoly. I know the
average consumer couldn’t be bothered to do something as
technical as install an operating system, no matter how
easy, in this day and age though. I personally will never
buy a name brand PC ever again. I’ll custom build or buy a
PC if it comes with no OS but I refuse to pay the Microsoft
Tax ever again. Twice is twice too many times. Ironically,
I bought an OEM copy of Win2k for ~$150 USD because the
regular price was a little steep and I wouldn’t touch XP
Home with a 20 foot pole even if you paid me. So I’ll shut
my yapper now.
I object to workahaulic’s calling Ballmer “Monkey Boy Ballmer”! That’s intoleable, it makes it seem as if this person’s name is Monkey Boy, which it isn’t. Everybody know that the correct name is Steve “monkeyboy” Ballmer, also known as Steve “dancemonkeyboy” Ballmer.
Please, let’s stick to the facts and discuss like adult people!
This just gave me an excellent idea. If you want to ship a Linux system why not ship one with a multi-boot install? You could easily image a system with Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, Slackware and Debian and allow the user to choose which one they want. Hell, might as well throw in Lindows and Licoris while you’re at it. The user gets even more choice and we can bag on Microsoft for these type of things more often.
Grub can make it look really nice, too. And if the distros did more things like Mandrake, it might even begin to look and feel very professional, the way a computer should. They may be only $300 but computers are not toys.
f*ck m$
In a country where most people sleep on the floor and eat their food with wooden sticks.
The japanese toshiba 720ct (circa early 1997) that I am working on right now is an example of the kind of system microsoft will no longer offer. Dual boot in this case is almost a misnomer and applies ONLY to the very first time you turn the machine on, at which time you are asked to choose between one OS or the other. After you make your choice the second OS is erased and the install of the first OS will continue.
Big Deal. Good for Microsoft. Noone will care, noone gets hurt.
As for my ancient system. It is running SuSE 8.0 :.)
What I’d like to know is Microsoft’s motivation for doing this. Don’t they sell *more* OSes and thus make *more* profit on machines with two microsoft OSes?
Heck, if I were Microsoft I’d force OEMs to pre-install five different versions of Windows.
Am I missing the point?
BeOS almost came to Dell (America’s Favorite PC!) and Hitachi computers as a dual-boot until MS threatened to raise the price of Windows on them for doing so.
So, first you say that you don’t think computers should be sold with an OS, and then you readily admit that most consumers couldn’t be bother with installing the OS themselves. So then, who’s going to do it … Casper ?
Did anyone actually read the article?
Some of the OEM’s, particularly laptop makers, ship two versions of an OS with their systems. The first time you boot your computer, you choose.
Right now, I’m sitting about 3 metres from a Compaq box that someone just bought and wants me to add to their network. (Yawnies!)
On the side of the box, there’s a pretty MS sticker with TWO of those insidious FDSAJKFJFDSAFJDSAFSADF codes on it. The first one for Win XP Pro, the second for Win 2K Pro.
Turn it on – it asks me to choose. Since the users are nice yuppies, it’s on with the XPee. A couple of minutes later, Win2K has been deleted from the system, leaving it as though they had ordered it with Win XP.
That’s the “Dual Booting” that they are talking about. There’s nothing to stop you dual-booting to another OS (or even Win2K) if you have another license for it.
And that includes Linux.
>>>Did anyone actually read the article?
yes. we all did.
but see, we are reading between the lines.
this is almost non-news, because no one gives a shit if you can get a windows/windows dual boot machine from an oem.
what makes this news is that SMART people know that microsoft is just paving the way to roadblock opensource dualboot from oems.
“we are not biased against oem dual boot alternative OS options…see – we don’t even allow our own operating systems to be dual booted” (place invented technical reason here)
-microsoft
“Microsoft is freeing itself from the aggravation of having to support dual-booting.”
Since when? OEM’s and others do a lot of the support.
mickrosoft is entranching themselves more and more, even thought their stronghold is already impenetrable. With this newest move they are (secretly) making it more difficult to just implement the idea of booting 2 OSes.
BUT said that, I also have to note that they are talking about the first-time-boot-OS-choice mechanism, which I have seen on some few hundered IBM Aptivas one of the companies I worked in, sold to a big customer. The service personnel would boot up the machine and select the OS that our customer chose – and the choice was Windoze 3.11 or Windows 95.
Afterthat first boot, you could not go back to the other OS, ever, save a complete reinstall.
Sleeping on top of a big pile of money, with a lot of beautiful women/men (depending on the judge ;oP)
Learn your facts about Jackson before you make smart remarks. If there was one judge who could have helped x86 alternatives it was Jackson. He wasn’t bought off, and MS has no history of buying off judges.
Good point, but that tasteless comment wasn’t mine
Bah. Screw the MS bootloader. If your looking for some slick boottime graphics (akin to what BeOS has only better) check out the SUSE Visual LILO hack:
http://www.gamers.org/~quinet/lilo/penguins.html
Fun fun.
Antarius, this is really funny. Nobody really reads the article as you said. I didn’t know how easy to manipulate people. Even the author who posted the article didn’t read the article carefully enough.
People read the article, then think and then write your comments. That’s why Microsoft do not loose in the courts as you hope for, because almost all of the accusations against Microsoft are totally imaginary.
Gateway EMEA shipped many systems with both english and swedish Windows 98 on the Swedish market.
On first boot the customer got to choose wich one to use and the other one was erased.
Not a big deal that they cant do that anymore, since Gateway EMEA (Europe, middle east and Africa) is long gone now!
Bha’…..
Microsoft=shit
Send M$ to hell and use xosl (http://www.xosl.org/) to a multi-boot PC or (better) use only opensource O.S. like linux or *BSDs.
This is just about the OEMs who ship two flavours of Windows on a machine to satisy the needs of the variety of customers they have. Then when the machine is switched on and run for the first time, the user chooses whether to have one windows or the other as their OS. The alternative option is then deleted.
This is not about removing the ability to multiboot so please, no anti-MS stuff….its just pointless and showing up those people who will use *any* opportunity to badmouth MS and then come up with some random conspiracy theory
“People read the article, then think and then write your comments. That’s why Microsoft do not loose in the courts as you hope for, because almost all of the accusations against Microsoft are totally imaginary.”
Speaking of reading, go read the finding of facts. MS was indeed found guilty. The penalty phase is were things got messed up.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
This is only strengthing my resolve to move away for the ancient outdated and closedsourced Windows. Windows XP is my final Windows OS. Since Microsoft announced that they will not offer dual boot, my choice is clear. Linux will be my next OS regardless.
You can dual boot! You can dual boot! You can dual boot! You can dual boot!You can dual boot! You can dual boot! You can dual boot! You can dual boot! You can dual boot!
Read the article. Read half the comments. damn.
I’ve *never* seen an OEM machine offer dual-boot MS OS’s.
The local tech college here just bought about 200 Compaqs. All of them allowed the first boot into either Win2k Pro or WinXP Pro.