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You walk into PC world, you get what your given

The maufacturers made the choice on your behalf. Its only a minority who have the choice and ability to change what version of windows they run

The article clearly talks about this subject.

No wonder, they don't know how to, most don't know they even could.

No wonder, they don't know how to, most don't know they even could.

My ex, while we were still together, bought a new computer to replace her broken PC. The new one of course had Vista pre-installed, and she did try to use it for a while, but in the end she just told me that it is cr*p compared to XP. She even said the new PC was slower with Vista than the old one with XP. She disliked Vista so much that she wanted me to guide her through the phone how to install XP instead (I couldn't travel to her place those days).

But she had also one positive thing to say about Vista: it was pretty.

Funny. That's exactly the same thing that happened when my nephew asked me to replace Vista with - a pirated! - XP: Vista is pretty, but his digital camera didn't work, he was having issues trying to load his pendrive(!) and although pretty he was lost when trying to use its UI - UAC can be blamed for most of that - and those are just the complaints that I can remember right now. There were lots of others.

To Vista's credit, there was nothing wrong with the USB access to the camera per se, but that the software that shipped with the camera was a crap that only works well with Windows XP and nothing else. I tried to convince him to use Picasa or something like that instead but he and his wife refused to listen.

Regardless, he demanded me to remove Vista right away and install XP on top of it, so I went to the manufacturer website (this is a brazilian brand), downloaded the drivers for XP - as the restore CD that came with the machine was Vista only - and then went for it!

And I know that this will not be the last time that I do such thing and I also know that I am not alone doing this...

[quote]No wonder, they don't know how to, most don't know they even could.[/quote]

And if you ask the personnel of a shop, they will just tell you can't, either to avoid more questions or because they really don't know.
What worries me is that even in "technical" forums I read people saying that some PCs are "locked" with Vista. Someone also suggested to replace the hard disk to install XP (?)

The only Vista (as I know) you can't downgrade is Home Basic. The problem is that most pc and laptop are sold with that ***t.
So most peoples can't downgrade.

Locked? I agree. We bought a Compaq/HP laptop to my brother and it appeared to be locked to Vista by having only Vista drivers. No XP drivers at all. No where. Nothing downloadable. Nothing in recovery partition. And this is not only with this Compaq laptop. Many companies release only Vista drivers. Then the client is forced to use Vista. I tried many Linux distros, but only Fedora and OpenSuse succeeded to start. And both of them are not for my taste. Thus my brother uses Vista.

Edited 2008-01-08 10:50

How is it any different than it was when XP came out then?

Good point. I don't buy desktop computers, I build them. Thus I am one of the few who have real choice.
However if I bought a laptop, I'd almost certainly end up with a Vista preloaded one(which I'd delete within a few hours).
Thus I'd be put in the stats of those who "bought" Vista.

It surely doesn't count as any part of "the market" people like myself who buy (or even salvage, depending on who the system is for): motherboards; CPUs; memory sticks; video cards and blank hard drives and then download Linux liveCDs, and in that way assemble a cheaper and far better Windows-free system.

Apparently, I am not a part of the computing market at all ... even if I do that hundreds of times over.

I am sure there are many thousand like me who do this sort of thing ... either as a small business venture or purely as a hobby.

Think of us as "the IT underground". It is common for mass media articles to utterly ignore us, and to pretend that there is no way to buy a PC other than with Windows on it, but the reality is slowly changing from that assumption.

Then of course there is the beginning of the visible-to-the-public appearance of Linux on mass-market consumer equipment:

http://www.system76.com/
http://www.everex.com/
http://www.zareason.com/shop/home.php
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs...
http://eeepc.asus.com/global/
http://laptop.org/laptop/
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6962839488.html
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/8455.html
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/16/intels-mid-umpcs-so-long-xp-vist...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/05/h9-umpc-runs-linux/
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/sexy-umpc/linux+based-umpc-will-come-wit...
http://www.slashgear.com/ces-2008-e-lead-noahpad-umpc-319281.php

The market is apparently no longer Windows-only.

Edited 2008-01-07 12:47

Sorry but I didn't know the article was about Linux. I thought it was about Windows, particularly XP vs. Vista usage/adoption.

I must be wrong though.

The article is ostensibly about consumer choice ... at least those key words appear in the title anyway.

Consumers don't effectively get a choice between Vista and XP. Their choice is between OSX and Vista ... they also are just starting to be given a choice of Linux, but for the most part they don't realise it yet.

If the discussion is about consumer choices in OS, as the title implies, then Vista versus XP (which was the exclusive focus of the article text) is not really reflective of reality.

The reality is there is a choice for consumers of Vista, OSX, and just recently Linux at the "low power machine" end of the market.

That was the point I was trying to convey. It seemed on topic to me.

Consumer choice between Vista and XP. Meaning, those people who chose to get a computer with Windows or chose to purchase Vista or XP separately.

Wow man, it's not that hard. The title explicitely says Vista AND XP in it.

So no, you were not on topic.

Edited 2008-01-08 18:28

remove Vista once they discover how horrible it is.

I have no idea where you get the idea that Vista is horrible. The file copy issue was a big problem for some but that was fixed ages ago.

Right I find it to be the best consumer OS out there although admittedly I have not used Leopard but I did use Tiger for over a year. I recently overwrote Ubuntu 7.10 with Vista because I couldn't handle how flakey Ubuntu is anymore. Playing a mp3 file would cause the fan to go crazy and on occassion it would even restart the computer. Now I know most people don't have this issue but from years and years of experience I have using just about every distribution under the sun with different hardware there is always some issue and when something does get fixed there tends to be a regression in later versions.

Same thing here. I am a long term linux user (since 2000)and owned a Tiger powerbook for years have made the switch. Opensuse 10.2 is the last version of a major distro that was about ok on my computer. Ubuntu and Mandriva failed as miserably as opensuse 10.3.

So when I bought a laptop, I got a Vista model and although it's a disappointment in terms of innovation(MS is so lacking in vision compared to Apple, it's painful to watch) it does everything I expect, on very nice hardware indeed and looks fine as far as I am concerned. I would never have bought it in its boxed version but pre-installed, it's alright. Yeah, not great, just alright.

Other than Linux's failings (in my case anyway) the main reason for me to go Vista is that it runs all the apps I want it to run, just like I use firefox because it runs all the extensions I need whereas Opera or Explorer don't. I just miss DigiKam but Picasa is fine for now.

I think I'll be back on Linux when kde 4.0 is mature enough and available on something like the Asus eee.

Edited 2008-01-07 15:03

Your experience is almost identical to mine. I am looking forward to KDE 4 as it matures. I think that linux/KDE can definitely succeed with products like the Asus Eee PC.

I also see Linux as an opportunity for hardware vendors to have more input/control over the product. They can make sure that all the bugs are ironed out and that the UI works well with their product especially with KDE because it is so configurable.

The ASUS EeePC is one of a few new machines coming out actually designed to run Linux.

You should therefore have a stable and trouble-free experience if you run Linux on such a machine, rather than what has gone before where the only machines that ordinary consumers had access to were designed to run OSX or Windows.

Playing an MP3 file made the fan go crazy ?

That is the worse astroturfing I have seen in years.
Go away and come up with something REAL.

Made the fan go crazy and sometimes caused it to reset, I think he said. Sounds a bit like overheating.

Strange, rare problems that never seem to happen to anybody else aren't exactly uncommon with linux. Maybe he has really poor cooling and a bug caused the mp3 decoder to peg the CPU and catch the RAM on fire or something.

I wouldn't write him off, but his credibility is probably on the same level as a linux user who complains about the vista file copy problem.

Edited 2008-01-08 07:26

Yes its definitely an overheating issue. The room the computer is in does have poor ventilation - my parents basement - and we are in the middle of summer here.

In 1998 I started with Linux and have used it a lot. I am no Linux expert but am capable enough to build and install KDE / XFCE / E17 from sources and setup xessions, fix xorg.conf files setup apache to enable for virtual hosts, etc, etc.

Now rhythmbox has never given me this kind of issue before. I think that the problem is likely that gstreamer is not particularly efficient at decoding mp3's. The sustained high CPU usage caused the CPU to generate too much heat for the cooling to be effective and it the temperature spiralled up causing the restart.

iTunes on Vista appears for more efficient because I don't have the same problem.

>Hooray for Roger of Occam!

While I agree with your point, it's "William of Ockham" not Roger.

Someone evaluated the figures:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/67663,majority-of-new-pcs-ship-withou...

As expected Vista launch is much worse than XP launch, which is not surprising considering that before XP, people used Windows98 which wasn't very good, but XP is decent so there is no incentive to upgrade.

This only real advantage of Vista is that it has a pretty GUI, and apparently people are not so dumb to mistake a pretty GUI with a real improvement..

"I keep seeing this in many articles about Vista, but really I can't remember many people sticking with 98 or ME when XP rolled around"

Man after working for an ISP for a few years, that'll really give you a feel for what people use and like for OSs. I have no hard data, but A LOT of people choose to stay with 98 then upgrade. Downgrade a new computer, not likely, but not upgrade from 98 to XP, sure, they stayed, and in droves. Just like this time.

I suppose that is true in one sense. Removing Vista and installing anything else at all (even XP) is clearly not a downgrade.

I would point out, however that the default image for new office machines at my workplace is XP SP2. For every single office desktop machine that the company buys these days, whatever OS is on the machine at purchase (and I presume that is Vista) is wiped, and XP SP2 is installed.

The only machines that this does not happen to are the blank machines that the company installs Linux on to put into the systems they build and deliver.

Vista? What is that?

Although there are a lot of "sales" here that are listed on the books as Vista sales, none of the machines in question end up running Vista.

I'd imagine a similar situation is happening right now at a lot of companies.

The only muggins are the poor beleaguered "Joe public" computer buyers who are not aware there is any choice, who are offered only Vista, and who have no practical means to run anything else.

"I would point out, however that the default image for new office machines at my workplace is XP SP2. For every single office desktop machine that the company buys these days, whatever OS is on the machine at purchase (and I presume that is Vista) is wiped, and XP SP2 is installed. "

At my workplace it's Windows 2000. (Completely unpatched, too, because that's safer. I wouldn't know, I've been a Linux guy for 15 years now.) Only the software developers are allowed to have XP, and there's one Vista machine to make screenshots with so our manual looks modern.

I sure hope that "safer" is sarcastic.

The security team where I work broke into a fully patched Win 2000 system in about 6 minutes, using off-the-net tools like Metasploit. It depends on what services the system is running.

I don't remember exactly, but I think it has to do with enabling file sharing support compatible with Win98 and older systems.

For every single office desktop machine that the company buys these days, whatever OS is on the machine at purchase (and I presume that is Vista) is wiped, and XP SP2 is installed.

Then that company is stupid, since you can get machines with no OS'es and not pay Microsoft twice.

I wonder how many companies employ the method mentioned by lemur2?

Although has been a while since the last time that I've seen it, it is not nearly as unusual as you make it out to be (or think it is). The reason that some companies might acquire computers with OSes already even if they don't intend to use them is because enteprises usually purchase workstations in bulk and, as everybody knows, that means that you get Windows with them as relatively few vendors sell desktop-class machines without an MS OS on it (servers is another story altogether).

Even if you opt for not getting it, you will probably pay the MS tax in the hardware anyway so it would be pointless to refuse to get it as you get the license to use it later if needed... If you want to buy a machine without any OS loaded on it, you would need to build your own or buy whiteboxes from smaller vendors, which most companies won't do due to warranty and support contracts, mostly.

I worked in several mid-sized to large companies (including some Forune 500 ones) and have seen them doing it all the time. The IT department usually has two or more hard drive images with all the patches, settings and add-ons that the company uses that they use to replace whatever comes with the system when it is deployed.

My company does the same thing we wipe every new system and install XP.

"I would point out, however that the default image for new office machines at my workplace is XP SP2. For every single office desktop machine that the company buys these days, whatever OS is on the machine at purchase (and I presume that is Vista) is wiped, and XP SP2 is installed.
...
The only muggins are the poor beleaguered "Joe public" computer buyers who are not aware there is any choice, who are offered only Vista, and who have no practical means to run anything else."

I don't see how your companies practice says anything about the quality of Vista nor how "Joe Public" is ripped off. At my company, our standard image is Windows 2000 SP4. In no way would anyone make an argument that it is better than Windows XP nor Vista however any new system is wiped out and is replaced instead with Windows 2000. The reason for this is that all the applications have been certified to work with Windows 2000. We are now in the process of standardizing onto Windows Vista. I'm guessing your company is doing the same.

but really I can't remember many people sticking with 98 or ME when XP rolled around. If there was a huge amount of people who did, please, someone, give me a link to a few articles about it, but I really don't think that happened.

And rightly so. There was Windows 2000 around, one of the best Redmond os's still in use. Sticking with Win98 was the bad choice,you are right.

What you're missing / forgetting / not including is that many gamers did try to run 2k whether they should have or not.. and found it quite incompatible with their games.

I think this gave MS enough feedback to patch the NTFS codebase for XP. To Microsofts credit you're right in stating that XP had pretty good compatibility with software, or atleast enough to cope with over 98 (by which time even Linux looked better)

Compared to 2k however Windows XP pro was pretty much a 2k workstation with a 'pretty' theme and enough 2kSPs hacked in to make it usable as a games machine.

Remember ME was the pass over for home users between 98 and XP and most people (but less than Vista) went back to 98se because apart from the nice 2k icons and a buggy system restore their performance/compatibility sucked.

I'm thinking that the best option MS could have done with Vista was waited a year for 2008 server and then backported the client once they worked out security incompatibilities with games etc (like they did with 2k/XP) ... Sadly however economics dont work like that, shareholders and customers were getting tired of an ageing OS and must have pretty much demanded MS did something about the lengthening delay and problems with the original longhorn builds. So they gutted Longhorn (like they gutted 2k) and brought out Vista (like they brought out ME)

I do however believe Microsoft should NEVER have released the ultimate edition of Vista without a solid plan for extra features and benefits.. I believe it was in the plan from the beginning and the shareholders eyes went $^$ when they thought of the price gouging even though MS technicians had already pulled most of the advanced features out of the longhorn builds.


I mention games here a lot because I feel this is where Vista fails the hardest, the performance loss is too high for their FPS fetishes. I also think that these people are the ones on the internet moaning the loudest. As a previous poster pointed out the Business (stripped down edition) of Vista is not so painful to use.

I dont have any insider information on any of this... I'm pretty much anti-MS for many reasons (mostly business) but give them the benefit of the doubt and that's about the only possible explanation I can give :-|

I am however pretty sure that Windows 7 will fix Vista in the same way XP fixed ME/2k. It's just a shame that so many people had to have their wallets torn open to get there.. and I think its only their shareholders you can really blame for that, especially taking the $1billion spent on marketing a 'WoW' that never happened.

My own person stab on this story is that I'm just glad people are starting to pay attention to alternatives. Competition is always good.

person? personal... gah! 7th paragraph down was meant to be gamers not games... Ah hell you get my point

call this post v6.0 'ultimate edit', multi-lingual support coming shortly

submit bugs/typos to customer support and we'll release 2008 'fixed edition' for an extra fee

/hides

Edited 2008-01-07 14:07 UTC

I keep hearing over and over again about how poor 2k was for playing games. Well I for one never once experienced this problem, even from the first final release of Win2000.

Perhaps I was just lucky with my selection of games, but my personal experience seems to differ from some of the comments left here

"I keep seeing this in many articles about Vista, but really I can't remember many people sticking with 98 or ME when XP rolled around."

Two years ago I was doing some consulting work at the country HQ of a multinational in Taipei, Taiwan. Every machine was running Windows 98. Every single one.

A lot of people did stick with Win9x, for one of the same reasons people aren't upgrading to Vista: drivers. In the early days of XP, it was "incompatible" with a lot of hardware (as well as software), and people cried that XP sucked and broke everything and they'd never upgrade. After a year or two, those issues were corrected as more drivers were released and software was either patched or the OS was patched (there are today still some apps that run great in 98 but not at all in XP, but they're few and far between). That will happen with Vista too, eventually. Maybe starting around now, I wouldn't know (I own a copy of XP solely for testing applications, and I run it in VirtualBox OSE VM on my Linux desktop).

If you look at web statistics not a significant number because Vista continues to gain significant usage share at XP's expense.

"My gf bought a new Toshiba laptop last week, and the first thing I did was (using Toshiba provided drivers) erase it and install XP. How many more are doing this?"

Why don't you just let your g/f decide instead of forcing your views onto her??

I have Vista buisness, I love it and I would recommend it to everyone.
Yeah, there was a file copy problem initially, but that was fixed a while ago.

It seems to me that people shout about removing Vista and installing XP just to fall into the cool crowd.

40 new laptops on our company, all shipped with Vista. First thing that the MS guys did was to remove Vista and install XP. Maybe there are things like performance issues and software compatibility? Or maybe they (MS guys) are just trying be cool

Bought a Toshiba laptop for my wife this past Christmas.

It came with Vista and works fine, if a little slower than I'd like. Not crashy though, and all of the hardware works. I wouldn't bother downgrading. I don't even have an XP license.

I find some of the design choices a little goofy, but that might just be me, since the last Windows I used was Windows 2000 and my Windows habits kind of left off there.

If anything, what I don't get about Vista (besides its continuing "treat users like they're morons" out-of-the-box defaults) is what justifies it as a new OS. Aside from some cosmetics, it doesn't seem to add anything significant to XP.

It's boring. But, as I said, it seems to work okay on the Toshiba laptop.

To me it's still a matter of assessing it in two ways: vs. other Windows versions, and vs. other operating systems. For the former, aside from it dragging a bit, it seems about the same, and for the latter, well, I wouldn't use it, but I wouldn't use Windows, period.

But that's just me, personally.

I think in time most Windows users will wind up running Vista as they replace their machines. But until some crucial piece of software only works on Vista and not XP, I can see no point in paying to upgrade.

Maybe that's why the headline is between quote marks.

I'm actually a little smarter than you think . Just a little, though.

Vista is definitely better than XP, but it take a bit of getting used to the new interface - its really quite suprising how much people will cling on to an older interface.

The people I know who ended up getting Vista on new systems they bought said they didn't like because they felt that they were no longer in control of their system. Not that they didn't like the new interface.

Did you ask what control they miss? I can't think of anything besides maybe DRM things but then again those DRM things would not even be available on another OS.

You make that sound as if DRM is a wanted feature.
DRM is not available on most other OS's, by their choice.

Vista has some technical advantages over XP but it's flawed in many other ways. So it's not that simple to say that one is better than the other.

DirectX9 is not emulated on Vista. Vista comes with DirectX10 and DirectX9 layers, and you can also install the latest DirectX9 runtime

Vista in concept is better than XP.. but in implementation it SUCKS. MS really pushed a beta OS out to the general public without getting a lot of very basic issues resolved. Vista is a resource HOG with several known memory leaks. It also has way more stupid bugs than XP EVER did. My wife begged me to go back to XP on her new laptop that came preloaded with Vista. The biggest things that irritated her was not the interface, but the issues with sleep are wake. It made it almost unusable.. This is unacceptable from MS.

Then Vista business licenses also work as XP business licenses so in that regard it wouldn't be far fetched to guess that MS is selling the Vista key when an XP license is requested. That would be one way for them to keep marketing happy by inflating the Vista figures for statistical comparison.

That depends on if the Vista license is also valid for XP isntalls of course. Now there are so many other ways that MS can inflate the figures that any statistics released for marketing (ie. anything released) will be bunk anyhow.

not sure about that... I think ms has lost a lot of enthusiast marketshare to linux and osx platforms...

I realise that's a very small percentage compared to the 'users' but those users are becoming increasingly diligent asking a geek/enthusiast about their next purchase.

The reasons for turning them onto windows simply because of simplicity is becoming less and less.. and PERCIEVED security is that much lower.*

I hate to say this, but if you watch the linux evangelists on digg... you'll see the geeks of the 'future'... usually it was just windows and mac fanboys but the linux count imho has been skyrocketing over the last two years. (digg is a bad example... I'm ashamed to visit there)

It used to be I'd have to visit ./, osnews or whatever before I could find someone using linux... now I hear them popping up on your mom and pop forums... another small recent change - but a change at that.

* Regarding security... I think most vista users feel they are losing 'control' due to constantly being asked to cancel or allow..... Not because it's that much different from linux bsd or OSX but simply because the majority of them only know and have ever used Windows so logging in and out of a supervisor account feels like borrowing your dads car keys again.

Edited 2008-01-07 17:43 UTC