OSNews

There's no doubt that Windows XP is from a public perception perspective, far superior to Windows Vista. On a technical standpoint, it's almost like Linux vs Windows XP, except it's Windows Vista vs Windows XP.

I wouldn't mind upgrading to Vista but at the price point compared against the benefits over Windows XP it really just doesn't stack up.

The security features are nice, but I feel quite comfortable now online with my firewall, anti-virus and probably most importantly, common sense protecting me.

Well, I'll sell you a new 32bit Vista Business copy for a lot less than you'd pay retail. I want to get rid of it.

I want to stick with XP until I learn Linux.

How much? Is this even allowed in the EULA?

You make it sound like the EULA is legally enforcable no matter what is in it.

Gave me a good laugh, thanks!

Dave

Cheese is right - cheese gets better as it matures - it also has a tendency to get wormy and smell a bit

Not really. Windows ME when released has a total crap and remained a total crap until the very last day.

No it didn't. The big problem with ME was IE5, as soon as you installed IE6 the whole "crash every five minutes thing" went away.

You are right about its perception by people who didn't actually use it more then once though, that stayed pretty much the same.

The piss poor driver support also had something to do with it, and the less than a year span between it's launch and XP, but you're absolutely right by the end it was as half decent as anything based on DOS brain damage could be

What they also seem to forget, is that Windows 98 came in ....well, -98, ME came about 2000 and XP in 2001.

That meant that nobody really needed to bother with Windows ME. They had full support and (at least in Norway) you could buy Windows 98 almost until Windows XP came.

Now to continue buying XP, you've got to be creative by downgrading, so this time it's not that easy to skip the bad OS in between. After all, Windows 7 is announced in 2010 but Microsoft is known to be a bit later in delivery than they promise from time to time.

As far as I can see, we'll have to live with Vista only in the next two years or more.
I am not sure I am looking forward to that, being a IT-consultant I've got to troubleshoot the sh*t.

Ah, well, after all the crappy OS-es create more troubles for the users and that is what I live of, so maybe I shouldn't complain? It's a bit sad for the users though....

Myself, I run Linux on my own machines so Vista doesn't hurt me much personally.

Nalle Berg
./nalle.

Actually, I tend to think that those who claim that the 'upgrade' from XP to Vista is just like the transition between any two other of MS's OSes are those with poor memory. Or at least, selective ones.

For starters, it is entirely unfair to compare 2k -> XP to XP -> Vista. Foe one thing, 2000 has never had the market share that XP has. In my experience, it was deployed primarily in enterprise environments - most home users were upgrading from 98SE. The differences between XP and 2k were minor. The upgrade was more of a glorified service pack, or like Leopard was to Tiger.

To compare 98SE->XP might be a bit more realistic, but even so, the analogy quickly falls apart. As I have been saying for some time now, with Vista, Microsoft set out to solve problems that didn't really exist. XP had no issues that people couldn't live with. The same could not be said of 98SE; it still had stability issues until the day MS stopped supporting it. There were compelling reasons to make the move from 98 to XP, other than eye candy.

Some people like to claim that MS will use service packs to fix performance issues with Vista. Or that it's normal for newer software to use more resources, and be slower on the same hardware. But I need only to point to MS greatest (commercial) rival, Apple, who, with every release, has continued to make an operating system that performs better and uses less resources on the same hardware. Every. Release. Apple can do it, and in less time, and with less money, and with fewer developers. Why can't Microsoft?

I'll ask you the same question that I'm sure Intel's IT department wrestled with: what does Vista really offer you? I mean, really? That it's worth all that money, all that time, all that hassle? All that learning a new system, all those times you wonder why they decided to move the configuration options around for no apparent reason?

Microsoft did drop the ball with Vista. There doesn't seem to be any way around that. What irritates me the most is that instead of learning from their mistakes and cutting their losses, Microsoft still seeks to mercilessly push its product by ending the life and refusing to sell or support the product the customers -really- want. What kind of business model is that, anyway? Why would Microsoft refuse to sell its most popular product?

I bid XP a semi-fond adieu. It has been fun, if not always enjoyable. I, for one am going to be milking my academic licenses for XP as long as I can, and ease into using Linux more and more. When the day comes that I can no longer hear that cheery ring when I boot up my computer, I sincerely hope that the Wine project has come as far. I certainly won't be using Vista. I have no reason to.

Edited 2008-07-01 04:57 UTC

I disagree with that pretty much completely.

98 SE addressed the stability issues 98 had. Of course, they weren't really addressed until XP SP2, but the difference between RTM XP and 98 SE was the same to worse, depending on the state of the drivers put out by your hardware vendors.

What you got from the xp upgrade was worse performance, alot of hardware that didn't work, more resources being used. Oh yeah, and a teletubbies inspired theme. Of course, you also got the NT kernel, but end users don't care about that.

Same deal with the XP->Vista upgrade. You could make the argument that the kernel upgrade isn't as significant, but most of the major APIs have really had the cruft cleaned out of them.

I think it is you that has the selective memory. XP totally sucked until SP1 came out, and still was pretty bad until SP2, which really should have been called XP Second Edition as it was pretty much a new OS. My guess is that it will be the same deal with vista, only instead of calling it SP2 they will call it Windows 7.

Tomcat tends to forget the basic design direction that Vista has taken.

http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html
"What went wrong? Basically, Vista was designed with almost no consideration for the needs of Microsoft's customers. James Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platform Products and Services Group wrote an internal memo saying that Microsoft had lost touch with customer needs and if he didn't work there he'd buy an Apple Macintosh. Allchin retired the day Vista shipped."

http://badvista.fsf.org/what-s-wrong-with-microsoft-windows-vista
"Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is a giant step backward for your freedoms.

Usually, new software enables you to do more with your computer. Vista, though, is designed to restrict what you can do. "

These "wrongway" aspects are fundamental design tenets of Vista ... they simply aren't going to be fixed by the next service pack.

That bad vista page is good ol' fashion FUD

Just like every previous OEM version of windows.



Which is the law for any previous version of windows, or any version of OSX (not counting family packs)


Just like you give that right to any other anti-malware program you have ever installed. You also have the ability to take that right away by turning it off, just like any other anti-malware program.



You can see the lie between the first and second part of that bullet point. By "spy on" they mean "detect piracy".

Another thing to keep in mind is that WGA has been around in office and windows since XP came out 8 years ago. 500,000 is probably something like 1% of the time.



Stop spreading FUD. Say "Vista wont run on old hardware, has compatibility issues with old apps, is insanely expensive, uac is annoying, etc" Those are all valid complaints. That page is propaganda written by people who want to lie to you.

I actually don't really like windows in general all that much, but its crap like that that keeps me defending it in places like these.

What would a Linux user care about Windows XP? oh yeah, you are yet another anti-MS troll.

Or you can buy Vista and get all that XP was and lot more. And to be total idiot on top of that, get free VirtualPC and buy XP on it. First time in history lot of people are willing to buy less with same money they could get more, I guess the cellphones really did fried peoples brains.