Right now, the net is abuzz about remarks Steve Ballmer made at a Belgium news conference today. The buzz comes from a Reuters story which quotes Ballmer as saying that Windows XP's life cycle might be extended if customers demand it. Contrary to what all those reports online might indicate, there really is no change in policy here.
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Member since:2005-07-12
>> Megs
Oops, Yeah, I've been at this so long I STILL haven't made that adjustment. (lord help me when tb becomes more commonplace)
Could be worse, I could have said K... or even bytes. My first machine only had a quarter-k of static RAM, and that was on eight chips of 16 bits each.
Member since:2005-06-29
I didn't mention Server 2003 just as an amusing note. I see an opportunity here for Microsoft to silently promote Server 2003 to people who demand Windows XP. This would avoid the loss of face for Microsoft.
Just yesterday I made the switch from XP to 2003. I used to run 2003, then switched to XP (I believe I lost my 2003 disc/case with the license attached), but somehow, I never felt at home in XP. So, I downloaded the trial of Server 2003, which works for 180 days, and now I feel all happy again. It's slightly faster than XP too.
So, 179 days left to get my hands on a cheap 2003 license
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Member since:2006-06-03
Member since:2006-03-27
You may consider to try Server 2008 (free for 240 days). I installed the 64 bit version one month ago and it's doing very good so far, even enabling Aero with all the bells and whistles. I "officially" got it to try developing on a 64 bit Windows, but World of Warcraft plays just as nice as it does in XP.
But of course that's on my new machine, a Pentium Dual Core E2180 @ 2.5 GHz with 4 GB of RAM, and an 8600GT 512 MB. I'm mostly concerned about memory usage (takes 1 GB just to do, well, nothing), but I think it could run on much older hardware.
Member since:2005-08-07
stestagg said....
I've got some bad news for you, Vista has failed. I'm not saying this because I'm someone who has 'dedicated their live to be against Microsoft' I'm saying it because it's true. Look at the market's reaction to Vista, and you'll realize its been incredibly hostile to it.
I have never had so many End-Users come up to me and empathetically tell me they do not want Vista on their new computer, isn't there some way they can still get Windows XP? (I show them how to order from the business side of Dell's website and they're happy...or I just point them towards TigerDirect..)
With Windows 2000 the benefits of jumping to Windows XP was clear--cleartype to be exact!
The transition from Win9x to WinXP was also clear, moving to an NT based kernel allowed more RAM to be used and for application crashes to occur without taking down the whole system with it...there were real benefits to the move.
That is not the case with Vista. Every Vista machine I've seen and used has either felt dog slow, or a veritable super computer that just managed to use all that computing power to stay where Windows XP already is...
---bornagainpenguin
Member since:
2006-06-03
Running windows XP on 4Mb of ram must be quite a challenge.
This issue is not, IMO, about sales figures. It's about reputation and PR. If Microsoft backtrack too much on keeping Windows XP alive, then it will be seen as an admission that Vista failed. Failed products damage a company's reputation and as people look to upgrade [wether they need to or not], alternative OSs will be adopted.