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."
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
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.
Member since:2005-12-31
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.
Member since:2006-02-22
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
Member since:
2006-09-21
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.