Submitted by Microsoft is simplifying the processes via which its PC-maker partners will be able to provide ‘downgrade’ rights from Windows Vista to Windows XP for their customers. Microsoft will implement the first of the policy changes for its Gold Certified (top-tier) OEM partners within the next couple of weeks. The company will streamline downgrade-rights policies and procedures for the broader channel somewhat later, said John Ball, general manager of Microsoft’s US Systems Group.
haha! (tagging beta)
š
Last month called, they want their haha tag back, it was removed (along with omgponies) ages ago
It would be funny, IF Windows wasn’t preloaded on damn near ever PC sold. Same song, different verse.
Make’s zero difference if it’s XP or Vista. The same company is still kicking the living shit out of everyone else.
reading this made me think of one thing. remember those comercials where they had this big red button that was teh “easy” button? you just presed it and everythign would work?
I can just imagine an aplication crashing in vista and this “easy” button pops up and u can click on it and *poof* the box is now an xp machine.
(2 clicks though….sudden death)….(or a BSoD)
yes like in LOST they had the key, they knew how to use it but…
Is it somehow a late confession on the vista quality?
Of course not I was joking, 5 years of intense work cannot finish like this…..lol
“Is it somehow a late confession on the vista quality? ”
How about lack of compatible applications? or unavailability of drivers? Not everything is Vista’s fault.
Edited 2007-06-29 01:08
Oh really? that old xp applications are unsupported and u cant even install xp/2000 drivers on it not vistas fault?
Vista aint a move like win2000/XP back then they moved from windows 98 to windows 2000 meaning win9x to Nt in other words people got sick of having the windows interface as a Gui for dos and needed something new.
The way people bloat programs today affects ram and cpu usage alot , multitasking becomes sluggish even on xp.
If bloatware is supposed to run on pc’s i suggest pc’s get better timing for that, why buy a new pc that is faster cpu-wise but behaves slower than winxp on 486dx2?
I just boycott vista , no need for it (hopefully ever)
“Oh really? that old xp applications are unsupported and u cant even install xp/2000 drivers on it not vistas fault? ”
No, it’s not Vista’s fault. It’s the developers’ faults. MS has produced reams of information on how to make your apps/drivers/kitchen sink compatible with Vista, and betas have been around for 3+ years now. For every 1 application which isn’t compatible, there are 10 which are that you never hear about b/c no one cares about hearing the good side of things.
If a company refuses to write a Vista driver for their older hardware, how is that Vista’s fault? MS was very clear from the beginning…there will be some incompatibilities. People can either cry about it, or do one of two things: Stick with XP if they need their older hardware/software, or pony up and purchase compatible versions. If XP is ‘good enough’ by all means stick with it.
Why should hardware vendors be forced to pay for Microsoft’s business decisions?
“Why should hardware vendors be forced to pay for Microsoft’s business decisions?”
Are you saying that Microsoft should write their drivers for them? That makes zero sense.
I didn’t say that.
However, Microsoft has changed the driver model, and now all the shills are whining that 3rd party vendors aren’t shelling out lots of money to adapt to Microsoft’s changing attitudes to drivers.
We migrated several of our dying machines to Vista out of necessity (nobody would sell us an XP box). This was supposed to be a quick swap, since we’ve been swamped with business.
I’ve spent the better part of three weeks fixing all the various breakages and bugs, instead of doing my job. User accounts get periodically locked in AD. Some internal .NET apps run across the network, others don’t, and still others don’t run at all (WTF??). Microsoft’s migration wizards appear to ignore configuration files and documents at random. *ALL* of our third party apps required an upgrade (and, surprise surprise, a new license purchase) to work. And they still crash. Frequently.
Speaking of crashes, everything seems to crash or slow to a grinding halt with eerie consistency. IE whitescreens an average of once an hour for each computer. Firefox is worse. New problems crop up every couple of days. Oh, and everything is slower than molasses. Upgrade? Where? This stuff ran as smooth as butter on XP.
In the end, if you factor in the money it’s cost us to buy new hardware, buy new licenses and redirect our meager tech resources to support the constant breakages, the Vista “upgrade” has cost us our entire hardware and software budget for the year. ROI my ass. No new servers. No PM software. We’ve got to make due with what we have now. Thanks Microsoft.
What I would give to put XP on those desktops and get the past three weeks of my life (and my operating budget) back…
Why don’t you spend the rest of the year working on deploying Ubuntu? Then you can publish a nice how-to or even a book
I suspect he’d blow the rest of his budget trying to get these “must have” apps working.
What, precisely, do you mean by “We migrated several of our dying machines to Vista out of necessity” do you mean you installed Vista on the old machines, or bought new machines to replace the old ones, couldn’t get XP (not too surprising) and found that all the old stuff wasn’t written correctly?
A lot can be blamed on poor drivers, there’s likely little doubt there, as they aren’t mature, sadly, but if you’re running on dying/unreliable hardware, well, I don’t know why you’d expect any OS to run properly, but how you expressed things left room to doubt what you meant.
If you were forced to replace old machines with new ones, combined with also not being able to install a known quantity OS that everything else works with already, that’s just not something you can expect to happen without fireworks, regardless, and sadly, too many Windows applications are written on various assumptions of how things are configured, often with security not being properly taken care of, etc. and that’s something you need to scream at your software providers for.
Rolling out systems into a production realm without having a validation plan that’s executed first is just asking for problems, regardless of the OS vendor. Going from one major (.1 or more) version release to another with BeOS wasn’t perfectly smooth, either, and some things broke (not that there’s been that many applications total to break) and don’t even talk about Linux being immune to such hiccups when changing versions of libs, etc.
What, precisely, do you mean by “We migrated several of our dying machines to Vista out of necessity” do you mean you installed Vista on the old machines, or bought new machines to replace the old ones, couldn’t get XP (not too surprising) and found that all the old stuff wasn’t written correctly?
I don’t know for sure, but I think I comprehend his situation fairly well. He is in a smallish company, they have a somewhat limited budget and their current machines happened to reach their end-of-life right around the time all the vendors started shipping Vista exclusively. They weren’t big enough (or didn’t have the budget) for volume licensing on XP so they just bought a few XP preloaded machines as needed. Now, they’re stuck without a way to wipe Vista from the new hardware and install XP. This has led to a snowball effect with their software and network needs due to Vista’s current instability and lack of backwards-compatibility.
I’m sure youāre correct and it also agrees with my experience, we have 2 Vista Business PC and they’ve been horrible.
Ā· Applications don’t work including MS Office.
Ā· Slow – is a dual core with a gig of RAM and a Nvidia graphics card low end? Do we need gaming PCs in the office?
Ā· The default drivers, which should work e.g. Nvidia graphics drivers donāt work properly (scrambles the screen when Vista asks for permission to make system changes and won’t run the appropriate resolution)
Ā· Rearranges peoples desktops when they open files from the desktop
Ā· Wireless drivers not supplied difficult to find
Ā· Etc
However XP is not a solution it is now no longer fit for purpose, Old, very insecure etc. MS need to fix Vista – although Iād like to go for Ubuntu realistically I need some Window applications. I suggest MS strips the DRM crap and other Crap out of Vista concentrates on getting drivers that work and backwards compatibility working, and make a service pack that makes this OS just work.
“is a dual core with a gig of RAM and a Nvidia graphics card low end?”
Being that vague? Yes. Yes it very well may be low end.
very slow…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116037
slower…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814139150
These components will make for a very very disappointing PC experience, even for email/internet/documents
“is a dual core with a gig of RAM and a Nvidia graphics card low end?”
Being that vague? Yes. Yes it very well may be low end.
very slow…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116037
slower…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814139150
These components will make for a very very disappointing PC experience, even for email/internet/documents
Not on XP and Ubuntu, they won’t. I run an Athlon 2500+ with a gig of RAM, and use it for video and audio editing. Runs great on XP, and also Ubuntu Studio.
Don’t forget XP came out when 600-700Mhz was the norm, and a gig of RAM was reserved for “power users”, and that’s if the system even supported it. I’ve got a Dell 933Mhz PIII that only supports 512MB. XP runs great on that too, and use that one as my PVR.
While I see what you’re getting at, I must still say that Vista’s hardware requirements show how bloated it is as an OS.
Edited 2007-06-29 20:03
It sounds like your situation is rather typical of most SMEs.. time, money and resource poor, coupled with a demanding business requirement. I feel for you.
However, placing this directly on Microsoft or Vista isn’t exactly fair now is it? I’m not sure how you downgrade other than having to buy preloaded Vista systems and then installing XP onto them.
Two points. Firstly, Windows XP is still widely available through various channels, typically the local computer stores. I just checked several of mine and Windows XP is available for purchase.
Secondly, you can in fact purchase white box computers from the same local computer stores without an OS, sometimes even from bigger vendors such as Dell. You may even be able to purchase the Ubuntu boxes from Dell and just install XP onto them.
Also, why couldn’t you just use the XP license from the old boxes you’re replacing?
As for application compatibility, this should have been done well before the machines were into production, even if only checking online compatibility lists. If it’s not compatible, speak to the software vendor. Microsoft have changed the way Vista works for a number of reasons. I’m sure some of them are strategically beneficial to Microsoft’s software, but also to improve security.
Drivers we can expect, though I don’t agree it should be this way, to be buggy with Vista. This is a hardware vendor problem trying to rush things, not a Microsoft problem. I have buggy print drivers for my Minolta laser printer which cause screwing print jobs and false paper jams. Minolta’s answer… “sorry, it is a known problem but we’re not going to fix that for XP. it works fine on 2000.” Gee, thanks.
Upgrades on other operating systems goof up due to version problems. Happens on Solaris and Linux regularly.
I think if you wanted to, you could have quite easily gone down the XP route, but perhaps you were time poor. You wouldn’t be the first person. I know it sucks but perhaps some pre-work would have avoided the situation.
Also, why couldn’t you just use the XP license from the old boxes you’re replacing?
OEM Licenses are tied to the machine. Doing this is illegal
Erm.. I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to transfer the license once.
No, you are not allowed to, the EULA states:
[/i]* Software as a Component of the Computer – Transfer. THIS
LICENSE MAY NOT BE SHARED,
TRANSFERRED TO OR USED CONCURRENTLY
ON DIFFERENT COMPUTERS. The SOFTWARE
is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated
product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the
SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may
not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all
of your rights under this EULA only as part of a
permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE, provided
you retain no copies, if you transfer all of the SOFTWARE
(including all component parts, the media and printed
materials, any upgrades, this EULA and the Certificate
of Authenticity), and the recipient agrees to the terms
of this EULA. If the SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any
transfer must also include all prior versions of the
SOFTWARE.
[/i]
We migrated several of our dying machines to Vista out of necessity (nobody would sell us an XP box). This was supposed to be a quick swap, since we’ve been swamped with business.
All your problems could have been non-existent had you done 5 minutes internet research.
Dell, Gateway, and HP all offer XP Professional loaded machines. Insight (and probably CDW) are both selling boxed retail full and upgrade versions. No need for volume licensing.
Newegg.com sells the OEM in single or 3-packs.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a big Vista fan either. But you can’t blame this one on Microsoft, because your IT dept failed to do proper research and planning.
We’ve continued to buy quad-core workstations, ultra-light laptops, 17″ workstation laptops, and middle of the road laptops all with great selection, all with XP.
Is Vista so bad that having it on the same machine as XP draws unfavorable comparisons? Is not the better solution to Dual boot or use some Visualization for moving its customers to the new platform. I cannot believe pressure from OEM’s on Microsoft has caused this move. I’d say it is current hardware limitations of the low end machines being comparable with those of a few years ago, making Vista look a poor mans XP.
You cannot run legally both XP and Vista on same machine unless You have retail licenses, as far as I know. That would mean in order to run them You would have to shell out ~500-800$ just for OS which isn’t near of being smart. Problem with Vista is that XP is just fine, and upgrade price(hardware and software) does not hold any justifiable benefit, yet.
OEM have all the rights to demand this sort of MS move, since Vista ready or even Vista premium machines are often too unstable or poorely supported in VIsta. People are still using years old periferial hardware for which Vista isn’t driver ready.
Part of the reason that XP was being moved to ‘end of life’ was an attempt to bring some sort of predictability to the support lifecycle system. 5 years primary support, 5 years extended support, with only limited extensibility of these dates. The idea was to get consumers to know exactly when a product would no longer be supported, so they could plan ahead instead of being surprsied.
And yet, Microsoft keeps extending XP’s support. Not only does this increase the amount of work they have to do (what is that, 3 primary OSs now, two home and one server?), it’s going to give them headaches down the road when Vista+1 comes out and tight-fisted bosses are still hanging back on Vista for as long as humanly possible…
Edited 2007-06-28 23:14
This isn’t a support extension. It’s just making it easier for customers to exercise the downgrade rights they already have.
people to upgrade to a better OS ? (by waiving their crappy oh-so secret OEM contract terms and letting them ship without windows)
They can. Get with the times.
On the contrary. Let those people upgrade to THE better OS.
“Never a new MacOSX caused any appreciable trouble”
You’re not going to hear about OSX rollouts because they don’t exist in the business world, which is where all large scale rollouts take place. Businesses usually have a homogeneous set of hardware deployed, so if Vista doesn’t work on one machine, it’s a good bet it won’t work on most of them, and thus those kinds of stories make headlines.
This isn’t about consumers, this is targeting large scale licensees.
“Let those people upgrade to THE better OS.”
DR-DOS?
Aparently you weren’t around during the OS9->OSX transition…
That’s because the OSX revisions are like service packs compared to the step from XP to Vista.
The OSX updates 10.4 10.5 are the same as windows moving from Win2k (5.0) WinXP (5.1).
The mac does have service packs like windows 10.4.1 10.4.2 etc.. (SP1, SP2).
The main difference i have seen is that with every release on the Mac it gets quicker, where as every release after Win2k seems to get slower. Personally i think Win2k was the last great Client OS from Microsoft.
OSX is moving more and more as a viable platform simply because a lot of companies are now implementing their business logic and software on web platforms, accessible by any computer. It’s as if the IT world has come full circle with the mainframes to client server and now back to mainframe type working (i.e. central computer (farm) provides the UI, processing and data storage.
Windows will never go away overnight and probably never will as although it has it’s problems it works mostly well.
Microsoft is a strange company, if there’s no competition they give up and release stale useless products. Give them competition and they work damn hard and provide some good stuff. I love Windows 2003 server i think it’s a solid product, i don’t really like Vista as there are far too many problems with it (network stalling, high memory usage) however because Mac OSX and Linux are now serious compeition i expect the release after Vista R2 to be very good.
Did Windows XP get a hardware accelerated video and image core processing engine in a service pack? (Core Image / Video).
Did Windows XP get instant meta data searching and saved searches in a service pack? (Spotlight)
No, you got the fecking “Security Centre”. Nice one.
soon a lot fewer IT guys would be needed to keep the company computers running.
So this switch may never happen, unless the IT guys could finally get around to do some real work, rather than the work imposed by the whims of MS’s Vista-producing machine.
I remember the demise of VMS, which (used to be a beautiful OS, but) was hampered by 1. an excessive load on IT staff to keep up with upgrading alone; 2. excessive software maintenance contract (read: upgrade) costs.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (Except that with VMS hardly any apps broke after new system upgrades)
Edited 2007-06-28 23:52
“soon a lot fewer IT guys would be needed to keep the company computers running. ”
Except most of the internal apps a company uses would nbot even install, unless you ran them in a vm. Grow up, moving to OS X would be a much, much more painful expenbsive transition than to Vista, even a frothing at the mouth fanboy would see that
I expect a lot of IT desktop farms who stick at XP and will consider an upgrade when and if vistas successor is being launched.
But isn’t that kind of like boasting that some dictator got 99% of the vote? Even those PCs being rolled back to XP come preloaded with Vista now.
I have a customer that has a small engineering office. He has a couple of Autocad 2005 licenses and a film scanner. Only got Autocad running on a new computer replacement with Vista pre-installed after setting compatibility to Windows XP SP2 and checking “run as administrator”.
Still got some glitches when accessing files from the server. Some of the software that came bundled with the film scanner works in a weird way.
The “boss” said that an upgrade is not an option and his employees need to adapt. The new machine is not that snap. I think MS should have done a better job.
From my side, I got bored by all that shine, gloss and effects and switched to a classical Windows 2000 look under Windows XP after installing my retail on my own computer. MS should think seriously about pacific coexistence of different copies of Windows on the same HD (sharing fonts and program settings whenever possible). This way they could get ride of all that compatibility bloat, at least partially and incrementally on new versions without too much disruption process. I bet they could even increase their profit selling support/upgrades for old copies (the way FOSS companies do) besides selling new ones.
For while, anyone that ask me receive the already classical answer: get XP if you can.
I think it is high time for Microsoft to admit that their upgrade treadmill in proprietary operating systems has ENDED. If I were running MS now I would seriously consider:
1. Dropping Windows Vista as a flop.
2. Ending the Product Activation requirement in and open sourcing Windows XP and the development systems for it under NOT the GPL but a license of my own making that allows for continued proprietary software developemnt on the system as well as full open development rights for what would become the Windows XP community. I would also open source some MS legacy software like Visual Basic 3 and 6, Visual C++ 1 and 6, Windows 9x, Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.2 under the same licensing terms to revive legacy computers rather than dumping them while they can still work reasonably well. Windows XP would continue to be the main preload OS for commercial computers but WITHOUT the infamous Microsoft Operating System tax.
3. Continuing to make money off of preloads of non OS software such as Office for computer systems intended for workstations and MS games for ported from X Box to Windows for computers intended as gaming/multimedia platforms.
I believe that Microsoft is really missing out on a stratagy that could LEGITIMATELY beat Linux and give the company the good name it had in the late 1980s by not following a stratagy like this now that their proprietary OS treadmill is at an end.
“Dropping Windows Vista as a flop.”
So what you’re saying is that the billions of dollars you invested in this ‘flop’ mean nothing, and are expendable? Your shareholders would eat you alive (and almost decidedly vote you out of the company), and you’d personally piss off the 10,000 employees who poured their blood sweat and tears into this product…they’d leave in droves as they’d have zero confidence in management.
“Ending the Product Activation requirement”
Thus opening up the floodgates for piracy. It’s funny how no one who has actually purchased a license has any qualms with PA.
“but a license of my own making that allows for continued proprietary software developemnt on the system as well as full open development rights for what would become the Windows XP community.”
Just what we need, YALC (Yet Another License Scheme). You seem to forget that most of the MS MVP’s have full access to Windows source code, and regularly submit bug fixes.
“Continuing to make money off of preloads of non OS software such as Office for computer systems”
Let’s offer up our bread and butter, our core workhorse upon which all of our other software is built upon, for free?
“I believe that Microsoft is really missing out on a stratagy that could LEGITIMATELY beat Linux”
MS is already beating Linux…they’ve actually never been losing.
The term is “sunk cost.” If you were an investor, would you rather the company stop now, after spending several billion dollars, or stop in a few years, after spending several billion dollars more on top of what they’ve already spent? I admit there’s no real “good” way to go about that, but at some point you’ve got to cut your losses.
Not that I think Microsoft should do that. In time, Vista will be a success, simply because at some point, they’ll stop offering XP, and most people won’t realize they have any other choice.
“MS is already beating Linux…they’ve actually never been losing.”jayson.knight
MS is trying to keep that from happening with empty threats, bought politicans, etc… Linux will be a problem for MS and MS knows this.
By the way I have a retail version of Vista Home Prem. Installed the 32bit version first. I ordered the 64 bit version and deleted the 32 bit version. I had to activate Vista 64 several times for some reason. Then I had to call MS about the activation. I updated the firmware to my DVDR, updated to the latest VIA drivers, and disabled onboard 10100. BONK…..the activation message hit again! I called MS….. Keep in mind this was the same system but MS could not stand it that I unistalled the 32 bit Vista and installed the 64bit on that I had ordered.
It’s crap like this that makes me wonder why in the world I wasted $$$$ on Vista!
Because you are stupid?
How can you call the guy stupid ? Do you know him ?
He might have fallen for the same mistake Microsoft users have been making for years, that the next version will be the best thing since sliced bread, the coolest thing since air-conditioning etc etc
He was making the point to the local shill Jason.Knight that even legal Vista users have a bad time with Product Activation and that Microsoft treat ALL users are pirates. Even if they pay full whack each time.
> I believe that Microsoft is really missing out on a
> stratagy that could LEGITIMATELY beat Linux and give
> the company the good name it had in the late 1980s by
> not following a stratagy like this now that their
> proprietary OS treadmill is at an end.
Microsoft had a good name?
Back then, Microsoft was considered the plucky young visonary upstart sticking it to the no-result daydreamers and imaginationless old stodgy businessmen alike… sort of the way George Lucas was considered back when he made THX 1138.
Heck, to illustrate the kind of competition they fought against: I had an IBM PC from the early 90s once. Their cases were kept locked by special keys that only Authorized IBM Distributors could open, so if as much as a cable came loose, you’d have to go back to them and pay to get it repaired — and they typically would only repair it for a few years, after which you were expected to upgrade again. The case had a single point of control (somehow, they tied all the connectors to that one key), and if you tried to open your case any other way, you would not be able to get your computer repaired. Freedom from this sort of hardware lockin was revolutionary.
Not to mention they made software that other companies used to grow and thrive. How many companies used some form of MSBasic, or implemented the MSX standard?
Evil as Microsoft is considered nowadays, they slew far greater evils in the marketplace.
>> 1. Dropping Windows Vista as a flop. <<
After six months Vista is already running on more desktops that Linux has managed in ten years.
Yup, if only Linux could ‘flop’ like that then we might actually see some competition …
And where do you get these figures from ?
Did you magically pluck them from your head ?
Vista might indeed be sold on a lot of new machines, but can anyone here tell me exactly how many people (who are IT savvy), actually run Vista ?
I know 1
I know 2 others that use it as it came with the new PCs and they do not know how to change.
Everyone else removed it and reverted back to XP
I have also noticed an increase in the amount of people asking for install discs for Ubuntu or LinuxMint.
If everyone on the planet just boycotts vista people will develop more things for xp , I noticed a vista 32bit application aint valid on XP , people say its incompatible i say its not for pc users its more for people who want the glass transparency features and nothing else.
People say its slow well yes people need to buy expensive ramsticks considering how cheap hd space and flash devices are ram prices are outrageous.
I myself run my custom Nlited/sleek xp without having to update anything ofcause i had to modify it to not run anything ends the OS take up 100 mb and when i install/run things i just reboot to a previous state till then me and my stuff runs only .
I do the opposite to MS for security removing instead of adding(adding back from backup when i have to) and it works for me. No viruses no adware/spyware
We can still upgrade to Solaris, Linux, BSD, QNX or my favorite BeOS. And a few other notables.
I wrote the following 4 months ago.
āI am upgrading from XP to Vista, I will keep XP (dual boot) as well because of my concerns of DRM and it how relates to hardware and software.
I want to see for myself, but if these issues are real I will fall back to XP. My hope is MS may make some changes in Vista. I used the Vista beta and liked it.
I also have a copy of UBUNTU as an alternative.
Iāve been a Windows user for over 15 yearsā.
Well after four months with Vista I ditched my dual boot, its Vista all the way.
I would imagine that the downgrade would be going from XO to Vista?
In Microsoft’s defence (and I don’t do this often) Vista isn’t /that/ bad. Sure from a security experts perspective it does things backwards (e.g. prompting users reminding them that they could be doing harmful things rather than out-right disallowing their actions without root access) and from an OS geeks perspective the interface is slow, ugly and massively dumbed down, but all things being considered it’s really not /that/ bad for the average Jo User.
I think Vista’s biggest problem is that it has been inappropriately pushed out on any and every system without though to whether said system (or even the user purchasing the system) needs Vista.
Give it another 12 months / 2 years and I’m sure many experts wouldn’t think twice about recommending Vista for home users.
Personally, I would choose Slackware and FreeBSD over Vista any day, but then I’m an OS geek so Vista clearly isn’t marketed for me (Windows Server n maybe, but not Vista)
“I think it is high time for Microsoft to admit that their upgrade treadmill in proprietary operating systems has ENDED.”
In spirit I agree with you! The reality of the matter is this company, short of a comet impact directly on Redmond, is going to be around for a very long time.
Saying that, don’t flame me. I’m not a Microsoft boy or gal! I absolutely hate the company and could care less about any product they produce. Microsoft proved to me they could not produce a quality product in five years, billions of dollars and thousands of talented coders.
We recently received a new CIO. He’s scheduled us to replace our PC equipment and XP in the next OS upgrade treadmill this summer. I use OS X and Linux in my work. He shut me down completely by taking my old but rock-solid-stable Mac and said, “you are receiving Vista for better compatibility and it’s what our customers use.”
This is called “tyranny by the majority”.
I run Oracle servers and databases. Who gives a flying rats @$$ about what customers use when I’m stuck in a cubicle somewhere managing their databases and Windows 2003 Oracle servers with OS X and Linux.
Oh well. It’s going to backfire on the CIO. With multiple departments, dozens of department heads and several thousand employees the feedback on Vista from its users will be “WOW” – “What a piece of ****!”
6 months ago I did a fresh install of Vista Ultimate on my two HP Digital Entertainment Centers computers which I have hooked to my LCD in the bedroom and another one hooked up to my LCD in the living room.I use them to download movies from Amazon Unbox, watch VONGO, as well as other internet video and as HDTV TIVOs. They originally came with XP media center edition and always had problems and crashed a lot. After installing VISTA on both machines all the problems went away and they now run perfectly. No I do not work for Microsoft. I just think people should know that some of us are having a great experience with VISTA.
I can only shake my head and go “tsk, tsk”. How bad does Microsoft’s products have to get before people refuse to buy them at all??
I have already noticed this with Vista.
See my previous post in this thread.
BTW, I have Vista myself on a machine here, but that is purely to help my tech support role for customers.