September 21, 2007 12:11 PM PDT
The XP alternative for Vista PCs
Last modified: September 21, 2007 3:51 PM PDT
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The program applies only to Windows Vista Business and Ultimate versions, and it is up to PC makers to decide how, if at all, they want to make XP available. Fujitsu has been among the most aggressive, starting last month to include an XP disc in the box with its laptops and tablets.
"That's going to help out small- and medium-size businesses," Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told CNET News.com.
Hewlett-Packard also started a program in August for many of its business models. "For business desktops, workstations and select business notebooks and tablet PCs, customers can configure their systems to include the XP Pro restore disc for little or no charge," HP spokeswoman Tiffany Smith said in an e-mail. She said it was too soon to gauge how high customer interest has been. "Since we've only been offering (it) for about a month, we don't really have anything to share on demand."
A Microsoft representative confirmed there were changes made over the summer to make it easier for customers to downgrade to XP. Under Microsoft's licensing terms for Vista, buyers of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate Edition have always had the right to downgrade to XP, but in practice this could be challenging. In June, Microsoft changed its practices to allow computer makers that sell pre-activated Vista machines to order Windows XP discs that could be included inside the box with PCs, or shipped to customers without requiring additional activation. Microsoft noted in a statement that neither it nor the PC makers are "obligated to supply earlier versions to end users under the end user licensing terms."
While there is always resistance by some to move to a new operating system, there appears to be particularly strong demand, especially from businesses, to stick with XP.
One of the challenges, for both businesses and consumers are Vista's hefty graphics and memory needs.
Lenovo, for its part, has details for its downgrade program on its IBM ThinkPad Web site.
Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden said Dell has been offering businesses that have a Premier Page set up the option to order systems with XP, Vista or Vista with XP downgrade rights. There is no extra charge for the downgrade rights.
"We've been offering it and we're still offering it," she said.
HP, Gateway and others also still sell machines with XP on them, nearly a year after Microsoft first started offering Vista to businesses. Vista went on sale broadly to consumers in January, at which point XP largely disappeared from retail shelves.
However, demand for XP has remained. In April, Dell brought XP back as an option even on consumer PCs.
There is an issue, though, over how long PC makers can keep selling machines with Windows XP as the preloaded operating system. Microsoft is requiring large PC makers to stop selling XP-based systems as of January 31, though some PC makers would like to sell XP machines for longer.
"We're all lobbying for it," Farris said.
See more CNET content tagged:
Microsoft Windows XP,
PC company,
Microsoft Windows Vista,
Fujitsu,
tablet
The only problem I have faced on Windows Vista is a folder corruption issue about 3 months ago, that was traced to that damn faulty RealTek driver for the sound chip in my notebook that really should have been very apparent in the first place.
Maybe like when MSFT laid down the various End-Of-Life schedules, only to be forced to relent and streatch 'em out...
Like it or lump it, Vista is a dog and a hog. No one in business apparently wants or even cares to bother with it (for instance, only 2% --yes, TWO percent-- of UK businesses use Vista right now). If business wants XP, it'll get XP. IF MSFT doesn't want to play ball, then business will go elsewhere.
I honestly hope that MSFT has the arrogance to carry through on their demands this time. Then, as businesses slowly start leaving MSFT for other OSes when faced with either XP or no Windows at all, they can drown in their own hubris.
(what you say? businesses can't get an OEM PC or server w/o Windows on it? I certainly beg to differ - they can get 'em with no OS if they like... Dell and HP both do this on a regular basis, as do most other large OEMs).
/P
them to purchase new hardware and software and results in huge
collateral expense, when what they have works fine, is bullying of
the most spivish kind.
I hope Microsoft really does pull the plug on XP support in the EU.
Result - goodbye Microsoft - hello real competition.
I have Vista and installed it, tested it for a month and wow, that was the most sluggish OS comparing to XP. The boot process was so slow and other things. The Vista Areo graphics thing is cool but, hey!! i want to work as fast as it can, not to stare to an amazing desktop background. And i think the demand of more and more memory is just pointless, why? because if you have an operating system like xp that works fast and very good, why to torture your system?
1. Support for XP is not going away anytime soon.
2. XP may leave the retail channel soon but nobody will be forced to go buy Vista and install it. There's still lots of 95, 98 ME and 3.1 users out there right? I have not yet heard that hte MS police track you down and force you to put anything on an existing box.
3. After XP goes away from retail you still don't have to buy Vista to get a shiny new chunck of hardware.
But the big question for me is: Can't relapce Vista and XP with 2000/98 and XP go back to 2001 and have the exact same conversation.
And one more thing: New MS operating systems are always bigger than the previous because they are designed to take advantage of the ever faster, better, cheaper hardware that will be released during the life of the OS. I am not statng this as praise just fact.
So in our case, XP, rather than Vista, is the upgrade.
After so many years of putting junk on top of junk there was only one possible outcome, VISTA.
I think is time to start again. Make the next version of Windows based on a Unix Kernel. Maybe BSD and create a layer like wine for all your old stuff. So basically do what Apple did.
Then I will buy your new OS.
Run, Tux, run!
Kernel doesn't tick
tick, tock, windows
time is up
Run Steve, Run!
Sorry. Your dose of randomness for the day.
95 brought a "mac'like" ease of use. 98 brought internet technologies and multimedia. ME failed because it brought nothing compelling and was less stable than 98. 2000 brought stability. XP adds further stability, its quicker than 2000, and has vast compatibility with devices.
Vista unfortunately does not add leaps in stability, is sluggish on all but top end PCs and it has compatibility issues. It tries to be friendly, but its endless pop ups come off as annoying. Its multimedia is bloated with DRM causing slow operations which may benefit large corps but does nothing for users. Vista Ultimate is the true Vista but at a cost of hundreds leaving users to agonize over which affordable hobbled version fits their economic class.
A colossal failure?? Microsoft seems to feel adoption is inevitable. The question is will people play along or resist. Personally I'm still on XP and even considering a MAC, but the cost of an Apple is another frustrating conversation.
No intention of buying a half baked green potato despite the adled, faux and flitty wisdom of reassuring myself all will be right with patches and upgrades.
This is the boldest move yet in an occluded, colluded market whose only interests are to wrest the hard earned dollars away from those that are enticed into believing that they have a clue.
People are laughing, multitudes of people are laughing, and pointing, at the new clothes. The new winter coat is almost ready for the emperor.
amd/ati has lost my business for good since all the updates over the last few months are vista skewed and don't work that well on any operating system, actually worse on xp now.
Anyone that thinks vista is a remotely reasonable upgrade has one hand on their mouse and the other in their lap, not doing much of anything with the new fashion.
1. 15 GB just for the OS? You're kidding, right?
2. Why did they rearrange everything? I can't find the settings anymore.
3. We have to buy a new graphics card and more memory just to make it run on the test computer? We just got that computer not long ago.
4. Why is it so slow? I thought it was supposed to be better?
5. Did you read that article about high definition home movies not working because of the DRM?
6. Yea, the aero interface is neat, but it doesn't improve my productivity one bit. What was the point?
7. Why doesn't the activation work? All I did was reload it again.
8. We're going to have to do atleast 25 computers before we can use the KMS activation service?
9. What do you mean "they'll have to connect with the KMS service atleast once every 6 months"? All the guys out in the field aren't going to like that.
10. We let it run out without activating it to see what happens. The only thing you can do with it is activate it, you can't even log in. If this was a field computer, they'd have to mail the computer to corporate.
11. We loaded one with developer tools: office 2007, sql server desktop edition, visual studio 2005, visual safesource, antivirus software... it all works. Wow, an actual positive feedback.
12. Only one fourth of our computers will run vista business with the aero interface?
Enough said. Microsoft? We are not impressed with vista and plan to stick with XP.
However, over the time, Microsoft lost that touch and other great companies such as Google and Adobe converted loyal cutomerbase with ever so innovative and easy to use offerings.
Despite huge marketing and research budgets, Microsoft only seems to follow suite of Linux, Sun, Google and Adobe among other companies. Innovation seems to an expnsive deal for them now and copycating i guess seems easier.
Microsft solutions are now heavyweight, that demand more and more horsepower to work well and mostly unstable. If Microsoft ever wants to coe out of this quicksand they need to fire all their marketng and research team and start from scratch. Google always appears to be honest in their intentions and devoid of cheap marketing self-preservance tactics. I'm not saying they're not trying to survive, i'm just saying that their offerings are more generous. Small things make big impressions, take for example a simple email forwarding feature in Gmail to anyother account incuding hotmail. I'm sure if Google ever offers an operating system Microsoft would lose most of its customerbase.
As for Vista, compared to some linux versions that offer 3D interface its is nothing more than a fancy face over XP.
- Aero Glass
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by NickH
September 22, 2007 4:42 AM PDT
- I agree that for some people staying with XP makes sense, especially in business environments.
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See all 149 Comments >>The Aero glass UI gets alot of critisism, and I think unfairly.
Microsoft have introduced a new desktop manager to takes advantage of the considerable processing power in many graphics cards, that is normally dormant, unless playing playing games. The result is an improved UI.
They have not required that Vista has such a graphics card, and if your hardware can't do Aero Glass, you'll get Aero Basic, that does not render your PC any less functional.
Thats seems to me like a fairly reasoned approach by Microsoft.
(The requirements for Aero Glass are not that high, in terms of GPUs sold today).