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MS Reportedly Adds 6 Months of Vista Downgrade
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Oct 03, 2008 08:07 AM
from the charting-a-course-to-windows-7 dept.
from the charting-a-course-to-windows-7 dept.
LiteralKa sends in a poorly sourced Reg story claiming that Microsoft has granted OEMs six more months to sell PCs using Windows Vista with the support to downgrade to Windows XP. OEMs can now offer such arrangements until July 31, 2009 — the previous deadline was January 31, 2009. The article claims as source "a Reg reader" without further details. Neither Microsoft nor any OEM has confirmed the rumor, and only a few scattered bloggers have picked it up.
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Gasp! (Score:4, Funny)
Front Page? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Reg (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't decide whether The Reg is The National Enquirer or the Weekly World News of tech news sites on the Web.
Can someone help me with this? ;)
Well well (Score:5, Insightful)
"Neither Microsoft nor any OEM has confirmed the rumor, and only a few scattered bloggers have picked it up."
Including Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot is rarely considered a timely news source at the best of times, which makes me wonder why they would approve an openly acknowledged poorly sourced story, rather than waiting?
Fair enough, two answers might be "kdawson" and page impressions from all of us Vista haters, but are not the editors adult employees with some sense of quality and thought?
Re: (Score:2)
You might as well think that 'employee' vs. 'sense' and 'thought' is a contradiction these days if you look at the 'quality' that is delivered (and at the cost to fix the financial implications).
CC.
Thank God (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They're cutting off XP because Vista sucks. That is obvious. This is an attempt to force conversions to Vista by putting an air of inevitability on it. However, the truth is that if people don't use Vista, they can't can XP. No company can afford to kill their source of revenue.
If the OEMs can't sell with XP then companies will start pirating it with VLK versions anyway so... I don't see where Microsoft has any leverage here.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I didn't correctly read what you meant. I'm assuming you mean they're _not_ cutting it off yet. Regardless, IMO they're allowing for additional time because it's an extra revenue source. Why limit the potential option to one OS when you can get people buying one of two? It's also to their benefit to do so rather than to effectively cut off sales to both: "Hey, I hear Vista is terrible. I wanna go to XP. What do you mean XP isn't for sale anymore?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you ever use it? I ran it for 9 months. Short answer: it's slow. Very slow. Performance is lousy, and if an operating system's performance is that much slower than a previous version, it sucks. I am not concerned about the DRM issues so much, just performance.
There were some good points: graphically it was nice, and I liked some of the UI enhancements, but balancing this out was the incompatibility with some software that I need, such as TFTP servers. Also, certain games (intended for XP, not tal
Re: (Score:2)
Vista is a piece of crap and official Microsoft policy is to deny it, of course. Can't speak badly about the company after all, can we?
I use XP. My daughter bought a new laptop and hates Vista. My dad bought a new laptop and after 2 weeks STILL can't install a printer driver - the Microsoft website is a maze of recursive links that never actually provide useful info. Not to mention all the nagging Vista does. So what incentive do *I* have to switch? I'm happy with my dual boot Ubuntu/XP computers, there the
HP problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
So Vista sucks because your father (who must be what? 60? 70?) can't install a printer driver?
Yeah, my father, who worked for IBM, who programmed mainframes to do accounting and payroll for companies with thousands of employees (think GM, etc), who has had every imaginable kind of PC since the 70's. He can't install a printer driver for his HP All-in-one. So your point was? Not every 60 year old is computer illiterate.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Blame HP, not microsoft. The driver for my all in one Brother laser installed perfectly in Vista x64. If it's possible for one company to do it correctly and make it easy for the user then it's possible for any company to do it. It sounds like HP dropped the ball. What is your logic for blaming it on Vista?
Sounds like all the problems are very hardware dependant. I purchased a new computer because my gaming machine would not run COD4 well and the resulting Vista machine not only out-performs everthing I've had before it also supported my HP printer out of the box. I actually set aside a day to move my printer and scanner over from their previous host and deal with all the driver issues, instead I found myself finished in hardly more time than it took to rearrange the cabling.
NB I'm no microsoft fan... I spen
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Insightful)
B.S. If my HP all-in-one runs fine with OS X and Ubuntu, and ran fine with XP but won't work in Vista, it is Microsoft's fault. You have to remember, one of the main reasons Vista even exists is to sell new hardware . It certainly wasn't necessary to replace XP for any other reason, lots of people like XP just fine and it still does pretty much everything consumers expect a modern OS to do. No, Vista was designed to literally require people to have to buy new stuff, as well as to make the **AA's job a bit easier. Either of which is more than ample reason to reject it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I can only speculate as to what Microsoft's reasons for cutting off XP are, but I would imagine they include a desire to eventually stop supporting it - preferably when not too many people are using it anymore. If they continue to sell XP, XP will supposedly continue to gain new users and keep existing users, which means Microsoft will have to support it longer.
Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
In those 8 years, Windows has hardly evolved. Honestly, Windows Vista doesn't add too much groundbreaking stuff to Windows XP, the only real technological novelty is the graphics.
Eight years is a lot in computer history, and if you look at what it was 8 years before Windows XP, that was 1993. So Windows 3.11 is to Windows XP, what Windows XP is to Windows Vista, but the difference between XP and Vista is much smaller than the difference between 3.11 and XP!
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
"why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?"
In short, because Microsoft succeeded in killing platform independant applications.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
It's not exactly the way you paint it. There is no 'line of succession' between Windows 3.11 and Windows XP.
XP and Vista are derivatives of Windows NT. Version 3.1, the first version of NT, was released in 1992. There's a chasm of difference between Windows 3.11 and NT 3.1.
Between Windows 4.0, which was released in 1994 or 1996 and Windows 2000, there's not that much difference outside of the user interface changes. And between 2000 and Vista there's not that much difference, aside from user interface ch
Linux and Mac Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Well- this is Slashdot, so...
Look at how much Linux desktops have evolved over the last 8 years. Actually- just over the last four. Also- look at how Apple's OS has evolved over the same time period.
The only company that seems to be having a hard time evolving a desktop OS is Microsoft.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
looking at the other side of the coin, the reason microsoft has trouble evolving windows, is that the OS is simply mature. linux with X/kde/gnome is developing features that windows has had for ages, and macosx is only about 8 years old.
i actually like xp, it runs most windows software, fast. try running a 7 year old distro and see if it runs today's software.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
linux with X/kde/gnome is developing features that windows has had for ages
Wait, didn't we just have a story about Microsoft releasing something to finally give Windows multiple desktops?
...and it apparently doesn't work very well, but that's getting off-topic.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
What do you need an OS to do that XP doesn't already do? But the question answers itself. A more evolved OS should run apps faster and more securely and be easier to use.
Since a fully-patched XP is pretty stable and secure, and Vista is allegedly bog slow, I'd call switching from Vista to XP an upgrade, especially considering MS's penchant for changing everything around, giving you a brand new learning curve. An
Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
why does the evolution of desktop operating systems like Windows go slower now than a decade ago?
I think this is a decent question. You'll note that other OS's actually DO evolve at a decent rate (Linux OSX, etc). So why does Windows such a dog?
The answer, I think is really all the accumulated weight that Windows has to carry. That's not just "code bloat" as some would have you believe, though that's part of it. It's all the OTHER pieces of software that simply HAVE to work on windows for them to continue to exist. Microsoft has resisted pruning much out since the Win32 architecture first came out, for fear of losing market share to the competition. This has been a mistake, and is costing them now.
Parent
Re:Desktop Operation System Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
By july 2009 Windows XP will be 8 years old! Because they extend it till then, both Microsoft and the market agree that this 8 year old operating system is still relevant and not hopelessly outdated despite its age.
In those 8 years, Windows has hardly evolved. Honestly, Windows Vista doesn't add too much groundbreaking stuff to Windows XP, the only real technological novelty is the graphics.
Eight years is a lot in computer history, and if you look at what it was 8 years before Windows XP, that was 1993. So Windows 3.11 is to Windows XP, what Windows XP is to Windows Vista, but the difference between XP and Vista is much smaller than the difference between 3.11 and XP!
Very true. Vista has a few changes under the hood that are nice... But the major difference is in the UI. There are some GUI modification tools out there that let you customize your Windows desktop with different themes and visual styles... I've worked on XP machines that were skinned to look like Vista machines, and it is very hard to tell the difference.
Look at KDE, Gnome, or the Linux kernel over the last 8 years... Amazing changes, all sorts of added functionality.
Take a look at the MacOS over the last 8 years - again, huge changes. Not just from a UI standpoint but real changes in how the OS operates.
Vista is a little bit more secure... A little bit less stable... And a lot more shiny... But that's about it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So when you say operating system goes slower, please clarify under what conditions. I've run linux with compviz on the same hardware and although it runs faster th
I'm going to email sean@windows.com and... (Score:2, Redundant)
I wonder if any of these people knew their whole world would become a confusing choice of operating systems when they decided to become 'Windows'
Microsoft Admits Vista is a Downgrade! (Score:2)
Well at least they admit it finally. It is NOT at upgrade. It is an attempt to make people hate Windows so much that they are starving for an alternative.
Never mind that, Windows $NEXT_VERSION! (Score:4, Funny)
I have seen the future: Windows $NEXT_VERSION Milestone $MOCKUP. [today.com]
I tried it on a low-end laptop with four Core 2 Duo chips and only 8 gig of memory, and trust me: $NEXT_VERSION is shaping up to be one heck of a product.
WordPad and Paint have seen major overhauls to their user interfaces. Forget the freetards and their "distros" full of all sorts of useless shovelware like "FireFox" and "OpenOffice" and, haha, "GIMP"! - the bundled software with Windows $NEXT_VERSION is clear, simple, sparse and to-the-point. The much-loved $HATED_VERSION user interface from Office $HATED_VERSION is now part of WordPad and Paint!
I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, those are all fixed in $NEXT_VERSION. And they're finally ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF.
Also, there'll be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome!
I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION.
LOL! (Score:2)
ROFLMAO! I wish I had mod points!
Downgrade? What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because Y is newer than X doesn't mean Y is an upgrade to X.
Whether something is an upgrade or a downgrade depends on the relative functionality, not the time difference.
Installing XP over Vista is definately an upgrade.
http://www.tothepc.com/archives/windows-xp-features-missing-in-vista/ [tothepc.com]
The real reason for this... (Score:4, Insightful)
...is simply due to the huge tactical error Microsoft has made over Netbooks & low-powered handhelds.
XP can be slimmed down relatively easily to run quite well on these devices but there is no chance with the size of Vista.
I'm sure that there is still a big demand for XP over Vista but I also understand (with my limited reading of MS product bulletins) that Windows 7 is being designed as a scaleable OS, presumably so it can run on these smaller devices. Therefore it makes commercial sense for MS to keep XP alive for their own reasons of getting onto Netbooks until Windows 7 is ready.
So it is not just because there is a continuing demand for XP from new PC buyers.
This reminds me... (Score:3, Funny)
One of my many bosses at work was really, totally into Vista, defended it tooth and nail and swore up and down it was the best thing he ever had done did see. I kept telling him he'd end up hating it, and just didn't believe me. Asked me if I ever used, and I explained the only time I ever did was for five minutes playing with a Touchsmart at Best Buy. He said if I hadn't used it then I really have no right to talk bad about it, so I just let it go.
Then he started having problems, blue screens, he shelled out a couple hundred on a new motherboard trying to bulldoze the problem, and it did fix it.
Then he got SP1, and he got blue screens again, then he reinstalled and he still got them.
Then he bought new memory...
New hard drive...
New processor...
New video card...
Then, and I swear this is a pretty bright guy, he found out it was shoddy web cam drivers, the one he insisted to always have plugged in.
Then he switched back to XP just so he could keep using that web cam. I said, "It's not Microsoft's fault that this company made bad drivers" and he said "Yeah, I decided Vista wasn't so amazing after all"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I hate to be a Grammar Nazi, but, in this context, the preferred spelling is "UPGRAYEDD".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Downgrade? Upgrade is more like it.
You poor, poor dead horse. You've been beaten so badly. Rest now.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have Vista Home and I like it.
I can do better than that. I pushed out 37 vista business installs about 4 months ago to all of our workstations here, and I've not had a single problem with it. The bees seems to love it and, for me, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage. I watch all this bashing going on and quite frankly, I don't get it. I understand that YMMV, but it seems like Vista is getting hammered but nobody's really tried it. I've heard a lot of "It won't run on my hardware" and "It won't run our winfax95" but c'mon...It's 2
The Buzz (Score:5, Funny)
The bees seems to love it...
Any operating system that our crop-pollinating overlords prefer is all right by me!
Parent
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Interesting)
I can do better than that. I pushed out 37 vista business installs about 4 months ago to all of our workstations here, and I've not had a single problem with it. The bees seems to love it and, for me, it's a heck of a lot easier to manage. I watch all this bashing going on and quite frankly, I don't get it. I understand that YMMV, but it seems like Vista is getting hammered but nobody's really tried it. I've heard a lot of "It won't run on my hardware" and "It won't run our winfax95" but c'mon...It's 2008.
I've had a very mixed experience with it myself...
I've got a tablet running Vista that probably shouldn't be. It was never designed with Vista in mind and the hardware is just barely supported. It runs, but not well. I'll likely go back to XP again with it fairly soon.
At home, I've got several machines running Vista Premium and I've had absolutely no issues with them at all. They're used extensively for gaming and the performance is just fine. No complaints.
I've also got several workstations at work that we're testing out with Vista Business and have had no trouble with so far. A few people are having issues with the GUI changes, but that's about it. They're generally as stable as XP was.
Then we've had a number of clients buying new computers and getting stuck with Vista. Their experiences generally range from bad to just plain horrible. Lots of incompatible hardware and software. Unexpected learning curves. Lots of complaining about strange issues. Repeated service calls.
I think a large part of the problem has been that this is the first major OS change that a number of people have had to deal with. Folks have been using XP for a number of years now, and everything has more or less worked the same. Now you've got folks just ordering a random computer from Dell, or picking something up at Best Buy...assuming that everything will work the way it has been...and suddenly stuff doesn't work. Their printer won't work with the new computer, their old software won't work, the buttons are all moved around.
Most of the issues I've seen are with people who didn't really expect Vista on their machine, or didn't actually research what switching to Vista would mean for them. For the folks that have intentionally upgraded to Vista it has, more or less, worked.
Which certainly doesn't make it a good OS... Or even much of an upgrade in a lot of cases... But I don't think it's as horrible as a lot of people are claiming either.
It's a Microsoft OS - anyone who expected rock-solid stability and bullet-proof security needs to have their head examined.
Parent
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No one with any sense (and who doesn't work for Microsoft) claims Vista is a "must-have" upgrade, though. It's basically a replacement for XP with a few extra bells and whistles... not worth upgrading if you have XP, but if you're building a new machine, there's no reason to avoid it.
I like that 64-bit support is more mainstream in Vista. XP Professional 64 always felt like an afterthought.
Beyond that, however, you are exactly right. There is no compelling reason to switch to Vista. And in many cases there are plenty of reasons (older hardware/software) not to.
Is that you, Mr. Ballmer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think it makes sense to upgrade the hardware without getting any additional functionality?
Just to show a different point of view, I have recently bought a Linux eeePC-900 and am loving it. It has more or less the same capability as a typical notebook of a few years ago: 900 MHz CPU, 20 GB storage, 1 MB RAM, yet it weighs less than one kilogram. That's what I consider TRUE progress. I have the same functionality I had before, but with a big gain in portability.
If you have to upgrade your hardware just to keep the same functionality, without any significant gain, then why do it? Why not keep the same old hardware and software you had before?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I was going to write a well-written retort full of reason and fact, but I decided that it was a waste of time. Instead: *expletive* *expletive* *expletive*.
Moving on.
The people I've heard not complain about Vista use their computers as document editors and web-browsers. However, I have to remind you: my pocket watch can do this, and it costs less than a single install of Vista. To butcher an old phrase: Vista is about as useful as a tit on a bull, and about twice as ugly.
I declare your post to be silly fiction based on a lack of experience. There's nothing I did I XP that doesn't work in Vista. My Vista machine exists primarily because of gaming. My framerates using the same graphical options as in XP are the same as they were in XP, and that's normal and well documented - Vista stopped being slower for gaming long ago, and long before I was willing to install it. It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS respons
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS responsiveness is improved over XP.
How did you manage to accomplish this? Vista only shows 3 and a little bit gigs of RAM, even though my BIOS sees 4. Any help would be appreciated.
Do you have Vista32 installed?
Re:Vista Home (Score:5, Informative)
Vista 32 can only see 4 gigs MINUS memory address space reserved for hardware (video card(s) and other hardware that require reserved memory). This typically results in 3 to 3.3 gigs being available in Vista 32 with 4+ gigs of RAM installed on the computer (same thing with XP 32). To see more than this with any Windows flavor, you must use the 64 bit version (XP or Vista).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vista Home (Score:4, Informative)
You need 64-bit Windows for Windows to see more than 4GB of RAM, but that's only because Windows is so poorly written. It's support for PAE in the workstation-class editions is half-assed at best, even though PAE has been near universal since the Pentium Pro. XP SP2 even requires PAE for full use of the Data Execution Prevention, but Microsoft has never enabled a 32-bit non-server operating system to access more that 4GB of RAM.
They clearly could, and it's obvious that over the past several years there's been quite a bit of demand for PAE support on 32-bit systems, but Microsoft has never deigned to supply that. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this wouldn't be the case if the desktop operating system market were even somewhat competitive.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
Yes, they can. The person you were replying to even spelled it out for you.
Three times.
It's called PAE.
Re:Vista Home (Score:4, Informative)
Glad to see another member of the "We'd tried Vista and guess what? It sucks." club. Meetings are on Thursday,coffee and donuts are in the back. I have a nice little repair shop,therefore I try to keep up with the "latest and greatest" from MSFT because I know I'm going to have to work on them. I have run Vista Beta,Vista RTM,and Vista SP1. Here is my impressions:
SLOW,Jeebus Tap Dancing Christ is this pile slow! Sure if you run it on a dual core with 4Gb of RAM it boots okay(still slow,just not as slow) but lets be honest here:It is an OPERATING SYSTEM. Anybody remember that word? It means it should give programs access to your hardware and get the f*ck out of the way. Nobody buys the OS to stare at the desktop. When a 3GHz with 2Gb of RAM is not enough horse to keep the OS from being slow,you know there is a problem.
Networking: I have 5 machines on my home network-2 XP,1 Win98SE,1 Win2K,and the machine that was running Vista(now XP,Thank the Gods). Can you guess which one would "lose" the network? Which one that would have the network just "die" and refuse to connect without a hard reboot? Give you a hint,it wasn't the Win98SE. And don't even get me started on file transfers through the LAN. A file that would take Win2K a few minutes? Go get some coffee and start working on the crossword buddy.
I could go on and on with how many ways Vista sucked,but thankfully I don't have to. You know why? Because the folks bringing their Vista machines to me DON'T want Vista fixed. Nope. They want it gone. As in "I hate this thing,please get it off before I throw it out a window AAARRGGH!". I know a guy who actually did that with his laptop after Vista seized and ate a document he had been working on for hours. Whizzed it out a 3rd story window,whipped out his CC,and went down the street and bought the nicest Macbook pro he could find.
For those that doubt go to CompUSA or Bestbuy and buy whatever Vista machine is on sale(like 90% of the public does),take it home,do NOT add any RAM or other upgrades,and see how quick you want to pull your hair out. I'm guessing it'll be like my average customer,that is 3 days. Sure you can build a tricked out multicore rig with sh*tloads of RAM and make it run Vista okay. But why the hell you you NEED to? It is an OS people! You know you have problems when I tell my customers Vista is an option on new builds and I get a loud "EEEEWWW!",like I let a raunchy fart in front of them. Or when people bring in their machines and say "I hate my new machine,can you fix it?" and I say "You got Vista'd,didn't you." and they hang their head and go "Yep. REAL hard. Please put XP on it,please!".
So the few of you that got lucky and the moon and the stars were aligned and you did the Ballmer monkey dance and all the drivers worked beautifully,be happy. Believe me,you are the exception,NOT the rule. And sorry about the length,it is hard to put the offal of Vista into words without adding length. Otherwise you get "Liar! Vista is beautiful and you should do the Ballmer monkey dance of joy!" trolls coming out of the wordwork. Just put any of the problems I had with Vista into Google and you'll find I'm far from alone.
Parent
Re:Vista Home (Score:4, Funny)
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