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No XP Reprieve; Windows 7 Release Set
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:24 PM
from the squeezing-out-the-vista dept.
from the squeezing-out-the-vista dept.
CWmike writes "Microsoft has laid to rest rumors that it might reconsider pulling Windows XP from retail shelves and from most PC makers next Monday. Microsoft's Bill Veghte wrote to customers reiterating that June 30 would be the deadline when Microsoft halts shipments of boxed copies to retailers and stops licensing the operating system directly to OEMs. However, Veghte did leave the door open to all computer makers, even the largest, who want to continue selling new PCs with XP pre-installed. 'Additionally, Systems Builders (sometimes referred to as "local OEMs"), may continue to purchase Windows XP through Authorized Distributors [such as Ingram Micro] through January 31, 2009,' he wrote in the letter. 'All OEMs, including major OEMs, have this option,' said Veghte. At the same time, Microsoft confirmed Windows 7 would ship in January 2010. Who, if they have not already, would install Vista now?" Microsoft has said they will post the letter, but it's not up yet.
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January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah right.
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
That's funny, when I talked to our rep a few days ago and asked about having it installed on a laptop I was ordering, she informed me that it was an extra $50 "labor fee" to get XP preinstalled.
Parent
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Informative)
At least from my experiance with dell UK it depends on the machine, on some it's free on others it's chargable and on others it's not availible at all.
also for some reason there are some machines that they refuse to sell you vista buisness with so you have to buy ultimate to get the downgrade rights.
Parent
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? That's pretty stupid. The machines that are going to give the most obviously poorest performance with Vista and they aren't offering XP? Seems like they should be focusing on keeping XP available on those machines. Can't look good on Dell everyone someone buys a cheap machine and gets it home only to find it crawls along with pathetic performance. Odd.
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
This is really the worst of two worlds for Microsoft.
First they announce it'll come out in 2010, effectively killing what little market they had for the OS.
Second, there's no way it will come out then, effectively cutting off their future income.
Why would you announce this with those two facts glaring in their face? Wouldn't it be far wiser to announce this in say, August 2009 - when their OS is legitimately 5-6 months away?
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Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Funny)
That depends on how many promised revolutionary technologies they need to drop to make the deadline.
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista already does work well, the "funny" jokes around here notwithstanding.
Maybe you shouldn't get your information on operating systems from zealots who emotionally defend some one true way.
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
But when the Mac brand is more desirable then Windows, and those who don't feel like spending a fortune on a new computer are looking at Linux... MS is in for a shock. If the $200 gPC has reviews that it is "more responsive then Vista even on higher-end hardware", MS is losing. Perhaps MS won't suddenly go broke, but slowly the monopoly they had is eroding, and every shot to the foot is increasing it. Just wait, if Windows 7 is anything like Vista, MS is dead.
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
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Parent is WRONG (Score:5, Funny)
Hi there! My name is Microsoft shill #59329. I'm here to tell you about the exciting new features in Windows 7, and to assure you all that it will be delivered on-time!
Now, we at Microsoft, are aware that whilst people love Windows Vista, some are having trouble with a few of the more advanced features, and the number of resources required to support them. So allow me to show you, dear Slashdot reader, the two major features in Windows 7 that will make it your best upgrade yet!
We'll certainly be on-time, because we're not actually going to change anything. Didn't see that one coming did you Free software zealots? I prostrate myself at the feet of chairman Ballmer, worshipping his tactical genius. You should too (if you know what's good for you)!
Overall, we're confident you'll find Windows 7 to be the Best OS EVAR, and even if you don't: we've kidnapped Linus and Stallman and have them secure in our secret, underground base.
Parent
Re:Parent is WRONG (Score:5, Funny)
Dear shill #59329, that app simply removes notepad.
P.S I should warn you that Stallman may be armed with a katana, but tbh you can keep him. If Linus is not released within 48 hours on the other hand, I will be forced to free Reiser in a crazed attempt to free him, much like that general in Rambo: First Blood Part II.
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Great movie idea (Score:5, Funny)
> If Linus is not released within 48 hours on the other hand,
> I will be forced to free Reiser in a crazed attempt
Considering that Linus's wife is a six-time Finnish Karate champion, it would probably be a better movie if she and Reiser have to cooperate in this desperate (but ultimately successful, of course) attempt to free Linus. Reiser would have to wave his "I AM McGyver" card around a lot in order to equalize the power of the main characters, and get killed off dramatically (but redeemingly) at the end after he tries to pull a partial double cross in order to force Linus to add support to the 2.7 kernel tree for the new Reiser5 filesystem (note to scriptwriters: find a nice simple analogy for this for the non-geek viewers).
Parent
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
If it even half as bad as what I have been reading this could really be a fatal blow for MSFT,or at the very least a very serious wound. From the sounds of it any Win7 machine will have to be plugged into the Internet so it can do weekly "prove you're not a pirate" checks like are being released on certain games ATM,it will be just as buggy and dragged down with DRM crap you can't get rid of as Vista, and will retain the Vista "take 3 steps what you're used to doing in 1" layout that has my customers buying XP machines from me left and right.
One can only hope someone in power will see what a pisspoor job that Ballmer is doing filling Gate's shoes and they'll fire his ass and take a new path,perhaps replacing him with the uber efficient head of the Office team. But IMHO if the next version doesn't do some serious changes to appeal to the office clientele and the gamer crowd they better get used to seeing XP around for a VERY long time. IMHO they should have released a Windows 2007 Professional for the business (and maybe gamer?) crowd and left Vista to the newbie home user instead of trying to force everyone to use an OS so obviously geared to the home. I mean seriously WTF is a business OS doing with Aero? And Bitlocker only for Ultimate and Enterprise and NOT Business? Total stupidity. And as always this is my 02c,YMMV
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I what I meant,while I personally won't allow WGA onto my machine because I refuse to leave a PC that is in no way needing Internet access crippled with slowdowns from AV/firewall/antispyware/etc just so I can jump through a hoop to make MSFT happy. This especially pisses me off as I have always paid for my MSFT products going back to the first PC I ever owned. I have no problem with MSFT having me download a single use
But as for what I meant,I was referring to instance after instance where it seemed like changes were made simply for change sake,instead of making for a better experience. The controls for networking,for example. I would give you more,but after spending nearly a month trying to get that POS to run decently on my PC frankly I just gave up and went back to XP. My network transfers were horrible,and would only get worse when I tried to multitask,such as listening to music while I transferred files. Bootup sucked,and Vista thrashed my Maxtor so bad it actually killed the drive,even after I turned off indexing.
And this wasn't some 8 year old PC,although if you were to believe the MSFT website I can run Vista on a 800MHz with 512Mb of RAM(why haven't they been busted for false advertising?). While my machine wasn't a gamers dream, a 3Ghz Celeron with 2Gb of DDR3200 and a Geforce 6200 256Mb should have been enough to make it run smooth,and on XP SP3 it really flies. I have actually had Vista fanbois tell me with a straight face that to get the "real" Vista "experience" I should have a dual core with 4Gb of RAM. Call me crazy,but I actually use the OS to run programs,not stare at the desktop. If I require those kinds of specs to make Vista run smooth then I really don't want to "experience" it,thank you. And while I am sure I'll get the "but it runs great for me!" posts. I would like to point out that I have a neighbor that swears by WinME and thinks it's great,but that doesn't make it a good OS. And I am sorry about the length,but you asked and I am telling. And as always this is my 02c,YMMV. But I can say personally that if Win7 doesn't come out a lot more like XP and a lot less like Vista,then after sticking with MSFT since the days of DOS I will just save up and buy a Mac.
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Informative)
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Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Who, if they have not already, would install Vista now?"
I heard Mac OS X 10.6 is supposed to come out next year. Who, if they have not already, would install 10.5 now?
Re:Who? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially with a laptop, if the OS that shipped with it works, why ever change? Chances are, any new OS will add "features," aka "be slower," and since it's "new" it will also be buggy and worse. Modern OSes already do too much, you don't need every shareware utility ever made to autoload thanks to MS or Apple.
Frankly, if I could get ProDOS to boot on this MacBook, I'm sure I'd be better off...
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Re:Who? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because their next set of software updates will require it.
Their major applications now require Tiger, so the next ones will require Leopard. You're pretty much forced into OSX upgrades if you like them or not.
People put up a HUGE stink when DirectX 10 was Vista only. But this is par for the course with OSX releases and libraries. So people will have to upgrade.
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Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
OS-X upgrades are perceived to be much more painless than Windows upgrades. For one thing, less changes in one upgrade. For another, since they control the hardware better, there are fewer device surprises. And there was never such a bloat discrepency between 2 releases as there is between XP and Vista.
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Re:Who? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple switched hardware architectures from 10.3 to 10.4. They rewrote their networking stack from 10.4 to 10.5 (admittedly, there were a few issues in the new stack related to wireless). They're going to change to a different filesystem from 10.5 to 10.6.
It's not the degree of change that's the issue, it's the degree of architecture. Windows is built by separate teams that build layers and components that somehow have to be fit together, resulting in a hodge-podge of programming API's that's a nightmare to keep supporting. OS X seems to have a more centralized vision, with a programming API that is mostly consistent, and probably way easier to maintain.
It also helps that mac developers are more willing to rewrite software (basically because the ones that aren't were weeded out a few transitions ago). When apple wants to make some radical change, like dropping support for an entire API, or moving to a different CPU architecture, the developers just go along with it. On windows they'd scream bloody murder.
Parent
Re:Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
0. On my 3 different PCs that use wireless that are all running Linux (Desktop, laptop and EEE) neither my HP printer nor my various wireless drivers have had any issues. Now granted, if I want the one on my desktop to work out-of-the-box I have to use a *gasp* Ubuntu distro, or for the EEE a customized disto, but my laptop has an Intel wireless card that works perfectly with just about every distro made in '07 and some in '06. And after getting my HP printer set up, it never malfunctioned any more then it did when I ran Windows. And I disagree, Linux has various distros which give more flexibility with appealing to niche audiences (want speed, get Gentoo, want stability, try Debian, want something really easy-to-use try Ubuntu, etc).
Parent
Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft (at least with Windows) takes what was broken and adds cruft.
Kudos to Apple. I love that they are willing to leave what is old and invent something new. I wish that Microsoft would scrap Windows and Office and build something new from the ground up.
Parent
January 2010? (Score:5, Funny)
the release date they announce in June of 2010 will probably be a more accurate one.
You know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Funny)
It's ok ... there is good, anonymous help available. The twelve-step-journey-to-software-freedom. We meet every Thursday afternoon as a group at the church hall. There's complimentary coffee and biscuits.
You're welcome to join. Bring a friend!
Parent
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you hit the nail on the head. Vista has a bad name in the marketplace. So W7 is just going to be a fixed up version of Vista sold under another name.
My guess is the main thrust will be to speed the thing up and get it to use less memory. And then at the end they will attach some eye candy to try and entice people to buy it.
I'm suspecting that it won't work. They had 6 years to come up with a compelling reason to upgrade to their latest OS and they failed.
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Geekcentric Cosmology (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical, clueless geek-centric comment. We geeks install a new OS every other month, but almost everybody else just uses whatever came with their system. When they begin to feel out of date, they don't upgrade the OS, they get a whole new system.
So nobody's outside geekworld is saying "Should I install Vista". If they think about OS issues at all, they're thinking, "Hey, I hear Vista really sucks. Maybe I should get an XP system while I still can."
In my business market, it's failed utterly (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Geekcentric Cosmology (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of real people are really trying to implement Vista and finding it does not work for them. Trying hard. A lot of people who know their stuff. People who believe in their "Windows shop".
They're buying new equipment that is supposed to work. They're tasking teams to test their apps. They're downloading patches and searching Google for workarounds. In every case they're finding their enterprise has some people who just can't migrate, some apps that just don't work. People and stuff that have to work in order for the organization to fulfill its mission. In many cases these are apps built on Microsoft's own recent application development technologies. If your "critical" apps won't run you have no choice - it's downgrade to XP or migrate. When downgrading to XP ceases to be an option, migrating is the only choice. Microsoft thinks they're forcing people to adopt Vista and nothing could be further divorced from what's happening on the ground.
Thankfully, wine runs those apps just fine. Even Microsoft technologies that Microsoft wants to deprecate run great under wine now. More and more people are discovering that Linux is the cure to their Vista Virus. Just wait until they discover how easy it is to port to open architectures - how nice it is to use an IDE like Eclipse, how easy it is to maintain projects not written in the proprietary platform of the week. They won't be back.
Vista does not fit. Vista is bad. If W7 is Vista II, we need not even try it.
Parent
Reminds me of Novell (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't remember the exact version but I think it was Netware 3 that was solid as a rock. Then the next version was total crap upon release use users didn't upgrade. Even the following update were flaky so users stayed on the old version. The Novell was in getting into deep sneakers without upgrade revenue coming in. They finally started getting the problems worked out, but users were content with the old version and still had little interest in new version. After another major upgrade users started updating slowly.
MS seems to be in the same situation the got XP patched up to be a solid Windows OS and what problems there are are well known so not a big deal. Vista price and stability isn't a attractive enough move the masses. MS has far deeper pockets than Novell so it hurts, but isn't lethal.
Personally I wish MS would grow a pair like Apple has over the years and build a new OS from scratch and not worry about backward compatibility. Apple has done it what three times since the beginning. They give developers and users a couple years of warning and move forward. MS talks about it but never does it, they definitely have the deep pockets to do it.
Re:Reminds me of Novell (Score:5, Insightful)
your daft if you compare microsoft's installed base to apple's. corporate users would not be able to tolerate such a dictatorial switch.
if microsoft were to enforce such switch (require everything to be re-written? lol), business users would be forced to stay on their old platforms... but wait, businesses require a supported platform to ensure that when there is a disaster, someone will be around to fix it.
no reasonable business would tolerate that situation. it's a huge deal moving an entire business from one platform to another, I think you seriously underestimate the scope of the task you flippantly suggest.
Parent
Re:Reminds me of Novell (Score:4, Insightful)
If only all it took to develop a good OS was deep pockets.
Microsoft has lost the fight to prevent brain drain: Vista and Office 2007 have shown that they no longer know how to do innovation any more. They can't even put a new shine on the old shoes. It's sadly pathetic, really. Watching Microsoft attempt to do anything that requires corporate smarts is like watching a Dean of World History with Alzheimers try to hold up his end of the conversation at a dinner party. He's still the Dean, until he can be shuffled into retirement, so you kind of have to pay attention to him. But as to the future of the Department, well, he's just not that relevant any more.
All the bright young programmers are now seeking opportunities at Google, IBM, and even Yahoo, where there are new horizons and cutting edge stuff happening. All those armies of developers developers developers are now doing gee-whiz things with Javascript (!), the DOM, PHP, and MySQL. The state of affairs at Microsoft has gotten so bad and depressed that it's hardly worth the effort to toss a chair.
Parent
As a proud supporter of open source: (Score:4, Interesting)
The choices to a complete new users have just improved from an open source point of view:
a) Install Windows Vista. High system specs, buggy to use, even harder to fix, has stupid problems. Also very pricey.
b) Install Linux Distro. Low system specs, buggy to use, some things can be very difficult to fix, has techie aura surrounding it. Did someone say its free?
Gone is good old option c - just install XP which is pretty stable, just about everything works with it and anyone can fix it.
Rejoice opensource!
Re:As a proud supporter of open source: (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what sucks? I hate microsoft a LOT. More than most people possibly, but it doesn't matter how screwed up their OS's get, I will never switch to Linux which I love dearly (in its use and philosophy). That's because Linux will most probably NEVER:
-Let me run my old PC games
-Let me run current PC games (without great hassle)
-Let me run applications specific to my line of work (3d studio max, maya, premiere, photoshop, and various game engines)
I've a relatively good idea that a large number of people are stuck at the same problem. There's just no way, no matter how good Linux gets, that it can make up for years of an MS-owned market. They've clinched two decades of my life and PC usage, and my investigations have shown me that I need to do a great deal of tweaking to get a linux install to the level of a crippled windows OS. :(
It totally. Fucking. Blows. The open source Windows OS project someone pointed out a few months back was the only sign of a real, working alternative I've ever seen.
Parent
Re:As a proud supporter of open source: (Score:5, Insightful)
DOSBox takes care of basically every vintage game I've ever played and even though VirtualBox needs Windows installed in the virtual machine, it has a 'seamless' mode that allows you to have the Windows apps running 'outside' of the virtual machine. That's a sucky explanation and it'd be easier to explain if I had a pencil and paper.
Wine recently reached version 1.0 and, as I believe a sibling post pointed out, it should be able to run Photoshop perfectly well. The open source Windows project you mentioned, ReactOS, shares some of its code with Wine (which is how the two projects have managed to make some great advances in certain areas), so there's a nice little tie-in.
ReactOS is currently at about version 0.3.5, so we'll probably have to wait a while for a fully stable version to come out. The day it does will be a good day. A very good day.
Parent
January 2010? Naw! (Score:5, Insightful)
When does SP1 appear? That's the date that matters. You figure 2011 and it starts to seem like a decade with XP.
Thank you Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
By reducing the ability of its own customers to choose their operating environment, Microsoft drives them toward Linux and Apple.
I was just musing ... Microsoft have now effectively dictated that you can't run XP on a new computer (ignore the matter of "downgrade" rights for the time being). I guess they won't allow a customer to get a new license for XP for an existing computer (say they wanted to switch away from Linux and don't have any current Windows license). So they're effectively saying that if you want to run Windows, you have to run Vista. It's really a matter of denying choice, given how different XP and Vista are. How long can it be until Microsoft says that you're not allowed to _continue_ to run XP?
Looking at the parallels with Linux ... who would want to run a Linux distro from 2001? (That's how old XP is). Answer is nobody, unless your hardware is so old that you can't run anything newer. No linux folks will support a distro dated 2001. Isn't this a forced upgrade? I don't think so, because with linux, upgrading is a continuous process ... when you upgrade from 2001 versions of software through to 2008 what you are getting is basically the same thing, just better. Your kernel gets faster (and bigger), your devices work better, your window manager gains more features (and sometimes changes entirely, but you can choose your window manager). So, barring old/slow/small hardware, there's no reason not to upgrade linux.
Contrast with Windows - upgrade is a discontinuous process. You have to pay them for the later version, of course. And a lot of things change (for Microsoft's reasons), and you don't really get to choose much.
This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to say a few things here. (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 7 won't suck. It won't be great either. It'll be pretty decent, probably above average. People will use it and say, "Hey this is better than Vista, and it's sorta fast too." Linux users will keep saying that Linux is better and hipsters will keep saying that OS X is better. Status quo antebellum; this is unlikely to change in the near future. Microsoft's market share will probably dip once Linux hits its stride, but there is definitely a wall for OS X adoption (closed-down software that only runs on high-priced hardware from one manufacturer? It must appeal to the masses).
I've tried to be less extreme in predictions than I usually am. It's just that you get a few people saying that Windows will dominate again, a few people saying that Linux will rise up and defeat them, and then another few saying that OS X will take over. All are equally laughable scenarios.
Re:Windows 7 ? (Score:5, Funny)
WinFS?
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Re:not i... (Score:4, Interesting)
when it comes time to upgrade, i will be looking towards the lixux distros again. i would have done it by now but my copy of xp is legit and vista isn't worth the bandwidth.
My dad went to OSX and I have migrated to Ubuntu. My employer has finaly officialy stated they are skipping Vista and will wait for the next version. My new dual core machine isn't bothering with dual boot like the old PIII machine. It's all Linux.
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Re:As someone who has Vista Ultimate (Score:4, Insightful)
I've see this kind of comment more and more on Slashdot over the last few years. When did the average Slash user stop being able to do geeky stuff on his/her computer?
Why would you read Slashdot unless you were a hardcore geek?
Parent
Re:As someone who has Vista Ultimate (Score:5, Interesting)
For example:
Car geeks build them from parts in their garage on the weekend.
Audio geeks spend years building their audio set-up.
Electronics geeks build robots in their spare time.
Computer geeks write scripts, compile stuff, delve into the lowest parts of the computer, and just generally do stuff that "humans" don't do.
Geeks aren't "human" (in the sense of the average human being talked about). That's why they're called geeks, shunned, and have a reputation for not getting laid. I embrace my geekiness. I come to Slashdot to be with fellow geeks.
Is Slashdot now a site for mere "enthusiasts?" Instead of "Guy installs Linux on calculator watch" articles, are we going to start seeing "How to use your calculator watch the way it was meant to be used" articles?
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Re:As someone who has Vista Ultimate (Score:5, Funny)
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