Dell To Offer Win XP On Consumer PCs Again

phalse phace writes "With so many consumers still asking for Windows XP to be loaded on Dell's consumer level PCs, the PC maker has finally decided to offer that as an option. 'Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft's mainstream launch of the operating system in January. However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas. Starting immediately, Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops.' The Dell models with the Windows XP option are: Dell Inspiron 1405, 1705, 1505, and 1501; and Dell Dimension E520 and E521."

Re:Well Duh

[jcgf]

I certainly don't. I'm testing it at work here on a 1.7 celeron with 1.5gb ram and a radeon 9550. Can't do anything without the cpu meter hitting 100 for a couple of seconds. Videos that played fine in XP stutter now and I had to turn off UAC cause it was driving me mad.

Re:Wow

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I think you're wrong here: as hateful as XP was, it was a relief compared to such gems as Windows 98 or ME. Frankly, if Microsoft was smart, given the relative acceptance of the latest iterations of XP as a stable and useful OS (in Microsoft metrics of course), they would have kept pluging holes and making it better one patch at a time until it was finally good. But of course this doesn't make them big bucks, so instead they embarqued on this stupid Longhorn fantasy and this is the result: people are happy enough with XP (and justly wary of any new Microsoft product) that they don't want Vista.

Yes and no

[davidwr]

Suppose MS spent $500,000,000 developing Vista.
If they don't recoup it, heads may roll inside Microsoft.

But the difference between
$600,000,000 in Vista licenses plus $0 in new XP licenses
vs
$400,000,000 in Vista licenses plus $200,000,000 in new XP licenses
is a wash, assuming other things like support costs, long-term customer retention, etc. are all about the same.

The numbers above are 100% made up from thin-air concentrate.

Re:Wow

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

this means the hating of Vista is stronger then the hating of previos OSs.

Good, Maybe MS will take a hint....

Soooo, you are saying MS should release yet another OS immediately? Ah, I see. That way everyone will hate the new one even more than they now hate Vista!

Brilliant!

Re:Wow

[jomas1]

I think you are partly right. Vista is receiving much more hate than Microsoft and most PC manufacturers thought it would but I doubt Vista deserves or is hated as much as Windows ME was. The fact that Dell feels the need to sell XP again may indicate that Dell has lost faith in Microsoft's "Reality Distortion Field" more than anything else. Everyone talks about Steve Jobs' RDF while neglecting to mention that Redmond has convinced people that they always need to upgrade and have no choice but Microsoft for the last 12 or so years. People far from the fringes now know that both Apple, Linux and XP are viable options for many folks and that means Microsoft's free ride is ending.

"Vista Ready"

[Apocalypse111]

With new computers and top-end hardware running Vista at a crawl, I can't help but think that the 'Vista Ready!' sticker on many new machines just means it would make a really bitchin' XP box!

Bravo Dell, bravo. Now if you could make just one more leap and offer Linux, we'd be all set.

Does this remind anyone else of Windows Me?

[Prien715]

I recall something similar happened with Windows Me where many vendors actually offered machines with Win98SE instead. Is Vista shaping up to be the next Windows Me?

Re:Does it hurt Microsoft financially...

[drinkypoo]

It doesn't really hurt them as much as make them look like a bunch of idiots.

Actually, that hurts them much more in the long term than the money hit hurts them now.

Microsoft cannot compete on features, so it has to compete on marketing. That will be much-impaired if they look like the bunch of incompetent dumbfucks they are.

This incident is a huge success for everyone but Microsoft on that basis alone. This latest straw, with Dell once again offering Windows XP because customers overwhelmingly prefer it to Vista, probably isn't the camel's-back-breaker, but it does make Microsoft look pretty damned bad. When you can't even manufacture buzz for your product, you know you're in trouble.

Of course, we all know that Windows NT 5.x was a gigantic improvement for the home user over Windows 98, and Vista isn't a huge improvement over XP in any way but eye candy. Oh, and NX support, that's great. Everything else is either lame, or a band-aid to help cover Vista's amazing slowness (the various acceleration technologies that make use of flash memory etc.)

Re:Well Duh

[Corporate Troll]

I don't even have a machine that can run it. The best machine I have was bought 3 months ago. (Other two in the household are both from 2003 and work 100% fine!) It has XP Media Center and was on sale. It does have a sticker saying "Vista Capable" - removed by now- but the fine print on the packing box said pretty much "you won't be getting any of the fancy stuff that Vista does even if you install it on this machine". I should have taken a picture of that text, it was priceless.

So, I wouldn't dare to say "no one", but you have to probably spend close to 1500€ for a Vista machine that won't lag. My 799€ machine doesn't lag on XP... It was cheap, has the oompha I need, and will last me some years...

Re:So what does this mean, Vista is a failure?

[MindStalker]

Hmm, Idea Storm says "immediently available". But I still can't buy XP on Dells home website..

Re:Dumb People

[jhfry]

Your the dumb one.

Dell sells to a metric assload of businesses. Most businesses are not migrating to Vista any time soon.

Additionally, many users REQUIRE software that does not operate properly in Vista... thus they REQUIRE windows XP instead of Vista to have a computer of any value.

Sure they could choose not to buy new computers... but for a company on a strict 3-4 year lease rotation on their dell machines, or a business that is adding employees, or any number of other situations where waiting is not an option, Windows XP is a must in order to maintain uniformity.

For example, I have managed networks with several hundred machines broken in 3 groups... each group was on a 36 month lease, so over the course of 3 years, every machine would be replaced with a new machine. A software upgrade would never be done until 100% of our hardware was capable of running the new software... even if that meant waiting to rotate the oldest hardware out. With the new hardware demands of Vista, I have a feeling it will be at least 2 years before organizations that operate the way ours did has the hardware in place to perform a complete migration.

Re:Dell vs. Microsoft

[Corporate Troll]

Simply put, it only takes a few commercials from Dell about "the power of open source" to get people doubting Microsoft.

Wow, I never saw it that way. Of course Dell would need to grow a spine before ever doing that. That means saying. "Screw you Microsoft, I don't care paying a premium for your licenses.... Brand recognition will save us!" Not very likely to happen... Interesting none the less.

Is it just me, or...

[Dracos]

Is Dell becoming brave in the face of MS? First they seem to get serious about putting Linux on non-server systems, and now they're bending to customer demand, putting XP back on some systems.

The rest of the OEM's surely see what a disappointment Vista is, both technically and in terms of sales. If the rest of them joined Dell in standing up to the Redmond behemoth, the result would probably benefit everyone. Except MS. A lower MS tax, and ways to avoid it altogether.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next time Dell renegotiates their OEM contract, the terms are more balanced.

Re:Well Duh

[Sylver Dragon]

Same experience here. Pentium 4 2.26Ghz, 1GB RAM, NVidia 6600GT, and it chugs with just the Vista basic interface. The worst part is that it occasioanlly just goes off and starts thrashing the hard drive, and pretty much locks the system up. I think it's the indexing service doing that, but I've not confirmed that. I also run it on a Pentium M 2.0Ghz, 1GB RAM, Radeon X700 laptop system, and it feels like I'm working on an XT.
The only positive feature for Vista, so far, is the built in chess game. For the price, you can get a better one on XP.

I got a refund for Vista from Dell US

[Jck_Strw]

I bought a new machine about 3-4 weeks ago. Vista was the only option. I asked Sales before I bought it if I could get XP. No dice.

So when the machine finally arrived, I declined the licensing terms of Vista (I have my own licensed copy of XP) and I emailed Dell for a refund. Two emails later I got $27. This is about half of what the guy in Germany got from Dell Germany (plus he got $8 USD for Works, which Dell US didn't bother to comment on when I asked for that refund).

Just my $27 worth.

http://www.headsallempty.org/wordpress [headsallempty.org]

You're forgetting...

[Jeff Molby]

However, Windows does not stand on its own and requires hardware to run.

...Microsoft has the cash to enter the hardware business by the end of the month if they wanted to. They'd have some serious catching up to do, but Dell's business model is pretty simple to duplicate for anyone with enough resources.

Re:Microsoft runs that show

[HUADPE]

If MS refused to let Dell sell Windows, then Dell would die (or shrink significantly). If Dell refused to sell Windows, then Dell would die (or shrink significantly).

Both of those are true, and neither one is being proposed here. Dell currently gets a discount off the normal OEM price in exchange for being Windows only. The most Microsoft could do is to revoke that discount. If MS stopped selling Windows directly to Dell, they could buy it from a wholesaler, and/or sue Microsoft for monopolistic practices. Then to stop Dell selling Windows computers, they'd have to stop selling OEM versions which would be legal to resell. This would be HUGELY expensive to MS.

From Dell's perspective, this is about offering some form of Linux as a serious and viable option on its PCs. Microsoft can't/won't cut them off from OEM Windows copies, and if MS decides to completely stop selling XP, the consumer demand for "not Vista" would be big enough to push some serious volume on Linux.

Re:Well Duh

[RootWind]

Seeing as how we are sharing anecdotal stories. I have a Pentium M 1.3ghz, 1GB RAM, Geforce Go420 32MB, and it actually works fine (Aero basic of course). It's certainly not faster, but it's not much slower either. My only slow-down problem was a misbehaving 3rd-party driver, which still needs an update.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I just had my first exposure to Vista last night at a local wi-fi hotspot. I had set it up for the club and some patrons were having problems connecting, so I volunteered to help. It was a brand new Dell laptop with a 2.something GHz processor, 1Gbyte of RAM and, of course, Vista. It crawled. Anything from the start menu took many seconds to load, daughter windows took seconds to pop up and the disk light never stopped flashing. Can't imagine that battery life will be anything to write home about. What distresses me more than anything else, though, is how much is hidden. Simple things like just finding out what chipset the wireless was to check for driver updates took drilling down through 7 or 8 layers of stuff to find and many things were not in the same place as XP. Never did get it working even though I have helped connect many, many XP and even win98 systems to the same wireless router and this same laptop had connected to other wireless nets. It saw the router, reported a solid 5 bar signal but kept failing with "no response from AP" or something like that.

Nawwww, maybe when 10 Ghz processors are available and SP3 is released but not right now!

Re:I got a refund for Vista from Dell US

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you do, don't try to get a refund for Vista from HP/Compaq. They won't give you one, period. I went rounds and rounds with them (after a while, it was the point of the matter) and they flat out refuse.

Which means, I refuse to purchase from them again. Ever.

Re:Dell vs. Microsoft

[SuperMog2002]

Come to think of it, one of Apple's chief advantages is that they control both the hardware and the software, so they can custom tailor OS X to each individual model they sell. With Linux, Dell (and any other OEM) can gain this advantage as well by customizing a distro to install and run just right on the machine it's sold with. IE, Dellbuntu's installer may know exactly what chipset, wireless card, sound card, etc. a stock Inspiron 9900L (made up model number) ships with and configure them all perfectly during the OS install so a user restorring their machine never has to worry about driver installation or configuration for stock hardware. It just works! Imagine that.

Re:Dell vs. Microsoft

[mackyrae]

It's not on Dell if you have spyware, adware, and viruses running freely along with being a zombie on a botnet. However, a good chunk of the population thinks that if their computer is slow after a year, it's because "Dells get slow in only a year" or something like that. They think it's the OEM's fault, and that they need to buy a new computer. They don't get that it's a software thing. I think quite a lot of computers that get thrown out are probably perfectly fine, they just need to have the OS reinstalled or a nice thorough cleaning (registry, viruses, adware, rootkits...)

Re:So what does this mean, Vista is a failure?

[badc0ffee]

OS/2 failed only in the marketplace, not the hearts and minds of the enlightened. I still use OS/2 on some of my older machines. Can not even install on newer hardware due to lack of drivers. OS/2 is still the most robust OS IMHO to ever be released. MVS for the PC.

offtopic but relevent. Y2K freakout had to run an inventory program to send a list of installed software to a server in the sky to check for Y2K readiness on every boot. Problem was there were OS/2 servers running in closets, under desks, that NEVER had to be rebooted. So the solution was to turn off the power to every building to force a reboot so the machines could report in. Windows machines, no problem, other than reporting too often.

I love OS/2, but with its demise in the marketplace, I was FORCED to switch to Linux and have not regretted it.

Re:Well Duh

[adolf]

Anecdotes, anecdotes.

What I've found about the thrashing: It happens only at first boot, and when closing programs or otherwise freeing large amounts of RAM. Also: If you, Joe Fucking User, stop trying to fix the fucking computer and just use the thing, it will eventually stop thrashing.

After that, programs tend load fast. It's called SuperFetch, and it's supposed help[1]. Quit being paranoid.

[1]: Of course it seems like it's not helping, but that's not been Vista's fault in my experience. Rather, it seems to be a competition at boot time between SuperFetch intelligently trying to load data for applications that I'm actually likely to use, and those applications themselves doing their own foolhardy preload[2]. Since the hard drive head can only be in one place at a time, this presents a problem. It should be noted that Vista rather uniquely supports several priority levels for disk IO, and that SuperFetch appears to operate at low priority. It doesn't seem to get in the way at all, once you kill the third-party preloads and try to ignore the disk activity.[3]

[2]: OpenOffice is a horrible example of this, trying to push its bloated self into RAM at boot time by default. Other common offenders are, of course, Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

[3]: Also: Almost all of this activity (including indexing) stops cold when running on battery, where runtime is generally preferred over performance. The whole thing is really pretty well behaved. Try it sometime. (incidentally, I get about an extra hour of real run-time from my Inspiron 6000 when running Vista instead of XP.)

Re:Dell vs. Microsoft

[mackyrae]

They mostly don't know the difference between the hardware and OS. I've been asked a bunch of times "what's an operating system?" And generally, it's believed that Macs have MacOS and everything else has Windows, and you can't have a computer without one of them (and no MacOS on a regular computer). They're just "part" of the computer.

Younger/more-computer-literate people are getting smarter about it and at least know that if it's slow it could be a virus. If a virus scan shows them clear, though, they blame the hardware without thinking of botnets or a clogged registry because they don't know about that stuff. Therefore, it must be the hardware. A lot of people ditch computers that are only a few years old and could work fine for another 5-10 years if they reinstalled Windows, and longer if they get a lighter-weight OS.

Does Windows ever tell you why it's slow? I've never seen that happen if it does. The closest I can think of is that their Norton Antivirus showed a bunch of viruses, and they made the connection. Then again, if they have Norton, that's slow shouldn't be surprising to anyone (probably is to them though because as an "enlightened computer user" they never use a computer without a good, expensive (because if it's expensive it must be good quality) AV).