Dell Will Offer XP Past Cutoff Date 351
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, brings news that Dell will be offering Windows XP pre-installed on their computers past the June 30 cut-off date. Computers purchased with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate past June 30 will come with a copy of XP Pro. Dell plans to simply install that copy upon request to save users a step. Perhaps this will help Microsoft officials make up their minds about another extension.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu Instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Despite that, let's talk about taking advantage of the situation, beyond the opportunities for mockery.
So, here's some discussion questions:
1. Whatever one's opinions/philosophy on XP/Windows, it's getting old. With Vista receiving such a poor welcoming, what would cause people to move to other systems?
More specifically, what do people need that other OSs don't supply well enough?
Exchange comes to mind. What else?
The intent is to build a To-Do list for global desktop domination
2. Would it be preferable to push people to a specific OS (Linux, MacOS, etc), or to make the specific OS less relevant? If there were easily available, high-quality, drop-in replacements for applications that keep people on Windows, is it better to let people make their own preferential choices on OS?
Here, my intent is to discuss a movement to attack Windows on all fronts simultaneously. Instead of putting all our eggs in a Linux or Mac basket, how about a basket-independent egg that fits wherever?
Some people should really be on a solid Unix (Linux/Solaris) workstation, others on a Mac, and others with essentially an oversized PDA.
Sadly, this may involve some Java.
Activation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu Instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
This doesn't even begin to take into account that most businesses I've come across use some kind of custom industry application. CAD applications, specialized accounting applications, lending an loan applications, guess what they're all written for? Windows. Linux still doesn't work for those customers.
If the Linux community wants to advance they're going to have to give up on some of their ideals and actually provide what people are looking for, which is a stable operating systems that run applications people actually want to use with a consistent look and feel everywhere. I ran Ubuntu for over a year and reverted to XP because I couldn't deal with the slowdowns for no reason, application crashes, incompatibilities, mystery feature additions and removals based on the whims of the developers (what's pigeon going to include or disable this week!), and decisions that were made purely for philosophical reasons (no mp3 support by default? please.)
Most of my machines still run some kind of Unix (mostly FreeBSD and OSX) but when I need Windows, I really need Windows and nothing else will do.
Besides, Outlook is still the best email/productivity/calendaring application out there. Nothing I've seen on UNIX even comes close, especially when I need to share data with others.
And just because XP will be end of lifed, the security updates for it will continue for a few years, which is all anyone really needs. If 75% of the market is still on XP, developers aren't going to move to being Vista only any time soon because it'd kill their sales.
Vista (Not Responding) (Score:3, Interesting)
Both laptops suffer from the constant (Not Responding) bug.
Simply put you will be working away and suddenly your App (any App) will go into (Not Responding) for 5-30 seconds. Then it mysteriously comes out of that state and you can do work again
Don't give me that "drivers" BS. The drivers are up to date.
The Green Bar of Death is another wonder to behold.
Finally, after having the V-Bus laptop for a little over a year. Explorer.exe stopped showing me the contents of folders.
Remember when you used to have to re-install Windows about once every 18 months? That pretty much stopped when Win2k came out. Well, it appears to be back.
PS:
Since drivers were mentioned. WTF is with changing the printer drivers model? Has printing changed drastically in the last few years? Can I print in 3D holograms now?
Look if driver models need to be changed due to technical advances, I am all for it. But if I am working with the same technology we had sussed out 20 years ago (or at least 15), leave it the fuck alone. Especially when HP refuses to update their drivers.
Christ, at worst write an emulation layer. All I am doing is putting dots on a piece of paper.
Re:Ubuntu Instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only do you have to pay MSFT for software, you have to pay extra for the privilege of getting help when it fails.
Save your self some money, and only Pay Novell, Red Hat, Mandriva, etc for help when the software fails and get the software for free.
Re:Submitter diversity (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno, a few of their stories were pretty well linked, so I don't personally mind too much if it gets us better articles (and not Roland-style spam, where all submissions go to his blog, or Beatles keyword stuffing).
If they won't sell it, we'll steal it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If they won't sell it, we'll steal it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Submitter diversity (Score:3, Interesting)
GMail + Google Calender (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu Instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd imagine that pretty soon (if not already) there will be dedicated websites to supporting XP (including custom patches to any security issues)... and if Microsoft is smart, they will allow them to do this... I dont think it would really impede on their business (much) because most business would probably contimplate "upgrading" to Windows 7 or at least Vista by 2009... and if anything, the XP "Community" would still be promoting Windows potentially saving Microsoft the loss of some customers to Linux and/or Mac who might be willing to upgrade (stick with) Windows later on... Windows 8, or Win7 SP2...or whatever...
Re:Ubuntu Instead? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ubuntu Dells too (Score:3, Interesting)