No XP Reprieve; Windows 7 Release Set 609
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.
January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah right.
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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But WinXP is not available on the least expensive Dell's. The cheapest laptop, home or business, is $499. Vista only.
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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The Vostro 1000 [dell.com] laptop starts at $399 and is available with XP ($99 surcharge).
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The quality of the service depends on what line you decide to go with.
If you go for the crappy low-end (Inspiron and Dimension), which are meant to price-compete with Gateway, etc... then yes, those come with crappy service.
If you go for the good stuff (Latitude and Optiplex), you get entirely an different support channel, one that I've had zero trouble with in the 7+ years I've been using them to supply businesses and individuals with computers.
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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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.
Yeah, I could really see Microsoft going the way of Kaypro...
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, my pedantic tendencies bother even me...
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Funny)
That depends on how many promised revolutionary technologies they need to drop to make the deadline.
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Funny)
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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Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the I/O functions work properly? Copying files, renaming folders, etc. All that works perfectly?
If you say yes, you lie. We already know of documented issues with file operations. It is pretty much proven that the I/O performance of Vista is substandard compared with even XP, much less Linux or some *nix flavor. We may not know why that is the case but we can definitely see it in the benchmarks. No doubt about that.
I may be out of line here but any OS that d
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Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Insightful)
Technically Vista may even be a little bit better, than XP was, but it's not the technical issue here, it's the design issue. Vista is just terribly uncomfortable. I have to research everything AGAIN, because somebody has only the job at MS to rename "Install Software", "Software", "Add or Remove Software", whatever it is called in every language to something new. Sometimes I forget to execute an installer as Administrative User, even if my logged in user account is an administrative user. Some stuff crashes for no apparent reason. And they made i18n again something unavailable - in the basic versions.
Having a 98->XP transition may have been worlds back then. however there was win2000 between that, and ME. so basically 98->XP is nonewhatever comparable to XP->Vista, I would say, Vista is simply just the new ME. Fancy, buggy crap.
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Funny)
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AKA the Poo that I paid for w/ my laptop and still don't run. It is dual boot Vista and Ubuntu; guess which is more stable, memory efficient and compatible with my older windows apps... Guess the penguin and win a prize.
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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.
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.
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).
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Actually, I believe the date, because of this quote: "our approach with Windows 7 is to build off the same core architecture as Windows Vista."
Translation: Windows 7 will be Vista SP2 with a few shiny bits attached. It will be on time, and pointless.
Re:January 2010 (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not simply buy the Mac now. Why wait and hope for two years when you can have something that just works now?
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>>As far as Aero goes, Isn't it obvious? Its a hard sell when you mention to an average consumer they should updrade because Vista has a new TCP/IP stack, or a Kernel Transaction Manager.
Funny Apple is setting Snow Leopard to be nothing more than a new software stack, removing old features, and a general code clean up. Apple will sell snow leopard for full price and people will pay for stabilty that the new system will bring. You can do under the hood changes and get people to buy.
you don't need gl
Re:January 2010 (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, their customer base is really different. A lot of them will buy it just because it's new and it's out, and it's somehow "better" since Jobs told them so.
Of course I kind of understand why the fanboys trust him: if you go by Apple's past record, upgrades from 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2, .3, and .4, were in fact "better," the system did get a lot faster (and I mean a lot: 1 min bootup for 10.2 to 12 seconds for 10.3, on same hardware!), more responsive, etc.
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)
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...
Re:Who? (Score:5, Funny)
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Not me. Why would I go out and buy a new OS when the one I already have (10.4) is working perfectly well, set up just how I like? I'll get 10.6 or 10.7 with my new Mac whenever I get to the stage of wanting to upgrade.
I won't be buying Windows either, but if they offer it with the hardware for a low enough price then I won't say no.
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.
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.
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.
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Apple doesn't have to deal with hardware issues. Windows and Linux have to try and handle any piece of hardware thrown at them. The hardware Mac OS X has to handle could be counted on one hand, almost.
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).
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.
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Re:Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
They did reinvent Office with 2007.
I personally love the new Office. Most people saw the new "ribbon" interface and just dismissed it. I did as well until I started to use it. I'm not an Office power user, so I never knew what options were under three deep menus, a popup box, and an advanced tab. It puts most of the options right in front of me. You can do similar with older versions of Office or Open Office--if you want to have a bunch of confusing toolbars on the top. Office 2007 simplified all of that.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but I'll give them credit where credit is due. Office 2007 is a pretty nice piece of software.
Addintools - Office 2007 classic menus (Score:3, Interesting)
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I personally love the new Office. Most people saw the new "ribbon" interface and just dismissed it. I did as well until I started to use it. I'm not an Office power user, so I never knew what options were under three deep menus, a popup box, and an advanced tab.
I have the opposite perspective.
I actually defended the new Office UI here on Slashdot for a while, mainly on the basis that people I knew who were actually using it tended to like it once they got used to it.
Then I started using it myself, and I too was impressed. They did a pretty good job of identifying the commonly used controls and slapping them front and centre where they should be.
But then the rot set in. You see, I would describe myself as a power user. I don't just write letters in Word. I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the only reasons the MS market is so large is the fact that 90% of all computer manufacturers since the late '80's shipped their PC's with Windows pre-installed - and first time users 'learn' to use the first thing they see. Already indoctrinated, most MS users won't change to another OS because a) they never tried it and/or b) they fear/loathe change, or c) they are tied into a
January 2010? (Score:5, Funny)
the release date they announce in June of 2010 will probably be a more accurate one.
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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!
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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.
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)
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.
OO finally as of 2.4. (Score:2)
I think my next box will be linux. It's time to try again.
I bounced off of open office from 1.02 to 2.4- I preferred 2.4 to Word after about a month of usage. 3.0 and onwards looks to only be better.
Same thing with linux. It looks like it is getting close-- I'm thinking a fit-pc or something like that to start.
Keep my windows beast for Everquest I, but maybe all my art, browsing, etc, over to linux by december.
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.
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Things like removing drive lettering, would be quite helpful. But would break everything ever written for Windows. /blah. The problem with this is other drives; the CD drive would have to be translated to /media/cdrom for instance. I'm not sure what the list of such translations would be, and I could see this as being very a
It wouldn't have to. There are a couple ways that things could be done. First, the / directory could be treated as C:. If a program asked to open C:\blah, it could just translate that to
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The equivalents of drive letters in Linux are partition device names, for example /dev/hda1. There's this idea of being user friendly so that users don't have to worry about individual drives. The admin will have set things up properly in the single unix filesystem tree, so that users can access descriptive directories like /home/wicko.
So the Windows way is a confusing mixture of low-level and high-level concepts. One aspect of this confusion is that C: is both the partition and the filesystem. It's no
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.
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.
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Hmm, Maya does run on Linux, I sympathize with you on the other (mostly Adobe) stuff though.
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.
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Windows is only $200 if your time is worth nothing.
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Unless you actually enjoy poking around with the internals of your OS trying to get things working the way you want.
From this perspective linux actually pays you to use it!
I doubt anyone caught the Big FU (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft just threw to resellers and OEM's. It forces what little cash a reseller has *now* to all flow to Microsoft for product used for the next six months including Christmas.
Last purchase of XP: June 30.
Can distribute XP: January 2009
1. Basically, any cash-strapped reseller stands a much greater chance of being run out of business.
2. It will certainly shift the cost of financing the license pre-buy onto consumers in the form of higher product prices.
Wow.
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.
In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
Ubuntu downloads strike a new high water mark.
I am wrestling with a Toshiba A215 that came with Vista Home Premium. It reliably pukes five minutes after waking up from suspend, and requires a hard boot to recover. I tried to run Ubuntu, but it won't recognize the wireless, even after the Mad wifi drivers were installed.
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I guess I'll settle (Score:2, Funny)
I'll probably get a new computer with Vista. I'm just not a Mac person, Linux doesn't support some software and peripherals I need, and my old desktop is, well, 5 years old at the end of July. I'm cheap but not that cheap.
That doesn't mean I won't install Linux on my old computer and use my old copy of XP on the new one, of course. I'm a real sucker for shiny, transparent, blurry things though. The problem with Mac stuff is that it looks too much like plastic, or fondant, whereas Vista looks more like f
Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish XP would be around for longer. Vista sucks donkey balls. I bought a Dell XPS M1530. It has some awesome specs, 4G RAM, beautiful display, wonderful keyboard... But Vista sucks. Even with the service pack it has bizarre problems. It freezes for 30 to 40 seconds every so often (the mouse won't even move), every day it goes into this weird mode where the hard drive thrashes for hours, it doesn't go to sleep properly when I close the lid, it blue-screened when I plugged in my AT&T USB Sigmatel 881 card, it keeps on bouncing between access points, etc., etc... XP works great on the machine however. I want to buy another laptop like it soon, but not with Vista. I hope this is still an option..
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.
WT...H? (Score:3)
Windows 7 ? (Score:2, Interesting)
What the hell is Windows 7, and other than a new desktop theme, why would I ever want it? Same viruses, same stupid Windowsisms, same IE-is-secretly-your-WM-and-vice-versa crap. What compelling features will it have ?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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.
2010 is spot on (Score:4, Funny)
...for sufficiently large values of '2010,' which, as used by MS, is a variable name.
Windows 7 (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to forget that MS followed up Windows ME, possibly their worst ever OS with XP, their best ever OS. At least Vista doesn't BSOD unless you've major hardware/driver issues.
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Yes there are alternatives for popular applications but frankly, they're not as good. Open Office simply isn't up to MS Office, I don't like VLC and it's handling of things like subtitled MKVs are sketchy at best, I can't use CoreAVC which is pretty much the only way low powered laptops are going to handle HD videos for at least a couple of years if not longer.
Other than reasons of cost, there'd be no reason for me to want to use linux for a low powere
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I actually totally agree. I have used every version of Windows from 2.0 to Vista (I have a fairly beastly tower running Home Premium and use Enterprise under Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro), and I find it to be totally stable, full featured and more problem-free than any of the previous iterations of Windows, including XP.
I am NOT a MS fanboy. The best desktop OS I have used is Leopard. I have a pile of linux boxes of various flavors whirring away in my closet. I worked for ages in X Windows on Solaris and AIX.
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?
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Why would you read Slashdot unless you were a hardcore geek?
Well, I'm probably not what you'd call a hardcore geek. I'm a professional programmer, but I mainly do Java for a web agency.
On the other hand, I have compiled from source the Linux kernel, gcc and associated libraries, upgraded from libc5 to glibc2 by hand, hand-hacked modeline entries in an XF86Config file because my monitor wasn't correctly recognised, to name but a few of the things I've done over the years in the name of tweaking my machine.
Bu
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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I bet they don't mess with the carburetor, or any of a number of things that are now controlled by the car's computer system.
You're joking, right? I watched a friend tuning a 4-barrel carb a little while ago, and I guarantee you've never seen an overclocker hover over their water cooling system more than my friend was glued to the valves on that thing.
Did you know that there's a thriving market for car geeks who replace their engine's ROMs with programmable versions so that they can tweak fuel flow and air mixtures throughout the power curve? It's not uncommon to see someone pecking away at a laptop jacked into their engine
Re:As someone who has Vista Ultimate (Score:5, Funny)
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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...decide among four choices:
>1. Take a shrinkwrapped XP copy off the shelf and upgrade to that
This is why I own 3 copies of XP: Laptop, Main Desktop, Secondary Desktop
I will NOT run Vista - ever! I have tried, and have had far too many problems, even since SP1.
My new laptop came with Vista, and after problems with networking, printing, sound and video, I went back to XP. It's been running smoothly ever since.
>2. Switch to ReactOS
Not realistic. WINE is more useable, and even that refuses to run too mu
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More like the Summer Olympics in Chicago/Madrid/Tokyo/Rio de Janiero.
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I nominate Vista to use a turtle mascot. It makes sense considering it's performance.