XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7 392
CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer reports that Microsoft acknowledged today it has 'broadened the options' for PC makers to continue offering Windows XP as a downgrade from Vista — and potentially even Windows 7. However, the company would not confirm specific reports that HP has been given the green light to sell new PCs with Windows XP Pro pre-installed through the end of April 2010. 'Windows XP went into semi-retirement in June 2008, when Microsoft stopped selling it at retail and withdrew Windows XP Home from use on all but netbooks, though it allowed XP Professional to be installed as a Vista downgrade. Since then, Microsoft has extended the final date it will sell XP Professional install media to large computer makers and smaller systems builders to July 31, 2009, and May 30, 2009, respectively. Today, Microsoft denied that it had extended the life span of Windows XP, and intimated that those rights were built into the newer operating system — in this case, Vista — and did not expire at some arbitrary date.'"
Update: 04/07 14:36 GMT by T : nandemoari adds "Not only will users be able to keep Windows Vista, but they'll be able to step back in time two generations, all the way to XP. "We will offer downgrade rights from Windows 7 to Windows XP in the same way we did with Windows Vista," a Microsoft rep said.
Insiders speculate that the right to use this time machine might be reserved for those purchasing licenses for only two versions of Windows 7 — Ultimate and Professional. However, that's not yet been confirmed."
XP support (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean extended support will still end in 2014?
Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was always obvious that if Microsoft delivered one good operating system, most users would not feel a need to have another. Windows XP SP3 is fine for most private users and businesses.
Run limited user accounts and use the latest version of Firefox available in 2015, and that should be sufficiently secure.
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting post indeed.
XP truely is a fairly slick and fast piece of operating system now.
With Firefox updates, locked down security permissions, a decent AV and firewall just how long could an XP box remain useful to a small business, perhaps a POS machine or email / web / printing / burning terminal?
This is what's causing Microsoft so much trouble, I don't know about the rest of you but the most myself, my friends and my family do on a machine is.
Browse
Email
IM
Video playback
Burning
Downloading
Printing
Collecting photos from cameras
Write documents etc.
That's 99% of the work done on 99% of the machines I support and help with, this is one of many reasons why Vista is having so much trouble.
If anything Vista is approaching things from the wrong angle, I don't believe any one of the above is significantly improved in Vista, if anything - due to the cluttered OS it's harder.
As an IT guy, I suspect I'm going to come across some really old but perfectly working XP installs over the coming 5 and maybe even 10 years, it's almost the DOS6.22 of OS's - just fire and forget.
Re: (Score:2)
That's 99% of the work done on 99% of the machines I support and help with, this is one of many reasons why Vista is having so much trouble.
If anything Vista is approaching things from the wrong angle, I don't believe any one of the above is significantly improved in Vista, if anything - due to the cluttered OS it's harder.
Vista does one thing better. It is possible to run (almost?) everything in user-mode, without the need for every user to be administrator. I don't know how much this improves security, but it is an improvement. Whenever I need admin-rights, a box pops up asking for the right login.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you are not running as administrator you have to enter the password of an administrator. It's people who run as an admin who get the click trough dialogs. Problem is that the Windows installer still doesn't try to suggest that users should run as a mormal user. By default it should create both an admin and normal user during install and tell you to use the normal user in everyday use. Maybe even hide the admin user in the login screen.
An "Administrator" in Vista _is_ a normal user, they just have the a
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Interesting)
First: Linux/Unix has done this since it was created
Second: and improvements of programs to do user-mode on vista will translate to user-mode capabilities for XP, although few people will use that.
Re:XP (Score:5, Interesting)
Car Analogy!
Hi Mr. IT Guy. You'll come across them all in varying shades of disrepair from "normal" OS wear & tear. There was an article about "the 10 cars that sunk Detroit" and the Ford Taurus was one of them. That's where XP is now.
It was so midline good, and such a vacuum formed around it, that there was no successor plan properly formed. XP is kinda sloppy, but it's been patched by enough creative people to do *something*, and all these Alt Op Systems ... just have other conceptual themes in the way. (Linux Versioning vs. business software, Mac Hardware tie-ins, etc.)
Vista was a joke, Win7 is perhaps Burlesque. Someone in another post said XP needs to die ... then have someone get a grip, get hold of Tracy Kidder & do a "Soul of a New Windows". Code the successor to Win7 to be a beautifully optimized racecar that natively works for netbooks and screams on gaming rigs, add a year of nothing but tuning, and then yes XP will die & "Windows Nitro" (or such) will be the new 7 year standard.
10 Cars That Sank Detroit (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh, I wish people would stop implying that XP is better than vista, and definitely stop implying that it's better than 7. 7 isn't even out for God's sake.
XP is pretty decent, but Vista is a better OS in pretty much every way imaginable. The number of times that my parents have bothered me about either or their computers over the last 6 months is less than the number of times that they bothered me in an average month with any of the predecessors.
I'm not suggesting that my experience alone is sufficient, but let's be a tad honest here, the vast majority of the people have no issues with Vista this is basically just pound on MS for the sake of it.
And this is coming from somebody that has a distinct dislike for MS software.
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
People aren't saying or implying that XP is better. They are just saying that it's good enough.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This may be true now with Vista SP1 but the GA version of Vista was an abomination. Slow as a dog with a huge memory footprint (but you can speed it up with a USB key /boggle), poor driver support, and multiple permission popups to do the most trivial things.
On top of that a few apps and games I had just failed completely when UAC was running and no setting I could find would allow them to run so I had to turn UAC off. What did MS expect me to do, wait for fixes for all the apps I need? At least I was a
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This argument depends strongly on what you consider "better".
For my mom, the biggest reason to uninstall Vista on her brand new machine was because Vista was a full order of magnitude slower on her new machine than XP was on the old one. Once Vista was replaced with XP, she loved the new machine.
For me, the biggest reason to avoid Vista (and run Linux, or XP when I have to run a Windows app) is because of all the DRM that's bu
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Firefox 3 is very, very feature complete and Firefox 2 is still getting basic security patches.
Considering my desired use of a browser, honestly FF3 does everything I currently want and I can't see it having something so mindblowingly awesome in 4.0 that I HAVE to switch.
It will continue to work for me for 5 years, sure.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
FF2 no longer gets security updates - they EOLed the product late last year.
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Interesting)
What MS needs is new hardware.
Let's ponder. WinNT to 2k. What was the reason? That NT was "too old" or that 2k was "slicker, faster, better, newer"? Nah. USB support and DirectX. Win2k to XP? Wifi. No, seriously. That's pretty much all that is so terribly different. Ok, the DirectX SDK for 9.0c doesn't want to run on 2k, but you can convince it. Oh, and I think you need XP for some of the later .NET goodies.
In a nutshell, it was always MS deciding to abandon support for "older" systems that should convince people they "want" the new system. They tried the same stunt with Vista, by not offering DirectX10 support for XP. It fizzled because neither people nor industry cared.
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:5, Informative)
What MS lacks is a compelling reason for people to switch from XP and I don't think they're ready to dare cutting off all support to force a switch. They're victims of their own success.
I played with win7 for about a month, became irritated at the difficulties networking with existing XP machines and failed to find a "must have" feature compelling enough for me to switch.
I also smell a screw job coming - either DRM or some other anti-consumer scheme built in to the OS that's going to offer me zero benefit and make my life more difficult.
OS's are becoming less relevant as computing becomes more browser-centric. Who cares what's under the hood if Firefox runs? The only real reason I still run xp is for gaming.
Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine (Score:4, Interesting)
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Many people, especially non-technical people, think of the OS as the visual presentation of the GUI.
Exactly. Consider that an increasing amount of people's daily business is conducted through the browser. Nobody cares what's under the hood. Could be windows, linux, OSX, you name it - it's increasingly irrelevant. If you integrated media file handling I'd never run any other app than a browser on my netbook. This reduces the OS to what is should be - nuts and bolts. MS started the fiction that the OS IS the computer. OS's need to fade from view and do less, not more. Who really gives a shit what fil
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Run limited user accounts and use the latest version of Firefox available in 2015, and that should be sufficiently secure.
My guess is that even with a completely open, unsecured, Administrator-using WinXP you'll be secure in 2015. Take any current threat and try to run it against WinNT, 9 out of 10 won't even run.
Re:XP support (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares. By then XP will be a crusty old piece of shit. (More so!)
You mean a crusty old piece of shit that's still better than their current offerings.
Re:XP support (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. We juyst bought a raft of new laptops and PC's here. after testing for the past 2 months we are downgrading all of them to XP. Vista is too unstable for our important vertical apps that our business uses to make money.
Honestly Business apps are NOT READY for vista or vista64. Most vertical apps have no other option and are written by retarded monkeys locked in closets... (Filemaker based sales applications, I look directly at those abortions with hatred) and VB6... yes a LOT of Vertical market apps are written in VB6 and STILL IN VB6! When you ask when they will be compatible with Vista and Vista64... I get the ambigous "we are working on it...." They have been working on it for 3 years now!
So we are downgrading to eliminate problems. Even running the problematic software in a VM is not a workable solution. I am getting networking problems and one of the apps actually needs decent 2d graphics speed which you do not get from a VM. USB devices that work with that special software has problems going through the VM wall, etc....
So Vista get's wiped and we use the downgrade licenses we got to install XP on everything to get rid of the productivity time vampire that Vista is to our company.
Re:XP support (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Major corp program in vb6.
It works fine.
It could stop working with any patch.
There was supposed to be a vb7 but instead we got .net. No easy way to move the application.
Our Java and Mainframe programs have not had to be recoded for over a decade (Mainframe goes back about 18 years).
Business has a hard time allocating resources to rewrite applications that are working every 5 years.
These are significant apps- take about 6000 hours to redevelop and test.
Going forward, we are not going to use .net. Microsoft
Re:XP support (Score:5, Insightful)
People have to realize Microsoft can't code their way out of the windows hell to a decent os.
People don't care. They just want it to run their favorite game and accounting software. BSD doesn't do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Incorrect - if it runs in Wine, it'll run in FreeBSD (a supported platform).
(There's a lot of WoW players who run it in Wine on Ubuntu so their b0xx0r won't get h@xx0r3d if they piss off the wrong person. I find the rationale questionable, but that's the reason they give.)
Re:XP support (Score:5, Insightful)
rect - if it runs in Wine, it'll run in FreeBSD (a supported platform).
And you can churn your own butter at home instead of going to that fancy supermarket. The original post should have read like this:
People don't care. They just want it to run their favorite game and accounting software simply and without having to undertake compatiblility testing or perform major settings changes. BSD doesn't do that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
rect - if it runs in Wine, it'll run in FreeBSD (a supported platform).
And you can churn your own butter at home instead of going to that fancy supermarket. The original post should have read like this:
People don't care. They just want it to run their favorite game and accounting software simply and without having to undertake compatiblility testing or perform major settings changes. BSD doesn't do that.
Nope. Linux in its various flavours neither. But that's not even the major issue - driver suppport is. I don't mind fiddling around to get Win apps to work under wine, but if half the customer's devices don't work, well, then that's a major issue.
Yes, I know that 'enterprise' quality peripheral support is really very good, but a lot of devices that people want to use- in large organisations & small - just can't be installed and/or work correctly/as expected/to thir full potential.
If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Even faster than Windows XP, most of the incentive to downgrade is gone and it'll just be a shrinking market.
The only thing I can think of is driver compatibility for that random device that they don't have Vista driver for yet or just something unsupported since then.
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I see people spouting that kind of thing off all the time, but I never see any kind of information to back it up.
Plus, it hasn't just been Microsoft saying 7 is faster. A lot of the independent benchmarks coming out have 7 as faster than Vista and XP in just about everything.
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I can't believe I have to make this post, it's insane.
(I was banned for 20 days on a VERY stupid and pedantic Aussie forum for arguing the same thing with someone who insisted 7 is faster than XP)
NO VERSION OF WINDOWS HAS EVER BEEN FASTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE, IT'S SIMPLY FUCKING BULLSHIT.
PERIOD!
If you get new hardware then duh! of course it's going to be faster
Get yourself a single core, 1gb machine with a medium speed hard disk.
Put on Windows XP.
Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
It WILL be slower, pe
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I mean I generally agree with you but it sounds like you're on a rant from whatever happened on that other forum.
What if (and this is, of course, an if - I've only started getting into Windows 7 after looking at my options for an HTPC, so outside of Media Center, I don't know much about it) Windows 7 handles things like gobs of RAM or multi-core processors better than XP? Then 7 will be faster on the same hardware than XP.
What you're generally saying is true, sometimes technology (dual channel memory for
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It just surprises me to see such a comment on a forum like slashdot.
I can't think of a similar analogy but I've heard the same comment bandied about since Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, 95 will be 'faster' - sure it was it did several things better than 3.11 but it's requirements were so much more taxing on the hardware of the time that it was completely slower than Windows 3.11
It's been happening for a long long time, it's simply not true yet it continues to be thrown around the industry and each new OS has
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We already know from beta testers that win7 is faster than Vista. So your 'never' has already been proven wrong.
As for 'it will have more code', that doesn't mean all that code runs all the time or that it's slower. In fact, you could say the same thing about Linux, and yet there have been distros that improved their overall speed over time through various technologies, like GPU acceleration.
Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's wait until Win7 hits the shelves before taking speculation as gospel.
If win7 will end up being faster than Vista, I'll drink to you. Otherwise I'll drink to me. Either way, it seems I win!
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Congratulations on trying to rebute my post with several points I'd already made in the post itself!
You either didn't read it or chose to ignore them, either way your post has 'already been proven wrong'
I notice you're one of those people who have put a nice little red dot against your name to me, bravo - you're hard as nails internet avenger, hard as nails.
Next time read the post before hitting reply.
Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim (Score:5, Funny)
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That is very much me, I won't deny it :)
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your generally right, but its not always that way.
If a new version is optimized only for newer hardware than it will/can be faster than the old software, with hardware backwards compatibility, on all new hardware.
For example 32-bit/64-bit transition.
Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim (Score:5, Informative)
Now, get yourself a quad core 12gb machine with a 15,000rpm hard disk.
Put on Windows XP
Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
It WILL be slower, period.
Not under heavy - particularly multithreaded - loads it won't.
Advances and improvements in schedulers, locking, memory management, and other low-level aspects of the OS mean that newer hardware is better utilised by a more modern OS. For example, pre-SP2 releases of XP are not NUMA-aware, so on architectures like Opteron and Core i7, will be at a severe disadvantage in memory-intensive workloads.
Benchmarks have demonstrated this. You're wrong, deal with it.
Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim (Score:4, Funny)
(I was banned for 20 days on a VERY stupid and pedantic Aussie forum for arguing the same thing with someone who insisted 7 is faster than XP) NO VERSION OF WINDOWS HAS EVER BEEN FASTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE, IT'S SIMPLY FUCKING BULLSHIT. PERIOD!
Maybe you shouldn't be so AbRASiVE
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Someone else has already brought up the 64 / 32 bit point.
Firstly, Vista (AND Windows 7!) are not 64bit exclusive operating systems, infact if 7 was, I wouldn't have made my initial post.
and yes though, you're right, there's times where 64bit can obviously smash 32bit in performance.
However for the sake of argument.
ANY computer you purchase now, be it a quad core i7 or a single core Athlon 3200+, Windows 7 and Vista will be slower, due to things which 'apparently' make it faster, like superfetch and the dis
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While your point is technically correct, this is a very very different argument, this is version to version.
XP 64 will be quicker than Vista 64 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff'
XP 32 will be quicker than Vista 32 as a core OS, due to the backend doing 'stuff'
I appreciate you pointing it out but I think we both know what I meant and I stand by it.
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Well for the sake of the post, the entire argument was speed, other features are a moot point.
Sure we can derail the thread further and make other arguments but you won't be negating the original point at all, newer operating systems from Microsoft are almost always slower than the previous version, it's simple bloat.
As I just said in a similar post, sometimes the performance hit is worth the sacrifice, other times not.
From my testing so far, Windows 7 seems usable, it still irritates me several times a day
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I've used Vista about 4 times for periods ranging from a week to 2 months and each time I couldn't deal with it - most recently about 2 months back (well after SP1)
I've never encountered it being faster so I find that link very surprising although I trust PC Mark very, very little it's still indicative of some kind of performance gain (assuming there's no Vista optomisations but I'm not going to clutch at straws to prove my point)
I'd like to see a disk to disk copy benchmark, network to network copy
differen
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What a Strange Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Putting MS in check. (Score:5, Insightful)
People are going to be allowed to buy the OS they prefer rather than the one that Microsoft prefers they buy? What a strange idea? Can American capitalism survive thinking like this?
Ah, whether you're buying a Cobalt or a Corvette, GM is just happy you're on their damn lot to begin with. In light of the economy and the amazing shrinking budget, Microsoft would be wise to put themselves in the same humble position.
This has little to do with what's "better" at this point vs. what business customers don't want to have to deal with (driver issues, software incompatibility, buying new hardware for the sake of software, etc.)
Re:Putting MS in check. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Totally true, but you can't buy a new '68 Covrette C3 StingRay from the GM Factory.
But you can get that horrible PT Cruiser. And my 1994 Townace van is basically a 1970 Corona.
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If you pick just the right shade of hot pink, it actually looks a tiny bit like the hot-rod they were aiming for, instead of a hearse with go-faster stripes.
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Totally true, but you can't buy a new '68 Covrette C3 StingRay from the GM Factory.
That's the Feds that make that deal impossible.
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Cars crash and change with age. Windows XP does not.
I do not think that word means what you think it means...
The future (Score:5, Funny)
"Entity X27. Your navigational hipostaticer is ready."
"I calmly express great joy"
"Do you want us to install Conscious Neurolinker MarkIII? Or Windows XP."
"Windows XP"
"Ok... Oh, wait. Your hipostaticer doesn't allow it sorry."
"Are you *expletive* making a joke on my behalf? *expletive* you! You *expletive* slow person."
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I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft, I'll give up my obsession with XP, skip Vista and widely support Windows 7, if you guys have the testicles to release Windows 7 as a 64bit only operating system.
I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.
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I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.
Only if Elon Musk is in charge. [jalopnik.com]
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I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.
After seeing the efforts to 'do the right thing' in Vista, I'd prefer Microsoft sticks to doing the wrong things consistently.
Better the devil you know...
Re:I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,.. (Score:4, Interesting)
If 64-bit Windows 7 would be slow like the 64bit edition Ubuntu 8.10, then no thanks.
The thing uses 1 gig of RAM for mail and web browsing. Java apps use nearly twice the RAM compared to the 32-bit edition because there are too many pointers. The same with gcc, a simple build task consumes 500 megs of RAM compared to 350 in 32-bit. So one gigabyte in 64-bit Ubuntu is as slow as 512 megs in Vista.
Oh, and netbooks run on Celeron or Atom CPUs, meaning Microsoft would have to continue selling Windows XP.
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Something is wrong with your machine or you're living in the past.
PC's have stagnated for years upon years due to holding on compatibility of older operating systems and architecture.
The switch from 16bit CPU's to 32bit CPU's to true 32bit OS's was really, really far far too long.
A mandatory 64bit OS with 32bit emulation through a VM would be far smarter than damn well releasing two different copies.
Re:I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,.. (Score:5, Funny)
because there are too many pointers.
I know, let's have some short pointers so we can save memory, but let's also have long pointers so we can address all the memory.
Let's call them "near" and "far" pointers. Let's make the programmer declare them explicitly. I think it will provide for a massive productivity boost.
Oh, and let's add memory segments too ;-)
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"too many pointers"
Who are you, the Emperor of Austria?
"I'm sorry, Herr Mozart, but your program is just too confusing. Too many pointers."
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Microsoft, I'll give up my obsession with XP, skip Vista and widely support Windows 7, if you guys have the testicles to release Windows 7 as a 64bit only operating system.
To what end ?
I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.
Why is it "the right thing" ? There are (and will be) plenty of Windows 7 capable machines out there that are not 64-bit.
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Are you new to computers by any chance?
Do you even remember the 16bit to 32bit era, do you know what having multiple versions does for developers and segmenting the market?
Please, come back to this thread when you have a clue or you've been in IT for more than 2 years.
Re:I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the developers.
Imagine for a second you're a developer of software. Now, of course you want to sell to the biggest market. So you're developing for Windows. Yeah, you might even prefer doing stuff for Linux, but... bigger market, ok?
32 or 64 bit? Well, 64bit machines can run 32bit code. 32bit machines can't run 64bit code. So you're developing yet another 32bit application.
Why should this be bad? Does it really matter at all?
It matters because it slows down the transition to 64bit. Which means we're facing a bottleneck, or more precisely, we're already in it. You may or may not remember the days of 640k ram and "some above that". The hoops we jumped through and the ways we bent to make those 640k "last" when it was plain obvious that about 25 times that amount of ram was in order is ridiculous. Yet it had to be done, because programs were written for those 640k "and some above that" ram, systems that were stuck in offset/segment ram addressing because you couldn't really sensibly change it or break compatibility...
And we're heading there again. As long as there is a large 32 bit market, and there will be as long as there are new 32bit system, application programmers will create 32bit software which will be bought and used, and which will create quite a bit of headaches when the time comes that we HAVE to move on to 64bit.
Maybe you remember the headaches you had when you went from DOS to Win95. And not because 95 bluescreened every other minute.
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Well, given that netbooks are still shipping with 32 bit cores, and are probably the fastest growing (and maybe even fastest selling) segment of consumer devices right now, I think MS and any other operating system vendor would have to be damned foolish to only release a 64 bit version.
32 bit is going to be here for a while boys, get comfy.
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Win7 on a netbook. Let's ponder this for a moment.
If anything, they should create a "Win7 netbook edition", only, and I mean only for netbooks. I wouldn't wanna run a new Windows system, designed for the current desktop/laptop market on a netbook which has the processing power (and ram space) of an oversized cell phone.
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"When the economy picks up, netbooks will disappear"
What utter nonsense. The netbook phenomenon was massive before the current crash. Cheap, consumer grade net devices are a niche that isn't going anywhere.
I'm sure as hell not going to spend double the money on something bigger, heavier and that I'm more concerned about breaking because it's expensive.
The netbook market is nothing to do with the downturn.
It's about compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Same reasons many can't upgrade to Vista...
Spanners in the works:
-New driver model meaning much older hardware just doesn't work.
-UAC breaks lots of badly written apps. Causes huge annoyances at best in these instances.
-64bit. First serious 64 bit consumer Windows.
-No IE6. You wouldn't believe how many legacy apps require IE6 and/or ActiveX, it's quite sickening actually.
Any one of these can be a show-stopped for your app/system, and on older apps this can be a nightmare to have to work round that often isn't worth the investment until forced. I've seen many legacy business apps in particular that break because of Windows re-engineering (Vista). Same applies for Win7.
IE6 (Score:2)
You wouldn't believe how many legacy apps require IE6
I think it's quite fitting that the self-serving proprietary bullshit and lack of standards in IE6 might actually translate into a few lost OS sales for MS some years later.
It's the year of the linux desktop! (Score:2)
Seriously, teh linux now supports far more hardware than recent MS releases, and this will continue to be true unless lots of hardware vendors:
1) Put a lot of effort into porting drivers for old products. There's no revenue in that.
2) Come back from the dead
So it's XP or linux now if you want to use that more-than-three-year-old non-standard printer/scanner/modem/webcam/doohickey. I know people who are still downgrading their new machines for this very reason.
I know it's wishful thinking to hope that linux
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hugely varying HTML standards
Doesn't that make it, by definition, not a standard?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
There's an easy solution for that:
1) Open window
2) Pick up HP Printer
3) Throw printer through window
4) Buy a new, compatible printer, from a company who doesn't overcharge so much for ink.
the savings on ink costs will pay for it in short order, and step 1 means you don't need to factor in glazing costs, either. That's how nice I am.
I just bought an XP machine. (Score:2, Insightful)
Just bought a newly released Asus netbook pre-loaded with XP.
I don't know why they chose XP, it could have been
many reasons, but as a casual user the changes
from Vista to XP were substantial - but they
always will be - your options are always the same.
(a) Choose another, similar product from the [vendor]
(b) Choose another, similar product from another vendor
In the case of windows and its lack of ethics in
regards to inter-operability [or their past] this
has harmed their overall effectiveness in the market.
The
And still developing Win7? (Score:5, Insightful)
It really makes me wonder why Microsoft bothers with the continued development of Windows. The customers have spoken: they like XP, and find it so good that they do not even bother to upgrade nor switch to the much more modern Linux distributions that are available already for years. Vista flopped, and Win7 (or whatever it's going to be called upon release) is also not getting a too warm reception so far.
Just lay off >90% of the workers, keep a core of XP maintainers, and profit.
Re:And still developing Win7? (Score:4, Insightful)
It really makes me wonder why Microsoft bothers with the continued development of Windows. The customers have spoken: they like XP, and find it so good that they do not even bother to upgrade nor switch to the much more modern Linux distributions that are available already for years. Vista flopped, and Win7 (or whatever it's going to be called upon release) is also not getting a too warm reception so far.
Just lay off >90% of the workers, keep a core of XP maintainers, and profit.
Exactly. I don't think it's customers saying they like XP, but it does what 95% of folks out there need to get done: email...sorry showing my age, I meant facebook, web, and some paperwork. And guess what there is little reason to upgrade hardware or the OS if your only concern is how fast your facebook page loads. That's up to your provider. Unless there is a "must have" in 7, there is little to no reason to upgrade.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I disagree that Windows 7 isn't getting a warm reception.
Pure marketing spin is going to get Windows 7 a tonne of sales, it will be heralded but a tonne of Vista haters purely because it's not Vista, that name is now a tarnished brand (it simply can't be repaired)
In 18 months you'll STILL see XP vs Windows 7 discussions (fewer I admit) but Vista will simply forgotten, much like Windows ME or the Xbox 1.
I am in the camp which feels 7 IS an improvement but I'm not in the "OMG IT'S NOT VISTA! IT MUST BE GOOD!"
Not "like XP," they "hate Vista with a passion." (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm the "tech neighbor" in my rather large apartment building in New York. Word has gotten around that the guy in 12C "knows about computers," and I'm a reasonably nice guy so I do my share of silly stuff like helping with missing driver installs, helping people figure out how to shut down or reboot, helping people try to delete a file, helping people to get their flash plugin working again, or helping people to find programs that are "missing" while still installed, etc.
Note that all of the things that I just mentioned are recent problems (last couple of weeks) with Vista that I've helped people to solve.
In all cases, the problem was user confusion, user error, or simple lack of user knowledge about how to use the feature, enable the feature, find the feature, etc.
It's not that people were completely in love with XP. They bitched about "Windows" all the time, as they've done for years, sometimes seriously, sometimes half in jest. But Vista changed nearly every aspect of "how to get things done" for the average user.
I don't mean in the "flowchart by a UI designer way," in which the structures of many charts are the same. I mean in the "regular human way," which includes steps like:
- Look for icon I recognize
- Right click to find specific text
- Follow my nose intuitively through a process I've never really remembered well
Vista changed nearly all the icons, nearly all the text, replaced icons with text and text with icons, placed options in physically different locations relative to window edges, screen edges, or the shapes and levels of menus, and changed policies on some simple stuff like program installs, file renames and deletions, adding things to the start menu, what appears on the start menu, and whether prominent start menu options shut down/reboot or simply sleep/hibernate.
This stuff didn't just break software that made bad assumptions and finds itself no longer working when it was fine in XP, and it's not just a matter of drivers that are missing so that peoples hardware won't work.
It's a matter of changes silently having been made to the ways that users imagine basic things like context menus, the control panel, file behavior, and the start menu to work. I don't know how many times I've helped someone to shut down or reboot Vista after they've tried for days and only managed to sleep/hibernate repeatedly.
Basically, Microsoft made Vista a 100% learning curve for any non-technical person, and people are finding they can't get stuff done. All the cognitive maps they'd made about how "computers" operate, and all the little tricks that had evolved in their computing practices on an ad-hoc basis to get along with Windows over the previous decade were suddenly worthless, and they found themselves in many cases re-living their "first time I used a computer" experience, with all the bewilderment, time wasting, missteps, and unrealized desire to get task X or step Y done that that entailed.
They want XP rather than Vista because they are able to productively use XP in ways that they can't productively use Vista. It's not just a matter of slowness vs. fastness, it's a matter of people literally not being able to figure out how to do the things that they want to do in Vista, whether the thing that they want to do is simply shutting the computer down, visiting YouTube, or making their scanner or printer work again.
Dumbest revision by Microsoft ever; they basically negated the advantages that their massive installed userbase gave them in terms of product preferences.
XP forever (Score:2, Interesting)
They should change the support model for XP. Offer it for free and charge for support.
It's still a popular OS that will be in use for years to come - if people are still deploying it on new machines today.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That would be a disaster. Even with Auto Update being free, what would happen if people would have to pay for security fixes?
The situation would be even worse than it is today. Remember: Conficker happened because of idiots, not because Microsoft fucked up - a patch was released almost a month before conficker hit the net.
Re: (Score:2)
The trouble is not mainly that people didn't install an available patch. It's that no-one trusts Microsoft patches not to break things by accident or malice [today.com] (I'm counting WGA as malice).
And in any case, it isn't just that Windows is more popular - it really is more insecure than Unix by design. Windows is a skanky ho' [philosecurity.org], going out in the bad part of town drunk and stoned with no pants on and saying "what could possibly go wrong?"
A Catch 22 (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Industry holds adoption back (Score:5, Insightful)
Industry has always lagged behind the consumer market.
Well into the 90s, in the right catalogs, you could still buy VESA cards and other legacy parts, to keep repairing the 286/386 boxes running DOS and your NC lathe/drill/w.e.. Why should a business upgrade to some shiny new box when the old one, completely amortized and producing pure profit, was still working just fine, thank you very much.
Likewise with the new OS and Office suite. Gartner said when Vista/Office 2K7 came out "no compelling reason to upgrade [google.com]". Any bean counter worth his salt could see that the new software combination would require a considerable cash outlay in new hardware just to keep productivity at current levels. Non-adoption became a no-brainer.
What MS did was ignore the market and attempt to make too clean a break from their previous policy of the greatest backwards compatibility for hardware and software. They miscalculated and are now reaping the results of that decision.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I work for a small ERP ISV in Switzerland.
We run 90% internally, and have several customers that run 100% Vista. And none of those customers hate Vista - in fact, they don't understand what all the fuss is about in the Media, since it's working very well for them. A rather big customer started in June 2007 with 100% Vista.
The reasons behind these things are simple: Their most important application is our ERP software - which works very well on their machines. If they are using other software and hardware, w
PDP-11 would be a better example... (Score:2)
PCI wasn't introduced until the Pentium in 1993, and new consumer VESA cards were still being introduced until late '94 or early '95.
You could still get support for your PDP-11 controlling your NC lathe/drill from Mentec well into this decade, though they seem to have finally dropped out around 2007.
Windows 7 failing before it's even released? (Score:2, Insightful)
So they're saying Windows 7 will be such a failure before it's even released, that customers may want to just stick with XP until Microsoft straightens things out?
I'll stick with Linux myself.
XP versus Windows 7 from a useability standpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an IT guy, and application developer and a user who supports their "mother". Trust me... the last thing in the world I want to do is upgrade my mothers PC and start that whole "Where is..." process again.
What do I look for in an OS?
1) Innate Driver support (finding some of these drivers is a pain in the ass)
2) Speed (opening programs, loading by default)
3) Stability (how often does it experience problems, lag, programs crashing or stalling out)
4) Finding crap (how easy is it to find what you need?)
5) Security (How easy is it to lock down with virus protection etc)
6) Intuitive design (This is huge to me and why linux still fails to be a great desktop OS)
Fact is most people don't care what runs under the hood as long as it runs well. They don't WANT to know. Me, I'm a little more focused on performance since I'm a gamer and write software for a living.
I hated Vista... I still do. It just felt clunky and overly feature laiden. Still does and it's why most IT guys I know refuse to install it (not even including the security issues, driver support, software compability etc...).
Windows 7 on the other hand... surprised me. Lets go by my list above.
1) Innate Driver support (finding some of these drivers is a pain in the ass)
Well... I had some old hardware and new hardware in my box, separate sound card, you get the idea. Typically you have to install motherboard drivers, sound card drivers, ethernet drivers, blah blah blah. After installing Windows 7 FRESH... I only had to install my NVIDIA driver. Additionally, I was able to search (through find new driver in windows) for my sound card driver even though a default one was installed and let me tell you... the driver that was found (for lack of better words) PWNED the one that came with it. the XP install when searching windows databases never could find the sound card driver... not sure why. But... the fact is ALL of the drivers I had to have to do things were there.
2) Speed (opening programs, loading by default)
From default settings... Windows 7 loaded faster than my default of XP. I'm thinking this is because of how they order things when loading, or the fact that there was a lot less that starts. However, Windows 7 does take up a buttload more ram. Idle was using 500mb. I have 8gb so I don't care. With all my software installed (Winamp, CS3, Eclipse, blah blah blah) Windows 7 STILL loaded faster than XP. This caught me off guard and frankly didn't make much since until I looked at the startup. The adobe reader wasn't starting, acrobat was starting etc etc... by default a lot of those processes that add themselves to the startup... weren't. On average (yes im sad... I timed it), out of 5 start ups it took 20 seconds from pushing power to being at the login screen.
3) Stability (how often does it experience problems, lag, programs crashing or stalling out)
I have had NO blue screens of death. Not one. I haven't even had a program crash on me where XP used to die all the time. Every single game I've tried to play installed fine and works. Some had to be run in compatibility mode (Neverwinter nights, Quake 2) but they all run. Newer games haven't had a single issue for me. I was very pleased with this.
4) Finding crap (how easy is it to find what you need?)
Okay... windows 7 requires some adjustment... It's kind of difficult to find "My documents" folder... and if you download something good luck. Your downloads folder really isn't... it's your username THEN downloads. But other than that I REALLY liked the options for viewing contents of folders and how it automatically figures stuff out and saves your settings. It started to realize I wanted to see documents in a list view, pictures in small thumbs and html, php, cfm, js files as details. I never saved the folders it just remembered AND applied it to other folders.
The taskbar grouping and configuration was done EXTREMELY well. It allows you to set it up however you want it to. Not limiting you to two or three options. It
No thanks, I'm good (Score:4, Interesting)
So basically.... (Score:2)
Thought Windows 7 was to be adaptable for big desktop systems AND small netbook type systems!
But i guess MS bloat has won again...
A comparison of models (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the differences between closed and open source software is obvious here and should be a sales pitch for FOSS in it's own right.
With closed source, only the software developers can update it, fix it, add features etc so if they choose not to (or are not able to due to bankruptcy) the product dies, regardless of how many customers use it. It can also be cut off for commercial reasons, like a new version on sale and the company wanting even more money from their customers, regardless of the customers need for the new version.
By contrast, open sourced applications live on while there are people willing to use it and develop for it. If Windows XP was open source Microsoft would REALLY be struggling as the people hooked on Windows WANT XP. They don't want the newer versions Vista & Win7. They are paying a premium to avoid Vista. They are flooding online forums and blogs telling Microsoft they don't want Vista. They are demanding to be able to buy a new PC with XP installed, not Vista. If XP was open source it would NOT die, regardless of Microsoft's commercial intentions. Then again, if XP was open source it'd be a much better product in the first place.
With closed source applications, they can be bought (slandered or sued into bankruptcy) by competitors and closed down. As several super-corps have done over the years, when you can't compete on merit, crush or buy the competition (and their market share). An open source application can be bought and closed down, but that only affects the brand name / trademark. It will be forked by the developers / users who want it to remain open source. It will live under a different brand name, most of the developers and users will switch and the buyout will only have caused a temporary blip in the market at a huge cost. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft foam at the mouth trying to stop the concept of "open source" (specially GPL which explicitly insists on sharing the improved code) from taking off in people's minds.
It's a sad state of affairs when you have to resort to pulling the old product off the shelves, refusing your customers the product they want to buy, because you need to force them to buy the new product you want to sell them. If that's not bad enough, some people genuinely still respect Microsoft's policy of contempt for their customers. Many Microsoft apologists are paid shills, but many more have genuinely swallowed the pill, in spite of all the evidence.
ReactOS (Score:5, Interesting)
Excellent news! This additional extension should give the ReactOS [reactos.org] guys enough time to finish their open-source Windows XP.
What about downgrading Windows Vista? (Score:3, Interesting)
But now I'm stuck - I need to get a copy of XP Pro 32bit (I'll run a 64-bit linux on the machine as well). Google Products lists XP Pro for as low as $24 [google.com]. Is it safe to buy a copy of XP from any vendor? Or should I just buy from Dell?
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's not time for it to die - accounting (Score:5, Interesting)
So, much as I like Ubuntu 8.10 which runs on my servers, it is actually useless on most of our desktops and netbooks as it cannot run two out of our essential four programs.
Because accounting programs are very conservative and stable, I expect them to be running perfectly adequately on XP in ten years time. So why do I want Vista?
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need to "port" stuff "with" Wine - you just run it in Wine.
Wine is ready for the enterprise. I say this because we use it ourselves (media content production chain requiring a particular piece of proprietary software - rather than buy two Windows boxes, we just run that bit of the chain in Wine under CentOS).
Wine is particularly good for running those odd little apps your whole business just happens to utterly rely on and you can't even find the company that developed it any more, let alone tr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows XP is fine and does what people need it to do - why should they have to switch just because you and Microsoft say they should? Vista won't run on a lot of PCs running XP and a lot of XP software won't run on Win2k. There is no emotional attachment - it's purely a practical one.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft should keep XP as a basic core OS for normal people and just add SPs and upgrades to it to make it work with newer hardware.
Why not with Windows 2000? It does all the things you listed and in my experience was very stable.
Re: (Score:2)
It's much better than no Linux options. They don't even offer XP on all their machines. Some people are never happy..