The clock is ticking for Windows XP, the tried-and-true Microsoft operating system that millions of businesses and individuals depend on. Soon, the only Windows option will be Vista, an operating system that businesses as well as individuals have disliked and often avoided. The lackluster changes to Vista, coupled with the high costs of switching tens of millions of computers to it, have convinced InfoWorld that XP should not be retired as planned on June 30.
Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don't see a need to change to Vista. It's like having a comfortable apartment that you've enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice. The thought of moving to a new place -- even with the stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and maple cabinets (or is cherry in this year?) -- just doesn't sit right. Maybe it'll be more modern, but it will also cost more and likely not be as good a fit. And you don't have any other reason to move. That's exactly the conclusion people have come to with Vista. For most of us, there's really no reason to move to it -- yet we don't have a choice. When that strong desire to stick with XP became obvious in spring 2007, major computer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard quietly reintroduced new XP-based systems (but just to business customers, so as not to offend Microsoft).
Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don't see a need to change to Vista. It's like having a comfortable apartment that you've enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice. The thought of moving to a new place -- even with the stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and maple cabinets (or is cherry in this year?) -- just doesn't sit right. Maybe it'll be more modern, but it will also cost more and likely not be as good a fit. And you don't have any other reason to move. That's exactly the conclusion people have come to with Vista. For most of us, there's really no reason to move to it -- yet we don't have a choice. When that strong desire to stick with XP became obvious in spring 2007, major computer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard quietly reintroduced new XP-based systems (but just to business customers, so as not to offend Microsoft).

















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BuhBye
works good for me
im finding it faster than xp the more i use it
if you have crappy hardware i guess xp is the way to go..but with my new system vista runs like a beast
Yes, Vista's to blame. XP on both? My system is way ahead.
Not sure why everyone is on a crusade to stop people from using Vista if they are perfectly happy with it. I for one, am perfectly happy with Vista, find it very cozy and comfortable, and using XP on my work computer is like getting my teeth pulled.
But I will leave the people who want to use XP alone. Use what you wanna use.
XP came out in 2002
vista won't even install on my pcs, thats why I class it as ****, because it is
XP came out in 2002
no, it came out in 2001
I didn't realize that n_K's old PC was the benchmark for what makes a good operating system -- how dare Microsoft release an operating system that requires current technology!!!
Agreed... No one is being forced to any version of Windows... People still run Windows 98!
No, THIS is an anti-Vista rant. It's a reference to a "keep XP, Vista's not good" InfoWorld source article with an anti-Vista cartoon that's not even related to the article.
Just like Fox News! =)
They're "bitching and moaning" because people dare to question their religion of consumerism. Old is bad, new is good to them... Its not just Neowin that posts so much against Vista, it is many others as well for the fact that Vista IS CRAP for a majority of users. I've tried it for around 6 months so I know what I'm talking about and my hardware wasn't low end either. One's hardware shouldn't matter if it isn't all that old to begin with.
Uh, yes it does? That's the entire point of these posts; their opinions. If people feel strongly enough about something like this, maybe you should start listening to them instead of just steamrolling out the same articles that make them angry.
P.S. : Why don't we go back to DOS instead ? It should run lightning fast with today's hardware
P.S. : Why don't we go back to DOS instead ? It should run lightning fast with today's hardware
Because it can't run **** of today's games/apps/etc? while vista brings nothing "new" ?
P.S. : Why don't we go back to DOS instead ? It should run lightning fast with today's hardware
Because it can't run **** of today's games/apps/etc? while vista brings nothing "new" ?
Not even dude. When I do alt-tab I can see little windows of everything and select them using my mouse. May not seem like much, but when I'm at work on XP and don't have that feature I get really frustrated. I'm use to having a LOT of windows open (often under the same program so they all have the same icon when I alt-tab in XP). There are a lot of new things in Vista. Maybe not one BIG thing, but all those small things add up to a lot if you find them useful. Most of them I do find useful.
It may just be too little too late for some users. If you're running XP and are perfectly fine with it, don't upgrade.
It may just be too little too late for some users. If you're running XP and are perfectly fine with it, don't upgrade.
Most of those small features in Vista can be had in XP through third party programs, many of which are free.
It may just be too little too late for some users. If you're running XP and are perfectly fine with it, don't upgrade.
Most of those small features in Vista can be had in XP through third party programs, many of which are free.
I would say some, not most. For instance the task manager is is leaps and bounds in front of XP's task manager. MS actually got it right with their reorganization efforts in the control panel, XP's reorganization was useless and I suspect most people just use the "classic control panel". Sure you can add prettier alt-tab function to Windows XP...at a performance cost. You can also add desktop search to XP...at a performance cost. I'm not saying that those features don't ultimately slow down Vista as well. But once you add all those "little things" to XP you'd probably be performing better in Vista.
I stick to my opinion that most of those are available at least to some degree for XP. The improved task manager is definitely great in Vista, one of very few things I actually like about the os but like I said, there are programs available for XP that provide similar functionality. XP is much faster than Vista so adding a little alt tab functionality won't make much of a difference. It is primarily Vista's subsystem that makes it slow; Aero is slow, all the added processes use more memory, there are tons more scheduled tasks, it renders every icon individually, etc.
As far as organization, Vista is terrible imo. There's no cohesion at all, merely abstract small links in the side bar linking everywhere.
I stick to my opinion that most of those are available at least to some degree for XP. The improved task manager is definitely great in Vista, one of very few things I actually like about the os but like I said, there are programs available for XP that provide similar functionality. XP is much faster than Vista so adding a little alt tab functionality won't make much of a difference. It is primarily Vista's subsystem that makes it slow; Aero is slow, all the added processes use more memory, there are tons more scheduled tasks, it renders every icon individually, etc.
As far as organization, Vista is terrible imo. There's no cohesion at all, merely abstract small links in the side bar linking everywhere.
I duel booted XP and Vista on my Pentium 4 3.0GHz (I've since upgraded and don't duel boot on my new machine) and didn't notice much difference in performance between games and applications :|. I'm not going to argue that other people don't see a noticeable difference in the things they run on their hardware. If it sucked so bad on my computer I'd be running XP as well, but that isn't the case.
Another feature that I like is the new audio mixer which allows you to control program volume as oppose to WAVE/MIDI/CD etc. in XP. I like the fact that I can mute my web browser, Firefox, and all those annoying ads that have sound.
i have made mine, and im sticking with it
try as you will, you will not stop me
Adobe introduced Vista support starting with CS3. I've found that most of the CS2 apps work correctly in Vista, but there are some minor issues.
Now that I'm using the lastest SP1 Public Beta, I don't see a reason to go back to XP. The only issue that I have is sound based (no hardware sound effects from my Creative XFi), but the ALchemy software works ok for now.
I'll admit I have fairly new hardware (C2D, 4g ram, 7950 512mg) so I'm running the 64bit version. It has much more support than the 64bit XP ever had. But I've seen Vista on systems that are older with less memory that run pretty good as well.
I feel that Vista still has a ways to go before it will "feel" like XP does today (ie the comfortable chair in the Ctrl-Alt-Del comic above), but in time it will. I think alot of the FUD about the end of cycle for XP will fade in time, but most people are hesitant to change which is one part of the issue.
The other part is the hardware/driver support which will change as more companies get used to the way Vista does hardware. Vista did make a fundamental change in the way drivers are written - far too detailed to write here, just google it - and I think alot of companies *cough*Creative*cough* still have alot of re-learning to do when it comes to driver support. Once those changes are made there will be probably a slow but steady adoption of Vista support in the home user base.
Businesses are a completely different matter and it will take more than just drivers and performance changes to get them to switch. As an example, I know of some businesses that are still running Windows 98 because the software that they use for databases and record keeping has not been rewritten and to switch would be such a change that they could lose years of business data, account records, etc. Some businesses may never switch.
T
Last edited by LTD on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:10
Keep XP alive!!
It takes a good month to really start to feel the improvment over XP though. It feels nicer.
*Just my opinion
seriously I dont get what the huge deal is... by now places had a year to patch their applicatiosn to work in vista... the biggest complainers I've seen are ISV's that didn't write their code right to start with... depending on permissions to be in places they should not be... trying to store files in locations they shouldnt be... stuff like that, which don't want to rethink "humm is this really that secure?" and just fix the stupid thing to be secure... besides those people there isn't much of a problem... even drivers wern't that big of an issue...sure people like ATI and nVIDIA dragged their feet but that is mainly because the model changed and they didn't want to change how they thought stuff worked to work with the new model... people scream it has lower frame rates in vista... a lot of that has to do with these companies not really wanting to work with the new driver model completely and constantly optimizing the XP drivers and letting the vista ones get minor tweaks and such...
besides that I bet you most of the people that avoid vista are like the ones that were running rumors around here about office 2007.. when it was in beta I had people coming up to us saying "I sure hope we wont get that horrible new office 2007" when 1 they never used it... 2 never even saw it... and 3 based their opinnion off some news article from cnet that bashed it for no stupid reason.... now that they have seen it they are saying stuff like "why didnt we get this sooner?"... you just want to slam their head into a desk sometimes....
its not over for another 6 years, we are hear to stay whether you like it or not
its not over for another 6 years, we are hear to stay whether you like it or not
Not entirely true... "Mainstream Support" is till 4/14/2009. "Extended Support" is until 4/8/2014.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN...y=6&p1=3223
It does have some performance issues, I'll give you that. But those are usually exagerated. It takes a long time to startup and shutdown, but once loaded the performance is fine. I play games all the time and there are no performance issues.
On the surface, the changes aren't as dramatic looking so people assume it's not a big upgrade. But under the hood, almost every subsystem was rewritten. This is the reason why a lot of old hardware doesn't work right. I guess you can blame Microsoft for not supporting every piece of hardware that ever came out.
Most of the negative press started by people who didn't do their homework -- they just assumed their old PC and old hardware would work with a brand new OS, and when they found it didn't, the wrote it off as being a failure.
XP is getting out of date. How long you cling to it is up to you, but don't start complaining about when programs start to be phased out of support and require a min req of Vista.
p.s. That cartoon is so lame.
+1.
People are only using it because it's new and shiny.. actual real performance and glaringly obvious problems don't factor for these distracted users.
When XP dies I'll be going Linux... Vista is a leash and muzzle for the PC.
+1.
People are only using it because it's new and shiny.. actual real performance and glaringly obvious problems don't factor for these distracted users.
When XP dies I'll be going Linux... Vista is a leash and muzzle for the PC.
that's funny, the EXACT same things were said about XP when it launched... shouldn't you still be using 2000.. er.. linux
+1.
People are only using it because it's new and shiny.. actual real performance and glaringly obvious problems don't factor for these distracted users.
When XP dies I'll be going Linux... Vista is a leash and muzzle for the PC.
that's funny, the EXACT same things were said about XP when it launched... shouldn't you still be using 2000.. er.. linux
Wrong - folks had some negative things to say about XP, but they were won over long before now.
Vista is the new Windows ME - like it or not, that's the perception. Crying "It's not" with all the venom of an angst ridden little bitch isn't going to change things.
This is mainly about Microsoft's bread-and-butter, the corporate licensing market and business users. Without (or until) success in that market, this type of product is a total flop. I've spoken with many IT managers from Fortune 500 companies to mom-n-pops and very VERY few have any plans of adopting Vista anytime in the near or in most cases distant future. Many are still upgrading from 2000 to XP. Hell, at my company we still have some legacy systems running DOS and OS/2; not to mention mainframe apps almost as old as I am! If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So it really doesn't make much ROI sense to upgrade to Vista for the vast majority of users.
I still have friends working in Redmond and the proverbial poop is hitting the fan (no matter what PR spinning foot Gates puts forward). The saturation and adoption rates are no where near what was budgeted for Vista. We can only hope that not too many heads will roll. I've been in the industry for over 20 years and I've seen a lot of failures, but very few (maybe Apple Lisa and MS Bob) have been as big and painful as Vista. Just one guy's opinion and I'll hopefully be proven wrong.
Last edited by lbmouse on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:22
IT managers NEVER adopt a new version of Windows right when it comes out. It takes them years to make this transition, and there are many factors for that -- cost, incompatibilities with networking hardware or software, etc... Many businesses have just finally finished the migration to XP, which came out 6 years ago.
IT managers NEVER adopt a new version of Windows right when it comes out. It takes them years to make this transition, and there are many factors for that -- cost, incompatibilities with networking hardware or software, etc... Many businesses have just finally finished the migration to XP, which came out 6 years ago.
I still have a few friends working at MS that I personally keep in touch with. So, yes it is the grapevine, but a very dependable and short one. Being extremely active in the industry for over 20 years, I network and keep in contact with many management level IT professionals and there is none of the buzz that NT 4.0, 2000, XP, or even 3.11 sparked. Even if someone wasn't an early adopter, they at least where excited about the proposition and began planning. There is almost none of this with Vista. I have nothing against Microsoft (it is just a tech company) or Vista (it is just a tech tool) and really wish it would do well. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be unfolding that way.
Last edited by lbmouse on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:21
There were many more early and mid adopters of XP than Vista in the terms of industry saturation rates in both quantity and velocity. I was an IT manager for one of the countries largest insurance companies at the time of XP's release. I was amazed at how little resistance we had for upgrading from 2000 to XP (most of hardware could still only handle 98 though), because insurance companies are notoriously bad for being slow to adopt new technologies. I only know of a small handful of early large corp XP adopters that are even considering Vista and they moving extremely gingerly. So there is no exaggeration, unfortunately.
There were many more early and mid adopters of XP than Vista in the terms of industry saturation rates in both quantity and velocity. I was an IT manager for one of the countries largest insurance companies at the time of XP's release. I was amazed at how little resistance we had for upgrading from 2000 to XP (most of hardware could still only handle 98 though), because insurance companies are notoriously bad for being slow to adopt new technologies. I only know of a small handful of early large corp XP adopters that are even considering Vista and they moving extremely gingerly. So there is no exaggeration, unfortunately.
I work in the IT department of the 11th largest firm in the world. We are testing Vista on some machines and are planning to roll it out in 2009... Where do you get the "people are not upgrading"?
Most are not, at least from my observation. I'd have to say that your company is the exception rather than the rule. The company I currently work for has over 110,000 employees worldwide and the IT decision makers have no plans on touching Vista at the individual user level. It sounds like after they get everyone upgraded to XP, they plan on waiting for the next OS generation.
Tried Vista, and there were a number of issues around driver and software support (even for new hardware). The x64 version in particular was problematic.
I'm sure many of those have been resolved by now, but as nice as it looked, I just found it awful to use. I still run it on my second computer (mostly for IIS7), and still find it to be a pain.
Stop spreading useless FUD about Vista!
he doesn't believe in reporting OPINIONS
nuff said
Vista has services that run when your not using your computer to help with maintenance.
Last edited by soldier1st on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:23
VISTA RIGHT NOW IS PERFORMING BETTER THAN PRE-SP XP. WAIT TILL VISTA IS SP1 AND THEN SP2 AND YOU WILL BE SAYING SAME THING ABOUT WINDOWS 7.
snap out of it for god sake.
Last edited by abulfares on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:49
XP pre SP was even faster than XP SP2.
VISTA RIGHT NOW IS PERFORMING BETTER THAN PRE-SP XP. WAIT TILL VISTA IS SP1 AND THEN SP2 AND YOU WILL BE SAYING SAME THING ABOUT WINDOWS 7.
snap out of it for god sake.
Fail.
XP pre SP was even faster than XP SP2.
oh i'm sure about that, and i bet you use the pre-sp instead of the SP2.
Actually, I have quite a bit of experience with XP as well as Vista and OSX. I have three machines, 2 of which are running SP2 and one SP1. Two dual booting.
You fail, thanks for playing.
Actually, I have quite a bit of experience with XP as well as Vista and OSX. I have three machines, 2 of which are running SP2 and one SP1. Two dual booting.
You fail, thanks for playing.
Really? So why are you so mad with Windows Vista? In fact if you think XP is better than Vista why are arguing about Vista? Who cares about what you and me, and the others think? Just use what is better for you.
And actually it's true that when Windows 7 come out the same will happen, it's only some months until the crap begin again.
The likelihood that Microsoft will "retire" XP just a few months after SP3's release is very low.
There is no reason to read the rest of the article or get into a war about how good Vista is or isn't.
Windows XP does not have to be saved, Windows Vista has to be saved.
And so are a lot of my mates, and plenty of customers. Sorry Vista = Fail.
No supported software
Very few drivers
Need a new computer to run it
Performance is terrible (gamers especially whined)
Can't figure it out
Too bloated
And yet, those people came to love XP because it got the spit-and-polish it needed after the first SP. And it turned out it ran games better than 98, woo!
Give Vista a little time, no OS is perfect.
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