Don't like Vista? Better buy XP before 1/1/08

I have been running MS WINDOWS VISTA (Home Premium) since it came out Feb. '07. It's running on a newer Dell XPS410 set up RAID1. I also loaded MS OFFICE Standard 2007 (which was expensive for "full" version) as well as a third party FAX program (SnappyFax) and Acronis BackUp. When Vista first loaded on the computer it had a few "glitches" but Windows UPDATES seem to have cured many of them. I (as well as Millions of others) am very anxious for Service Pack 1 !! Nonetheless, Vista runs just fine and although not as "reliable" at first as the tried and true XP is now, I find Vista doing what I want with few or no problems. I would NOT suggest putting Vista on a "older" Computer or even any newer computer with less than 2GB memory.

By the way, we have four Computers here in our household. The other three (one is a newer Dell D820 Notebook) are all running MS Windows XP PRO.

We were lucky (in Feb. '07) to be able to get XP PRO loaded on our Dell Latitude D820 Notebook, but that is primarily a "business" line of notebooks sold mainly to industry. All the Inspirons (cheaper line) are loaded ONLY with Vista. Also, the Latitudes have a "real" docking station connector on bottom of computer, the Inspirons have none.

 

I had heard XP would still be available from some PC makers until mid-08. No?

 

Actually, "we" won't be "forced" to run Vista, ever. We (some of us, anyway) will happily keep running Tiger or Leopard or maybe some day Tabbycat.

 

Actually, that information is outdated. XP will be available from Microsoft until end of June 2008. In emerging markets, a low cost starters version of XP for budget PC's will be available till end of june 2010.

And, if MS hasn't convincingly solved the OpenGL performance issues in Vista with the Aero look switched on, they will be forced to keep selling XP for the graphical workstation market. Or they will simply loose that market.

 

I work (as a Computer Consultant) with MANY Businesses resolving hardware, system issues and upgrades and 0% of the ones I spoke with want to, at very least, "try" Vista, let alone really having to "use" that O.S. although they all know that one day in their future they will have to upgrade to it.

I was NOT a "Beta tester" of Vista (during pre-release) although many of my friends were. They all hated it from day one complaining about the many bugs, etc. even after newer Beta versions were introduced.

I had an eight week "fill-in" temp. assignment in Tampa, Florida as a Dell Call Center Level II Support Tech. (back in December '06 - January '07) and we were forced to learn MS Windows Vista (all versions) to support the upcoming, predicted flurry of Vista Customer calls when it was released in MOST new Dell Computers in February '07.

I purchased a fully legal copy of Home Premium and loaded it on my "newest" computer at home. I thought I would eventually get a flurry of Customer calls (even after the Dell assignment) from my local customers concerning Vista "problems" but to my suprise, not many people (except those that bought NEW computers) were running out and buying Vista. For one, it was very expen$ive as well as not really a necessary "upgrade" as long as their XP was running just fine, which it usually was !!

 

For some people like myself who use Windows-based development tools all day long, Vista is not an option. Simply put, my key development tools will not work with Vista, per the manufacturers. Plus XP Pro requires a lot less HP - lower processor speed, amount of RAM - to be productive versus Vista. That means more useful life from my computers at no extra cost. Things were bad enough for awhile when XP SP2 first came out and several tools refused to run, until weeks later (months in one case) when the manufacturers released patches. I am not about to go through that all over again with Vista. I have better things to do with my time, especially since I own my business and time spent fooling with operating system incompatibilities means time I lose being productive and earning $$$.

On the bright side, XP (Home and Pro) will still be available for many years to come. An MSDN subscription guarantees as much. Further guarantee is the millions of businesses who have huge capital investments in XP Pro and refuse to migrate from it because of associated costs. I am much more inclined to believe that Windows NT is going bye-bye soon, but not XP Home or Pro.