XP back on Dells -- uh, yipee?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 20th 2007 7:52AM
posted April 20th 2007 7:52AM
"If it ain't the latest, it ain't the greatest" -- a consumer war cry we're all certainly very familiar with. Not so for Dell users apparently. According to the BBC, users "swamped" Dell's feedback site with a demand for the return of the ol' XP pre-load. In response, Dell has reversed their Vista-only policy which loaded Microsoft's latest onto nearly all Dell machines destined for home use. Why the outcry? It's not exactly clear. Analysts cited XP's familiarity and its ability to work with all the peripherals people have amassed. So, if you've been holding out for a Dell with XP, now's your chance... you know, in case you somehow missed it for the last 5 years.[Thanks, Josh]
I don't reboot my Ubuntu machine 5x a day. I usually leave it on for more that 5 days at a time.
So, is Ubuntu riddled with features?
The Macs I have experience with (especially the new) have more features than an off the shelf PC. As far as overpriced goes:
http://www.internet-nexus.com/2006/08/mac-pro-vs-dell-precision-price.htm
Audi's cost more than Hyndais,you get what you pay for. My wife has Dell laptop, and let me tell you, when it is time to replace, we will spend the little extra & get an Apple next time. That laptop has been a real piece of sh*t. Not to mention Windows getting infected on a daily basis, even with constant updating of virus protection.
Yes, Ubuntu has plenty of features. But why do you keep comparing Macs to Windows PCs? I think Windows PCs suck just as much as Macs except Windows users can at least admit Windows blows. Face it, Mac's are designed to be very proprietary and for people with little or no intelligence, I mean computer experience, at all.
James, stop living in the past! Even the old tried and true "Macs are overpriced" argument doesn't hold water anymore, as has been demonstrated by several sources: Wired, CNET, etc. An apples to apples comparison (no pun intended) between PC and Intel-chip Macs will show you that---gasp!! Macs are a better buy!! Regarding your Macs are under featured, well lets see, I can do a 4 way video conference with my Mac--out of the box. I can burn all forms of disk media---out of the box. I can edit, color correct, crop, etc. still photos from my digital camera---out of the box. I can edit HD movies--out of the box. I can author DVD's (very easily)---out of the box. I can manage my music with the most powerful elegant music management software out there (iTunes)--out of the box. Oh yes, and I can program-compile UNIX programming in a better interface than anything else out there--out of the box. Couple that with about 200 other features that PC users are just now getting a glimpse of with Vista, and the hundreds of new features that they WON'T see for many more years when OSX 10.5-Leopard come out, and it makes you wonder how Microsoft and the PC makers keep fooling all you people.
ONLY 5 days..lol
I was just using that as an example because you mention rebooting it 5x a day. My computer is always on, the only time I reboot is when I upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another or if I have to update my kernel, which happens about every 5 months or so. There, happy?
Just to give some perspective to this whole OSX / Vista / System requirements argument we've been hashing over for the past... well, ever, I will just say this:
I have a 500 mhz PowerPC G4 tower with 1 gig of PC133 ram split across the four onboard slots sporting as 16 meg video card that runs OS X 10.4.9 like the OS was built for it. Boots fast, apps run quick and smooth with no issues, and even massive file moves / copies / saves (on the order of 13 - 25 gig in some cases) only take a matter of minutes depending on how the external drives are connected (USB vs. FireWire).
At home I have a hyperthreaded P4 3.2 ghz pc with 512 megs of PC3200 ram and a 128 meg video card which Vista will not run on without upgrading the RAM and video card. I tried. Failed on load. Twice.
If nothing else, this practical experience tells me that regardless of where you are on the MS / Apple fence, from a strictly "New OS compatibility on existing hardware" standpoint, Apple has done its homework and got their OS right.
Almost 50 posts, and nobody asks the obvious question: what was wrong with XP? You can do almost all the eye-candy stuff Vista does in XP, not that it matters to most people anyway. Security in Vista, contrary to the marketing, really isn't any different -- you just have to find where they buried the "turn off UAC" switch, which everybody will want to do anyway. You're still an Administrator by default, and people are no more likely to voluntarily downgrade their day-to-day accounts than they were in XP. As long as you can get the DirectX 10 runtime to play nice with XP, you lose nothing -- and that will only be a problem if Microsoft wants it to be, if you get my meaning. 50 posts, and nobody has posted a reason to switch...
Trust me.. don't waste your breath trying to convince James Smith..
He's NEVER even used a Mac... You can tell the second they spout off the old "overpriced" or "limited feature" arguments.
and after i go back to xp what do i do with my dx10?
James,
You just insulted approximately 90% of the computer buying market. I hope you don't work in the PR or advertising industires!
I find this all to be rather comical. Everyone that couldn't wait another second for the new Vista to come out is finally realizing that they only wanted it because it was new. People can't settle for what isn't broken. I still have the XP because I witnessed how many fools suffered with operating systems like Windows ME. The impatience is incredible. I've seen some things (fluff) that makes Vista appealing but my XP works for - everything, all the time. Programming is now focused upon Vista. When everything catches up, perhaps I'll need the Vista...until then I'll settle with the "old stuff."
Just got a new computer with Vista on it. After attempting to install my most used application, iTunes, without any success, it was time to install XP over Vista. Though some difficulties finding XP drivers arose, I am much happier now that I am running XP -- I only wish a Mac had been in my price range. Windows Vista is great at running bundled Microsoft applications and itself, and that's about it. It also looks nice, but it isn't quite practical enough. This may be the worst OS release in history, as it is glaringly obvious that Vista is not ready for prime time yet, for a majority of programs are unable to run on it.
Five hundred dollars isn't in your price range? Get a mac mini, use your current monitor and usb keyboard and mouse.
If I were to buy a Mac I would have had to have upgraded some of the hardware, I just wouldn't have been able to help myself. I looked on the Apple Store and I was looking at over $800 for a Mini.
Hey, if the people want XP, give it to them! It doesn't surprise me with all the other stories on the web about the horrors of Vista. The DRM, the non-functionality, the registration process, the breaking of all your current software and hardware under Vista. Forget it! I think Dell is just responding smartly to market pressure. I'm sure they have an excel spreadsheet which clearly shows a drop in sales from the moment they went Vista-only. They wouldn't change under pressure of a vocal minority, they respond to Money, just like any other smart company.
Where did all the Adobe applications not working under Vista come from?
For information, my main business at the moment is photography & photo-journalism, so I use mainly Adobe applications on a constant basis.
Photoshop CS2 works fine, Acrobat 8 Professional works fine, Lightshop works fine, some of the older PS filters niggle upon application startup but upon clicking cancel to the error box, the filters all work fine still, with no slow down in application of them to the images.
I noticed one guy mentioned that his scanner & printer don't work with Vista. Well I will say the same to anyone before jumping to a new OS, and that is to CHECK THAT DRIVERS ARE AVAILABLE BEFORE TRYING.
I do all my work now on a T2400 CoreDuo (not Core2Duo) Toshiba notebook with 1GB of RAM, and it runs Vista Ultimate with full Aero effects smooth as silk and no slower than the same machine running XP SP2. The WDDM driver for the Radeon Mobility X1400 module that is installed on the Toshiba notebook works perfectly fine. The only drivers I had to wait for was for the SD Card reader (which I don't use anyway) & for my Canon DSLR (which is not a problem at all as I simply remove the microdrive & plug it into a card reader). Every peripheral I have works fine and I made sure that drivers were available before leaping over to Vista. Since I migrated several of my clients over to Vista, I have had LESS support calls from them and I have actually had to call them myself to see if everything is OK due to not hearing from them. Even stopping off at their businesses or places of residence when passing, I have checked to see if they are still running Vista and they are & actually prefer it to XP.
Most people don't like change, and I literally hated XP when it was first released & refused for 2 years to move from Win2K to it. Upon installing full retail Vista Ultimate here, I have not once felt any need to go back to XP at all.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39087
I personally have Vista my system right now. Vista is a very nice operating system, however it does lack a lot of support for many devices. In example. i have 2 MP3 players and a usb drive that will not work with it until drivers are released for them. I may not be able to use my devices for months until drivers are released. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone getting Vista right now, if you have Xp stay with it.
First there was DOS, then came Windows flavors up to 3.xx, everyone got happy with multitasking. Then came 95, everyone freaked,"I'm not giving up DOS!!!" (yes even me). Then 98, then came ME, then 2000, and everyone freaked. See where I'm going with this? Then XP, now Vista, and as with each before, everybody is freaking... Just like a car, never get the first run. In the end, like XP, eventaully, everyone will settle in to it. People as a rule a resistant to change, that and despite everything good from them, people love to hate MS.