Microsoft extends sales of Windows XP till June 2008

Just a week ago, reports were cropping up regarding Microsoft's decision to give Vista Business / Ultimate customers a "downgrade to XP" option amidst complaints over its latest operating system. Now, the Redmond powerhouse has decided to "keep selling Windows XP until the end of June 2008, delaying a scheduled transition to its newer Windows Vista software by five months." Originally, the planned phase out date for XP was January 30th of next year, but now the firm has decided to "extend XP sales in response to feedback from computer manufacturers who said there were customers who still wanted to buy the older operating system." Of note, Mike Nash, a Microsoft corporate vice president, was quoted as saying that the company was "a little ambitious to think that it would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista," referring to the fact that it typically makes its older OS available for two years after the launch of a new one.

[Drakin @ Sep 28th 2007 4:02PM]

I am going to add my 2 cents before all the Apple fanbois bash on MS.

I think the biggest reason that companies do not want to change is the requirements. It's not that Vista is bad but take for example the company I work for.

We currently run some older Gateway profile PC's and there P4's with 512-1 GB of memory. Thats not going to cut it with Vista. Not to mention the Video card is onboard (It's a profile)

Being the network admin, in order for us to properly transition over to the new OS we would need to replace all of our PC's. Now I am gradually phasing out these gateways and replacing them with Dell Precision PC's. Something that is designed to take that kind of work load.

But until then it still cost allot of money to upgrade all our PC's. This is why I am not transitioning as of right now.

[Ruben @ Sep 28th 2007 4:09PM]

Finally, some logic!!!

I work for a company that develops alot of in-house applications, some of them dating back to 1999. To transition a few PC's would be useless, and usually its contractual. If a contract ends with one supplier, then they go with another, hand back all the PC's, and start fresh with new PC's. Or, if the lease ends on the current batch of PC's, then they get rid of them all and get a new batch.

The company would have to do alot of in-house testing of all their applications to make sure they are all compatible with Vista, which isnt worth the money right now. And its not that it wont work in Vista, because most (if not all) the apps should, but no company takes the chance without doing a full round of QA and testing before confirming that everything is good to go.

In the business world, OS's are hard to transition to. Its not like a single consumer who has nothing but music and movies on their computer.

[Ethan @ Sep 28th 2007 4:15PM]

The requirements make it bad for a lot of people. I wanted a cheap laptop with a small screen, but the only decently-priced ones start at about 15" because scaling down the components needed to run vista costs much more, to the extent where the models that suited my purpose were either a OSless laptop or a macbook for £600, which is what I settled with.

Several versions could have been a good idea, they need a streamlined edition though for office computers that only see the likes of, well, office, and the general poor like me.

But I see what you mean, Vista's not bad, it's certainly an improvement on Vista, but it becomes de facto next June without being suitable for everybody. And windows needs to be the OS that works on everything.

[Ignacio @ Sep 28th 2007 4:43PM]

The problem is that this "downgrade option" also has to do with new machines that come with Vista preinstalled:

"Can I downgrade my OEM version of Windows Vista Business to Windows XP Professional?

Yes. OEM downgrade rights for desktop PC operating systems apply to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate as stated in the License Terms."

From:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:QhRPqUZGi9kJ:download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc+microsft+vista+xp+downgrade&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

[chezzo @ Sep 28th 2007 4:48PM]

Some businesses actually maintain the policy of keeping one generation of OS behind, partly for security, partly so employees don't have to be trained so much, partly to avoid non-compatibility issues.
Which basically means that quite a few businesses are still in the process of upgrading to XP.

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:14PM]

"In the business world, OS's are hard to transition to. Its not like a single consumer who has nothing but music and movies on their computer."

I know this is going to sound like Linux fanboy banter, but if you had bought/written all your applications to work on Linux, some of them might need a recompile, but most (90%+) you could just transfer from the old PC/distribution to the new one and they would still work. Microsoft's old model (and in my opinion the newer model) for the Operating System does not cater well to backwards compatibility. I also think that this is by design. What better way to keep you coming back with your wallet open.

[AmazingRobie @ Sep 28th 2007 5:31PM]

Has anyone had the thing with Windows Vista where after you install the updates, every time you reboot or load up the machine, right after the desktop shows up the screen flashes for a second and the mouse cursor is smack dab in the middle of the screen. Every time I boot up that happens and I f’n hate it so much, it’s like being kicked in the balls first thing before you even start working on your computer.

[ukickmydog (NDF - Earth) @ Sep 28th 2007 6:49PM]

if apple was truly vicious, they would license out OSX right when people didn't want to change to vista and they didn't want to stay with XP, this would be an opportune time to strike while MS is down

[ebob9 @ Sep 28th 2007 4:10PM]

Wow, big surprise. I don't know of any large enterprises that "Want" to use Vista internally. Granted, I don't have a comprehensive list...

[Ruben @ Sep 28th 2007 4:11PM]

What was the bug?

[MatthewJ @ Sep 28th 2007 4:03PM]

At the start of the year, I would have said, "stick with XP", but having used it for around 6 months now, I would never go back to XP. Shocking, but I actually find Vista faster and much more stable in many many respects.

[crackcorn @ Sep 28th 2007 4:11PM]

Glad to hear that XP is here to stay! That vista is still has a lot of work... I think they should of made Longhorn retail instead of Vista! GO XP!!

[jplevene @ Sep 28th 2007 4:09PM]

I run Vista and it is awfull. I found numerous bugs, one inparticular, when I phoned Microsoft they refused to take a bug report unless I paid them for an annual service package! With policies and attitudes like this I am sure this is the start of the giant falling.

I am no Mac fan but I have used both, and Vista very much seems to be a wanabe MAC that just doesn't cut it. Other OS are gaining market share, if Microsoft continue to release diabolicle software like Vista, they are only helping the competition.

[kompressor @ Sep 28th 2007 4:17PM]

"The Mac’s share of personal computers has actually edged a bit lower since Vista’s release in January, and the various flavors of Windows a bit higher, according to Net Applications, a firm in Aliso Viejo, Calif., that monitors the operating systems among visitors to 40,000 customer Web sites."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/technology/16digi.html

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 28th 2007 4:47PM]

"I am no Mac fan"

Translation: I am a huge Mac fan trying to make myself seem impartial, have never used Vista, and lying out my ass.

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:30PM]

"Translation: I am a huge Mac fan trying to make myself seem impartial, have never used Vista, and lying out my ass."

Translation: While you are a huge Mac fan, I myself am a huge Microsoft Fan (and/or being paid to do this) and can't handle people with opinions other than cream filled wet dreams about Vista.

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:56PM]

@Andir3.0:

So if you are a Mac fan, then you are standing up for what you believe in. If you are a Windows fan, then you are accused of being paid off. It is odd that you would acuse me of not being able to handle other's opinions. Searching for your Andir, I find a number of instances where you cannot handle a lively debate, and turn to the "shill" argument. So every body's opinion is fine, unless it is counter to yours, then you have to start making unfounded acusations that people are trying to be paid, as if their opinions do not make any difference?

I make a quick comment that was not really directed to jplevene, simply because this is the type of comment that somebody from the Mac/Linux community makes to some user that may like their Zune, Windows, 360, etc. And you had to prove the point very well - that the Mac/Linux community can sure hand out criticisms, but can't stand having the finger pointed back towards them.

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 6:10PM]

Look up "microsoft pays bloggers" in Google and you'll see why I said that.

And I'd be interested to see one of these "situations" you talk about where I cannot handle a "lively debate".

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 28th 2007 6:27PM]

Look no further than this thread. Yes, my first post was not "lively debate", but my second one was. And rather than saying "I have no proof that this person is being paid by Microsoft, so I will drop that accusation", you bring it up again. So you are saying that there is not one person that supports Microsoft and is not paid? What about those edits to Wikipedia made about Halo that was from a Sony IP address? Or are we going to hear the "It had to be a janitor" excuse? And yet, I search for your name and I find you defending Sony, from problems with resolution on the PS3 to how Blu-Ray is better (including one post made before Blu-Ray was even released - blind faith in Sony). I could make the acusation that you are paid by Sony, but I will not. First because I have no proof, second maybe it is because you just like their products, and I recognize that is a possibility. But if somebody likes Microsoft products, from Windows, to Zune, to the 360, they are labeled as being paid off by them, just like you are saying that I am. No proof, no trust that maybe I enjoy those products and they work well for me.

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 6:47PM]

I only mentioned the possibility. I did not state that you were being paid.

And seriously, I'd love to see a post by me about Blu-Ray made before it's release that I did not back up with some evidence. You seem to have targeted me as your pincushion. Links please.

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 28th 2007 6:59PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/13/samsung-bd-p1000-blu-ray-player-delayed-again/

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 28th 2007 7:02PM]

(Sorry for the multiple posts - see below - but I am hitting the common "not posting in threads" bug that many others have seen)

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/13/samsung-bd-p1000-blu-ray-player-delayed-again/

[Reader @ Sep 28th 2007 7:08PM]

Did you just try to insult him by saying you looked up his other comments? Personally that just seems self demeaning to openly admit you put that much effort into it...

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 7:19PM]

How exactly did I say that Blu-Ray was better? I said I thought the marketing might be better off, but nowhere in that post did I proclaim form the rooftops that Blu-Ray technologically tromps on HD-DVD.

I won't lie. I don't like Microsoft's shady business practices anymore than I like the rootkit scandal from Sony. But for the record, I dislike companies like the former AT&T and Microsoft abusing monopolies. They have deep pockets and have used such money to buy off people and reviews (You can even check out the latest Halo3 review "package".) They have also used it to shut people up. I feel that putting all the cards on the table is the best bet. I don't think I've deviated from such a posting history. Like it or not, Sony has competition. I can name at least 15 other companies that make computers, home theater equipment and portable music devices. I can name two companies that make Office software and three different OSs. (But on that note, MS abuses it's monopoly to keep OEMs from selling such operating systems until recently.) Sony is in competition on all fronts and doing well enough. Nintendo has done well enough in the face of the PS2 success as well. For Sega to go ex-hardware is sad, but the company still exists. Lik-Sang is the only company I know of that attributes it's demise to Sony (though Nintendo had it's fair share of lawsuits...)

I'm done arguing, but I think I defended myself.

[halfeatenfish @ Sep 28th 2007 8:01PM]

Can someone even explain to me why people even take sides for this or that OS? I mean if you don't work for MS or Apple, why be so passionate??? If you have no financial interest (as in your livelihood) then you really have no reason to be so passionate about it. Me...I use both. For some things Windows is better; for other things OS X is better. DUH!

Why take sides? Just get a Mac and run both. And that's not a nod to Mac, but you can't argue.... it's the ONLY platform (that I know of) that's widely available and let's you run whatever just about x86 OS you choose.

[Tom Mysliwiec @ Sep 28th 2007 4:10PM]

as old as xp is, it is a 6 year work of art, its stable, powerful, good on resources, and as long as you have a decent AV, its untouchable, i have two machines, one running vista, the other XP, the vista machine has twice the ram and twice the processing power, but cannot hold a candle to the one running xp, the OS is too new, too bloated and too flakey to be a replacement as of yet

[Scott @ Sep 28th 2007 5:22PM]

I never thought I'd see the day that someone would describe Windows XP as both "a work of art" and "untouchable."

I have a feeling your OS experiences include such treasures as Windows ME, Windows 98, and Windows 95.

[Kenneth Lawson @ Sep 28th 2007 6:35PM]

Actually Xp is bloated compared to 98,

The biggest plus to XP is that it has been around for 6 years. Which mean most of the major bugs have been worked out.

The other biggest plus is that its reasonably stable.
Meaning when a program crashes, it don't take the whole machine with it.


I'm sure that all the bugs will eventually be worked out.
Ms extending sale of Xp until
June 2008, simply means they're bowing to pressure from both the coorpate world and the general consumer.
Mostly they're trying to keep folks from going to Apple or Linux.

[Ruben @ Sep 28th 2007 4:10PM]

What was the bug?

[jplevene @ Sep 28th 2007 4:19PM]

The one that I tried to report was the new calendar.

When you click on on the month/year at the top, the grid changes to show months or years (years if you click it second time). If you click on a month or a year, the component registers a after a "MCHitTestInfo" hit test "MCHT_CALENDARDATE", which means a date was selected by the user, not a month or a year. The component doesn't actually test for a date click, it hasn't been updated from XP as all it does is mathematically access where the mouse clicked in the control and if this region would occupy a date. For XP this is ok as only dates show in this region, but Vista has they new style.

J

[friendlyner @ Sep 28th 2007 4:10PM]

I think a lot of companies, like mine, are sticking with XP because of the bloated nature of Vista. The ratio of benefits to system requirements just doesn't add up.

Add in the fact that most of our users don't know, can't tell, or don't care about the difference between Windows 2000 and XP and you have an obvious answer. There are still plenty of apps or peripherals out there that don't work right with Vista.

It doesn't make sense from a business perspective to upgrade to monster hardware only to make the GUI a little glitzier.

[TDG01 @ Sep 28th 2007 4:21PM]

I agree....grant it, security is better on Vista, almost to a fault...however XP has been out there so long that it's been matured and hardened...

The only reason to go to Vista is the UI, and as cool as it is, it's not a compelling business proposition.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 28th 2007 5:21PM]

as for the UI you can have the same on xp. the black bar, the round button, the widgets (by yahoo). the little pop ups over the taskbar with a window preview, all of it is available as freeware

the only reason I see is dx10, and I don't play games on my pc, others do.

[Aron Trimble @ Sep 28th 2007 4:17PM]

I wonder how long Apple will need to keep selling Tiger after October due to Leopard being released...?

Yeah, I said it.

[Dale @ Sep 28th 2007 5:25PM]

There's a world of difference between Mac OS and Windows adoption rates so it would be an unfair comparison.

- Windows has a much larger install base, which increases the cost and logistics of upgrading.
- This scale, and the higher cost of the software, makes Windows more prone to piracy which will skew adoption figures.
- The scale also means there are more legacy software programs that need to be tested and updated to work with any new version.
- Speaking specifically about Vista, the system requirements are a barrier to entry for a lot of users.

Mac OS X users, while less numerous, are also much more fervent supporters of their operating system - aided greatly by lower prices and more manageable base requirements.

My company is making no moves away from XP for the foreseeable future. Probably for the best - I usually have Outlook, Dreamweaver, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, Adobe Photoshop and a couple of other programs running at any given time; with two monitors running at 1400x1050x75Hz (screen real estate I need as a developer). Adding Vista's graphical fluff would slow me the hell down.

[John @ Sep 28th 2007 5:55PM]

You're right. When you re-purchase the same OS, you can generally get everything to still work.

[Aron Trimble @ Sep 28th 2007 6:53PM]

"Mac OS X users ... are also much more fervent supporters of their operating system" - Could not have said it better myself.

John, you've clearly never used a Mac. Please don't speak without knowing; it makes it obvious how little you do.

[jplevene @ Sep 28th 2007 4:21PM]

I was also refering to Linux!

[granny down east @ Sep 28th 2007 4:22PM]

Much of my music editing software does not work with Vista. I purchased a new HP in DEC 06 with optional Vista upgrade. I did my homework, checked the software sites, and 7 out of 7 apps were not compatible with Vista.
I did not upgrade because I do not have $2k to spend on new software and hardware. So the Vista CD sits on my shelf.
*Sigh* what's a girl to do....

[TDG01 @ Sep 28th 2007 4:24PM]

If there were a bazillion applications written for tiger and a bazillion workstations running those applications on tiger....

[Krewe @ Sep 28th 2007 4:36PM]

I've grown very fond of Ubuntu's release cycle: a new release every 6 months, 5 years support for LTS releases, and 18 months for interim releases. It's solid, it's predictable. Microsoft, however, changes release/EOL dates on a whim. It's like their first announcement is more of a trial balloon than anything. Once enough people raise heck, they backpedal.

[Anthony @ Sep 28th 2007 4:55PM]

Does anyone expect Leopard to run smoothly on the first generation of G4 processor equipped macs? A lot of the griping about Vista has to do with its sluggishness, though as far as i can tell a lot of these complaints are from people who've installed it on older systems. Personally i've had little to no problems running Vista, about the same as i had when XP was first introduced and i transitioned to it from Win2000. There was a ton of griping then too from people complaining that XP was a step down from Win2000 or that XP was 2000 with a prettier GUI. I work in an architecture firm and a large portion of what i do involves rendering and while i haven't seen an increase in speed from Vista i also haven't seen this massive slowdown that everyone seems to be complaining about. Of course all of our rigs have decent to very good graphics cards and the machines are all about 2-3yrs old which i'm sure helps. Now would i try and run Vista on my boss' 4yr old P4 with integrated graphics? Of course not but at the same time i shouldn't expect to either; much in the same way i shouldn't have expected to run XP on a machine from 1997.

[tcc3 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:25PM]

Thank you. I've been trying to make this same point for months. No one listens. Its more fun to kick MS isn the balls.

[gigo08 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:02PM]

I dont know if you guys are suffering some sort of memory lapse, but Windows XP was a real piece of crap when it came out. It wasn't decent or stable until at least a few months after SP1 came out. And even then I remember working on a XP SP1 workstation that would intermittently freeze. Is Vista crappy pre service pack? Yes and so was every Microsoft OS thats come out in the past 10-15 years. I hardly think this is whats going to signal the end for them or even the end for the Vista.

Seems like they were just too aggressive on the phase out schedule for XP.

I've been using Vista for 4 months, had a slew of problems right off the bat but since then it's been rock solid and kickin serious ass. The other day I swapped in a new motherboard that had a completely different chipset and Vista happily detected all my new hardware, no re-install needed.

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 28th 2007 5:35PM]

Yeah, you'd think Microsoft would learn to program so the same things that plagued the last OS don't plague the new one...

[Magallanes @ Sep 29th 2007 9:42PM]

It's not true, just remember that xp is not a new OS, it's just a upgrade of Windows 2k.

XP was insecure , yes i agreed but unstable?, i don't think so.

Instability did come from people that upgraded from 98se to xp (not a clean install) or attempt to run and incompatible legacy software and hardware.

[Montusama @ Sep 28th 2007 5:15PM]

I'm to lazy to read all the comments but I'll just put my opinion on this

By doing this are they trying to say their marketing plans are flawed? Or that maybe their OS is not what people want its what already out

I'd be personally happy with an XP that ran for a couple more years....Service Packs can do a very good thing to a current OS and does Vista really have anything that we need? or anything that you can't get thru a separate application?

[John @ Sep 28th 2007 6:02PM]

this doesn't mean that XP will suddenly stop working, it means they'll stop selling new versions

[CraigJ @ Sep 28th 2007 5:38PM]

I've been using Vista since March on my corporate system, and I see no additional benefits over XP, other than a prettier desktop. (in my experience it is no more or less stable than XP) I'm not bashing Vista, it works fine, but honestly, I don't see the point of upgrading for most businesses. What is the business need to upgrade from XP SP2, other than continued support from Microsoft? My company has over 5,000 desktops. With no driving need what is the point of upgrading all those systems? Answer: none.

Microsoft should have continued development and delivered all the good stuff originally promised, then they might have actually been good reason to upgrade.

[tom @ Sep 28th 2007 6:00PM]

Precious few people get excited about Microsoft's OS. As a whole, they're a completely uninteresting and non-sexy company (with perhaps the exception of Xbox), but they have the PC market and likely always will so transitional pains from platform to platform are normal in the life cycle. People will change, they'll hate it for a while (especially IT guys and gals), then they'll adjust to it after some patches and time, then Vista will become status quo again and so the circle of Microsoft's OS life will begin anew and they'll make another gazillion dollars while they work on there next uninteresting OS.