While it looked like Mac users couldn't wait to get their hands on the
latest version of Apple's operating system, their Windows counterparts seem to have been a little more reticent about picking up Microsoft's oft-delayed
Vista upgrade -- so much so that Redmond decided to both
extend XP's shelf life by six months as well as offer an unprecedented
"downgrade" service on select SKUs. Well with the June 30th cutoff fast approaching, PC World decided to take a look at your options for procuring an XP license after that date, but unfortunately, the picture isn't too pretty. Basically, personal users looking to purchase less than 25 licenses but not a new machine have almost no recourse; your only surefire move is to buy a new box pre-installed with Vista Business or Ultimate from an OEM opting to continue with that downgrade service. Still, caveat emptor: support for consumer versions of XP ends on April 14, 2009, and with it, the end of your Patch Tuesday celebrations.
posted Jan 29th 2008 9:29AM
Yet more unbiased Windows posts from Engadget. How lucky we all are to have you guys looking out for our best interests.
Remind me, how happy are all those Leopard early-adopters?
What the hell is this? You guys are ridiculous. No jounalistic integrity. Apple fanboys.
I cannot comment on the Leopard adopters, but I can comment on always wanting to have Microsoft's latest and greatest - until Vista (and never-you-mind the whole ME flop). I used it for a solid three months before its quirks and annoyances got the best of me, and I down(up?)graded to XP...
I haven't had any problems with Leopard... Nor Vista for that matter... but I would get XP at the moment for any machine that wasn't mine
Leopard is running fine, and everything is running well.
And go somewhere else if you want an unbiased news source. Mkay?
I "hate" Windows so much that I'm currently using Vista, XP, and Mobile 6 devices -- and no Apple products, though I've owned quite a few in the past.
-Evan
Doing great! love it. what? were there issues? i must have missed them. Now Vista on the other hand, is a different story. Starting running that a week before consumer release, and thought how cool it would be. Well, i've stuck with it til now, but finally have decided to go back to XP. Its too bloated, has too many issues in games, cad, file transfers, etc. for me. I'm hoping maybe SP1 and giving it a little bit more time to mature before I load it back up will make it usable.
to quote: While it looked like Mac users couldn't wait to get their hands on the latest version of Apple's operating system, their Windows counterparts seem to have been a little more reticent about picking up Microsoft's oft-delayed Vista upgrade...
Considering both Vista and Leopard have problems, the above statement doesn't mean Apple is better, it just means that Apple users are more gullible.
You might wanna think about what you're fanboying about before you do it, otherwise folks might not understand you, what with your foot in your mouth and all.
You think Engadget people are just making this stuff up. I've seen other articles that many users are going to wait until Windows 7 to upgrade. Just remember Windows ME. That didn't go over well at all. Sure Leopard has it's problems, but all those IT users are concerned about upgrading to Vista for legacy reasons and they're having second thoughts about spending time and money for not much of a gain. Many places are concerned about having to upgrade computers to run Vista. If this country is going into a recession, then many businesses need to cut back.
I've used Vista Ultimate and I just didn't care for the way it ate up system resources. Other than that it was fine. However, Windows XP Pro is still really useful to me and probably to many businesses so why bother to upgrade.
Why jump on Engadget as being Apple fanboys when you can find this information on any number of sites. Check sites that cover IT and you'll see that they're holding back on using Vista.
Skip Vista and go to Windows 7 when available.
I'm an early adopter of Leopard, and very happy. Have had no problems, nada, zilch. Remember that those who don't have any problems aren't nearly as noisy as those who do, although I do think that Leopard wasn't complete when it was released. The imminent 10.5.2 update (which is a Windows Service Pack grade hayuuuge fix) seems to add the finishing polish to Leopard.
I have also used Vista. For the most part it's an abomination. And having used Win XP for several years I find it superior to Vista, visual aspects excluded.
I'm a Vista Home Premium and Leopard early adopter. Actually, I went Vista and was very frustrated by it so I shelved a screamin fast laptop and bought a copy of Leopard for my MacBook. I literally have had no issues with Leopard (not sayng they don't exist, I just don't have them?). With recent updates, my Vista machine is much better, but now I'm completely hooked on my MacBook and I don't tough the PC except for a little web browsing.
I'm really not a fanboy either way, but I think the moral of the story is this: my Leopard upgrade experience was great, Vista not so much and now I'm hooked and my next computer will surely be another mac.
On Vista: use sp1... Night & day.
On XP support... Good luck discontinuing that MS.
On Leopard. . .worst Apple OS since the launch of Tiger. I haven't sworn this much with an OS since win 9x. WIFI sacks my right ass cheek. Enough that I nuked OSX off the system and have been running vista /w Sp1 since Dec 20th.
@jakem: "Yet more unbiased Windows posts from Engadget. How lucky we all are to have you guys looking out for our best interests."
Ummm, Engadget is a BLOG at it's core - authors are "allowed" to have opinions. And further, they may even differ from yours! heavens!
We early Leopard adopters are happy as hell. No crashes. No talking back from Vista. Life is good.
What are you guys talking about!? I own a MBP as my primary lappy and a windows box as my home machine... I upgraded to Vista the day it came out, yet I still haven't upgraded to leopard.
In my opinion Vista and Tiger are the two best OS's out there, I don't know why anyone would want to up/down grade to anything else, and yet this review is claiming just the opposite??
windows 7 is vista!! soylent green is people!!
Steffen - Skipping Vista and waiting for Windows 7 isn't exactly an attractive option, considering XP support ends in April 2009 and Windows 7 is currently planned for a 2011 release. Two years without proper support/patches? That's just asking for trouble.
My company has around 30,000 windows based computers... all but around 20 of them are running XP. A few of us in the IT department are using Vista to test how it works on our hardware and on our network environment, but honestly, we can't justify the switch.
You just don't get much of anything in return for the huge impact on performance going from XP to Vista.
On the other hand, i have installed and used 10.5.1 on several Macs that were a few years old and they all seemed to handle the OS without a huge hit on performance. Pretty impressive, unfortunately we dont have as many modern Mac machines.
Like, hate or indifferent... I think we all know that the wording of your article was un-called for.
I love Leopard. It's running great, and my system is quite stable. I get a lot done with Spaces and I actually like Stacks. Time Machine has saved my butt at least once. Notes and To Do in Mail have been very handy. I get a lot of use out of Leopard's new features. I'm really digging the ability to preview things in finder without having to open a program to do so.
I've only had one problem, and that is that DVD Player (the application, not the drive) has been finicky. I suspect a fix is coming, but I'm fine running other DVD playing software in the meantime. VLC or MPlayer are decent. It's a minor glitch compared to the benefits I've reaped in upgrading to Leopard (actually, my upgrade was free as I just bought a new Mac).
Oh, and Windows XP is running just as I'd expect it to in my Boot Camp partition. It's nothing special, but it sure looks a lot better now that I've installed flyakiteOSX to make it look like OS X. It still wants to do "security updates" every other day, though. Man, that's annoying.
Did you know that it's physically impossible to get a completely unbiased account of anything?
It's true! The only way to have a COMPLETELY unbiased blog or news source is if the person writing it had no experience at all.
Just letting you guys know so that we can end this conversation once and for all.
Follow the read link and make your own judgments.
Vista is eye-candy, but it is spoiling my dinner, Mac OS X.
Really, though, I haven't adopted leopard yet, but I am very happy with Tiger. Its not that I don't like leopard. I would upgrade in a heartbeat if I got a copy. Its just that I would rather spend $130 on a DS, or a RAM upgrade. I don't have a huge need to switch.
Oh, and ever since Vista was released, pirating of XP doubled!
Engadget notes that Mainstream Support ends on April 14, 2009, and says that Patch Tuesday will end for XP at that time. However, in reality, Extended Support will continue for XP through 2014. Extended Support includes security patches.
See:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=15&y=10&p1=3223
I feel that this post by engadget may have therefore been misleading.
For better or worse M$ sure is making Vista cheap. OEM copies can be had for $50 for Home Basic to $150 for Ultimate. The drop to $50 for Basic is a recent change, Home Premium has been around $100 for a few months now.
Its not like Microsoft is trying to "push" Vista on you or anything. Now if only I could be another XP Pro for that price.
I been running 2 Vista license and happy, and looking for a third one license. Can you give me a link where I can get 50 dollar OEM license?
If you don't use Vista or used Vista without any upgrade or proper driver (try not doing this with original XP), then you have no business dissing Vista. Please don't pass bias secondary news. I tried Leopard at a local store, and didn't like it, but I have no business saying its a crap OS from my limited experience.
OEM Vista licenses are scary.. once they decide you made enough hardware changes to turn it in to a "new computer", your license is invalid. With retail Vista, you can move the license to any computer you want.
Microcenter has them on sale, it was in there latest add. Its stock# 804971. I could not find it on their website though. Website is www.microcenter.com
http://www.microcenter.com/specials/catalogs/broadsheet.html
Home Basic and Ultimate pricing is on Page 4
how can you say they're not pushing us? it says right there that we won't be getting any security updates after june! i'd definitely call that a not-so-subtle push. it means they're leaving us wide-open to the russian mafia, the chinese hackers, and whoever else finds a new XP exploit. in fact, in some circles, they call it a protection racket. pay up or else.
I actually used OEM Vista on my old tablet PC and works fine. And I also used the same OEM disk to install on my gf's Asus laptop (I wanted to over write Chinese Vista version) using license key that came with laptop. During installation, Vista noticed LK (Chinese) and installation disk (English) are different, I had to call MS to give me access key. It was pretty easy.
Karl326
thanks for the link
@m
Evidently you missed the sarcasm. Microsoft is trying to push Vista and they are doing so by predatory pricing of Vista vs WinXP licensing. I was simply showing how if you wanted to pickup Vista how M$ was making it a lot cheaper then XP. Face it, WinXP is on its way out any way you look at it. If Microsoft wants to discount the new product to try to get it out in the market then so be it.
Also as far as the security update dropping out in June that is a big miss statement by Engadget as many people have already commented. Security related updates will be done out through some time in 2013 or so. Microsoft is just dropping phone in support for issues and other non security related fixes through autoupdate.
I work in IT for a midsized college and even we are not looking at transitioning to Vista within the year, mostly due to hardware constraints. But we are still looking into Vista because we have students with machines that run it that we need to help.
I run Win2k, WinXP, Vista, and OSX at my house. My main box I run Vista because of better driver support then 64bit WinXP. I use a lot of ram for VM boxes and testing.
Support/Updates end April 14, 2009?
What the hell? They really expect the millions and millions of XP users around the world to all upgrade or replace their machines in order to use Vista otherwise they are on their own?
Even though some people may find it hard to believe, many users are perfectly happy with using an older computer with XP on it and do not have a need for anything more powerful.
Plus considering how horrible Vista is, only thing I can say is this is crap. Way to go Microsoft.
And please tell me, what part of this means people cant use their old copy of XP? Are the Microsoft brute squad going to beat down their down, rip $50 out of their wallets and put Vista on their computer? Overreacting much?
Sorry meant to say beat down their door. Its still early for me :P
I was talking about them ceasing to offer security updates you dumb shit.
they will continue to release patched for XP for several more years. ending support just means tech support.
does anyone know for how much longer they will process activations? i'm fine with support ending, what i'd like to know, definitively, if i'd still be able to activate new installs into the distant future...
@makishima:
Cool! $50 and they'll come install Vista for me?! That's the BEST migration plan I've had yet.. I can sell the heck out of that! ;-)
Clarification... That's mainstream support ending in 2009. Critical security patches will continue until 2014. So Patch Tuesday celebrations for Windows XP will continue until 2014...
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
imagine that... engadget getting something wrong (again)!
Love this site simply for the idiocy behind it.
good, someone corrected engadget
why I threw XP on my Brother's new compy {last Saturday} so he can enjoy games, now I have to restore his old compy with Linux {copy all the files off}
I tried Vista and I just don't like it {personal preference}.
$100 more for prettier GUI? No thanks. I even use XP in classic mode. I'd rather have a fast, stable OS. I must say that XP is decent in those ways.
Let me know how that works out for you when all games require DX10 in the next year or two.
I don't really play computer games. I don't have time for k-rad online graphics games that you need to play in shifts with your partner in malaysia to be the best. No thanks. The last online game I played was Major Mud and even THEN it was good because I could just script and not play most of the time! I don't have time for such things. If I did have the time, I still wouldn't do it. Anyone who spends more than 2 hours per day playing online games has way different priorities than I do. I hardly even spend 2 waking hours home per weekday.
@Kunikos
don't you think developers are going to support the majority of computer users? a lot of gamers like XP for the tiny speed gain, because tiny speed gains cost hundreds of dollars.
when I see a game that lives up to all those rendered tech demos then I'll change my mind
If you have time to be surfing and posting things on Engadget comments, you have enough time to play a computer game. By the way, they just invented these cool things...called laptop computers. You can take your games with you!
The problem with games these days is you can't take 2 minutes out at work to play them unless they're called Minesweeper.
Kunikos:
>Let me know how that works out for you when all games require DX10 in the next year or two.
Like Crysis, you mean?
HOMG U MENSHUN APLE EVERYWHERE I CANT ESCAPE
Man you're not texting someone. Use your keyboard properly.
Sit on the floor and be quiet, Josh.
Wow, did you type that with a hammer?
My mum is dead. Idiot.
@ TheMan
But you're also not who he is responding to. Idiot.
June 30th?
I thought the deadline was January 31st?
I guess thats the extension...
@kal326
Do you really even WANT Basic? Really? Why?
Microsoft is suffering from Multi-SKU-itis, it has too many SKUs and has trouble educating users.
There are three consumer SKUs available in the US alone, do i really need Ultimate? Isn't Basic good enough? What about Business?
It's a headache, really it is, even for me.
I basically omit Basic as a version of windows... it's a version of windows in the same way that DOS is a usable operating system, it's true, but only in the barest of sense.
Home Premium lacks the crutial ability to be attached to a domain, and there isn't a 64bit version (afir).
Business has no multimedia support built in other than WMP.
Ultimate is basically the only decent version of Vista... and it costs so damn much...
---
I think it's great that they are offering it for a bit longer, but enough is enough, it's near 7 years since XP came out, no software has that kind of lifespan, XP right now is so patched it's not even funny, it's like that Canoe that has gashes, and holes, all patched up, it's fine, but not the Canoe you want...
Anyways, imho, if you're going to stick with XP til 2011 (or whenever 7 comes out) best of luck, but those who were still rocking 2000 up until it's EOL will tell you, the grass eventually gets greener.
It seems to me that Basic would be the perfect option for a Mac User wishing to dual boot for the sole purpose of gaming. Maybe it's not, am I missing something? Is DX10 not available for Basic?
@paragraph
Its not so much that I would buy Home Basic, I was just saying its out there if you want it. As somebody already pointed out, if your boot camping or just need a cheap, legit, OS $50 is pretty hard to pass up. WinXP Home Oem was the same price $99, but now Home Basic is being sold for $50.
-I basically omit Basic as a version of windows... it's a version of windows in the same way that DOS is a usable operating system, it's true, but only in the barest of sense.
Its meant to be a cheap striped version of Windows, similar to Windows XP Starter Edition. Starter Edition isn't really sold in the States, more for developing nations. It is what it is.
-Home Premium lacks the crutial ability to be attached to a domain, and there isn't a 64bit version (afir).
Its a "Home" operating system, no Microsoft "Home" OS has ever been able to be a domain controlled computer. You can however access domain resources like file shares on a domain server. Also 64bit is supported on all flavors of Vista.
-Business has no multimedia support built in other than WMP.
Its a "Business OS", why would you need Windows Media Center on all of your business machines?
-Ultimate is basically the only decent version of Vista... and it costs so damn much...
It costs $150 OEM, same price as Windows XP Pro OEM has always been. Retail is priced ridiculously high at $399, that is a bit much. I personally run Ultimate on a laptop and a desktop and my only real big gripe with it is how often it likes to cry to mommy about the hardware I decided to change in my box.
I got 2 NFR licenses for Vista otherwise I probably would not be running. But since I paid damn near nothing for them, I figured I wasn't really out anything if it turned out to not work so well. My laptop I don't have a lot of choice running Vista because XP drivers have never been released. My tower I run Vista with Win2k and a Linux distro on Virtual PC.
I'm not saying Vista is not without quite a few faults, but if you need a new OS and can use an OEM copy Vista certainly is priced cheaply. No clue if this reduced selling price will remain after WinXP OEM copies are pulled from shelves, but I'm pretty sure it won't.
Microsoft may not be selling Windows XP Service Pack 2 in retail stores after April 14 but users will still receive support as long as they have installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 when that is released. Windows XP Service Pack 3 will probably be supported until sometime in 2013 because Microsoft supports a program/product for the general public 5 years after a Service Pack is released.
Go to http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy for details.
8-4-2014 to be exactly :) http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
Flame me if you like, but I actually kind of like Vista (except for the icky DRM crap). Yes the driver support is having problems (but so was XP), and the compatibility issues (anyone remember 2000's vs. 98?)
. My point is, I EXPECT Vista to run slower on current hardware, as it has a larger backbone. How else could OS's get more (powerful). MS will fix all of the little issues that people are so upset about (eventually :P). For me though, I chose Vista of XP on my ALienware m9750.
Have you even noticed the icky DRM crap you're talking about? Examples, please.
Wow, would you look at that, not everyone is stupid.
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/02/vista_month_wel.html
The article you linked to described the DRM that kicks in when you want to play "Premium Content". Guess what? There is no Premium Content out there so far. No BR or HD-DVD discs out today feature it. In other words, there's no way you could have even encountered this 'icky DRM'.
Secondly: what do you think would happen if they took out the DRM? Indeed, then you wouldn't be able to play these Premium Content discs even if there -had- been any.
I don't know about you, but I don't want some company to decide that I can't play certain BR movies just because they didn't want to support the DRM on that disc.
Seriously. Peter Gutman's DRM paper has been debunked so many times now, it's not even funny anymore. Read up and inform yourself!
Um, I know that there is no "premium content" out there (yet). However, that does not change the fact that MS still implemented low level DRM into their OS. Just because it has not been utilized yet, does not change the fact that it is in there. This is supposed to be a personal Computing OS, not a Digital Media Player Firmware...
So you dislike something that is there, but you don't notice at all, ever, because it is never utilised? Strange.
Personally, I like a feature that, in future, enables me to actually play a movie that I paid money for, but hey, different strokes and all that.
What I am dissatisfied about, is the growing trend of DRM, and how is is acceptable. (see my parent post DEFENDING Vista)
For e.g. I have two friends. Both are relatively copyright abiding citizens, and both LOVE music. They each have equaliy large music collections. One buys all from iTunes. The other, exclusively CD's. The friend with CD's can rip/play THEIR (e.g. not RIAA's) music on ANY device. Whereas the iTunes friend can ONLY play his songs (he paid for them, so they are not RIAA's) on his "authorized" computer, and his "authorized" ipod.
Another important aspect that is overlooked about DRM, is it COMPLETLY KILLS our consumer right to re-sell the things we buy. If your bored with a DVD/CD, don't like the content? SELL IT! BUT, if you downloaded (legally of course) that song/movie, too bad. No refunds, no anything. Your stuck. Same thing goes for video games that we ALL get bored with sooner or later. Flight Simulator X has an activation process similar to what XP and Vista have (I'm not even joking, I own the game). This activation is non-transferable. Who would buy this from me? They would have to call and beg MS to activate it on their computer (Once again, I know, I have to do this EVERY time I re-install Vista). See where this is going?
I for one PRAY that DL media is NOT the way of the future! Xb360/PS3/Wii/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD ALL have some sort of DRM. BUT they are tied to a physical medium that can be SOLD and/or used on any player/console. I will ALWAYS own my BD/DVD/HD-DVD disc's. Will you always be able to use all of your itunes/anybody else (not trying to be an iTunes smasher ^_^) purchased movies? Who knows, sure scares the heck out of me....
What are you talking about? All HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray disks are considered "Premium Content".
Just like your current HD-DVD players and Blu-Ray disks have to decrypt the disks, then encrypt the content as it passes around the players, your computer has to do the same thing.
@paul
Yes, BD & HD-DVD have to be decrypted in order to play, so do DVD's. This is not what the low-level drm is. This DRM in vista would restrict de-bugging programs for seeing this "decrypting" operation going on in RAM. Essentially "hiding" these process from your view. Does that make sense? I am not the best at explaining things. ^_^
The best way to fight DRM is to not buy it.
I'll add my own personal 'drm' gripe. With vista i no longer have a record from "what you hear" option for wave recorders. In XP i could simply record any audio playing using wave recorder. Vista? not so much, microphone jack or line-in only. The so called "analog" loophole. Other gripes, my "local area network connection" after a few months became "local area network connection 47" It would have kept growing but by that point i was sick of it and decided I didnt like telling windows constantly that my wireless connection was either home, public or work. DIE. Its a connection, i can take care of security myself thank you mommy. Anyway, back to XP for me.
Look how far past Microsoft had to support Windows 98 after the disaster that was Windows ME.
Could this happen with Vista? Business users aren't flocking to it at all, and I downgrade all machines to XP SP3 when we get them at work.
When such a large percentage of your customer base still opts for/uses XP, you really have to be crazy to stop selling and supporting it. I understand that it may not be the latest and greatest. But doggone it, it works.
Well that's their problem. It does the job just fine, but they need to keep making revenue so they kick out a new OS. A business doesn't need the latest or greatest, they need what works. Thats why Apple's OS did so much better cause we wanted the new thing. M$ will eventually just stop support for XP and people will have to accept Vista...or not.
they could just pull an apple and charge for SP3. I'd gladly pay 20 bucks for a (supposed) 10% speed increase.
Extra, extra!
How to get crabs and other diseases, such as Windows anything.
just use vlite to slim down your vista and you got a system that looks and works like xp. and guess what, it even fits on a cd-r...
"While it looked like Mac users couldn't wait to get their hands on the latest version of Apple's operating system, their Windows counterparts seem to have been a little more reticent about picking up Microsoft's oft-delayed Vista upgrade "
Really? Then why did Vista sell 20 million copies in the first month, while Apple took three months to sell 5 million copies?
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/apple-ships-five-million-copies-of-leopard-in-three-months/
http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN2637930120070326?pageNumber=2
Perhaps the phrase "While it looked like Windows users couldn't wait to get their hands on the latest version of Microsoft's operating system, their OSX counterparts seem to have been a little more reticent about picking up Apple's oft-delayed Leopard upgrade" would've been more appropriate?
Oh, and for the hell of it: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/16/microsoft-vista-sells-nearly-40-million-licenses-in-first-100-d/
How many of those 20 million were sold to companies to pre-load onto computers?
@Kunikos: How many of those five million were sold with new Macs?
Actually, Jobs noted that approximately 20% of Mac users were now on Leopard (since its release 3 months ago), while the most recent data shows 11-12% of users are on Vista after over a year. So, please, take your head out of your ass.
Well duh! It's the percentages, stupid. Over 20 % of Mac users already have Leopard, and that after three months it was released. Vista has been out there for a year and its user adoption percentage is a little under or over 20, I think. Which OS has fared better among its user base?
@Shane Lloyd
Basics of statistics: you do NOT compare percentages with differing bases.
Apple only has 22-25M users. Windows has over 600M users. The vast majority of Macs out there are personal use. The vast majority of Windows installs are corporate. The two use and upgrade patterns are entirely different. Businesses are notoriously slow to upgrade - they normally go through a 6 month IT test period before even considering a roll out.
Heck, I've seen companies who were still using Windows 3.1 on tens of thousands of systems when Win2K was the standard, just because they didn't want to risk breaking anything. Not to mention the cost.
The fact that Microsoft has managed to roll over 12% of their customer base in less than a year is a substantially bigger accomplishment than Apple rolling over 25% of their customer base in the same time frame.
As for slow adoption, you're kind of living in the past. Now that it's been tested, the adoption rate for Vista by businesses is actually speeding up, not slowing down. Again, everyone who understands the corporate market knew this would happen.
So, might I suggest you take your head out of your own ass?
I hate M$.
"You must upgrade or you will perish!"
Don't be ridiculous. You make it seem like they aren't supporting Windows XP anymore starting tomorrow. Also, I know of plenty of people who are still running Windows 98SE or 2000 even today. Just because Microsoft discontinues "consumer support" doesn't mean suddenly the OS stops working.
Also, you can see that Apple does the exact same thing but on a much, much faster pace. There are plenty of official programs coming out from Apple these days that REQUIRE you to have a certain version of OS X-- christ, OS X has had how many minor version updates... updates you have to PAY for! Imagine if Microsoft charged you for every service pack update!
I didn't say I was a Mac or Linux fan. :-) I dislike them even more. But I hate that M$ is doing everything in their power to manipulate people into upgrading.
- DX10 will _only_ run on Vista. What's with that?! That's just stupid.
- Windows Live (and thus some multiplayer PC games) will only run on Vista.
(These are to manipulate gamers into getting Vista)
- and now they're not allowing people to buy copies of XP.
It's true. My parents still run 98. It's not just going to disappear. It just irks me.
Not quite true - when updates stop coming, the OS doesn't perish, but hackers and malware strive.
"I didn't say I was a Mac or Linux fan. :-) I dislike them even more. But I hate that M$ is doing everything in their power to manipulate people into upgrading."
Well then why aren't you bitching about Apple when certain programs require certain versions of OS X, and you have to pay for updates... You don't have a case.
"- DX10 will _only_ run on Vista. What's with that?! That's just stupid.
- Windows Live (and thus some multiplayer PC games) will only run on Vista."
Supposedly DX10 is only capable on Vista (or so I've heard) because of its architecture. If thats true, as I'm sure it is, that would and probably already does explain that, and that is not at all an unreasonable thing to do anyway. The fact that Microsoft created Direct X means that they have control over what they put it in. One of Vista's main selling points has always been DX10, so it would be downright stupid to allow XP to make use of it.
Windows LIVE works fine on my PC, if you're talking about Gears of War and such, and I'm using Windows XP SP2 32bit, so again, you don't have a case.
"(These are to manipulate gamers into getting Vista)
- and now they're not allowing people to buy copies of XP.
It's true. My parents still run 98. It's not just going to disappear. It just irks me."
Neither of those are forcing gamers to purchase Vista, because all the games out right now that support DX10 also support DX9, and for most, they can get by with that just fine. Those who care about taking advantage of DX10 in games generally don't mind buying and using Vista anyway, because if they have a PC to can handle the graphics end of things, its more than likely that it will run Vista just fine, without the speed issues some are complaining about.
Can you still buy OS X Cheetah or Puma? I highly doubt you can now that later versions are out. Can you still buy 4th generation iPods new? No. This is not at all uncommon for any company, but for some reason, since its Microsoft, everyone's all up in arms about it. Get over it, its nothing new, and if you have XP, don't worry about it.
You're parents still use 98? I would say its time to upgrade, but that still doesn't mean it will disappear like you have said. Windows XP won't just "disappear" or stop working, they're just discontinuing sales.
Why do you need DX10? Every new version of DX that comes out has to go through months of bug testing. I avoided DX 9 for about of year, plus i didn't yet have a video card for it.
When DX10 comes out, no video card will have support for any new features. Plus, those cards will be native to Vista. Until DX10 becomes commonplace (which mean Vista will be commonplace), video cards won't require the use of it. Neither will new games.
"Not quite true - when updates stop coming, the OS doesn't perish, but hackers and malware strive."
Someone else tried to claim this as well. I call BS. (Or I say this is the merit of Windows lack of security, why are you still paying for it?)
It's not like Anti-virus and firewall software isn't out there. It would just become more popular because of people like you freaking out because "the nanny" left and isn't there to make sure you don't get into anymore trouble.
-kjb434
-@ Jan 29th 2008 11:32AM
-Why do you need DX10? Every new version of DX that comes out has
-to go through months of bug testing. I avoided DX 9 for about of
-year, plus i didn't yet have a video card for it.
Just because you're slow to upgrade, doesn't mean everyone else is...I've been using a DX10 card since Jan 06'. I dont "need" it, but it sure as hell does run games better than my GeForce 6800 did...so I'd definitly say it was worth the money...plus it was faster than any DX9 card on the market available for the same price at the time...so why buy DX9 when DX10 was more advanced for the same price?
-When DX10 comes out, no video card will have support for any new
-features. Plus, those cards will be native to Vista. Until DX10
-becomes commonplace (which mean Vista will be commonplace),
-video cards won't require the use of it. Neither will new games.
Where have you been living? In a hole somewhere? DX10 has been out for over a year now...and DX10 cards hit shelves in 05'. First DX10 demos were back in march of 06', and many games support DX10 now...including EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Crysis, and many more...did you travel to the future to troll this post and forget to read the newspapers when you got here?
Point is...DX10 and Windows Live! are Vista only because of architecture reasons...people have already seen how horrible bad things go when they tried to port DX10 to windows xp...(don't believe me, go read up on some of the projects and how badly they work). Windows Live! being Vista exclusive is strictly for security reasons...the Xbox Live! service is very much Microsoft's baby, and to allows the integration of consoles and PC's ment new security measures that XP doesn't allow...because of Vista's kernel level protections, and enhanced security, it allows MS to ensure that the Live! market is not flooded with cheating whores...
If you're reading this post now and you only have a limited amount of time to purchase it (the summer) I think that leaves you with a few good months to save the money and actually go buy the product. Who cares.
I don't even understand what point that reference to Leopard serves.
Because Vista was supposed to be all that and more, when all it really did was take features for Leopard and Tiger.
And when Vista did come out, it was so bug ridden and unusable that you'd be better of using ME.
That's irrelevant to the article ... and really, I don't see what makes Leopard so great.
(I'm a Mac user BTW)
it's so mac users can convert religiously, don't drink the Kool-Aid, apple is a cult of money
they don't reinvent the wheel and they are certainly not cheese toast
wait so Miles you're saying vista copied an OS that came out over a year later and didn't even have it's features announced until shortly before that? I think you might wanna rethink your claim that they copied leopard(since it appears to have been the other way around)
wait so Miles you're saying vista copied an OS that came out over a year later and didn't even have it's features announced until shortly before that? I think you might wanna rethink your claim that they copied leopard(since it appears to have been the other way around)
(bonehead question) Just wondering, does this make Xp officially become an abandonware and be free to make copies without a license?
I try to put faith in Microsoft to run my PC's Operating System, then they go and pull tricks like this.
What a bunch of #*()$$&@#