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 January 29th 2008 9:29AM
I've used both XP and Vista, and found Vista so resource-hungry that I've decided not to buy a consumer-level laptop on the basis that you now *have* to have Vista on them. And having Vista means no proper recovery CDs -- one with drivers and one with the OS -- so you're stuck with an unfixable and opaque "computer restoration" system which, in my experience, is broken in many instances (HP, I'm looking at you). With a lot of these you're also stuck with Vista because the manufacturer isn't providing XP drivers. On the HP tx1000 series, for example, you just can't find drivers for the video chipset -- which is a GeForce 6150 Go. Nvidia's installer doesn't even detect it as a Geforce chipset.
I could spend $2k on a "business" type tablet, but frankly I think that's an abusive pricing scheme.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I have older, bigger, slower laptops I can use instead, so I'm making do with those.
I do miss getting an OS install disk but only because I can't pirate copies on other machines. I just backup on a regular basis which it by far, easier than reinstalling and starting from scratch.
I made a nice living years ago running a remote backup service. I miss my old tape & reels.
Ok, my two cents:
As someone already pointed out, you can't compare the adoption percentages of the two OSs. I currently run XP Pro on my tablet and I CAN'T upgrade to Vista. The simple fact is, if I do so, I obsolete close to $15,000 in software.
What most commenter’s on this blog fail to realize is that the computer market is much, much bigger than the average (or even power user / gamer) user. That is only a tiny fraction of the overall market. Actually, you can probably see that by Apple computer sales vs. PC sales (and I use the general terms, I know we are really talking Apple OS vs. Microsoft OS). Apple has very, very little corporate penetration. Apple sold 2.5 million computers last quarter? There were 96 million PCs sold last quarter? And for what they do sell to business, most are used for imaging work, or personal use by employees.
On the other hand, PCs are used for everything.
Just a small list of things I did last week with my Tablet PC:
Checked my email straight off the exchange server (which also pushes all my data to my WM6 mobile)
Created and manipulated Office documents
Surfed the Internet
Uploaded a video to the company website
All can be done with an Apple computer, I agree. But I also:
Programmed an industrial robot
Adjusted the limits on an industrial sensor
Created a new program for an industrial vision system
Pulled torque data out of an industrial screw driving system
Programmed touch screens from 3 different manufacturers
Programmed PLCs from 3 different manufacturers
Synched with manufacturing production scheduling software
Did analysis and testing using Labview
Took pictures for a quotation I needed to do, pulled them into OneNote, drew up the changes right on the pictures and sent them to the office (where they didn't need OneNote to view them)
Recorded several meetings in OneNote, for latter reference
(ok, the last two are just a product, but OneNote and a Tablet are truely amazing for business use)
This was all with a single computer, running a single OS. When the days are done, I go back to my hotel room and watch movies, play games or listen to music on that same computer.
You can none those things on an Apple product (as far as I know). This is because most of these actions require software that is only written for Windows and probably could never be written for Apple, due to the closed nature of their systems. This is where the $15,000 in software that I mentioned earlier comes from. None of it is written for Vista yet and since it is low volume stuff, I don't expect compatability for another year or so. I also deal with a lot of custom written software and some of that may never be compatabile.
So I am just a single example of why most (and corporate users ARE most Windows users) corporate users have not upgraded.
And I also wanted to show why Apple, because of its closed nature and limited amount of use, will never really gain much more market share in the overall computing world. They have tons of room to grow in the retail, home user market, but that is a small market compared to the overall computing market.
Oh, and while I am being long-winded, I am sure all the Apple fans (I am a fan of neither, I use what works for me) would be very, very surprised at how much of the industrial world is run on Windows, with just a small list inlcuding a lot of your cars, power plants, NASA, etc.... Windows CE is being used in a ton of applications now and it just seems to be growing.
(oh, just as an interesting piece of information, I see a big trend in companies issuing UMPCs to their controls engineers to do all the stuff I mentioned above. With such a small package, it fits nicely in your hand and makes life much easier than lugging around a big laptop all over the plant.)
I agree with you about why corporations have not upgraded (also the learning curve for Vista is pretty steep for the avg user). I think, though, that a lot of the functionality of the programs you listed will be ported to some web based platform within a few years rather than re-written for any particular OS. I know that's harder with CAD and other manufacturing programs but it's what I would focus on if I were a software developer.
You may be right about that, but I'm pessimistic on how fast that move would take. Companies are very slow to change what works and many of the programs I listed above depend heavily on the hardware they are using. Most rely on non-Ethernet (mainly serial) communications (RS232, RS422, CANN, DeviceNet, etc...). I don't enough about web based computing to know how well they deal with COM devices.
I do know that until USB-Serial adaptors were perfected, I had to buy laptops with serial ports, which is about an $800 upgrade on average (have to pick a "business class" laptop.)
And good point about CAD. I didn't mention that I also run AutoCAD and a light version of SolidWorks on this tablet also. :)
There’s also the point of custom programming. I’ve even written some really rough Windows software and I’m no programmer (of computer software, anyway.) How hard is it to write software for web based applications, or Apple OS? This is an honest question, I really don’t know.
Actually, I thought you could just as easily gain access to serial ports on Macs... (they do have serial ports still?) Programmers aren't really limited, but hardware is (to a certain extent.) The biggest issue with Macs is that they are bleeding edge usually. This means that they are primarily suited for home use and not in situations like you state. However, I have seen a lot of what you talk about, PLC(?) and industrial controls done in Linux environments (usually because it has to run well on older hardware and in embedded devices.)
Though, I too have a Tablet with OneNote... it's kind of nice. I find that I don't carry it around with me anymore. It's been sitting on the charging cable for some time because it doesn't work well enough that I don't have to change my handwriting. This is something that I don't ever see happening with voice recognition right on the horizon. I kind of hope I'm wrong though. The noise of a few people on a bus trying to voice a letter would be crazy.
I'm not sure about the serial ports on Macs (or serial access, really - I use a USB-Serial adaptor now). I was really wondering about web based applications dealing with this effectively.
And I've seen a few controls engineers using Linux based systems, but drivers seem to be a problem. Even though RS232 and RS422 are "standards", they can be wired in a couple different ways. One of my biggest headaches is communications. Getting these things to talk nicely is always a choir. I might take an hour to setup up comm to an Allen Bradley PLC, then want to talk to a Mitsubishi PLC. Well, the AB software has a nice habit of locking up your COM ports and not releasing them when they are done, even if the actual program is shut down. So you have to uninstall that COM port, then reinstall it again to get it to release (or reboot the whole system, which takes more time. Because of these little peculiarities, Linux has a tougher time. BTW, PLC is Programmable Logic Controller. It is really not much more than an I/O device. Using a programming language called Ladder Logic, you read your inputs, manipulate that data in whatever way you want and output. Really, it is just a way of programming switching operations. Press a switch and it turns on an input in the PLC. My program says when that input is active, output a signal. That signal can be used to turn on a lamp. Very, very simplistic explanation, but I'm sure you get the point.
As for OneNote and tablets, I have had mixed results for the handwriting recognition, but mostly positive (and I don't write well at all.) But I think the real beauty is that I don't use it to convert most of the time, keeping it in native writing. The search for this writing works well too. I mostly use it to bring in pictures and draw on top of them. I’m an electrical engineer, not mechanical, but often have to sketch concepts. My drawings skills suck, but drawing over the top of a picture, even my pathetic scratching become comprehendible. :)
But I think one of the best features is the recording. Start a recording of a meeting and take notes. When you go back to review the notes, you can tap the words and it will take you to the exact point of the recording when you wrote the note. So if you don't remember why you wrote something (which I find myself doing a lot), you can tap the words, hear what was being said when you wrote the words and it all becomes clear. Very powerful!
Ooh, can I complain too?
I am a Windows user, I would not build or give a Vista based machine to anyone at this point. Bloated, resource hog, buggy, the list goes on and on.
I work support for an audio software company, we get so many Vista issues every single day, and people of course want to blame our product, when the real issue is that Vista has used up 90% of their computeing power, leaving next to nothing for our software to work with. This OS is a gigantic joke at the moment, I would not trust it to save my last game of hearts, let alone all my music work, documents and other important things.
I wonder How much Engadget gets from Apple to promote their products!
Damn. Drop it already. It's a blog. There are plenty of "pro-Microsoft" blogs around. Do you ask them how much MS pays?
Engadget isn't paid by either, and the whole reason they are here is to inform people of new gadgets and electronics, not to have so much of a bias that it puts products in a bad light.
How do I use the downgrade service? I hate Vista is keep losing my internet connection then I have to do a system restore. I'd love to go to XP on my new Dell.
Contact Dell. Let THEM know you're not happy. OEMs have been the prime distribution network for Microsoft's domination. If you voice your concerns, they may further enhance their offerings.
when they say there gonna cut supoort, does that mean no more updates and stuff?
Come on now children, stop fighting or I'll up your dosage again.
My simple plan is this.... All of my computers, desktops, laptops, and server will be off MS-Windows and on Linux by then.
And If I could put Linux on my Tilt, I'd do that too.
When I need a license I buy an old laptop off of ebay.
Wow. The YAMA's are out in force today.
Check their IP's and I bet they are predominantly from Redmond Washington or some other strongly M$ biased geography.
Don't be fooled. No one likes VISTA. There's just a well funded group of M$ spammers dedicated to spinning any truth about M$ products.
How you each got your 30 pieces of silver.
I was schocked readin this article at digg.com. Is it true?
I run a "Hackintosh" for both my laptop (XP, 10.4.8) and my desktop (10.5.1, Vista). I had Vista right after it came out but the driver support for my machine was terrible and there were a myriad of other glitches, so I shelved it. The Leopard upgrade forced me back to Vista due to using the GUID partition scheme. I have to say I like it just fine now, driver support is fine (although sharing an old old printer over a network from x64 to x86 is tricky). For those of you looking to "slim down" their Vista builds I would suggest getting vLite and scrapping all the crap you don't want. I got my install disc down to just over a gig and supposedly you can get it on 256 MB systems. I wouldn't say it is necessarily worth the money to upgrade unless you have to (why fix something that isn't broken, right?), but Vista is no longer a crappy piece of software. Oh and for the record I've had zero problems with Leopard or Vista since I've been using them full time.
I run a "Hackintosh" for both my laptop (XP, 10.4.8) and my desktop (10.5.1, Vista). I had Vista right after it came out but the driver support for my machine was terrible and there were a myriad of other glitches, so I shelved it. The Leopard upgrade forced me back to Vista due to using the GUID partition scheme. I have to say I like it just fine now, driver support is fine (although sharing an old old printer over a network from x64 to x86 is tricky). For those of you looking to "slim down" their Vista builds I would suggest getting vLite and scrapping all the crap you don't want. I got my install disc down to just over a gig and supposedly you can get it on 256 MB systems. I wouldn't say it is necessarily worth the money to upgrade unless you have to (why fix something that isn't broken, right?), but Vista is no longer a crappy piece of software. Oh and for the record I've had zero problems with Leopard or Vista since I've been using them full time.
I love how the Wintards have come to throw around the term "Fanboy" like Giuliani uses the term 9/11. Anyone who demands something better than Windows is somehow a misguided zealot. That word has come to be a badge of honor for the narrow minded without a logical argument to their name
Vista will be the biggest factor in me completely switching to Linux.
I haven't upgraded to vista purely because of economics. My current apps running won't need an upgrade until late 2008.
OS 10.5 was an issue for because of particular quicktime plugins that allow xvid and avi to run smoothly - although vlc is great, the Perian Plugin is best and as of yet is not retooled for 10.5
I own a 7 month old macbook and I regret making the upgrade to Leopard.
I made the change over shortly after the 10.5.1 release and I feel I adopted the OS to early.
I also have a 3 month old XPS M1330 and MS made me change Vista Ulimate to XP because it was do disruptive.
This isn't bias, it's the truth. I've always been more of a Microsoft person (even though I own a new imac, I also own six PCs, five of which are now running Vista Ultimate).
I have to say that I am less than pleased with Vista. I work as an IT Director and we upgraded several of our machines to Vista. What a pain in the butt. These computers have constant problems. Drivers from HP make them crash out, Google tools make them crash out, everything makes them crash out. I never had these problems when we migrated 500 machines to XP! Never.
I built a home machine and within two months it was rebooting itself over and over. After all else failed I had to wipe the damned thing.
Vista has been out long enough that they should have fixed some of this but they haven't.
I have always owned both Mac and PC machines. I have NEVER considered downgrading a mac, even when they released OSX. I am considering downgrading some of my home PC's to XP. I install lots of utilities and applications and Vista simply cannot handle it. What a waste of $259 to upgrade, I feel ripped off.
I am a computer administrator for 25 PC's. In the past 2 months, I've added 3 Vista machines. The Vista machines are always giving me headaches with compatibility issues, Slowness, Freezing etc. Ive already had to re-install the OS on one of them. I am unhappy with Vista in every aspect other than the eye-candy. DX10 means nothing in most working environments. Theres no reason to use Vista for us.
I completely agree with you. Slowness (specially on the poor laptops, even the new ones!) and freezing problems are constant.
It's the same old, one decent, one junk version of M$ OS software. Seems like the put out a decent OS and then the next one is really crap. I'll be sticking with XP until the next version of M$'s "latest and greatest" OS comes out. Hopefully it won't be a huge pile of crap like Vista.
First of...
I am a Mac OSX owner, just to get the record straight.
If you Windows owners want to hear about us having problems I suggest you take some time and visit Apple forums and/or Apple dedicated sites. We have some things that we are not happy with too (examples: took Aperture AGES to get support for the new Canon 400D RAW format, Leopard is still having problems with Wi-Fi, etc.).
Second thing:
all companies have a push strategy (Apple included) regarding their OS, because they invest (or waste, it depends) money in creating them.
If the OS is good, such as Windows XP (prior to Mac I have been XP pro user for some years) or Tiger, then many owners don't feel the URGE to spend money and update.
What I found quite impressive though, is the amount of people that explicitly requested XP over Vista in new computers. It was not like "Wow, I love having this new Vista thing on my PC" and not even "Well, who cares, as long as it works and it is included in the price".
I didn't find impressive that companies (or privates) didn't spend in upgrading existing machines (also because of the initial staggering price and hardware requirements). What I found revealing is how many obstacles and questions and time people were ready to spend to DOWNGRADE a NEW machine to XP. That tells me something about the OS.
I know a lot of people who are perfectly happy with Vista, but have never taken into serious consideration a Mac. After showing them the Mac (their fear was more like the one of people who "don't know" and trust myths and legends (programs are not compatible, files aren't, it takes a lot of time to get used to it)) they started to seriously consider that machine.
Vista has problems (all OS's have, present and coming, particularly if new). But the entity of the problems and their impact on the average user is really big. Microsoft at this point has a strategy (compare the drop in prices of Vista and the time it took to drop them) that smells desperation from miles.
I am not saying Vista is no good. I just look at the reaction it got from users. Since introduction it was all about damage control (on the press and in the updates), and not about new features or making things better.
As for the looks: we can debate for ages, it's a matter of taste which OS appeals to someone the most. But a serious person cannot deny that Vista was way beyond expectations, both in terms of sales as well as in terms of functionality.
And this, more than anything, is pushing people to seriously consider Mac OSX as an alternative. Then they are smart enough to make their choice.
You should just get rid of Windows altogether, and go to LINUX. It's a MUCH BETTER operating system than Windows, and isn't that difficult to learn. And if you do, maybe you will look at something like this article one day, and feel SO GOOD that you don't have to put up with this kind of crap from Microsoft anymore.
Just FYI - I still have a copy of XP on my hard drive somewhere. I could get to it anytime that I want to. But I just don't want to. I don't need it for anything. And I haven't used it for over a year now. I just don't need it - and I don't miss it.
I upgraded to Vista when it first came out as it came free with my XP PC. Anyway, call me crazy but I love it, I would never down grade back to XP. Once I figured out which programs conflicted I uninstalled then I never had any problems again (lucky?!). I really like the way looks too, I find it versatile and easier to use.
Vista has been so bad for my business that I fired my tech, fought with the hardware supplier and persuaded them to take back several systems (or go to court for violating the UCC IWOM clause), and, even though I can't properly migrate all my data back to Office 2003 (to use under XP), I'm going back to XP, which was the best MS O/S I've used since DOS 3.3 (and I go back further than that). No MS product has even been able to touch any kind of UNIX platform, but my business is too small for those platforms. Apple products are great, but not readily used in my industry. My favorite is the SUN Office system running under XP.
Anyway, Vista damn near drove me to violence, as it would crash at the most critical times, with great frequency, and is clearly structurally biased against non-MS programs. For example, running Word Perfect (yes, someone still uses it) and Outlook is grounds for an immediate freeze. Admittedly, my Outlook file is huge, even by large company standards, but it’s supposed to be able to handle the load. The hardware had 4 gb, but it wasn’t enough ... sadly, the moronic manufacturer who sold this configuration did so without the possibility of upgrading the memory, even though I was more than willing to pay for it.
Enough: Death to Vista. And, from now on I shall follow the sage advice of Alexander Pope: “Be not the first by which the new is tried, nor the last to lay the old aside.”
-- JDG
>>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.
hahahaha!
Ah, I love the sophomore "MS is better than Apple! my mom told it to me so-there-nyah!" fanboys-
He looks into a mirror and knows not what he sees (ie Pot calling kettle black)
The WORST apple OS is better than the best MS overpriced crap.
After loosing thousands of dollars in downtime at our company with VISTA's problems, I can assure you that the gullible and ONLY the gullible allow their wallets to be pickpocketed by using MS products . Do some real research THEN open yer trap
If it wasnt that Windows was so embedded everywhere in 3/4 of the corporate world (and the changeover costs) probably 70% of that 75% would junk MS and go to Linux or Apple. Trust me, after talking with other corporate IT specialists on this matter. Apple maybe bad, but MS is just Crap. Not my opinion, but statement of fact and research.
I dont know why this is, except for the way a Mac is built-but 2 years into Intel and Mac Windows installs, no Windows hackers, no trojans, no viruses etc.
Runs smooth and no crashes and no BSOD- At home I keep XP on one Mac-just for take home work. Almost the best of both worlds, I can run of our system from home-from the other-but Windows is still a bloated pile of junk for the mouthbreathers and the technically illiterate.
I actually liked Vista, it was my laptop that didn't. I switched when Vista first came out. My laptop had some nice speed, I met all the requirements and recommendations, yet Vista bogged it down so much that it would drive me crazy. I had numerous problems with programs, even running them in so called compatibility mode. But I was patient and waited for SP1. While it fixed some of the problems, my machine was just not running at 100%. So I finally bit the bullet, reformatted and re-installed XP. All the problems went away, speed way increased and I remembered that I actually like my laptop.
I think a lot of people are in similar situations. They like Vista, they really do want to use it, but it just does not like their hardware. I think Microsoft needs to realize that they really disenchanted a lot people. After all the work of reformatting and restoring, I will never install Vista again on my laptop.
Man... some people are sayin vista is nothing but eye candy, some people are sayin it's too bloated with features, some people are sayin it's too buggy to run, some people are saying its microsofts most stable os yet. Damn you guys! IT'S JUST ANOTHER MS-OS! Everybody acts supprised like they don't remember '95 or ME even though they're talkin about it. I also remember talk like this when XP came out, WHAT A RESOURCE HOG! It took at LEAST 196MB to run the dang thing! (without the hd crankin with every mouse click!) Most of my friends where runnin 32mb. When we got it to install on a pentium with 64mb it was almost bigger than when we got '98 to run on a 386 w/4mb. Now I run with 2gigs (I don't remember how much I payed, but I remember thinkin it was cheap (for the memory)) And everything is fine. Who needs support for XP anyways? Up until three years ago my copy wasn't even legal. GOSH!
WTF is "XP support", and why are these people so worried about it? I use XP Pro SP2 with NO patches at all. It works just fine and is plenty safe, (if user not moron). Actually it is much, much faster without the (~200!) patches that MS tries to get you to install. "XP support" is nothing but MS's sucker play to get you to think that a new computer with Vista would be a good idea. "Support" my a**, it is nothing but sabotage. Good riddance!
So Vista is a resource hog, much more than XP is. So its 'that time again' 6 years after intoduction of XP to upgrade your computer to *gasp* MORE than 512mb of RAM OMG!! Im running 4Gb of Corsair XMS ram that cost me $300. 2GB is sufficient but still, if because you have low amounts of RAM and evil microsoft is trying to force you to get more, then GET MORE. Not only will Vista (or XP for that matter) run smoother, programs will open faster and be more responsive. The ERA of 512 is long since dead... 2GB is the new 512. Its plentiful, its cheap.