NEC offers official Vista downgrade product

Adding injury to insult, then pouring salt in the wound, and finally kicking mud in Microsoft's eye, NEC has launched an official Vista downgrade product, FlexLoad. The company debuted a two-DVD package on Tuesday priced at an affordable £7, which is meant to help (mainly business) customers create an XP partition that they can use to boot from. Says David Newbould, NEC UK's product marketing manager, "We do have some customers who are very happy with XP and see [no need] to move to Vista at the moment." Of course, we're pretty sure that when he said "some" he actually meant "lots." Another nasty burn for the folks in Redmond -- though those 100 million units sold can probably buy a lot of kleenex.

[Via FSJ]

[Johan S @ Feb 7th 2008 11:18AM]

Well at least it's not sand kicked in the eye. Mud is not so bad.

[Anto @ Feb 7th 2008 11:56AM]

LOL This is FUNNY!!

[Dr. Jerk Face @ Feb 7th 2008 11:20AM]

Ha ha... Nice.

[uberfu @ Feb 7th 2008 11:20AM]

Don't really care abou the article much - but that image of the shop sign is priceless!

[OneLove @ Feb 7th 2008 11:26AM]

Microsoft is just going to resell vista as windows7, with a fancy new look and some "fixed" vista features. (that "search" is driving me crazy! arghhh!!)

[Ellianth @ Feb 7th 2008 11:36AM]

How do you know? Is that what your company does? Also what's wrong with the search?

[Chebwa @ Feb 7th 2008 11:42AM]

Why would you even think that?

[MEAT! @ Feb 7th 2008 11:29AM]

Bah. Lenovo wanted $50 to give me XP Tablet Edition for my Vista laptop.

[Good_Bytes @ Feb 7th 2008 11:51AM]

In you situation, I think Vista a total must... XP Tablet PC edition was total crap compared to Vista.

[MEAT! @ Feb 7th 2008 12:14PM]

I've found the opposite, having used Vista for about eight months on this tablet. I use it primarily for art programs and note-taking. Vista had many problems and quirks: taking forever to load all startup programs (didn't use the HD or CPU cycles, yet it still took forever); DWM.exe crashing often and requiring restarts of it or the computer; screen resolution randomly changing to 640x480; mouse cursor developing an opaque "shadow" and requiring a restart; mouse cursor not changing to the Wacom dot.

Plus it had many features that I ended up turning off or not using: Superfetch for spinning my HD constantly, especially after returning from standby; ReadyBoost for being useless w/ plenty of RAM; the sidebar for being useless because you couldn't call it to the front of every window like you can on OSX and for cluttering up the desktop; and of course UAC for being the most annoying thing since the paperclip.

[helio9000 @ Feb 7th 2008 1:05PM]

@ MEAT!

>call it to the front of every window like you can on OSX and for cluttering up the desktop

Win+Spacebar for the sidebar or Win+G per gadget. Don't make definitive statements if you are too lazy to even search search help with, I don't know, the obvious choice of "keyboard shortcuts"?

[MEAT! @ Feb 7th 2008 2:20PM]

@helio9000

I stand corrected, even if I've been corrected by a rather insulting poster who is fundamentally wrong about why I didn't know the shortcuts.

[Andir3.0 @ Feb 7th 2008 3:32PM]

My Tablet doesn't have a keyboard... at least one that I keep attached all the time.

[strider_mt2k @ Feb 7th 2008 11:33AM]

They shouldn't have done so well with XP.
Now it'll haunt them forever!

(Cool!)

[lonecow12 @ Feb 7th 2008 11:36AM]

I am a Mac user. I used to use both PC and Mac, but now I only use Mac (Professional Video Editor). I've never used Vista and I don't know if I ever will, BUT

Even I am getting sick of Vista bashing. This happens EVERY single time a new Windows comes out, everyone says it isn't as good as the previous OS but eventually everyone and their dog buys a copy and they have sold billions and billions, then the next Windows will come out and everyone will say how they hate to switch from Vista.

It's probably a fine program that just needs to iron out its bugs, like every OS. Just give it some time. Geeze.

[Chebwa @ Feb 7th 2008 11:43AM]

Well said.

It's like nobody remembers how much their current sacred XP was grilled when it was originally released.

[MagusDF @ Feb 7th 2008 12:08PM]

In part thers reason for the bashing. I think most of the bashing comes form the release strategy and continualy cramming it down pc users throats rather than the OS itself.

Not every version of windows deserves is praise remember back to Windows ME.

[Zeek @ Feb 7th 2008 12:24PM]

Rodney King is smiling.

[jakem @ Feb 7th 2008 12:42PM]

The real question is: why do Engadget feel the need to flog this dead horse almost once a day? At the current rate, anti-Vista posts here will outnumber posts on all Apple products combined before too long. I mean, I didn't even know that NEC sold computers here in the UK but Engadget have managed to dig up this story.

It also makes me wonder why I read tech news at a site run by guys who can't even setup Vista properly. After all, it's not exactly rocket science.

[Ty @ Feb 7th 2008 12:53PM]

The bashing actually happens every time anything vaguely associated with Vista is mentioned in the news. And by news, I mean the opinion editorial that is Engadget.

[Anonymous @ Feb 7th 2008 1:01PM]

I actually think that Leopard was more buggy than windows was.
Granted, I use OS X about 90% of the time so maybe I pick at it more, but still, Vista works pretty well if you have a modern PC. I think that's what people miss.
And at least Microsoft admits that there are bugs and attempts to fix
them unlike Apple.

I own a MBP and the drivers for the Nvidia 8600m GT still are not
fixed in OS X. I bought mine back in late June/ early July. Scrolling
in webpages causes screen tearing and Quicktime HD content plays back
choppy. On top of that, the boot camp graphics drivers also suck. I
had to force install the official nvidia ones.

I am a Mac user that does a lot of video editing and my Macs do a
great job. But at the same time, I respect Microsoft a lot more than
Apple when it come to problem solving. I have sent dozens of bug
reports to Apple for little things that should be obvious, but still,
no fixes. I can only hope that 10.5.2 will do something productive.
But while I wait, I'm going to go play Crysis on my Vista machine...

[Scott @ Feb 7th 2008 1:41PM]

False. I don't remember anyone bashing Windows 2000. It was the first Windows release that wasn't a nightmare to work with. XP is basically a GUI refresh of 2000, not a necessary update. It was mostly bashed for not being significant enough and the Fisher Price default skin, but it didn't require any steeper hardware than 2000 and didn't cost any more either.

Vista took 5 YEARS to develop, offers hardly anything for the end user over XP, costs twice as much as equivalent XP Pro (vs Ultimate) and requires about 4 times the hardware to run decently.

[CosterMonger @ Feb 7th 2008 3:11PM]

@Scott

that is what people don't understand, we know specific versions are crap and stay crappy.
like 95 98 ME

I loved 3.1x (I had word perfect) good old DOS games like wingcommander: privateer and x-com

[lonecow12 @ Feb 7th 2008 3:32PM]

@ Scott

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/05/36336

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/pi/xml/00/02/16/000216pimanybugs.html


just for fun:

http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/25/058/

[sburko @ Feb 7th 2008 11:40AM]

Synopsis of comments to come:
Vista is a rubbish waste of money created by the evil M$ to make more money and it doesn't work half the time and is totally unnecessary, I'll stick with XP.

Vista is brilliant and if you can't make it work all the time you are a moron. I have never had any problems because I am a computing genius and therefore, you are a Muppet.

Truth, somewhere in between.

[DonatoM3 @ Feb 7th 2008 11:43AM]

Exactly. The real problem is people don't/can't learn a new OS. Yes Vista was a bit more of a memory resource hog in the beginning, but it's been more stable than XP for me and I like the interface better.

[Ty @ Feb 7th 2008 12:49PM]

Sill using Vista, it's still quite stable, doesn't eat an insane amount of memory like everyone claims, and with a recent driver change I have more hard disk bandwidth on my RAID arrays than I did with XP. And games look better. Don't buy in to the Engadget misinformation. Vista isn't the holy grail of operating systems, and I'm not saying it's better than OS X (because I don't believe it is). But, if you play games or need to run other applications that aren't written for Mac, Vista is a great OS. And it's better than XP. Yes, it's better. It's not worse. If your computer can't run Vista well, then I'm sorry. Every computer I've installed it on has run it fine. Every.single.one. Though I guess I haven't tested running it on a Pentium II, which I'm starting to become convinced some people are doing, and then crying.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Feb 7th 2008 11:59AM]

I honestly don't know what it is with people's fascination over XP vs Vista, and the usual castigation toward Vista...

YES, there were issues that popped up at first, especially with drivers, and blah blah blah. But seriously, I've now had Vista on multiple machines (Dell XPS, Apple Macbook, Sony Vaio, another XPS, Dell Vostro, and a Lenovo Thinkpad) - and Vista has worked perfectly on all those machines. (BTW - those are all concurrent machines, not PCs that are crapping out on me).

Moreover, out of all of those machines, only two came with Vista pre-installed, the others were clean installs. I've found Vista to be a very solid, stable OS - I never get lock-ups or BSODs, I've had all the driver support since about three months after Vista was released.

All in all, I like the style, most of the options, and it just works. Are there some things I don't like? Sure, but I could say that about WinXP, MacOS, and Ubuntu as well. Have there been problems for some people? Of course, but then again you could also say that about WinXP, MacOS, and Ubuntu as well.

MY POINT - stop droning on about Vista - it exists, a lot of people seems to be fine with it, some people aren't... so in the great words of Monty Python: Get on with it!

[Scott @ Feb 7th 2008 1:49PM]

The problem is that XP would have worked perfectly on all those machines as well, except it would run everything faster. This has been my first hand experience as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista#Performance

I have ran both, and I miss nothing about Vista while on XP. If I wanted pretty/flashy and not SPEED, I'd buy a Mac!

[applefreak @ Feb 7th 2008 12:06PM]

I love that pic.

and I also agree with lonecow12

[LongshotX @ Feb 7th 2008 12:24PM]

NEC can go to hell. Vista rocks especially with good driver support!

[Michael @ Feb 7th 2008 12:43PM]

I don't understand the Vista bashing either.

I have it on 5 of my machines and never have had stability issues. The only niggling problem I get is with the driver for my finger print reader but - ostensibly - that lies with the 3rd party manufacturer.

It's got some solid improvements over XP, IMO - it also looks a lot nicer which is always a plus.

[helio9000 @ Feb 7th 2008 1:02PM]

This is devastating to MS! NEC is such a player in the the PC world with its 2.6ish% marketshare. Not only that it and has been trying to unload its PC business for years. Vista really is doomed.

[Timothy Sottek @ Feb 7th 2008 1:21PM]

yawn, Engadget.

yawn.

[jtc970 @ Feb 7th 2008 1:32PM]

All these "Downgrade to XP" offers are just business. They play of the consumer who doesn't like change or, bought a computer barely powerful enough for tomorrows software or, get brainwashed that if enough tech blogs criticize Vista for normal release issues (while worshiping at the shrine of Macs and ignoring its problems), then it must be bad.

I know, thats a run-on sentence... forgive me, I'm using Vista.

[Michael @ Feb 7th 2008 1:35PM]

Why is George W. Bush offering to downgrade my PC operating system?

[Anonymous @ Feb 7th 2008 5:59PM]

Talk about a product promotion

[Randomness @ Feb 7th 2008 1:57PM]

MS is still getting the money for the preloaded Vista, even if you downgrade to XP. It's probably not killing their bottom line since you pay either way.

[roach @ Feb 7th 2008 2:19PM]

Totally agree. Vista for tablet pc is so much better, than XP. I been using Vista on my 1.1 ghz table since beta and I wouldn't go back to XP.

For those people who have Vista stability issue, get your Vista updated, if its still crap, then you have driver issues.

[Chris Macdonald @ Feb 7th 2008 7:26PM]

i love that picture... makes it seem like removing xp is as important as fixing laptops

[Chris Macdonald @ Feb 7th 2008 7:27PM]

i love that picture... makes it seem like removing xp is as important as fixing laptops

[Chris Macdonald @ Feb 7th 2008 7:27PM]

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........

[Ebola @ Feb 7th 2008 8:04PM]

LOL at the picture!

[Aurelio @ Feb 8th 2008 11:19AM]

Yea, I think people are making up memories who think 2k and XP were bashed the same. I don't remember hardly anybody "resisting" 2K like this, because people recognized it was better. There was a little resistance to XP, with its remote validation requirement. Most 2K programs worked fine with XP.

The Vista situation is so different it's not really comparable. It is worse than XP in many ways, from Microsoft's license that end users will not innovate around it's limitations, to the embedded hd downgrading if it doesn't "approve" of your outputs. It really is a downgrade from XP that they are trying to force on people to squeeze more money and control than they could from XP's current path.

[momotarosan @ Feb 8th 2008 4:54PM]

image what would happen if Apple would offer OSx on any PC desktop/notebook platform throught OEM after MS stops selling XP...as a Windows admin I can assure you most gen X & Y will choose Leopard in a heartbeat, while it may take a little longer for the older generations to realize how user friendly and stable Leopard is.