InfoWorld finds 35% of enterprise-class users downgrade to XP

Hold your horses, vaquero. Let's not blow this all out of proportion here. While it's no secret that a certain amount of Vista purchasers are utilizing that "downgrade to XP" option to its fullest extent, a small (and let us emphasize "small") collection of data suggests that some 35% of "mainly enterprise-class users" have opted for XP over Vista on their newly-purchased rig. By scouring data from the 3,000 or so members feeding information to the InfoWorld Windows Sentinel tool, the site found that just over 1 in 3 users had defected to Microsoft's previous OS. Granted, the tool cannot take into account Linux users or even the "Hackintosh crowd," though as Randall Kennedy puts it, 35% is "still a huge percentage, and way out of proportion for even the dramatically unpopular Windows Vista."

[Bunson @ Aug 18th 2008 7:21PM]

Yay, another Vista bash.

Apple ftw.

/sarcasm

[Mark Anderson @ Aug 19th 2008 8:53AM]

See the problem here is that Randall is basically a fucktard.

The sample is based on 3,000 mainly corporate based consumers. What this purports to show then is that, on the basis of this incredibly biased and weighted sample, Vista is dead in the water because he's extrapolated said biased - as in towards corporate users - sample to the entire Vista using population.

Now, let's actually do a recap here.

1) We know that corporations have defined software and hardware refresh cycles. If we go back a a few years and compare the corporate adoption rates for XP we can see that their corporate adoption rate was about 15% after year one and didn't hit 50% until year four. If we compare this with Vista's corporate adoption rate we can see that it's about the same at it's current point in its lifecycle.

2) Hardware needs replaced and this doesn't always tie in with software refresh cycles. To cope with demand OEM manufacturers allow downgrade rights to previous versions of Windows.

Here's a PDF from 2004 illustrating HP doing this for XP to 2000 downgrades.

http://www.hp.com/workstations/white_papers/docs/windows2k_support_sept2004_v4.pdf

3) Randall's sample is mainly corporate based. Points 1) and 2) cover why it's remarkably stupid to extrapolate a mainly corporate user base to the general population the majority of whom certainly don't downgrade to XP. This doesn't stop Randall doing this in his blog though.

4) Even assuming Randall is correct - which he isn't for the reasons outlined above - this would mean that there are currently somewhere in the region of 120 million copies of Vista installed on PCs, all of which have been sold in the last 20 months. That's more than the entire number of Mac (any variety) or Linux users in existence put together.

5) Randall doesn't state what his success criteria are. Given that the sample is mainly corporate and it seems about two-thirds of users are keeping Vista it seems to me that Vista is actually doing rather well.

6) Therefore Randall is a fucktard.

Sorry for the wall of text but it needed said.

[Ayman @ Aug 18th 2008 7:22PM]

Hackintosh!!!!!!!! is it a New OS by Ben Heck?

[Za @ Aug 18th 2008 8:31PM]

look up OSX86

[cromas @ Aug 18th 2008 7:23PM]

Best picture evar.

[bartoron @ Aug 18th 2008 9:54PM]

Actually, the picture of the alien and the out of control satellite was better.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/20/us-to-shoot-down-failed-satellite-at-10-30pm-et/

[Clay @ Aug 18th 2008 7:26PM]

Number is too low, just based on the enterprise level companies I consult for, I would expect 60 to 70%. I don't know any small business that don't avoid vista like the plague.

There it just nothing compelling about vista that isn't washed out by it's upgrade requirements (for businesses).

[But... @ Aug 18th 2008 8:15PM]

The statistic wasn't referring to those who _avoid_ Visa, just the subset of those who avoid Vista who actually went to Vista and then went back again. The total who avoid Vista entirely is undoubtedly much larger.

[loosely_coupled @ Aug 19th 2008 2:54AM]

To the guy right above me, I don't think that is correct. This refers to the corporations that purchases new PCs which only come with Vista since XP is no longer being sold, but offer a downgrade-to-XP option with the Vista license (Any Vista ultimate or Vista Business license has this downgrade available).

Basically, Microsoft took XP off the market so that if you want to get it, you have to buy the expensive high-end Vista Ultimate or Vista Business in order to "downgrade" to a legitimate license of XP that comes with it. So Microsoft makes more money, and at the same time they get to report those orders as "Vista sales" even though the customer never intended to ever use Vista. Quite a sly scam eh??

[Ordeith @ Aug 19th 2008 1:02PM]

If not for legacy applications or having IT departments that just don't understand how to partition AD services businesses would be outright stupid to "avoid" vista.

In our testing Vista has been more stable, more secure, better supported, and better liked by the users.

Many department managers and IT staff have been begging for some of the control the new Vista GP templates provide. And I can't even begin to tell you just how useful having "switch user" options on domain member workstations can be, and vista has this out of the box.

People are afraid of change and look for any excuse to remain stuck on the mud.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 18th 2008 7:27PM]

35% of enterprise-class users are pussies who can't adapt.

[Robert @ Aug 18th 2008 7:38PM]

agree'd

[hmmmm @ Aug 18th 2008 8:14PM]

That's a pretty ignorant statement.

Our institution backgrades to XP. We are an educational institution and can't support a teaching environment with two versions of Window, much of our hardware can't run Vista adequately so as we replace older equipment we have to keep XP until all the hardware is Vista capable. We will then look at rolling it out but there will still be consideration in terms of legacy systems that may prevent that. For example, our JD Edwards finance system is yet to even be able to support IE 7 and we have to have IE 6 installed... Our student management system still requires Acrobat 5. We aren't in a position to either force the applications' publishers to update then or to be able to do without them, therefore we run app and OS versions that don't break core systems.

To say that institutions in our circumstances are pussies that can't adapt is total BS.

[Za @ Aug 18th 2008 8:21PM]

Or they don't see a reason to upgrade because there are no real benefits at this point in time in doing so. In the future, certainly, as XP Pro support drops away. However, right now, there are very few actual benefits in moving the Windows Vista. Since clearly you know significantly more about this than me and my supposedly "pussy" colleagues, inform us of how we need to upgrade right at this moment in time, while also assessing the costs of, in addition to software licenses, the need to upgrade processors and ram on the vast majority of the machines we have running right now.

[CraigJ @ Aug 18th 2008 8:41PM]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Vista is a steaming pile of crap.

If it was just adapting to the new OS that would be one thing. I just spent 5 hours today trying to get a wireless solution working on a new Vista computer. No go. That may not be 100% Microsoft's fault, but when new adapters from Linksys and Netgear will not install, that is a huge problem. File copies that take minutes on XP take 2 hours on Vista (all else being equal). The system is 30% slower with Vista than the same system with XP.

None of the cool new stuff that was supposed to be in Vista is there, and the new "security features" need to be disable to have a decent experience. (asking the user Yes or No EVERY FUCKING TIME is about as good for security as securing you wireless network by hiding SSID) Vista doesn't do a single goddamn thing for me that XP (or 2000 for that matter) didn't do, other than ask me too many fucking questions. YES I'M FUCKING SURE OR I WOULDN'T HAVE CLICKED THE GODDAMN BUTTON.

I can no longer get machines pre-loaded with XP, so I'm switching to Mac. It can't possible be as big a pain in the ass as moving to Vista has been.

[nerdtalker @ Aug 18th 2008 9:09PM]

Very much agreed,

Honestly, the same "enterprise" users who we're all supposed to be looking up to as some sort of gold standard of what's-what with functionality and feature adoption are the same users who whined and complained and screamed bloody murder that Windows 2000 was faster, smaller, and better than a then-bloated Windows XP... ::yawn::

I love reading countless first or secondhand accounts of people absolutely failing to install drivers (are you downloading new ones? Are you even using windows update?), people who whine and bitch and moan about UAC (fucking disable it already, seriously, why bitch about having to click "Continue" 20,000 times when it takes a whopping 5 clicks to kill UAC permanently), people who whine bitch scream kick and tantrum about Aero when they skimped out on the GPU the first time around (back when it was common knowledge Aero would require a Pixel Shader 2.0 compatible GPU), and on and on and on...

I laugh. By the time you get the collective sand out of your womanhood and install Vista and actually _use_ it (I say _use_, because I honestly believe most of you enterprise users gave it all of 10 minutes), all the rest of us will have moved onto Windows 7, and history will repeat itself again.

[happy_penguin @ Aug 18th 2008 9:33PM]

I work for a very large corporation. We just upgraded from Win2k to XP a couple of years ago and I doubt we'll be upgrading to Vista any time soon. The problem is that whenever there is an OS upgrade there are risks of breaking older software. It's just too expensive when you're talking about licenses across thousands of machines and custom designed software. Vista complaints notwithstanding, there are plenty of valid reasons why companies don't want to upgrade. Most of all, it's just extremely costly.

[Mitch @ Aug 18th 2008 10:39PM]

Let's see it could be that network printers do not function properly or the lack of drivers for equipment that is already installed or the incompatibility with equipment or interoperability issues... the list goes on and on, but it is getting harder ti find drivers for the newest equipment.

[CraigJ @ Aug 19th 2008 12:35AM]

Hey nerdtalker,

Maybe instead of bashing people for being noobs and assuming that the stoopid people don't know what they are doing you should stop licking Steve Balmer's ass long enough to realize that Vista is a pain in the ass for a lot of people.

Personally, I've been using it since Feb 2007. Initially, I liked it. After 1 year and a half I hate it and want to get rid of it.

Aero glass is OK, but how come Vista needs a minimum of 128MB discrete video card, yet Mac OS renders Aqua just fine with integrated graphics?

Why does Vista take 2 hours to copy a 16GB file when XP took less than 10 minutes? Yes I have SP1 and all the patches installed, thanks.

What sense does turning off Vista's touted security features make? Isn't that why people were supposed to like Vista? I had to turn that crap off before I chucked the machine out the window.

Why do freshly downloaded, signed drivers from various vendors frequently fail to install? Yes, I know how to go to a web site and get current drivers for things. Why do you assume that nobody does this?

Where is the cool stuff we were promised?

Why are there 7 (more?) freaking versions of Vista?

Why does my system (Core 2, 256 ATI Video, dual 250 GB SATA 3, GB Ethernet) run 30% slower with Vista compared to XP?

I could list a ton of other issues...

I fail to understand why you people love this OS so much. I suspect that you either make your living supporting it, or really enjoy spending all your free time keeping you system running. I don't hate Microsoft, I've been a more or less loyal customer since the early 90s, skipping only Win Me, and I've been perfectly happy with Windows 2000, XP and 2003. My core 2 system with 2 GB of RAM running XP runs Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver, iTunes, Firefox, PHPMaker, Navicat, Safari, Opera and IE, all at the same time, and very fast. My Vista machine with 4GB of RAM is noticeably slower, and it is much higher spec'd.

Vista is truly disappointing, and you can bet that if Apple screws up this badly you'll hear that from me as well: I'm nondenominational, I just expect shit to work as advertised, and Vista doesn't.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 19th 2008 12:53AM]

@CraigJ

"Why does Vista take 2 hours to copy a 16GB file when XP took less than 10 minutes? Yes I have SP1 and all the patches installed, thanks."

Try installing that patch on a PC with more than 128MB of RAM and we'll see how long it takes. 2 hours? Seriously, man. What the hell kind of BS are you throwing around?

It's funny how anybody who wants to bash an OS now also lies about how long they've been using it. You know, nerd CRED.

[mufdvr3669 @ Aug 19th 2008 1:28PM]

"Why does Vista take 2 hours to copy a 16GB file when XP took less than 10 minutes? Yes I have SP1 and all the patches installed, thanks."

XP takes me 400 years to transfer that file, vista does it in 0.024 seconds. Yes, I have nothing updated and running original Vista x864. Yes I can make up things too.

[gad get @ Aug 19th 2008 4:40AM]

@ CraigJ

Where are you getting this "minimum of 128MB discrete video card" crap from?! I run Vista on a year-old middle-of-the-line Acer machine with only integrated graphics, and it works smooth as silk. Seriously, dude, if you're gonna throw "facts" around to support your arguments, at least do us the courtesy of using real facts!

[gad get @ Aug 19th 2008 4:43AM]

And just so we're clear, I'm running Home Premium with all those nice graphical goodies turned on, Aero theme included.

[Mark Anderson @ Aug 19th 2008 8:33AM]

Basically Craig is either lying or incompetent.

Which one is the money on?

[CraigJ @ Aug 19th 2008 10:31AM]

@Dan. 4GB, dual SATA 4.0 drives.

@get. Try running Areo with Intel integrated graphics and let me know how that works out for you.

I laugh that you ass holes defend this piece of crap.

[Joe Dombrowski @ Aug 19th 2008 12:22PM]

Now, I wasn't going to comment, but Craig! SATA 4.0!? How did you get your hands on such a future technology? SATA 3.0 was just announced, and not yet on the market, but you have 4?

My money's on lying _and_ incompetant.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 19th 2008 12:38PM]

@CraigJ

Integrated graphics... like on this GX620?

It works perfectly.

You should really use Vista before you grill it. Then you wouldn't seem like such a moron.

[unixman84 @ Oct 6th 2008 4:59PM]

willing to bet your not using linux or unix. dont give poeple shite about adapt.

seriously

[Crand @ Aug 18th 2008 7:31PM]

Dramatically? I opt for unnecessarily. It's a good thing I impose my will on everybody who trusts me to make their computer work properly. Otherwise they might be using XP/Firefox 1.0/AVG or some other combination of archaic garbage they don't understand. I think everybody needs to man-up and admit they hate Vista because there isn't an equivalent of XP's DH8FV key floating around.

[Wwhat @ Aug 18th 2008 7:43PM]

Hacked vista is abundantly available, why do you think all those 12yo's always post vista is so great? Because they bought it? Saved $800 bucks doing a paper-route to get vista ultimate is what you thought?
And the flaws/oldness of XP is NOT solved by vista, it's just the same with DRM and new graphics but with the same 'legacy' issues, the fixes in as far as available are minor.

Also firefox1.0 would autoupdate.

[mike @ Aug 18th 2008 7:50PM]

@Wwhat
Every OS has issues. right now, im on a macbook running tiger and it freezes up, has wifi issues, and goes to the lowest screen brightness every time it boots up. no system is exempt. that includes the "wonderful" windows XP. ill stick with my tiger-based mac and vista x64 based dell, thank you very much. and btw, ive gotten thousands of blue screens on XP. ive only gotten one on vista since i got it, and i adopted it 3 days after it came out.

[gad get @ Aug 18th 2008 8:00PM]

WHAT?! Apple told me it works like it's supposed to! You're lying!

[Crand @ Aug 18th 2008 8:01PM]

@ WWhat a wonderful comment.

Apparantly my volume key reference missed you by a few yards. I meant that there isn't a volume non-activating copy of Vista that's 100% original bits. And 800 dollars bucks would buy you 4 copies of Vista Ultimate by the way. Maybe we should inform the 12 year olds.


@mike

I have had the similar results. I installed the same time as you and then did x64 three months later. My lappy is x64 and my media center is x64 now. Never seen a blue screen on ANY of them. Can't say the same for XP.

[Wwhat @ Aug 19th 2008 12:33AM]

Well I guess it's to your credit that you are not on the up-n-up of the current warez scene, somebody has to walk the straight and narrow I guess :)

Incidentally about the other comments; people claiming tons of bluescreens on XP are as amazing as those that claim vista is and was flawless from day 1, make you wonder why MS released those fixes with extensive FAQ's on huge blunders and shortcomings with each fix, hell it took more than a year to patch it to enable SLI on vista didn't it? And that's just a 'minor' flaw.
And yeah all OS's have issues and flaws, but there are flaws in XP they could have fixed years ago that are there in vista too, and no I don't think I need to have to list them to regular XP or vista users that aren't self-delusional because they must have come across them, no matter if they choose to deny it in public.
I tend to read the full description of some updates MS rolls out (most people do not, and even less so after automatic updates became big) and it's amazing how old some of those bugs are and how silly the flaws, and how extreme some are, and that's just the critical ones they were forced to fix, in XP and vista both.

[Jason @ Aug 19th 2008 12:38AM]

Well, I think we should all take the computing advice of mike. What with his 1000s of blue screens, we are forever unworthy and humbled.

[Fyrewerx @ Aug 18th 2008 7:32PM]

IMO -- 35% is a "low" figure. I'm glad to see that most enterprise companies are seeing that Vista is a much more stable OS than XP.

Unfortunately, the lameass company I work for (over 200,000 employees) will not switch to Vista. However, there's much to be said for job security.

[Wwhat @ Aug 18th 2008 7:49PM]

Your company has a shoddy IT staff if their XP isn't stable.
Incidentally, I have a vista partition, so me you won't sell vista is so much more stable.

[Abuzar Baloach @ Aug 18th 2008 10:11PM]

Vista Ultimate 64-bit works VERY well for me. Just as well as XP.

It's probably because I actually have a computer that can easily run it though.

[Jason @ Aug 19th 2008 12:00AM]

"I'm glad to see that most enterprise companies are seeing that Vista is a much more stable OS than XP"

Dude, p->q |= ~p->~q!!! Just because over a third check it out and realize it's crap doesn't mean that a majority are duped by it. In fact "most" simply didn't blow their change on it in the first place. Read up, and try some basic logic while you're at it.

[Richard @ Aug 18th 2008 7:32PM]

I think aleast 10% of those said their downgrade, are probably had old hardware like less than 1Gb of ram etc.. people people, before buy pc makesure your hardware is capable of running the require OS (the most important) is like try to put a civic engine in a Porsche.

[Za @ Aug 18th 2008 9:12PM]

In an enterprise environment, the vast majority of computer usage focuses on word processing, web browsing, email, and scheduling of some sort. In an educational environment, which ours is, the vast majority focuses on word processing, web browsing, and email. We have smaller labs with more powerful machines for the students working with graphics, but the backbone of the system, the workhorse workstations are not nearly as fast.

However, they don't need to be as fast, either. Richard, explain to me why you should need more than a gig of ram to type up a paper or to search the library database to find a resource. People don't come to the libraries on campus to play Crysis. They come to work. You don't need Vista with a quad-core processor and 4GB of ram to do so. The machines we have allow it just fine but would be gummed the hell up if we put Vista on them.

If you would like to donate money so we could upgrade the 1200 or so work stations we have on campus, then please contact me and we will get right on it. Until then, I won't be wasting our school's money for shiny buttons.

[BigD145 @ Aug 18th 2008 7:37PM]

"server variants"? Does that include XP64, which is sometimes classified as Windows Server 2003?

[MioTheGreat @ Aug 18th 2008 7:50PM]

That's because XP x64 basically IS Server 2003, in much the same way that Vista IS Server 2008.

[JerryA @ Aug 18th 2008 7:40PM]

Enterprise class looks at it from a cost/benefit perspective. If it would cost more money to buy all new licenses and then more money upgrading the older machines that could run XP but not Vista and then more money spent in man hours troubleshooting the inevitable issues that come up when you migrate a large company or university to a new OS, then why would they upgrade? There would have to be some real benefits to this and for many businesses and universities, there is just no big benefit to Vista over XP. Some OSes like OSX aren't often deployed over hundreds or thousands of machines in a company so they can be upgraded by the individual user who bears the responsibility for paying for one license and maybe new hardware if their old hardware sucks. Likewise, there are plenty of individual Vista users out there. Just for many there is no significant increase in productivity to justify the cost. When the benefits go up over time and the costs drop, it will probably be more common for businesses and other large organizations to upgrade their machines to Vista or 7. Until then, it's just not worth supporting 2 OSes.

[Grimmir @ Aug 19th 2008 3:58AM]

Totally agree, that's the key for the whole thing. Money.

[Crooked Style @ Aug 18th 2008 7:41PM]

Enterprise users simply want the OS and that's it. They don't want the flashy UI,
To call Vista unpopular is just stupid, I bet Vista has sold more copies than Mac OS X entire life excluding the "downgrade copies" of Vista.

[Za @ Aug 18th 2008 8:31PM]

I think that's somewhat unfair on several levels. First off, if you buy an OEM computer you do not have much of a choice. Walk into a Circuit City and ask for a computer running something other than Windows Vista. The only one they will have is the Acer Aspire One. They'll also have 20 desktop models and 20 other laptops all running Windows Vista. Almost every single prebuilt you can buy only comes with Vista. Trust me on this - if XP was still offered, a very large and notable percentage would continue to purchase XP over Vista. Furthermore, Apple's business model isn't based on selling large volumes of software licenses; their model also involves selling you a computer.

The vast majority of Apple's computer sales are on machines in excess of a thousand dollars [iMac, Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Mac Pro all start over a grand, with the Mac Mini being the only exception]. I am not arguing whether or not OSX is good or not, or whether Apple is good or not, or whether their business model is good or not. However, you cannot compare Vista sales to OSX sales simply because they do it differently. And it's moronic to bash either by comparing one against another on these terms.

[Jordan @ Aug 19th 2008 2:54AM]

do you know WHY a large and noticeable percentage of users would continue to purchase xp licenses over vista ones? because of all the lies and disinformation spread about vista by apple.

[Jason @ Aug 18th 2008 7:48PM]

Vista has sold more copies in 18 months than every copy of MacOS combined, so I wouldn't go calling it unpopular. Enterprise users are always slow to upgrade to new OSes.

[Saif Ali @ Aug 18th 2008 7:59PM]

Did they sell because people actually wanted it, or because there are no viable alternatives (monopoly on OS) and they had no choice (OEM)? Please, don't be a fanboy, its just sad.

At least mac and linux users use those products because they actually like them and find them useful. In a MS world, you "have" to use them, whether you like it or not, and you are more locked than most of you care to admit.