Microsoft may extend Windows XP "downgrade" deadline by six months
By Darren Murph 
posted October 4th 2008 6:15PM
posted October 4th 2008 6:15PM
First off, we'll warn you that these reports are currently unconfirmed by the suits in Redmond, but word has it that Microsoft is working with at least one OEM to have the Windows XP "downgrade" deadline pushed out from January 2009 to at least July 31, 2009. That's according to an e-mail sent from Microsoft to an unspecified partner company, which purportedly details a plan to work with other buddies in pushing that deadline out another half year. Given the results thus far, we suppose we're not too surprised to hear that firms are still clamoring for the XP option, but one wonders when this madness will ever end. Will folks really be opting for XP on new machines after Windows 7 is out? [Via Download Squad]
Kudos to that.I built my sister a PC from spare parts of VERY simliar spec (except 2GB RAM and a 3.4GHz P4, same gfx) and again, after I spend 30mins setting it up properly, it flys. Like, really flys. Just as quick in typical use as my beast of a PC (3.1GHz Core 2, 4GB RAM, Geforce 7900GTX). Thats runninf vista 64bit btw.
@Skyride
I'm sure it will run nice and fast once you dump 30 or so services, change the transparent glass look for the good old NT look, and don't forget about modifying the registry.
Poor AAPL longs, I feel your pain.
This article has about as much credibility as the ones about Steve Jobs on Friday......
Could someone please tell me the name of the original painting? I've been trying to find that out for quite some time without success.
Edvard Munch - "The Scream"
The Art & Design course finally payed off... :)
Vista? Epic Fail !!!!!
I am sooooooooooo happy i managed to "downgrade" (more of a leap ahead if you ask me) a "current" laptop shipped with Vista OEM: it run like a snail.
Now with xp sp2 i am actually happy to own that machine.
Ah, wonderful. The never-ending debate. Windows vs the irrelevant everything else.Microsoft have added many things to vista now while I could go and quote some of these from other comments on here, im not going to. Heres why:
Vista FEELS better. It does, if you run it on a decent PC that capable of running aero. Onboard graphics even run it fine now. Personally I only build PC's with onboard graphics card if it has to be absolutely as cheap as possible because sticking an 8400/8500 costs barely anymore when offset by the cost of a cheaper mobo compared to a significant performance increase.
Im what you would call a "power user". I do everything on my PC you could possibly imagine, right from MSN and skype chats, to programming, video editing, audio production and web design and gaming. With my 4GB of RAM, I can do all of that. Set vista to to run with NO pagefile or on a 2nd HDD and it runs faster than you could imagine.
Next, we have all the mac fanboys, oh god, not these idiots. We can all ignore these people for 1 very simple reason. They are not real computer geeks. Very few proper computer geeks would be happy to not be able to build there own PC, tweak the hardware and change so few things. They are very much "well it just does it automatically and i don't have to worry about it". Im sure most of you reading this will agree with me. I don't want things on my system "just doing it automatically". I like to know everything going on, on my system. If I want to virus scan my PC, I'll do it manually at a convenient time. Not a set time. If I want my PC backed up, i'll make an image of the boot HDD and put it on my server. Windows is good for me on this front. We could look at linux and go "oh well, that does all that".
Until Adobe release CS for 'nix, I will never switch. You can make almost anything run on 'nix with fiddling about but really, linux is the culmination of 20 years work of lazy programmers. MS have window installer, your apps are stored in a list and need nothing done to install. With linux on the other hand, you have a large number of terminal commands to use to do anything.
Security:
I have to agree with you vista bashers on this, its not any better. Well not significantly better. But i'll tell you what, Avast AV and me being careful certainly works for me.Don't use IE, Infact, if you want to be anal, dont even use FF. Use Opera. Opera disables scripts that put viruses on your PC by default. Example (WARNING): http://smouch.net/lol/ , that link causes your web browser to window and bounce about your screen while playing a tune from our beloved Rick Astley. If your curious, open another browser window and do it. Now go try it in Opera. Point proven.
Essentially, your OS dosen't do your work or your things, your programs do. And bassically if your using all the bundled OS programs to do it, then your going about it all wrong. Internet explorer for example is by far the most commonly used web browser in the world by a large margin. Its a TERRIBLE program. Extremely insecure, very bad to use and so on. Google Chrome is the same.Same with windows movie maker. If you want to make videos, spend some time learning to use a decent program. There is far better apps. With video, the more user unfriendly, the better the app is. So finding a happy medium is tricky and Windows Movie goes much too far over to the user friendly side.
I grew up using 98 and XP, I used vista in Beta on 512MB of RAM and left it till i got 1GB RAM and haven't looked back since.
"linux is the culmination of 20 years work of lazy programmers."
What a stupid and ignorant comment to make. Look at the change logs to the linux kernel minor versions, look how much work those 'lazy programmers' put into it.
"MS have window installer, your apps are stored in a list and need nothing done to install."
Mr. Clueless, meet 'package managers'. Oh, I can issue a single command 'sudo pacman -Syu' type in my password and my entire machine will update to all the latest versions. Kernel, drivers, X, window manager and applications. Everything.
Try and do that with your 'add/remove programs'!
"With linux on the other hand, you have a large number of terminal commands to use to do anything."
I love how everyone is so afraid of terminals. First off, ubuntu seems to be attempting to remove most of the terminal work so our cuddly friends with terminalphobia can do their word processing.
@ Kamu
I must agree, I am a Linux n00b, but after installing Ubuntu, i typed like two lines into Terminal and everything was updated and 3 programs installed automatically.
Of course you need a little editing to configure the programs, but i set up a machine worthy of running as a Proxy Server for corporate use in under two hours. Most of which is leaving it to sit there and do what it.
XP runs fine on the tc1100. It is the tc1000 with the Transmeta CPU that sucks. The reason why I upgraded my tc1100 is because some other dude claims Vista runs fine on the tc1100. It was a lot of work to get all the drivers to work with Vista too. I was curious. Big mistake trying to run a non-current machine on a current OS.
i dont think vista is that bad, i just think xp is fine for me and i dont see any compelling reasons to change to vista. btw, check out slashdot's latest headline:
"The State of Maine is the latest organization to skip Windows Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft. An internal state document (dated September 15) uncovered by Infoweek reveals that Maine will not be upgrading its more than 11,000 personal computing devices from XP to Vista — ever. Instead, it's going to wait until Windows 7 ships in 2010 and hope for the best. The news is in line with a survey that shows only 4% of businesses in the UK have upgraded to Vista, the story notes.
i guess im not the only one.
You really think Slashdot would ever be unbiased or write something nicely in favor of MS? If you read that junk, it's not hard to believe you wouldn't upgrade to Vista period.
Just because large companies or organizations doesn't upgrade their computers, doesn't necessarily have any relation to individual people. I'd guess the State of Maine, among many other businesses, want to be cost effective as possible, and upgrading all their computers would be very expensive. A lot of software still only works on XP, and companies don't always switch to the next operating system immediately. I know a good many Mac owners who haven't upgrade from Tiger to Leopard, because they're content with what they have, and don't see much benefit over the upgrade. Slashdot is highly unreliable for getting objective articles.
It's ignorance like this, that fuels the hate for almost all things Microsoft.
I, admittedly, was quick to bash and ramble on about how bad Vista was last year, but I honestly don't see what the fuss about Vista is anymore. With the recent service pack and certain annoying 'features' turned off, such as User Access Control and SuperFetch, Vista runs fine. In fact, I dare say that Vista runs great.
Perhaps, as a long time Mac evangelist, it's my attraction to shiny windows and buttons, but I actually like Vista now. It's still second to my Mac, though.
Win7 will be to MS what version 6 was for Word Perfect nearly twenty years ago, a desperate but vain attempt to stay relevant. With Windows XP and Office XP, Microsoft finally hit it's mark (like WP did with it's version 5), but in doing so set a standard for a world that is now fading into the distant past.
By the time Vista has run, or stumbled, its course, the consumer market will have further advanced on its present tilt toward the better engineered and far more advanced Macs, and the tech crowd will be long gone into Linux so they can continue to find work in the real world and enjoy being in true control of one's own computer again. With the wealth of dirt cheap but highly effective GUI shells that an OEM can wrap around Linux, the low end mass market will certainly settle there as well, again improving job security for the Linux-savvy tech crowd.
The sole reason left anymore to run Windows at all is as a base for MS Office, but even the corporate world is avoiding the Office 2007 "upgrade" and why not? Retraining a corp of employees to work with "the same old wine in a brand new bottle" for not one wit of increased productivity is just not good business, unless MS is a client, I suppose. As more people, both corporate and home-based, discover all they have ever really used in Office is available for free in the various open-source "office suites", the last reason for using Window will be snuffed right out. By then, of course, Balmer and bevies more will have long left Redmond in their wake, as the miners once abandoned Leadville and Silver City.
MS will then be fortunate to be like today's Novell, competing in a niche market but still breathing. Let's remember that once RCA was the world leading tech company, but it's now just a nameplate on what somebody else has produced. There, Microsoft, lies your future too.
I can't see why people don't just bite the bullet and accept Vista. It's not that bad, no worse than any other Microsoft products that I've dealt with. It may have been troublesome when it was first released, but they have done quite a few fixes with the updates.
Madness? THIS IS VISTA!!
People Suck.
Everyone complained "Windows XP and Windows in general is insecure!" - So what did Microsoft do? Take notes from Linux and Mac procedures and mirrored them on Vista (example, UAC), locked down and rewrote Vista and it's components from the ground up and made it extremely secure. On top of that finally gave it a nice GUI that doesn't look like it was designed by Fisher Price.
Windows Vista comes out.. Corrects most of the biggest issues that needed addressing.. Everyone still complains..
First off anyone that says "I tried the beta and it sucks" at the beginning of they're post is ignorant, and you instantly lost all credibility, so GTFO. Same for "I tried it when it first came out", you again are ignorant. No software or product in history worked perfectly upon or before launch. Especially something of this caliber (A Computer OS). I know new car lines that have suffered horrendous issues upon production, what makes Software, which is if not more prone to error any different?
I guarantee you 70% of people that hate Vista are just morons (yes morons, why sugar coat it?) that fall under one or all of the following:
- Hates change, so complains they have to take 30 seconds of there time to see where something has been moved too,
- Listens to the media or other smucks who say Vista sucks and never really sat down and tried it,
- Tried the 'Beta' or 'RTM" versions as soon as they became available and based there entire opinions off that experience; or
- Tried running it on a POS computer.
My favorite Vista hate line is "it's annoying all it does is bug me with pop-up messages asking for permission" - TURN UAC OFF THEN. How can anyone satisfy a market if it's users are so hard headed and can only complain instead of taking the problem in hand and correcting it there self. IT'S A PERSONAL COMPUTER - PERSONALIZE IT! There is no way in hell anyone can expect anyone to create a default setup that will fit everyone's needs and preferences, it's impossible, that's why there are option dialogs to change settings, so use them... If you're to incompetent or ignorant to use a personal computer, I hear Apple makes the perfect idiot-proof OS, give them a look.
For every good change that is made, for every addition or extra detail time is spent on - something else suffers, it's called life, you'll have to compromise some way or another. If you can't understand that, then you have no hope and really should be voicing your opinion.
I love some of the conversation I'm seeing. I'd suggest some of these business wanna-be's that have such great ideas and a grasp on the business to comment and say how things should have been done and what they didn't do, to make there own OS, let us know how it goes. No doubt it'll go barreling into the ground.
The whole Mac - Windows dispute is irrelevant to this topic. The topic is about Vista being bad and XP getting another year lease on life. And that whole "the Apple user base has more then doubled' crap is kinda funny. You know why it doubled? Because ignorant Windows users got sick of the instability of XP and were too ignorant to take a few moments of there day to learn the suttle changes to Vista, or there were on of those people that fell under one of the four main reasons, so they bought a Mac with a completely different OS to only start learning from square one.
Besides, what OS you use is entirely a preference.
I use Windows because it's widely used, meaning more software and support and besides, all my software works perfectly fine on Windows, why buy a Mac and have to buy all my software over again. OH WAIT I CAN USE BOOTCAMP/PARALLELS! THEN I CAN RUN WINDOWS ON A $1300+ MACHINE I DIDN'T NEED TO BUY, THUS MEANING MY WINDOWS ISSUE IS SOLVED?! Cough.. Stupidity, I swear, don't say that it's untrue, my little sarcastic comment previously stated is how 90% of mac users plug there beloved platform and sadly, how Apple markets it. Thanks Apple, now I only have to deal with Windows, when I need to use my software that's for Windows. I just have to run it at half it's capability or restart every time I want to change OS depending on which method I choose, rather it be Bootcamp or Parallels. Yeah that's totally seems like the perfect solution!? AGAIN We must all compromise.
You Apple fanboi's and Apple itself make me LAUGH! Here is a fun fact for Windows users that never used a Mac OS. In the Mac world, to do what you wanna do, you do it the single and only way, the Apple way, or don't do it at all. That's there methodology for there OS, thankfully being designed for computer illiterate people, common sense should guide the way! But then again if your a ignorant, incompetent ex-Windows user, then you will obviously have no common sense, and demand it be your way, OR YOU'LL SWITCH PLATFORMS! OOoooOO..
I'm no Vista or Windows fan boy, in fact I hate Microsoft to death.. See my comments coming from a neutral position, as that's my intent. Majority of the issues with Vista are pure ignorance and user and manufacture incompetence or ignorance, of course is has it's quarks like anything else. If you are expecting something perfect out of any box, then you need to wake up and smell the coffee, nothing in life is perfect. If you are expecting everything to be tailored to your specific needs and preferences out of the box, then you better have the intentions of taking some time to tweak and tune things to your desire.
Enough said.
Amen to that.
I'm using XP, simply because I a) Don't have good enough hardware to run Vista, b) Can't afford a Mac, and c) Don't have the time to run Linux to my exact specifications - it took me nearly six months to tweak XP to my exact (and I mean EXACT) specifications. And even now I have to go into the BIOS or control panel occasionally to change or tweak something.
The fact is, if you want something to run exactly the way you want it to run, be well prepared beforehand to put in the hard yards to make it like that.
Do you know what is madness? IT in my microchip development company is fully running RHEL3 on most of the computers (kernel 2.4 from 2003!). They are just thinking about RHEL4 now that some software vendors (Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, you name it!) do not support RHEL3 anymore. Even so, there are people still using Solaris 8 on SPARCs because of commercial software that has not been updated in at least 10 years! At the end, it all depends on the software.
Does that mean that RHEL4 or RHEL5 are some sort of crap like Vista? No, it is just that if it is not broken, do not fix/upgrade it!
Another topic that people do not tell you about a lot is that applications gained a lot in the move from Windows 98 into Windows XP (skipping ME!). Example: You cannot use .NET on Windows98. Do you know how many developers are out there using .NET? I would say a lot! So if you make a program in .NET it will only work on Windows 2000/XP/Vista. Is there anything out there that is Vista only? I am afraid not.
And as for the third item here, you use the OS that best suits your set of hardware and software. Most people are happy with MS Office, I am not. When software vendors began to migrate their programs from Solaris/SPARC into Linux/amd64, everybody rejoiced, as you can literally now buy computers from anywhere instead of some expensive lad with prices as high as the sun.
So, at the end you have your set of software, and that limits your OS selection. And remember that before XP, people were using happily MS Office 97. I wonder what pushed them to move to newer versions of MS Office.
Fact: Windows XP Downgrade rights for Windows XP will exist as long as Windows Vista ships, because the Product Use Rights allow downgrade to current version-1. I think the article may refer to support, not downgrade. (Baecause, as I already said, the license allows downgrade to N-1... If you buy Windows XP today, you have the right to downgrade to Windows 2000, nearly 9 years later).
Fact: Since Windows Vista SP1, over 95% of issues are with OEM drivers. When last did you see an error that said: "The Kernel was badly coded, Windows must shut down..."? Methinks never...
Fact: Windows Vista numbers that are reported in Microsoft's annual report come from IDC and Gartner... Microsoft doesn't count PCs or fudge the numbers. I would offer that with over 90% market share, they don't need to... capish?
Fact: www.mojaveexperiment.com is the funniest and most embaressing thing I've ever seen.
Opinion: If Mac is soooooo good, why does it only run on stuff you buy from Apple? Imagine how good Windows could be if Microsoft owned the PC too?
Opinion: Why is it so important? Sorry, I mean - who gives a crap? If you want a Mac, buy a Mac. If you want a Linux PC, then buy a PC and download Linux and install it yourself. If you want a Windows PC, buy a Windows PC. It still amazes me that so many people waste so much energy on being so cyber-angry with Microsoft - why bother?
And just remember... If you do choose a Mac, you'll be like the other 5% of people. Man, I'd like to meet one of them.!
I'm a PC.
LMFAO - Bravo..
Same here, I'd love to meet one..
I need Windows OS for work so I use XP Home on Bootcamp. Vista would be a better option nut it's an unfinished OS.
You know, it's easy to blame the end user or third party companies for the failure of a particular OS, but perhaps those who produce these failed OSes need reexamine their own work first. For example, when was the last time you developed an OS that didn't somehow diminish the user's control over their own computer or violate the user's trust on behalf of a third party by phoning home in some manner before carrying out an assigned task?
The fact is, the user keeps getting pushed further to the back of the bus every time a new OS gets released. We are no longer the driver, but are merely one of many passenger tolerating the decisions of an invisible third party at the wheel.
Sure, there may be comfort in not having to know what the hell a ".dll" is or what it does, but is comfort at the cost of such ignorance really worth it?
If companies want to blame the end user for anything, it should be over the fact that we have too damned many users out there who are willing to tolerate and believe anything in exchange for instant gratification with reckless abandon for the consequences of their action.
XP is very good.
Vista? I think it's hard to go beyond XP.
Heh, Heh ,Heh...
Who cares! most people talk about OSes when infact they all do the same thing, check email, browser porn, download stuff you shouldn't be downloading, and post stuff on this site.
There is no reason for home users to stick to XP any more if they're buying hardware today. I've personally seen less problems on Vista after SP1 than I ever did using XP SP2 and I don't think I'm in the minority. Even on a ok specced laptop, the most demanding games run just as well as if I was using XP and I still get the added security.
Business are different - I know Dad had problems networking Vista at the school he works for but I'm not sure if that has ever been resolved since.
If anyone noticed, it looks like the new windows vista had just as many problems the new Xbox 360 did... Whats going on with Microsoft, why are they just horney to release their products before working the bugs out first. http://xbox-360-repair-fix.wikidot.com
If Windows 7 is as big a pile of dog mess as Vista yes!
As for the "its fine on new kit" defence? I say NONSENSE, I spend more time supporting my CEO's new Vista laptop then any other machine in the company!
you probably suck at your job. or sucking up to your boss.
@Xbox360Repair
Money mate Microsoft like to get people to buy the products THEN let THEM do all the testing free of charge its a double whammy.
They get to sell product gain market share with faulty product AND they get testers who not only pay for the privilege yet dont demand Pensions, Paid holidays, desks, etc etc ITS A RIP OFF
That Right.
XP runs fine on the tc1100. It is the tc1000 with the Transmeta CPU that sucks. The reason why I upgraded my tc1100 is because some other dude claims Vista runs fine on the tc1100. It was a lot of work to get all the drivers to work with Vista too. I was curious. Big mistake trying to run a non-current machine on a current OS.
Had to give my 2 cents on this....
Until the last couple of years, I have been a Windows user and supporter and defender. I lived near Redmond and to this day many of my friends are Microsoft employees. I hate to say it but I no longer support Windows.
about a year ago I purchased ( for a new business we were starting ) a new Dell with Vista, and a new Macbook. I had not used a Mac since my old days in publishing. Vista was an absolute nightmare to work with. Yes, I know that Vista was pretty new but the frustrations we had getting it to work were absolutely ridiculous. We eventually had to " downgrade " to XP and still had trouble with networking printers and some other nagging issues.
Then came the macbook, it was like night and day. No network issues or any problems, the thing just worked. After a year using OS X, it is so hard to go back to windows. All of the little annoying things that you just learn to live with under windows are all gone and problems are so few and far between I am so glad I bought it.
After I had been spoiled by OS X, it began to bother me everytime my wife or son and MIL came to me saying " there is something wrong with my computer ". Both used XP and had proper protection but still, weekly I would spend way to much time fixing things so their computers would run. Well, today we have nothing but OS X and Linux running in our household. It is so much better.
My wife loves Ubuntu on her laptop. It's fast, efficient, and does everything she needs. For anyone who has been scared off by those who say you need to be a computer wiz to use linux has either not tried a modern distribution recently or is trying to scare you. Ubuntu is easier to install than XP and was super easy to use - so glad I got the courage to try it. No spyware, no virus, no hassles - computer bliss. OS X is still better but linux is impressive and I would take either over Windows.
Hi icepop4who
So your mum has let you play on the family PC again, AND you got to stay up way past your bed time WOW what a Sunday night treat you got, hope you will be in the wide awake club for school tomorrow,sweet dreams!
i installed vista ultimate on my laptop Core 2 Duo T7600 @ 2.33 GHz, 3gb ram. runs like butter. I was so happy with it, i decided to install it on my old desktop with an amd atholon xp 1500+ @ 1.3GHz, 1gb ram, and an nvidia 5200 graphics card. runs fine. it's a 32bit processor, so it bogs down on unzipping/searching, but runs fine.
i have had no problems, whatsoever with vista. i use it all day, every day, and nothing is wrong with it.
stick with the mantra. it doesn't fly on grandma's Pentium III with 733MHz and 256mb of non DDR sdram. So hate on it. hate it until you die. if everyone is "downgrading" to xp, downgrade to windows 98 and use a gnu/linux distro with gnome. then you'll freaking crap in your pants, you terrible failures at life.
people love to complain about everything.
What is the reason for XP "downgrade" when it is working just fine,. Why cant they just do an "Upgrade" and call it "XP+plus" something...
I have XP...and it works just fine. Don't see why they need to fix ...what ain't broke. And if my XP stops updating...guess I'll have to go back to using 'smoke-signals'...LOL.!
you are right about that dave., " if its not broken dont fix it " you may add on to it to make it more user friendly which its already is besides XP is already sitting in a good stable platform..