You can't really call it a "tax" if Microsoft has a newer version at a cheaper price. They're trying to phase out all of the XP licenses and convince people that XP really isn't worth the hassle. Vista came with my computer, and I haven't went back since.
Usually a higher price indicates a better or newer product.
Trying to convince us XP isn't worth the hassle? So they pointlessly change the names of everything in Vista and call it less hassle when trying to find what you're looking for? I spent I don't know how long trying to find Add/Remove programs on my sister's laptop because they changed its name for no reason whatsoever. Before that I was tasked with doing some compatibility testing at work between Vista, Office 2007 and all our other software (we currently use XP and Office 2003) and I absolutely hated it for the same reasons, it's all pointlessly changed. The company (not just me) found it too much hassle and haven't switched and i've actually not touched Vista since tbh.
I'll stick to what I know best, XP/Ubuntu dual boot.
They are raising the price because supporting old stuff is more expensive .. for stuff like bug and security fixes. They want their top programmers working on newer stuff not the older OS.
See how much a mechanic to maintain a Model T costs.
The Model T isn't a valid analogy: it's vintage and rare, that's why it costs so much. XP is still the most used operating system in the world, by a wide margin; it's not rare at all. No doubt they want to phase out XP, but that's not what I (and millions of people like me) want.
Wow you people really don't know how to read plain english do you. Please go back to the very start of the article. "Dell" raises costs of windows XP downgrade. Not Windows, Dell. Dell is not windows, windows is not dell. I could sell XP to a neighbor for 300$, that doesn't mean that Microsoft is screwing people over.
@ilh How slow can you be for it to take "I don't know how long" to notice they changed Add/Remove Programs to just Programs? It's not like there's that many choices to flip through. Hell, by default, Windows Vista only has 10 options in the control panel.
To me the OS is just a tool. I don't really care what it looks like as long as is works and doesn't get in my way. For everything I do, XP just works better than Vista. Areo? not needed to write code and I just turn it off. Defender / UAC / etc. gets in my way, I turn it off. Prefetch? I load Visual Studio and Word and a few other programs and leave them running until I have to reboot the machine, so it's nice, but doesn't do much for me. So for me, the annoyance of renamed and moved stuff, and the performance penalty just isn't worth it, because it doesn't do anything for me that XP doesn't do faster.
I understand that new features generally require more resources, and I'm fine with that. When I've turned off all the new bells and whistles, and it's still 25% slower than XP for I'm just not interested. I'm not alone in my organization regarding this, and for that matter within the Mcrosoft Dev organization. I've heard a lot of good things about windows 7 on the performance front, and I've also heard that the majority of MS developers are already using it for the performance enhancements as compared to Vista. I've downgraded from Vista and I'm waiting for 7.
"I'm a college student looking for a new laptop, but almost all of my media I receive digitally. I'm looking for a laptop, not a netbook, without an optical drive, and budget sensitive. The optical drive will just be a waste of space, when I can have thinner laptop. What's out there?"
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Sounds like a Microsoft Tax is catching up to the Mac Tax.
You can't really call it a "tax" if Microsoft has a newer version at a cheaper price. They're trying to phase out all of the XP licenses and convince people that XP really isn't worth the hassle. Vista came with my computer, and I haven't went back since.
Usually a higher price indicates a better or newer product.
Trying to convince us XP isn't worth the hassle? So they pointlessly change the names of everything in Vista and call it less hassle when trying to find what you're looking for? I spent I don't know how long trying to find Add/Remove programs on my sister's laptop because they changed its name for no reason whatsoever. Before that I was tasked with doing some compatibility testing at work between Vista, Office 2007 and all our other software (we currently use XP and Office 2003) and I absolutely hated it for the same reasons, it's all pointlessly changed. The company (not just me) found it too much hassle and haven't switched and i've actually not touched Vista since tbh.
I'll stick to what I know best, XP/Ubuntu dual boot.
@ilh
Well said.
@Lane
LOL... so, instead of trying to convince us with strong arguments, they triple the price? That's called forcing people, not convincing them.
They are raising the price because supporting old stuff is more expensive .. for stuff like bug and security fixes. They want their top programmers working on newer stuff not the older OS.
See how much a mechanic to maintain a Model T costs.
The Model T isn't a valid analogy: it's vintage and rare, that's why it costs so much. XP is still the most used operating system in the world, by a wide margin; it's not rare at all. No doubt they want to phase out XP, but that's not what I (and millions of people like me) want.
Wow you people really don't know how to read plain english do you. Please go back to the very start of the article. "Dell" raises costs of windows XP downgrade. Not Windows, Dell. Dell is not windows, windows is not dell. I could sell XP to a neighbor for 300$, that doesn't mean that Microsoft is screwing people over.
@ilh How slow can you be for it to take "I don't know how long" to notice they changed Add/Remove Programs to just Programs? It's not like there's that many choices to flip through. Hell, by default, Windows Vista only has 10 options in the control panel.
Agrees with ilh.
To me the OS is just a tool. I don't really care what it looks like as long as is works and doesn't get in my way. For everything I do, XP just works better than Vista. Areo? not needed to write code and I just turn it off. Defender / UAC / etc. gets in my way, I turn it off. Prefetch? I load Visual Studio and Word and a few other programs and leave them running until I have to reboot the machine, so it's nice, but doesn't do much for me. So for me, the annoyance of renamed and moved stuff, and the performance penalty just isn't worth it, because it doesn't do anything for me that XP doesn't do faster.
I understand that new features generally require more resources, and I'm fine with that. When I've turned off all the new bells and whistles, and it's still 25% slower than XP for I'm just not interested. I'm not alone in my organization regarding this, and for that matter within the Mcrosoft Dev organization. I've heard a lot of good things about windows 7 on the performance front, and I've also heard that the majority of MS developers are already using it for the performance enhancements as compared to Vista. I've downgraded from Vista and I'm waiting for 7.
@Shambles
And you think this has nothing to do with Microsoft? All of a sudden, they decide to triple the price? Yeah, right.
Ah, I see, you live in a world where Windows is made by a company called 'windows'.