if vista sucked they would buy XP and uninstall vista.

i dont think so. if you have a working system, why not use it? i wouldn't give the money away for an out-dated os which wont be supported that long. but i wouldn't buy me an os anyway.
and: how many of your family members can install a OS? my sisters cant, and my mother neither.
anyway the problem would rather be un-installing vista than installing XP :D

KetxxxThe point being made is pre-built machines are sold to people who know little to nothing about PCs in large, so they likely dont even know XP exists, or more to the point, the mass produced kit is just handed to them, pre-installed with whatever, and your average punter will just use it. More and more people are buying PCs by way of nature and the times, most of those pre-builds naturally ship with Vista, it doesnt mean Vista is better or more popular than previous OS', just that more people are buying a PC.

but the people that are like that probly wouldnt even pick xp if they could cause they would see its older and Vista looks prettier and also it probly doesnt matter to thos type of people cause they are still using the computer the way they want. My mom,dad,grandma,all the people in my family wouldnt care cause all they use computers for a typing,internet and pic. and what about all the people that got XP back when it came out on a computer they bought ?? Vista is doing better then XP thats all there is to it. and i think sells are going to drop soon for a few months and pick back up once the sp comes out. in fact once the sp comes out sells are going to rocket cause most people say they arnt getting Vista befor the SP comes out. lots more people know about torrents to so tons a copies of vista are getting pirated so if you count up all the copies that would be sold if it wasnt for torrents and tons!!!!! more

That just enforces my last point, Vista isnt genuinely more popular, more PCs than ever are just being sold due to the necessity of having one. From what I remember, XP was generally well recieved, unlike what I've seen for Vista thus far. Go read the link I gave on page 1 too, theres a lot of useful info in it.

AT-2500anyway the problem would rather be un-installing vista than installing XP :D

That's why we have things like Linux liveCD's, which have fully operational partition editors :).

I like the "use entire disk" option on Ubuntu installs :p.

I've been dabbling with dual booting, and I think that a computer should only have one operating system to manage everything. Just pick one and go with it, and you will never wonder which partition has your porn term paper :).

KetxxxVista is marketed to the masses of "common" stupid people out there, so obviously they dont know the differences and the full details behind Vista, vs say XP or Server 2008. If they did, and had read THIS writeup in full (including all given links within the writeup), I'm guessing they would of opted for XP, Server 08, or the last version of the server OS.

Ha Ha you calling me stupid?
All kidding aside the fact that its broke sells records does not mean its doing well, it means it sold alot of copies. I bought 2 copies, home premium from someone who paid and didnt have enough pc to run it and ultimate @ 80% off I have not installed on my pc yet but I will
Cuase I a common stupid person. :roll:

From my point of view MS will always make good money cos they know how to do it and in the same time UNIX-es are loosing more are more customers for many reasons.Also it`s a fact that you need money to make something better, I guess noone can beat MS about that.

OEM or not, it doesnt matter. Fact is, Microsoft has moved 40 million copies of Vista. Thats 40 million desktops of installed base to sell more Microsoft products to. (minus the tiny fraction of a percentage that have removed preinstalled versions)

wazzledoozleOEM or not, it doesnt matter. Fact is, Microsoft has moved 40 million copies of Vista. Thats 40 million desktops of installed base to sell more Microsoft products to. (minus the tiny fraction of a percentage that have removed preinstalled versions)

Trust me, it matters greatly. 40 million OEM licenses != 40 million users using Vista.

And nowhere does it say that all of these licenses are currently installed on desktops -- for all we know, 30 million of them are still sitting in Dell's and HP's headquarters, unused.

I'd imagine it's no amazing thing for Microsoft to "move" 40 million licenses of Vista -- one quick call to Dell and an electronic transfer to their servers can accomplish that. If they wanted to, this number could've been 60 million, or even 80 million. Either way, it's bullshit.

The only way you'll be able to tell how well Vista is doing (the most reliable way, at least), is to look at online browsing statistics garnered from popular websites. And, as far as I know, most statistics are showing that Vista is only being used by about 3% of computer users on the internet -- where the hell are all of these "40 million" users, if they supposely exist? Typing up Word documents?

Indeed, licenses Vs. 'copies' - its easy to sell CD keys via email to groups like dell etc, who'd use some kind of OEM master disk anyway, or even load over a network. - it doesnt mean those 4 million have reached the public.

Id say half the sales were with preconfigured pcs and the other half from folks wanting the new OS.