Monday, October 6th 2008
Microsoft Windows XP Downgrade Program Extended by Another Six Months
Windows XP, the OS that is still widely available although its Vista successor is trying to get the upper hand for more than a year, has just received another six months before going down forever. Earlier this summer, Microsoft instructed retailers to stop selling copies of Windows XP to consumers. Regardless of that customers were still able to use their lovely XP OS through a loophole that allowed them to purchase a new computer running certain version of Windows Vista and still downgrade to Windows XP for free. Originally, that option was set to expire on January 31st, 2009. Now Microsoft has extended that date by another six months, through July 31st, 2009. Recent market research shows that one third of the customers that can take advantage of the downgrade program, return to Windows XP without thinking twice. Recently Microsoft also made Windows XP licenses and support available for netbooks until 2010. With little help Windows XP could be still alive when Vista's deputy Windows 7 becomes available.
Source:
The Register
42 Comments on Microsoft Windows XP Downgrade Program Extended by Another Six Months
If the O/S came with a new fast desktop computer then I don't see why not, the problem is many laptops comes shipped with Vista with a rather slow CPU and only 1-2GB of ram, give many people an extremely and unfairly poor taste of Vista!
Vista is just a stepping stone for Windows 7, just like Windows Me was a stepping stone for Windows XP.
I'm not dislike Vista, I would stick with XP, but I want to learn new things about new OS. It's time to move on, and adopt new things.
I also agree about it not being worth it for many to upgrade to vista IF windows7 is supposed to be more compact and "modular" as is claimed.
I have also owned one of those "Vista Compatable" laptops that was mentioned but was tasked by vista.
On one side, you have all the computer manufacturers that in the beginning of Vista's life were putting out machines that barely match the Vista requirements(Slow Processor and only 512MB of RAM with a shit graphics card) and installing Vista on them. Hell, XP doesn't even run that well on 512MB. They tried to get away with what they were used to doing, and that is putting out completely crap machines that barely ran the OS and charging huge markups on them. This just put a bad tast in peoples mouths, and it has stuck.
On the other side, you have all the poeple that have never tried Vista that just constantly get told by the Internet and other sources that Vista is a resource hog, and it runs like shit, and it is buggy as all hell, and they decide, without ever actually using the OS, that they don't like it. And a lot of the time they spread the same misinformation themselves, which continues to make the problem worse. I understand the medical industry greatly, besides supporting several medial offices myself, I have a very good friend that works for a large ~20 Doctor Practice as their head of IT. When Vista came out, it was one of his main projects to test Vista with every single IT product in the building, including all their GE equipment. All if it worked, and furthermore, GE supports everthing despite their use of Vista. If you buy multi-million dollar machines from a company, they are going to support it.
Now, when Vista just arrived these systems with 512MB ram were sold everywhere, but everything has changed now. Memory is alot cheaper and there are no "bad" cpu's anymore really.
EDIT: I just saw newtekie said pretty much the exact same thing.
For the consumer sector pretty much ANYTHING but Vista basic is alright (sorry XP Home/Vista Basic, might as well not exist). newtekie1, I also completely agree with you that part of Vistas failure to begin with was the lack of hardware implemented with Vista. I have seen many systems "running" with 512mb prebundled. I've made it a general practice to install the ~$35 1gb dimm of ram on them. I've noticed after the install and reboot that vist generally takes up between 690-850mb right off the bat anyway.
Now of course, he didn't change anything existing over to Vista, but everything that is bought new is running Vista, and that is how it should be IMO. The existing equipment staying XP isn't an issue, and isn't even what this topic is about. It is about new hardware purchased.
Ours is 100% software, it would cost more to change the systems at this point than it did to get everything setup. Ohwell : (
I also have other venders fighting with Vista.