Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Adios, Windows XP

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 06-30-2008, 09:35 PM:

quote:
XP hooked users, but now it gets the hook

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008

Petitions are a time-honored political tool to save endangered species, preserve open space and agitate for change.

Now Microsoft Corp. finds itself the target of a petition drive to save - get this - a PC operating system.

Today the Redmond, Wash., software giant officially stops selling Windows XP, the program that animates millions of business and consumer PCs.

Microsoft wants to push corporate and consumer buyers toward Windows Vista, its new-and-improved program to do things like display glitzier graphics and keep spyware off the machine.

But many PC users are resisting this forced migration, and a San Francisco technology journalist has gone so far as to post a petition at SaveXP.com that has gathered 210,000 signatures.

"This is classic advocacy: If you think something's wrong, say something about it," said Galen Gruman, executive editor of InfoWorld.com, a trade publication that caters to the professionals who install and maintain corporate computer systems.

Gruman said the petitions are being sent to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who emerges now from the shadow of the retiring Bill Gates to confront an embarrassing revolt.

For instance, Intel Corp., the chipmaker that has long been Microsoft's partner in dominating the PC industry, says that while it is testing Vista "in some departments," it still uses XP.

"We have not deployed Vista across the enterprise," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

While such rebuffs may hurt Microsoft's pride, Vista's unenthusiastic reception is unlikely to put a big dent in its bottom line, especially in the roughly two-thirds of the PC market devoted to corporate computer sales.

Al Gillen, vice president of research for the market research firm IDC, explained that corporate buyers have "downgrade rights" that allow them to load Windows XP onto new PCs instead of Vista - even though they will actually pay for the newer operating system when they buy new hardware.

"For business customers, it's a nonissue," Gillen said.

But for the other 35 percent of the market, including consumers who lack "downgrade rights," the discontent could benefit rivals like Apple's Macintosh operating system and Linux, the populist software developed on the Internet and owned by no one.

"Apple is doing everything right, hammering at Microsoft on a daily basis and doing it brilliantly," said Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, a publication aimed at average users.

Michael Gartenberg, a PC industry analyst for Jupiter Research, said that by forcing customers to migrate from XP to Vista, Microsoft risks making the same mistake as the Coca-Cola Co. when it temporarily replaced its tried-and-true formula with New Coke in 1985.

"You always want to pull your customers along, you never want to push them," said Gartenberg, adding, "When people realize they're being forced to try something new anyway, a lot of them decide to try Pepsi."

Gillen, the IDC analyst, said that to a certain extent, Microsoft is the victim of its own success. "XP is a pretty good product," he said, and while Vista is arguably better, "a pretty good product can hang on for a while."

In response to its critics, Microsoft has already softened its initial posture regarding the switchover. Microsoft has said ultramobile PCs - like the new $500 laptops from Hewlett-Packard and the Taiwanese firm Asus - can be sold with XP.

Microsoft also has promised to provide extended customer support and fix bugs for Windows XP until 2014.

But the petition signatures being sent to Redmond seem unlikely to win a broader reprieve.

"We're aware of the campaign but continue to be guided by what we hear from customers and partners," Microsoft said in a statement. "And what we're hearing in the full range of feedback we're receiving is that the transition plan we've outlined makes sense."

But Gruman, the tech editor from San Francisco, said while there's not much precedent for Microsoft admitting wrong, the company has reversed itself under similar circumstances so as to make things right.

Gruman recalled that, in 2000, Microsoft pushed a similar upgrade from its Windows 98 operating system to Windows Millennium, a successor that lived just long enough to be named one of the 25 worst technology products of all time by PC World magazine.

After officially killing Windows 98, but before it was able to launch Windows XP, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition. So long as customers want XP, and Microsoft can make money selling it, Gruman asks why not.

But Ulanoff, of PC Magazine, says that if Microsoft has erred, it is being too permissive because it will have to support XP and Vista while developing its next operating system, Windows 7.

"What Microsoft tries to do with its OS is to support the world," he said.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-30-2008, 09:48 PM:

I tell ya... Vista is Windows ME all over again!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2008, 10:11 PM:

What is this "Windows 7" nonsense I keep hearing about? Why buy/illegally pirate Vista if Windows 7 is coming? Vista is already super-old.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-30-2008, 11:48 PM:

Instead of all the "improvements" that don't really do anything important, like fading windows and 3-D graphics and all that crap, why don't they just concentrate 100% of their energy on making it work properly?

I'd like to buy a product called "Windows WorksPerfectly."

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2008, 12:08 AM:

Windows 7 is supposed to have a different touch screen based interface. While the concept seems very neat, I'm sort of turned off by the idea as well. Just imagine your computer screen all smeared up with a bunch of damned finger prints. Yeah. It's a pet peeve of mine when a coworker wants to point out some element of artwork on one of my CRT monitors and insists on smearing his fingertip on the screen. Just point at it! Don't touch! Arrgh.

Microsoft is in a pretty difficult position with trying to market Vista or any other new version of Windows.

Microsoft has already been selling XP for far longer than anyone should ever have expected. I could be wrong, but it appears to me like XP has had a longer run than any previous version of Windows. A new version of Windows has been long overdue.

The trouble with Vista is it "broke" more things than it fixed. It didn't offer a sensible upgrade path since it didn't support the drivers of many peripherals and even had issues with lots of legacy XP-compatible software. My workplace has some expensive hardware (some of it brand new) that just isn't compatible with Vista because no drivers have been written for it yet. Until that happens, we're staying with XP -even if that means avoiding new computer purchases.

At the same time, the problems associated with Vista are really nothing new. Every previous version of Windows has had problems in providing backward compatibility to older software and connected devices. Vista has only gained a lot more negative publicity over the situation.

Apple has been having fun teeing off on Microsoft on the Vista deal, but Apple has never had to deal with the sort of legacy software/hardware support issues Microsoft has had to deal with over the years. Apple makes all the hardware, the OS and even a lot of the software. So they tightly control much of the platform. And when they want to release a new OS the backward compatibility issue just isn't important at all. They'll just have you dual boot two versions of MacOS for awhile until every app you own has a version compatible with the new OS. Luckily for Apple, its user base is largely made up of enthusiasts for the Mac platform and often view Apple products as a sort of fashion item. So it's not difficult to get those users to fork over lots of money on hardware and software. The much larger base of Windows users is widely varied in its attitudes -with stodgy, penny pinching businesses being a major component of it.

Microsoft is making a mistake by pulling the plug on Vista. They're screwing home users and small business users by removing XP as an option. If they want to stick Vista on every Windows-based PC, they ought to at least let users be able to dual boot a copy of XP as well. The issues with device drivers and certain kinds of software for Vista has not been completely solved.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-01-2008, 12:41 AM:

With the up and coming noise on Win7, makes one wonder if VISTA (un)fortunately became Microsoft's second "New Coke" release of an OS with WinME being their first.

-Monte

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2008, 01:38 AM:

Dell has a deal where you can have to buy Vista (your only choice)...but for $100 extra you can get it loaded with XP. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2008, 02:02 AM:

I want my MXP!

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 07-01-2008, 02:41 AM:

Actually, in the last month, I just bought a new Dell with XP on it. A friend recommended buying a Dell on-line, where you have the option of eschewing Vista. I got a great system, and I didn't have to pay anything extra. It was the same price if I got Vista.

I didn't want to get a new computer, but my old one lost a power supply and took the motherboard with it. I just needed a working computer that could run all the software I've been running. I'm glad I had the XP option. Now I basically have the same computer again ... but twice as fast, with a better graphics card. [thumbsup]

(Too bad, however, that the IDE internal hard drive I was planning on transplanting couldn't plug in--it's only 1.5 years old! No one told me everything's SATA now!) [thumbsdown]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-01-2008, 03:02 AM:

I had that same problem when I got my new Mac, all the drives were SATAN and not IDE. Fortunately I already had the cabling to make the transfer a snap.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 07-01-2008, 03:07 AM:

Yep, I had to go the USB route, too. I, however, did NOT have those cables on hand. Would have been nice to know before the package arrived.

I'm going to stick with XP until this computer goes. After that, if Vista is all that's around, I'm finally going to go Mac and get the ProTools rig I always dreamed of. I just don't want to hear my Mac friends I-told-you-so-ing me like all my cellphone friends did when I got my first cellphone.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2008, 03:09 AM:

Joe, I LUV the drywall (or foamcore?)...nice touch! [beer]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-01-2008, 03:13 AM:

You'd love it even more now. The drywall eventually became unusable so I had to replace it with, ummm, this:

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-01-2008, 03:15 AM:

[thumbsup]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-01-2008, 04:08 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
If they want to stick Vista on every Windows-based PC, they ought to at least let users be able to dual boot a copy of XP as well.

Which is precisely what I do - I have Vista Ultimate x64, XP Pro x86 (for backwards compatibility) and Ubuntu x64 on three partitions on both my desktop and laptop. However, setting that up was not simple or straightforward - if you're not comfortable partitioning hard drives, editing the bootloader, installing device drivers etc., you're not going to be able to do that. Added to which is the fact that I can buy copies of Windows at a massive discount through the university at which I work - most people don't have that option, and for them buying two licences isn't going to be cheap, either. In other words, unless you're a bit of computer geek who is prepared to spend quite a bit of money, you're not going to be able to do this.

Agreed entirely that if MS had any sense they'd actively encourage (through competitive pricing) PC manufacturers to develop dual boot images and sell computers with a Vista/XP dual boot setup. After all XP must have more than recouped its research and development costs by now, so any further copies they sell must represent more-or-less pure profit (minus a small level of ongoing support costs).

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-01-2008, 05:16 AM:

I thought Dell was inundated with people sending back computers to have Vista surgically removed?? Louis

Posted by Patrick de Groot (Member # 858) on 07-01-2008, 05:27 AM:

Everyone who has a license of Vista Business (and Ultimate) may use XP legally. The question is how will you put XP on your computer? The casual user will have troubles with this. You have to get the correct SATA driver and put it on a floppy (yes an old 3,5" disk...), get a usb floppy drive and press F6 during setup. Another option is to integrate the driver on your install CD with nLite (great program). If you do not do this the XP setup program won't see any hard disk at all.
An easier solution is to disable "SATA Native Mode" in the bios at the cost of some hard disk performace.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-01-2008, 06:57 AM:

Microsoft, IMHO, is making a huge mistake. They have a successful product that people want/like. What manufacturer wouldn't want that? They have a product that most do not want or need...yet they feel the need to force people to it.

There is no reason to force the discontinuation of XP. Microsoft's practice is one of a monopolistic company. It would not surprise me to see the governments to get involved on this. Forcing a person/entity to purchase a product that they do not want can only be viewed as monopolistic. There just isn't any more realistic choice out there for computer platforms...Yes there is Linux and Macs but be realistic...PCs with Windows is BY FAR the most installed base. I've been using Macs since 1984 like many others....Myself, I only own Macs but at work I use PCs...my wife's laptop is a PC. The cinema industry only writes programs for PCs. Way back when I was in college...I used my Macs to program....PCs. My senior project was a graphics card that only worked in PCs (back when Win 3.xx was current...it used the TIGA interface).

As the PC market has matured, the need/desire to upgrade has deminished as the new features only seem desirable to progressively fewer people. For the most part...people just want a stable operating system that works...as glitch free as possible. Those of us that lived through DOS saw it happen there....after 3.x came out...it went into a slow-down...DOS 5 was pretty good for me...but then Microsoft felt the need to go to 6.XX and at first what a nightmare it was. I know many that did not go beyond 3.2 or 5.0 (4 was short lived).

As Windows matured...it took until 3.0 before it started to become more stable...and then Windows 95 before it behaved more like an operating system than a program running under DOS. Then Win98 made some decent improvements over Win95 but not necessarily essential to have...until Win98 second edition. Then WinXP came out...again not essential to have, at first..in fact XP, at first, meant Xtra Problems. Then it seemed to become MUCH more stable and programs were written to run on XP and it too became essential.

Just where is the essentialness to Vista? It seems like software manufacturers are making patches to their programs just so they will run under the stupid thing. XP, by and large, has been stable for me since we made the switch (not when it first came out). In fact, I'm not too sure about SP3 being such a great idea and I had some problems after it was loaded on my puter by our "IT guy." SP2 always worked pretty well for me.

When I have something that works, I like to stick with it. Heck, I have a MAC runining OS 7.1 and Word 5.2 (Mac SE/30, that I've had since it was a mere Mac SE in 1988) because they are just that stable. At the end of the day, I want something that works...more than something that has features that I neither need nor want.

If Microsoft was not working in a monopolistic environment...this Vista debacle SHOULD be the door that other manufacturers could capitalize on.

Steve

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2008, 08:44 AM:

There are lots and lots of new copies of OEM XP Pro out there still for purchase so obtaining a copy should be pretty easy for quite some time.

Mark

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2008, 09:01 AM:

I think Apple has been trying to capitalize on the issue. But Apple has NEVER understood just how difficult it is to migrate from the Windows platform over to Mac.

You're not just buying Apple branded computing hardware at a significant premium. You get to buy all of your applications all over again, if they're all available. Some of your existing peripherals may not work with a Mac. You get to deal with problems in opening and editing documents and other files you created on PC. There's even lots of problems with the damned fonts! Adobe is one of very few companies that have been making any serious efforts to deal with those issues.

I thought it was pretty cool for Apple to switch over to using Intel processors in their systems. That made it possible for users to natively run both WinXP and OSX in the same machine without any performance robbing emulation. It gave users who were serious about the PC>Mac switch an actual transition path rather than the far less practical solution. Now with Microsoft pulling the plug on XP that sort of changes the situation.

Can a Intel-based Mac dual boot Vista and OSX? The first service pack for Vista was released earlier this year, and that was supposed to address a lot of the problems. If previous history still can be used as a valid example to follow, it might be worth waiting for Vista SP2. WinXP didn't really "mature" until the SP2 release. Win98 wasn't all that great until OSR2.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
There are lots and lots of new copies of OEM XP Pro out there still for purchase so obtaining a copy should be pretty easy for quite some time.

I wonder how long Microsoft will allow those discs to be activated. Oh the joys of software that phones home for validation.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-01-2008, 09:22 AM:

And that article quotes an expert that "Apple doesn't push their customers." This is like some Apple fanboys making fun of Vista by saying "You should never have to upgrade your hardware just to upgrade the OS" which I found all sorts of ironic considering that OS X no longer supports G3's and most G4's (owners of those had to upgrade their hardware to upgrade the OS).

Note: I know those are old, obsolete now and probably would need to be upgraded anyway; just pointing out the hypocrisy of the statement.

2nd note: Not saying I'm a fan of Vista (it's crap).

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-01-2008, 10:42 AM:

You've got to admit that, even though it hasn't always been foolproof, Apple has gone to lengths to make sure that software is as backward-compatible as it can be.

When OS 9 was upgraded to OS X they already had Carbon in place so that compliant apps would just run in OS X without much trouble. Non-compliant apps could still be run by dual booting. They also had the classic layer in which OS 9 apps could be run without having to reboot into OS 9.

When they changed to the Intel processor Apple created Rosetta which allows PPC-based apps to be translated to the Intel.

There are always times when improvements in operating system features make backward compatibility impossible but Apple has tried to ensure that everything is compatible as it can be.

Just last night, I ran the old "VR MakePano" Quicktime program I downloaded from Apple's developer site in 1999. Worked perfectly!

Try to run 10 year old software with Vista! [Wink]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2008, 10:58 AM:

Don't know about Vista, but lots of ancient applications can run on XP.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-01-2008, 11:19 AM:

They already removed the classic layer though. Classic is not supported in Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, or on Intel Macs.

Though I disagree that Apple has tried to make things be as backwards compatible as they can be. I believe they make things as backwards compatible as they want it to be. Originally, they NEEDED the compatibility to get people to even consider purchasing OS X. But now the vast majority of users who have OS X have gotten it through a new computer so the backwards compatibility need is nowhere near as great.

Note: I'm not blaming them for doing this. I just hate hypocrites who make get mad at one company for doing something that their favorite company does already.

edit: And I'm not referring to you, Randy, as one of the hypocrites; just to be clear. [Smile]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2008, 11:27 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I wonder how long Microsoft will allow those discs to be activated. Oh the joys of software that phones home for validation.

In the past its typically been up to the time MS stops all updates and support for a given OS. That has been two to three years with past OS's.
Mark

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-01-2008, 11:32 AM:

They've said they're supporting XP up until 2013 so that sounds like XPs gonna be the longest-supported OS by them ever.

Plus, they're still having XP installed on new embedded computers for niche markets. So that helps push them to keep it supported.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2008, 11:37 AM:

Gee, thats a year past when the Inca's predicted the end of the earth... so thats a good thing. XP-Pro till the end of time [thumbsup]

.

Mark

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-01-2008, 11:46 AM:

pfft, 3.11 for workgroups is much better than XP

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2008, 12:19 PM:

Please explain how Win 3.11 is better than XP in specifics.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-01-2008, 05:07 PM:

He's just jivin'

quote: Bobby Henderson
Can a Intel-based Mac dual boot Vista and OSX?

Yes, has been able to since day one.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-01-2008, 05:24 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Please explain how Win 3.11 is better than XP in specifics.

- has "hot dog stand" color scheme
- runs (and crashes!) on a 386
- umm...

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-02-2008, 10:01 AM:

Yes but you have the option of the "Hot Dog Stand" color scheme in XP Pro as well... or the Microsoft Lawn...

Mark

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-02-2008, 01:00 PM:

quote: Chris Slycord
Originally, they NEEDED the compatibility to get people to even consider purchasing OS X.

You're right. They did need to be backward compatible to keep people from jumping ship. And they will only keep it up as long as they think it's commercially viable.

But, overall, I think Apple has been a lot more compatible in many ways than MS has ever been. I'm not a blind fan of Apple. I do have criticism of the way they do things. But I think Microsoft has been a lot more abusive of their customers in the planned obsolescence department than just about anybody I can think of.