Is Windows Vista in Trouble? 879
Ken Erfourth writes "The Inquirer.net is running a story about what they consider two powerful indications that Vista is failing in the marketplace. One, Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand. Two, Microsoft is conducting a worldwide firesale on a bundle of Microsoft Office 2007/WindowsXP Starter Edition. According to Inquirer.net, at least, these are signs of serious problems selling Vista. Are we seeing the stumbling of the Microsoft Juggernaught with the slow adoption of Windows Vista?"
Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
With Vista, there is no compelling useful feature for users, and much of the content added is particularly ANTI-user. So why upgrade?
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policeware [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:4, Funny)
"Most secure Windows® ever"
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Im quietly confident that in 5 years time, when Vistas replacement is released, it will all happen again.
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you heard that. It's what people who had Windows 2000 said, and a heck of a lot of them stayed with Win2k. There really wasn't any compelling reason to move to XP.
But there were a LOT of people running Windows 98/ME. For them, Windows XP was a huge, meaningful upgrade. They all went with WinXP, either as an upgrade, or as part of a new hardware purchase.
With Windows Vista, there doesn't seem to be any substantial group for whom a compelling reason to upgrade exists.
None the less, maybe you're right; in five years we'll all be running Vista SE, Service Pack 3, Trademark, All rights reserved. It'll be the only platform to access Windows Live, so it's gotta sell!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm quietly confident that in 5 years time I will have more Linux machines than I do now. As far as I am concerned, they've already failed. As for the rest of the world, you're almost certainly right. They'll do fine.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why Upgrade at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista next patch (Score:3, Interesting)
This patch will solves Windows Vista compatibility issues. It will install Virtual PC 2007, along with a Windows XP images. It will also modify the registry to run the Virtual PC on start up as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It was trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
they're in even more trouble since they haven't said a word about their next version of windows..
Re:It was trouble (Score:5, Funny)
They were just waiting for hardware performance to catch up.
Re:It was trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
I could see delaying release for 3 years becuase they wnated to perfect some brand new must-have feature, but the product that was delivered was simply anti-climatic to say the least.
Re:It was trouble (Score:5, Funny)
The 'wow' starts now! How can you not get excited about that??
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest problem comes from shareholders (Score:3, Insightful)
$5bn development costs might not be huge for MS, but it is still a wad of money and shareholders are going to want to see some benefit for their investment. Most shareholders will probably be wondering why MS spent $5bn when the masses would rather have XP, and anyone buying a new PC would have bought XP if they didn't buy Vista. In other words, for the shar
Even more so... (Score:5, Insightful)
That extra three years XP became more entrenched each day. Every time somebody installed a new printer or upgraded their wireless or beat their way through a software install, the compatibility bar for vista got higher. Every time someone new installed XP, the breakthrough point for widespread adoption of Vista got higher too. Each time XP gained share the leverage of having everyone on the same plan became more apparent as the pool of people you could exchange files with grew. Every time somebody bit their lip and bought a hugely expensive new program in the faint hope it would install and run correctly and be compatible with their extant setup and not be lame, the cost of upgrading to vista grew higher again. Even the negatives of some of these things forewarned people that change can be very bad and unnecessary change can be dumb when things go horribly wrong as they sometimes do over the simplest things.
XP isn't perfect and it doesn't have to be. XP works reliably enough for most people to do what they want to do most of the time. They've grown comfortable with their XP setups and invested heavily in padding their XP nests. To abandon that for a whole new Vista that doesn't have any of their expensive software or work with their expensive peripherals or just won't do what they've done each day for years or isn't quite interoperable with their friends' just isn't going to fly unless there is a compelling reason. A new desktop theme is not compelling enough for most people. For that level of sacrifice people want real change.
Get real (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like Microsoft, and I gleefully read all about Vista's "innovations" and the Zune's "features" and laugh. But this article is just a little too opinionated to make worthwhile.
But there is a precedent for this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean those people who are asking Dell to ship computers with XP and Linux instead?
Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
I have 2 machines, a vista one and an XP one (plus an XP laptop). The Vista PC is newer, so i can't do an apples and apples comparison, but still, my impression is that Vista feels nicer, slicker, more responsive and faster than XP.
Like most versions of windows, it's hard to really put my finger on a single 'killer app' that makes Vista better, but as a user, the overalle xperience just feels more polished.
I *had* to get a vista machine, to do compatility tests for my games, but I certainly don't regret doing so. I'd be suprised if many end users who get an O/S with a new PC, who aren't uber geeks will go out of their way to ask for the earlier operating system, especially as any new machine will run vista fine.
I know lots of people have a beef with various aspects of Vista, but they don't bother me. I don't watch downloaded movies on my PC, I use it for gaming and surfing and developing, so the DRM that may be in it doesn't bother me personally.
Apart from anything, Vista is more likely to be safer, as XP will now be ignroed in terms of patching exploits.
Vista will win in the long term. it might be longer than the short-termists who write magazine articles are used to, but in 3-4 years from now, it will seem funny to have written off vista.
Microsoft aren't as strong as they used to be, Google has seen to that, and I doubt they would attempt to do an even more bloated expensive O/S after vista, but I also doubt there will be any long term problems in its takeup.
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, it will eventually - vista hasn't been out long enough for the restrictions to become obvious and troublesome.
As for vista "winning" in the long term, I do believe that vista will become the dominant home-user OS because of forced integration (no more OEM sales of XP and EOL date for XP) than for any other reason.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So allow me to illustrate an apples to apples comparison. Friend of mine orders a new PC. It's "Vista Capable" so it comes with the damned system pre-installed. 3.4GHz CPU and 512MB RAM. The complaints of the sluggishness are near endless. I go over there to see what all I can
Here's the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Here's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhhh...Because they are a monopoly that was convicted of using their monopoly position in an illegal manner. Given that people still want to buy XP, and that they can sell it at a considerable profit, one must then ask why they would not be willing to sell it to an eager public. The answer entail vendor lock in. This is a problem for a monopoly that has been convicted of anti-competitive behavior.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here's the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there is no way in hell it qualifies as anything illegal on the part of microsoft. No one should ever be compelled to continue to sell a product they no longer wish to.
It does maybe finally raise the cause/issue of abandonware to the forefront.
Copyright is designed to protect authors from competition so that they have the exclusive right to profit from their creation. The idea is that it benefits society to give authors the ability to exclusively profit from their creations for a "reasonable" period of time, as an incentive to create interesting new works.
I'm all for preserving the rights of authors to profit from their work, should they choose to exercise that right. But if an author decides they are no longer interested in selling that work, I don't see any reason to prevent the work falling into the public domain. After all, if the author has 'abandoned' the work, why should the public be denied access to it?
The average author can't and doesn't abuse this. If they release a book, it sells well, and they decide to release another book, great. Presumably people will find the new book interesting and buy it. And In general, except where there are annoying legal/contract conflicts, as long as there is adequate demand for a copy protected book the market will ensure it gets reprinted and sold. Rarely do authors write a book, and then refuse to reprint it regardless of demand, so historically its not really a problem.
But Microsoft and software developers in general abuse that 'feature' of copyright. They release a program, and then down the road after it has been successful they release another one, while simultaneously dropping the first one. Now, normally, this works out ok, as people generally want the new version anyway... but sometimes they don't. They still want the old version. And the software companies refuse to sell it to create artificial demand for the new version.
What rationale is there for allowing this. If microsoft doesn't want to sell/support XP, that's fine. But then copyright should pass into the public domain. If Microsoft doesn't want to exercise their right to profit from the software, that's fine, but that's no reason to keep it out of the public's hands.
We as society GIVE Microsoft the exclusive right to profit from Windows XP to incent them to write Windows XP.
We didn't give them that right just to be denied access to XP when they felt it would be even more profitable to herd us into buying Vista when what we want is XP.
We GAVE them the right to profit from Windows. If they're response is to stop selling it despite high demand. Our response SHOULD BE to put Windows (and other abandoned titles) into the public domain. Of course, Microsoft, and any company for that matter faced with the prospect of having their IP seized and put into the public domain when they could still wring a profit out of it would of course respond by continuing to sell it until they could no longer wring any profit from it. And that is as it should be.
No, It's Not (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows users will buy new machines, and get Vista "real soon now." The number of users that switch will be nominal. No harm done to Microsoft.
As much as the media may want it to be, there is no competition in a market with a Monopoly.
Re:No, It's Not (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come on, I think there is. I can think of several off the top of my head; Snakes & Ladders, Hungry Hungry Hippoes, Cluedo, etc.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
The Market is Saturated - little room for growth (Score:5, Insightful)
This does not mean MS or Vista are washed-up. It just means it is a mature market. MS and Vista are actually sitting pretty. They will continue to see 90+ percent of new computers running their stuff for the foreseeable future. But they simply won't have double-digit growth year over year, just a steady torrent of replacements.
Why wouldn't it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Vista in trouble? Why wouldn't it be? Even if Microsoft gave the thing away for free, it totally ignores the fact that there's an enormous cost [auckland.ac.nz] to upgrading. Microsoft doesn't need a fire sale, it needs to be paying people to install this thing.
Let's run down the usual suspects of people who upgrade and see how they feel:
I could go on, but you get the point. Is Vista in trouble? You bet. Add to all of the above the competition that it faces from various Linux distributions that are easier than ever to install and use, products like Mac OS, clever new projects such as ReactOS [reactos.org], and even its own predecessor! and it becomes clear that Microsoft should be praying that people pirate it, because that's the only way it's going to make any kind of splash when all is said and done.
Don't get me wrong, it won't die completely, any more than Windows ME is dead. But in the annals of operating systems, my money is that it will be merely a blip on the screen. If Microsoft is smart, it should be working on adding features to its operating system, making it faster and more powerful and easier to use. It should be fighting with us against DRM, not against us by crippling their software with it.
Personally, I think that Microsoft is not very smart, but who knows, I guess we'll see. At any rate, after giving it a week to try to convince me that it's not as bad as everyone says it is, I was very disappointed in it and won't be running it anytime in the forseeable future.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"The emerging home entertainment market hates it. Let's not mince words: One of Vista's primary design goals is Digital Rights "Management," keeping these people from doing what they want to do. Why would buy software that takes functionality away!!?"
Which functionality is taken away? IIRC, the only DRM in Vista is there to enable playback of DRM-enabled media. (I.e. HD-DVD/BluRay) It's
Functionality taken away (Score:5, Informative)
No, but average consumers don't know that. The "Cost of Vista [auckland.ac.nz]" article points out some fantastic ways in which functionality is effectively being taken away from consumers. Here's an excerpt close to the front of the article:
In other words, a consumer who has high-end audio setup thinking that they're going to be able to listen to the latest and greatest in A/V home theater technology will be sadly disappointed. The discs aren't broken, the hardware isn't broken, and no AVI files have been infected, but the end result is the same: Functionality that the user has paid for and reasonably expects to work doesn't. It's been taken away.
Re:Why wouldn't it be? (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it hard to believe that many gamers actually want Vista instead of XP. Here are a few reasons why:
Are they crying loudly for Vista drivers? Sure, because some of them have made the mistake of getting Vista, most likely by buying a new PC that didn't give them the opportunity for getting XP, and most of them would rather spend the $200 retail for a new copy of XP on some system component. But, like I said, most gamers I know aren't crying to manufacturers; they're simply avoiding Vista like the plague.
Say, though, since you bring it up, and now that I've told you why the gamers I know are avoiding Vista, exactly why do you think that "most of them want to get vista"? What is it about Vista that's better than Windows XP?
OEM Licensing (Score:5, Funny)
There's a VISTA PC on my desk (Score:4, Funny)
Even I don-t touch it because the fan is noisy, all that eye candy and gloss and the noisy fan outweighs it.
I'm typing this on Feisty Fluffer, no Funky Feaster, no Finkle Fungerstein, oh whatever the latest Ubuntu is called. It's far from perfect, the keyboard layout doesn't know the Spanish keyboard I have (where are those damn brackets_ and why is the question mark an underscore__). The typefaces are not as good as Windows, the status bar is too high and the icons too amateur, but so far 2 people have asked me for a copy of the disk.
So yes Vista is in trouble, big big trouble. It-s a big yawn, it's late and the stories we hear of privileges being determined by filename etc. mean I just don-t want to waste time with it.
Re:There's a VISTA PC on my desk (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, If I had my choice, it would be a MacOS or a Ubuntu laptop. But I specifically requested a Vista laptop so I could evaluate our software on it (it seems fine).
The thing is, other than some fairly trivial eye candy, there is nothing here that is a must have for users. The thing that was great about the Win2K upgrade from NT was that the horrible instability of NT4 was fixed. Vista at first blush is a lot like the Win 2K to XP upgrade -- basically eye candy as far as most users are concerned. But unlike XP, Vista comes with a pretty hefty sacrifice in RAM and CPU. So it feels like a bit of a downgrade.
Much of what we'd really like to know about Vista lies in the future. The great fault of NT4 was stability. The great fault of 2K and XP were security. If Vista, in the long term, proves more secure than XP, then it will be a worthwhile sacrifice of RAM and all will be forgiven. For now, savvy users are not counting on it in the short term. Vista was a horribly late project pushed out the door. It introduces many new technologies, none of which are particularly important to users, which add massive complexity to the product. Both these argue for a bumpy start.
Overall, I'm pleased with this Vista machine because it has enough RAM and power to run to OS adequately.
What do you mean (Score:5, Funny)
They've already sold 244 copies in China!
It'll be easy to tell on Thursday (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It'll be easy to tell on Thursday (Score:5, Insightful)
And for each person who complained, how many did not, but just took their business elsewhere? Personally, I did both.
Dell is smart enough to know the relationship between complaints and lost sales. Hint: it's not a one-to-one relationship.
Even on sale, it's still overpriced (Score:3, Interesting)
Seemed kind of fitting that the "failing OS" was one of the few remaining items on the shelf within a failing computer store.
Outrageous Pricing Maybe? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is XP is an UPGRADE over Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
So they bought a copy of XP and reinstalled. 3D looked like what a top of the line card should be able to do and dialup worked. Performance in general was vastly improved. Still had the 2GB memory limit though, probably not much to there except go to a 64bit system and suffer the issues involved with that... not worth it.
Yes most of their problem was probably driver related. Doesn't matter, Vista is now facing the same problem we Linux users deal with every day. Users don't want to hear excuses, if the OS doesn't work with their hardware NOW they don't want to hear "maybe it will work someday". Especially since right now it doesn't appear a Vista user has any good options. NVidia doesn't perform well, ATI doesn't even have a DX10 hard out and Intel only has low end onboard stuff.
Three years late and they still couldn't manage to bully the key hardware players to have proper support available for launch. Doesn't sound like an 800lb gorilla to me. This fiacso is going to be long remembered.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In XP you can up your limit to 3 GB by using the
XP will be gone at the end of the Year (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the problem is that there was not enough support for Vista ( a lot of people ran into problems with drivers ).
Basically MS got some of the pressure off of them to put a new OS out. Early adopters get to be the guinea pigs while the rest of us wait for the major problems to be fixed.
Microsoft sucess is its failure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Vista. XP. Who Cares? (Score:3, Informative)
History repeats itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Those of you old enough to remember, and yet who can't even recall MSDOS 4.0, will immediately know what I mean.
For those of you who are too young, MSDOS 4.0 was a tremendous flop. MSDOS 3.3 was used pretty much continuously from its release in 1987 until it MSDOS 5.0 came out in 1991, and even then, I ran into machines running v.3.3 for years afterwards. Version 4.0 was buggy and bloated while adding virtually nothing in the way of useful features, and the market reacted with a resounding yawn.
Microsoft, it should be remembered, was the dominant OS vendor in 1987, but it was not a monopoly yet. There were still plausible alternatives (then as now, technically superior). Microsoft is the dominant OS vendor in 2007, but its monopoly is crumbling, and all it will take is one gigantic screwup for competitors to move in. Vista is a gigantic screwup, just like MSDOS 4.0.
This could be good news for Linux, great news for Apple, and freaking fantastic news for ODF, especially if MS takes as long to recover from Vista as they did from DOS 4.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I said "Yes" before, but I'm changing my mind (Score:3, Interesting)
The only way Microsoft will be in serious trouble is if they start losing overall OEM sales to competition like Apple or the various Linux distributions. I suppose they would be in trouble if they don't expand any further either, but then again, that's why they're branching out of the desktop and servers and going into things like video games and digital cable boxes.
Overestimated the audience they tailored (Score:3, Interesting)
MS for years has built a audience that was willing to accept good enough. With XP for many MS finally delivered "good enough", Its fairly stable, acceptably easy to use and has more features than the average user has any need for. Though there are some nice new features with Vista the important ones are not ones that are noticable to the novice. The only compelling selling point for Joe Average is the eye candy which was "good enough" in XP for most and is stripped out of the affordable versions of Vista anyway. The lack of bells and whistles on the low end versions of Vista coupled with mostly fud articles on backwards compatability plus the much publicized DRM issues scares off a large portion of their target audience. If home users arent upgrading you can bet that businesses are going to drag their heels as well. Sadly I dont see this as being something that will move people to Linux in the immediate future, it does buy Linux developers time to make more inroads towards usability, ease of install and buzz, all of which need improvement and can lead to increased market share.
You got it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I've always read that it has more to do with the fact that (cane) sugar is substantially cheaper than corn syrup/beat sugar. As such, most places outside of the US use cane sugar. The reason the US uses corn syrup is because we have high tariffs on imported cane sugar - enough so that corn syrup/beat sugar is more economically viable in the states.
I am willing to be corrected, however.
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
But Coca-Cola had already switched most of its bottlers to high fructose corn syrup before the formula changed. So...the conspiracy theory about sugar vs. high fructose corn syrup really doesn't make sense.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting tidbit: high-fructose corn syrup suppresses Leptin secretion, so you don't feel full even after consuming 1000 calories from it. Compare how full you feel after drinking 3 beers, vs. 3 cokes. This crap is probably responsible for a lot of the obesity on this continent.
Corn Syrup in US b/c of sugar tarriffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Every Jew gets to realize this during Passover, as all our corn syrup products are unavailable to us for a week. In f
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Bah, it's still not the real Coca-Cola until they put the cocaine back!
Re:You got it wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Vista: the New Coke of software? (Score:3)
Are we looking at Windows ME: Next Generation?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista on the other hand, is nothing but trouble. No significant improvement in performance (at least not for my media production apps) and the nightmare of DRM. The juice just isn't worth the squeeze.
As I've said before, if Microsoft had released a bunch of incremental improvements to XP pro, and an updated UI, called it "XP 2007" or something, they'd have had a hit on their hands. But by fouling it up with a bunch of nonsense, then trying to put a gun to our heads with "DX10", they've made me mad enough to say "enough". There may be a day when I decide to use that license for Vista Home Premium that came with my latest computer, but it won't be until I can find instructions for disabling all the DRM and until all the various audio and video hardware and software have drivers or are patched to work with Vista. And not just work, but work better than they did under XP. Until then, I'll stay with XP Pro SP2.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
DirectX 10 is the only reason I bothered to get Vista. But it appears that games taking advantage of DX10 are at least a few months away, and games that *require* DX10 are likely not going to show up for a couple of years at least. So until DX10 becomes necessary for a mainstream game, I don't see much interest in a majority of home users for Vista.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's great, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's great, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know there is a lot of ignorance and lack of understanding in the tech journalism, but for people that have or 'had' to actually work with or understand Vista know that this is not the case.
There is quite a list of things that Vista does and that only can be currently done in Vista.
Since you mention graphics, I'll just mention the few main items.
Vista implements a full Vector based Composer
Vista implements GPU Scheduling (pre-empti
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My experience is that in general Macs *with* the fancy UI took less resources than XP without. I hav
Re:Now if only... (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that all that nagware crap subsidizes the cost of the hardware, don't you? All that crap is exactly why Dells are worth buying. One wipe, which I'd be doing anyways, and it's all gone.
Re:Now if only... (Score:5, Informative)
So you would wipe it with the cd dell gives you...
Vista and XP activation is your first level of DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft actually weaned me off when they started requiring "activation." So even XP isn't attractive to me — it has the same basic problem as Vista does. I run XP from time to time to verify web pages and test software, but it's in a network-free sandbox when I do. I run win98 the same way - no network - and no activation inside a sandbox (Parallels.) I don't use either one as my main OS, and I certainly have no intention of ever purchasing Vista, just to buy into the same set of risks all over again.
What happens when an XP system needs re-installation and I can't get an activation for any reason? As far as I'm concerned, if I buy it, I expect to install it, perhaps put a registration code in that will work each and every time without ever having to contact the manufacturer, and that's it. I'll grant you that it seems unlikely today that Microsoft won't be there in a few years, but will they activate an XP installation? That's a policy decision, and there's just no telling what that policy will be. I'm not hitching my cart to their policy decisions.
Whatever Vista offers, it isn't enough. I have plenty of functionality between linux and OSX, and I can run both concurrently, as is convenient. If either one ever fails, I'll just grab my install CDs and I'll be up and running in a reasonable amount of time. The rule of thumb here is (a) software on CD or DVD, and (b) registration codes, if any, sealed in the jewel case in a readable fashion.
I remember trying to re-install a screen saver (some very pretty aquarium simulation) and finding out that it wouldn't install, claiming I was trying to install it on multiple machines (I wasn't.) I wrote the company several emails about it (they were still around) and they never replied, nor would the screen saver ever work again. I was annoyed, as you might expect. But if this had been the OS instead of just a $30 screen saver, I'd have been pissed at about the nuclear level. This is exactly the risk everyone faces with XP and Vista.
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows Vista, or MeII as they dubbed it is a nightmare. It's the only OS I've ever wanted to throw out a window. To give you some perspective, I usually like new Microsoft operating systems. Indulge me in being a karma whore for a minute:
"These two actions by Microsoft are proof of what I suggested three years ago. Microsoft has lost its ability to twist arms, and now it is going to die. It can't compete on level ground, so is left with backpedalling and discounts of almost 100 times."
I like t
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's alternatives would include giving all remaining XP users a refund (not feasible, even for them) and setting up an automatic approval server or other mechanism that would allow XP to be activated without troubling them. Unfortunately, that would make piracy even more trivial, and XP will continue to be usable (if a bit insecure) for years to come.
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so it comes with a free botnet or other zombified software pre-installed, but at least it:
a) never requires an activation
b) is probably safer as the commercially available Vista
c) might even have *gasp* some levels (or ALL levels) of DRM disabled
Ok, ok, so I'm being saracastic... still... is it only me, or does Windows mainly survive BECAUSE of the pirates, and not vice-versa ?
I mean... hell... if everybody that had XP (or will have Vista in the future) would have to actually PAY for it... how many computers with Windows ** would be around on the net ? My guess is, significantly less.
Oh, and you can bet your ass that whoever has a pirated copy of Windows *WOULDN'T* have bought it anyway.
On second thought, maybe the FOSS community should support the fight against software piracy more actively
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. What if "Susan" says "no, you can't have a code?" You're shit outta luck, that's what!
Re:Vista and XP activation is your first level of (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that sounds good, doesn't it. It's difficult to think ahead years at a time. However, I've already been down the road. I've got win98 machines, no longer networked, that are doing various things. They work fine, no particular need to fuss with them. Microsoft stopped supporting them - meaning no security updates, no nothing - fairly recently. In 1998 that didn't seem like much of a threat. Today, it means they can't safely be on the Internet. There's no recourse other than upgrading them, but if they fail, reinstall requires no interaction with Microsoft.
Having gone from brand new win98 install to "no longer supported", I tend to think in terms of "what happens?" when the latest and greatest thing of today is discarded, as win98 was. It'll happen; you can count on it. As I said in the original post, since activation is required for a reinstall, and activation, even today, is based on Microsoft policy, you are tying yourself to the whim of whoever sets that policy a few years down the road.
Do you think in five years, when Vista's been out all that time, that they'll re-activate copies of XP? They might, but where is the certainty? And then when Vista is 10 years old and HooHaOS is the latest and greatest, will they reactivate Vista? You seem to think so, while I observe that the fact is I'd have to guess. In the end, I'm not willing to tie the continued functioning of my computers to a guess about Microsoft's future policies. To be frank, I don't trust them.
OSX will work for me as long as the computer does and I keep track of the install disks. Linux will work for me as long as the computer does and I have disks. Hell, I've still got a couple of machines running AmigaOS, and Commodore is long since nipples-north. XP and Vista will work as long as Microsoft lets it, and as long as they are around to let it. After that, one crash, and you're dead in the water -- you must migrate to something else, regardless of what compatibility problems and other inconveniences (like spending money) that may cause you. See the conceptual difference?
Activation is literally Digital Rights Management, where the concept is, you don't have ANY right to reinstall your software. That right belongs to Microsoft and is entirely subject to Microsoft policy, as well as their existence. My reaction to that is unprintable.
Keeping WIN98SE going, and going, and... (Score:4, Interesting)
98SE, behind a standard router, with FF, is "safe enough" to use online, constantly. For one thing, how many virus writers are still actively targetting 98SE? In the past year, I have seen several serious virus warnings, all of which concluded with these words: "Windows 9x is not affected by this attack." to which I just smile, smugly.
98SE is a snap to reinstall if/when the thing blows up beyond repair. Unfortunately, the WindowsUpdate site is becoming very buggy! Many times, it thinks I'm using a Mac! What's with THAT? Reload, reload, reload, ah, there it goes! That's the typical pattern. I suspect that someone at MS has been tinkering with the site deliberately, to annoy the crap out of die-hards like myself who insist on keeping *fully functional* systems running as long as possible.
Vista? Yeah, that's the "New ME", alright. "Mistake Edition". They can keep it.
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That said, yes, the nasty activation crap has repelled me for some time. I have enough legit licenses, it's just that they don't necessarily go with the hardware on which they're now running. Plus I like to use one image for everything, so that when a machine goes wonky, I can just reimage it and restore the user data.
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Oooh, and then when they brought out the Apple IIx [apple-history.com]. The idea of having colors, that was exciting. I remember the first time my siblings and I booted that sucker up. We all went "WoW" at the pretty colors. It was amazing.
I'd keep going, but my brain would fry from nostalgia.
There were some Quadras in there, a Centris, a Performa, a straight up Powermac or two, and eventual
Actually... no (Score:5, Insightful)
When 95 came out, people were literally storming the stores. There were geeks camping outside like it's some sneak-rare-midnight-preview of Star Wars 7. There were people buying it that even didn't have a computer 'cause it was supposedly SO cool you had to have it.
98 was originally more a downer, even though it did add new features and fixed a lot of problems. And the "SE" of it surely showed that it was superior to its predecessor and soon became the clearly superior system to 95.
ME was a desaster. For many reasons. First of all, it was essentially Win98. Second, pretty much all the new gadgets that separated it from 98 were buggy, flawed or simply useless and nobody wanted them. Most had all 3 features. And finally, 2k was around the corner.
2k was a definite improvement, over both, WinNT4.0 and Win98. It was the merge of the simplicity and compatibility of 98 and the stability (you there, stop that snickering, will you?) of NT4. It certainly was a key cornerstone in the development of the Windows platform and was received as such. Geeks, gamers and businesses alike loved it.
XP already had to deal with a problem: What for? 2k was already the "perfect" system. It had everything you wanted to have. There was no really compelling reason to upgrade, and it would have been far from impossible for MS to add the features (like WiFi and other support) to the core of 2k if they would have wanted. Of course, they wanted to sell XP, so that was a no-go option.
And Vista now is suffering from the same problem. Why upgrade? We might see some reason in a few months or years, when some new fad or feature picks up that MS doesn't even dream of supporting in XP, so we'd have to switch to Vista to benefit from it, but so far, we're at the same point where we were with the introduction of XP: Why upgrade?
XP is "good enough". In some ways, it is even "better" than Vista. We will eventually see the reason why we'll have to get Vista instead when MS refuses to support some essential hardware, but the way you put it is simply and plainly wrong.