Comment Re:Vista XP is here! (Score 1) 472
I recently ordered a high-end desktop machine (for work, not gaming) and after careful research paid extra to "downgrade" from Vista to XP.
Here are my mostly non-technical reasons for making that decision:
1 - never buy in too early... when MS starts talking about the next thing down the line they always follow through. Vista hasn't been out very long in OS terms and they're already focusing their primary teams on a replacement. Doesn't bode well for not-terribly-early but somewhat-early adopters who will be looking for future service packs.
2 - reliability, stability, consistency... Unlike for gamers, technology adaptation in the average business world tends to be slow at best. Where's the backwards compatibility? I have a few clients using old custom-built 16-bit applications that I understand will not run on Vista. They spent a fortune creating and deploying them (years ago, granted) and are not planning to rewrite them this year that I know of. Not everyone is going to agree that this is a problem, but it is a business world reality.
3 - I'm old... I don't want to change the way I work because my OS says I have to - I like having multiple screens. I like my ancient printer. I love my gargantuan cancer-causing monitor. A colleague of mine recently installed Vista... none of his existing peripherals (including monitor) would function, so a $800 tower turned into a $3000 hardware investment.
4 - fear of the unknown... when XP came out, it required extensive locking-down for privacy and security reasons, but at least it is possible. MS is notorious for lack of info (and also for spy-ware labeled as "features"), so it seems prudent for someone that feels they already spend too much time dealing with OS issues to wait until the support forums mature a bit at least.
5 - when 3rd party utilities such vLite start to sound like a good idea, it is time to run the other direction and find a better solution. God I wish Windows was open source.
OK, so this line of reasoning may not hold true for everyone (or anyone for that matter), but for my purposes the decision was to wait.
Here are my mostly non-technical reasons for making that decision:
1 - never buy in too early... when MS starts talking about the next thing down the line they always follow through. Vista hasn't been out very long in OS terms and they're already focusing their primary teams on a replacement. Doesn't bode well for not-terribly-early but somewhat-early adopters who will be looking for future service packs.
2 - reliability, stability, consistency... Unlike for gamers, technology adaptation in the average business world tends to be slow at best. Where's the backwards compatibility? I have a few clients using old custom-built 16-bit applications that I understand will not run on Vista. They spent a fortune creating and deploying them (years ago, granted) and are not planning to rewrite them this year that I know of. Not everyone is going to agree that this is a problem, but it is a business world reality.
3 - I'm old... I don't want to change the way I work because my OS says I have to - I like having multiple screens. I like my ancient printer. I love my gargantuan cancer-causing monitor. A colleague of mine recently installed Vista... none of his existing peripherals (including monitor) would function, so a $800 tower turned into a $3000 hardware investment.
4 - fear of the unknown... when XP came out, it required extensive locking-down for privacy and security reasons, but at least it is possible. MS is notorious for lack of info (and also for spy-ware labeled as "features"), so it seems prudent for someone that feels they already spend too much time dealing with OS issues to wait until the support forums mature a bit at least.
5 - when 3rd party utilities such vLite start to sound like a good idea, it is time to run the other direction and find a better solution. God I wish Windows was open source.
OK, so this line of reasoning may not hold true for everyone (or anyone for that matter), but for my purposes the decision was to wait.
