Until they get Windows Vista right or some other OS to do a better job at just about EVERYTHING, they should keep XP around. Instead of 2008, lets keep it till 2011 or so.

"There are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista,"...??

If the customer already has XP on their PCs, they don't need to buy another XP. No the truth of the matter is that Vista offers nothing to users of any actual value (other than DX10 which COULD be made to run on XP easily) that is worth the extra overhead that XP. The higher memory requirements, the slower performance, UAC bugging you until you kill it (which make Vista more like XP), the loaded up DRM checking several times a second to make sure youre not running a pirated OS or other tools (Even for those who are running on a pirated OS)

Vista is not easier or faster or better than XP, that much is a fact... so why pay $100~400 for a junky product that took over 5 years to "develop"?

Barlog is right on the money, there is nothing that is productively 'new' or 'better' on vista (other than that it looks pretty, but then again so do XP shells). From Win 3.1 to win '95 is was a rough transition, but it changed the way we access and use our computers. '98se perfected win95 and was a defenate improvement. Then came winME which was a disaster, and win2K which was probably the best OS in general. XP (to me at least) seemed like a glorified win2K, but now with the SP2 stuff I think it actuially is better than win2K finally for security, but it's still the same thing under all the wraping. And now we have Vista which only runs 1/2 the software 1/2 the time, it sucks up all the system resources unless you downgrade the shell back to the win2K style and disable a lot of other background settings that basicaly makes it a useless version of XP. Sure, theres a new search thing to copy the macs (but have you ever tried finding things on a mac? of course they needed a search bar for their OS! But things are easier to find on a PC, it's useless!). Sure it supports 64 bit processing, but nobody else supports it yet (and we've had 64bit amds for how long now??). Sure it's more secure, but I run XP with no antivirus or any other 3rd party software and I havent had any problems for almost a year now with worms, trojans, and other virii.
As it stands now there are just 2 products on the market that do the exact same thing for about the same price except that one kicks your $2K computer in the head and the other lets you run a billion programs at once without a hitch or hickup.

First Barlog you are my hero, an educated consumer...

It's funny I asked people to name 10 things better in vista than XP64 that are worth up to 399 and they simply can't.

And as usual here and in the forums people try to fabricate results and then not give answers, facts or proof.

Vista is win ME... and DX10 not on XP was/is an MS ploy. It fits right in with halo 2 and 3 exclusively on vista. People can't seem to see or smell the BS microfluff has left on their chins and then their noses. It's a damn shame that people can't have a back bone and now consumer fight in them.

The funny thing about the situation is if you when people do name things they choose features that MS hasn't fixed. How asinine it that? as an example a guy said powermanagment works in vista and not in XP. (an accusation I don't agree with, I have an asus MB and NO problems). But it goes over his head that he isn't picking a new feature. He's picking a flaw in one and the same company making it fully work in the other.

That should be a slap in the face... they collected your money and instead of fixing your product to what was promised you're lead like cattle and sheep to shell out more money.

If everyone didn't buckle so easy they would have to actually fix a product and complete it.

As you all can see this statement was a lie "There are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista,". How is 6 more months of XP sales going to benefit current XP customers?

We can last until the new OS in 2010. That one will have all of the features stripped out of vista when it was code named something else.

DX10 is the only thing that is hurting me... and since suckers bought vista and gave MS more than expected sales the probably wont buckle on DX10. This is the problem with "windows for games" the more MS controls and influence the more we're at their mercy of foolishness...

I was looking the other day to purchase a new HP laptop. I was calling their 800 number, and the salesperson said in order to get an XP downgrade disc I would need to purchase the laptop first (with Vista Ultimate, a $160 additional fee) and then "order" the XP downgrade disc through HP technical support for another $200 extra.

That's $360 extra I need to shell out on top of what the bare notebook costs so that when I unpack it and boot it up I can see XP instead of Vista.

RIPOFF!!!

This is good for those who wont change over. It will keep people who like XP happy.

I do like XP Pro SP2 but I know for a fact that Vista has great potential. I have talked to Beta users who loved it then and still do.

As for new features in Vista? Lets see: 1 A totaly new and more secure Kernal. Allows you to be safer from viruses that will kill the system. Thats why Norton and McAffe was suing MS since they wouldn't allow them access to the Kernal.

2. The registries are seperated. Each user has a seperate registry based off the main registry. This allows other users to screw up their account without affecting the whole computer or other users.

Those two reasons are enough to differentiate XP from Vista. The most common problems are due to the software vendors and driver makers lagging, not Vista.

Yea it takes more resources but on the right system and if you know what you are doing it will still run fast.

Why keep it for sale? The people that don't want to switch from xp to vista presumably already have xp installed so they wouldn't really get any benefit from this.

"Why still sell XP?" you ask. Because not everybody in the world has a computer yet, and not everybody who buys Vista already has a copy of XP. Your assumption is that everybody buying Vista is upgrading, but (I'd guess) that's not even half of the market.

Customer feedback. Our main distributor told me a few weeks ago that they only had abour 200 XP copies left, so I needed to get they why they were hot. But also told me they werent selling Vista in near the quantities they expected.
And I'm guessing it's not just our Distro that's having those problems...

So that's why. People arent buying vista, and people are still buying xp. So instead of not selling either one, they compramised, and extended XP. Smart move, buisness wise.

Btw, I absolutely love Vista. It does take more system resources, but it also handles those system resources alot better too. System response is very quick and snappy. Interface is much easier on the eyes. And that's a great thing for buisnesses that rely on clerical type jobs. Increases productivity if it's not so hard to look at the screen. (Not just looking better, but physically less tiring to view)
And lets face it. DX10 is here, and it's only on vista. Sure, it can be ran on XP in all likelyhood, but why bother?
On my switch to Vistax64 to XPx64, I noticed NWN2 drop a massive "2" frames a second. I imagine games that are built for DX10 will have alot better results than that too.

They are forcing us to buy vista by not offering DX10 on XP (in future dx10 will become important if not now) isnt this practice liable to be challenged *given there near monopoly.

I am seriously considering linux transition sooner rather latter even if it means certain sacrifices.

All those features, and the DX10 calls too can be implemented in Windows XP. It is a marketing decision, for the RIPOFF!!! mentioned by Luscious.
Long ago there was a discussion within MS about closing down support and everything for Windows98. They postponed it as people might move to Linux. Now, people are moving to Linux, and MS is desperate. It took them so long to come out with Vista and people want do downgrade even though they fulfill hardware requirements. If they go on like this, Google alone will tear MS apart.

Listen to Barlog, CaedenVintori
, Enlighten they are right.

Jimmy:
1 A totaly new and more secure Kernal.

I don't care about how new the kernel is, It could be from the year of 1920 for all I care, as long as it works.. And the same goes for the saftey..

2. The registries are seperated. Each user has a seperate registry based off the main registry. This allows other users to screw up their account without affecting the whole computer or other users.

I don't care, Shouldn't MS have fixed this in XP? Peoplke have paid a lot of money for XP, shouldn't the product be safe when I buy it?

Jimmy the 1) More Secure Kernel is crap and a lie. Why do you say something you just heard of, but never read? There is a quite large article about Vista Kernel and DRM. And how does a brand new secure kernel, has a flaw that when you play an MP3 your Gbit network dies? 2) The actual XP reg is altogheter but the USER doesn't have any Permission over stuff that isn't his.

MS "luck" is based on piracy. Because it's easy to get a pirate copy of Vista everyone is installing it. So it will become the new standard, and we all will have to switch to it. If they really lock up the software or people were not using pirated versions of MS software, they would never be so popular, starting with Win3.1 to Office 2007 and Vista

Yeah, yeah: Support bloated inefficient code. Stands to reason, as you don’t seem to know it is a kernEl and not a kernel.

Secondly, HKEY_CURRENT_USER is what? And ever wondered what the NTUSER.DAT file is in your profile directory (Or for some uninformed people, like yourself, the Documents and Settings folder in Windows XP/Windows 2000), all copied from the NTUSER.DAT file in the &#xho;medrive%Documents and SettingsDefault profile, which the user can then screw up, so busted on your second uninformed point.
And lastly, your own point demonstrates the sheep theory: “Yea it takes more resources but on the right system and if you know what you are doing it will still run fast.” So, I want to pay a premium price for my OS then have to have a premium priced machine to make it work properly – Wondered what the actual potential of the premium priced machine actually is if you weren’t to run a bloated OS… But the sheep…

> Why keep it for sale?

Because people buying new machines want XP, and will go where it's available. This is why you can buy XP on Dell machines, for instance.

You gotta be kidding me. I never regularly run a virus scanner and have never been infected. It only takes conscious and cautious usage of your PC to avoid viruses. Then again, I don't visit questionable sites, but that is conscious and cautious usage of my PC.

I am certainly not going to switch to Vista because of "better" virus immunity.

The poster asked for 10 items. With Virus immunity not really counting, can you name 9 more that are worth the price?

Why keep it for sale?

Because if they don't, even the causal user who would buy it would end up using a pirated version.

I personally can't stand Vista. I've been using XP Pro for years and I've never had a BSOD or any real lockups like on 98se. I have Vista Home Premium on my new laptop and it...sucks. It feels like it was made for PC noobs and the whole youtube crowd.

I would be happy if the GPO infrastructure of Vista replaced XP's, the rest of Vista is fluff, downright detrimental or bordering on illegal (freakin privacy infringement). We've had to implement/support Vista within our company and it has not really caused problems, but there is a significant 'slow down' of systems that use Vista. We are only using it in new systems so it's generally not that noticeable. However, alot of techs, admins and managers are in our position now. Pay a lot for a windows product and then more for an office suite PER USER or... Well go linux flavours and get open office. We are currently trialing the alternatives, management supports us (well its a lot of money) and I know of more then a handful of very large companies doing the same. Let's face it, your standard office worker likes what they know but will work on whatever they're given, will get used to it in time and stop caring it's not windows (they'll still whinge but they always do). Once users HAVE to use Linux or alternatives at work how long before they use it at home
Of course microsoft is going to continue selling xp while the general users hardware plays catchup it would be corporate entropy otherwise.

I see no point to invest in Vista, if it actually offered some return on the investment, I would do it.
You can already download Suse Linux complete (Novell website) for no charge and start using it right away.
The first thing you notice is that it runs much faster, and has many features similar to XP. It auto loads and auto configures just like XP. If you want to you can buy a fully supported version for very reasonable money on the same Novell website, where you can get the free version. Isn't that so refreshing after battling with M$ all these years.
Once XP is no longer a viable OS, I will just continue with Suse Linux.
Right now I just keep it running on a swappable drive to become more familiar with it, so at time of final XP availability, eventually I just won't swap back to XP one day.
Linux seems intuitive and there is plenty of help available on the web.
Byebye M$, we're all done now.

As a reseller we have been in negotiation with hp, toshiba, lenovo and sony regarding XPP down grade discs for certain models.

While MS worked with each vendor on the licencing details, MS does not have anything to do with creating/providing the discs. Down grade discs have been a vendor thing since we helped start it.

- "Why still sell XP?" you ask. Because not everybody in the world has a computer yet, and not everybody who buys Vista already has a copy of XP. Your assumption is that everybody buying Vista is upgrading, but (I'd guess) that's not even half of the market. -

"There are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," said Microsoft corporate VP Mike Nash.

The main word in that sentance being switch.
If you don't have a computer yet then you're not switching your OS. The simple solutions are:
1. just don't buy a new pc
2. Buy xp for around $40 second hand.
3. Download an xp torrent (not that I condone that)
4. Don't bitch and just get over it.

I own a computer shop and selling both XP and Vista, as well as machines with option of either XP or Vista. My customers are mostly home users, home techies, some buesiness techies and some small business companies. We sell about 30 XPs before we sell one Vista. We tried pushing Vista but people are just not buying it. Our distributors are saying the same thing. They are constantly restocking XP but their Vista is eatting dust. I told customers about Microsoft's original deadline of XP (in January 2008), they all go "Nooooo!!!!" I think Microsoft shoud keep selling until at least 2009.

damn... i wish we'd get this transfer over with...

this news sucks for vista owners, because it means more and more and more waiting for better support and drivers.

suck...

that's why I use Ubuntu...

Uh, one reason XP systems are so vulnerable is most people just run everything as an admin. Vista is designed like linux and asks you to authenticate ( as an admin ), when you need admin rights to do something or make a system change. Vista is designed to run everything in a limited user mode so you cant screw anything up easily. You can easily do the same thing in XP by not running everything as an admin and just creating a second account so everything that requires a system change has to be authenticated up to the next tier. Linux has been doing this since the get go btw, Microsoft decided that it was a good way to prevent the spread of viruses by unsuspecting users.

Please just get me a SP3 already. Service Packs should come at 1 every 6 to 12 months, anything more than that is ridiculous for anyone trying to reinstall a computer. It is always:
WinXP, SP2, 9865978149658274 patches
Ok, you can streamline WinXP and SP2, but that's what I want to have with SP3.

Oh and by the way, what EU (and maybe US,...) should really do to MS is to make THEM allow the possibilities that something like nlite allows: unattended install; choose what you REALLY want to install, not only what some guy at MS thinks you should choose... is it really installing the games or not the important thing? or choosing not to install IE or WMP or everything else someone might want not to install??

Just my 2 cents :)

I remember reading these same comments back when we started using XP... I admit that I enjoy using Vista much more than XP. Everything I have works on it, and it feels much faster / more responsive. You can call it "fixing XP" errors, but then XP only fixed W2k error itself, like adding DX support. If you really dont like using Vista, take the power of the consumer and switch over to Linux. Stop bashing a company that actually delivers proper software compared to the alternatives...

It seems the general concenous that everybody is upset about Vista. Mostly it seems like stigmatized excuses to stop the poverty stricken, envious ones from having to accept Vista as superior.

Vista is prettier
Vista runs very well if you can afford a decent PC... if you cant, get a job!
Vista is much easier to use, and support for both business and home environments.

Its like the iPhone... just coz you cant afford one, it doesnt mean your Sony K800i is better.

"There are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista"

c´mon MS, we know the truth is: "we need more time to force customers to make the switch to our failed proyect "Windows Vista", we need to restore all our invested money as quick a possible since average customers ain´t as stupid as we thought.

facts are revealing vista was a technological failure from ms, they never were as desperate to force customers to switch as they're now with vista,

i do computer maintenance and support as freelance and most clients, specially laptop ones find vista a frustrating and slow experience, and really it makes me feel bad for them how their new system performs like an old virused like computer,

also it seems like microsoft is dealing with companies like nvida and HP to prevent users "downgrading" his crap new OS to xp, they know xp performs much better than vista without useless and expensive hardware upgrades and it's even user friendlier and equal or even more productive for the average customer, i have had to deal with online technicians from HP site to provide drivers for xp, since the won't list drivers for xp at their driver page, they just seems to hide those drivers on their ftp site and after trying to convince and preventing me to not to "downgrade" since "it will give me worse performance and issues", you'll find, when you "downgrade" is done, the exact opposing

i have performed many vista to xp "downgrades" and had some troubles installing the video cards drivers at the beggining,(even drivers provided from company online techincians) ...why? the stupid drivers will complain about being unable to find a "compatible display device" even when the devices is officially compatible from the nvidia webpage, and guess what, a simple modded inf file from the driver will make justice and allow the installation to be done normally, without errors or further stability issues. can we call that "unable to find device" prompt an error or coincidence?? of course not.

also from my job experience, xp has been reliable and secure enough when proped patched and antivirus protected, that it makes vista and its "kernel isolation" and "security improvements" to look really useless

i have customers who perform lots of financial activities online for years using xp and never have had any single money loss due to hackers or viruses

now just look at that UAC "user account control", yes it can be disabled, but the way it complains about virtually every action the user does, makes my think is was just a rushed and mediocre developed "feature" to make vista look "more secure"

i just cannot undestand what occurred with all those beta versions ms released to public so many months before vista launch.. weren't those supposed to be meant to help and produce a really quality final product??

You're wrong... It's not about affording something. It's about something being worth the value and taking a consumer stand. Instead of being lead like cattle and sheep.

Since you're a staunch vista supporter why don't you take the challenge and post answers for us...

Read these two links keeping in mind XP64 was rewritten along side of vista.

www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/top10.mspx
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/benefit.mspx

Now please post 10 things better in vista than XP64 that you honestly feel make it worth up to $399 to have.

I gave two already to help you
1) DX10 - This is a big one for gamers. It's a situation 'manufactured' by microfluff to try to prevent vista from being a win ME repeat. And if you read the gamers enthusiast section you'd realize that DX10 was first intended to be on XP. "video game developers are at work right now building exciting 64-bit native games to help push these limits even further. Since data in memory is accessed about 10,000 times faster than it is on a disk drive, 64-bit native games hold the potential for significantly faster graphics rendering, producing photo-realistic immersion and rapid-fire play without annoying delays". Because you know see these words only being used for DX10 'photo-realistic'.

2) SuperFetch and ReadyDrive - These are very nice HD features to have because virtual memory can now be retrieved faster causing windows environment to respond slighter better. But if drive performance was a big issue then the user would have a raptor as their root drive. That would be less than the up to 399 OS.

You can post how pretty it is, but that's not up to $399 in value.

And please don't do like some others here and post things microfluff fails to fix as a new feature. One guy posted power management works in vista and not in XP. This is why I posted the links because it represents the bill of goods promised. The fact that it doesn't work is more of a slap in the face that a company refuses to fix/complete something. And rather steer you to the next product not at a deal but at a premium price.

Please post those 8 new features worth up to $399...

Am I really the only one that likes Vista? I'm loving every single bit of it, and I can even run my games on XP from Vista... with a jarring 5-10 frames dropped at most. As a matter of fact, I can FINALLY play Roller coaster Tycoon 3 with crossfire enabled without XP crashing - because I'm playing it on Vista. Very streamlined and I feel a lot safer with the "extra click" than without it; it's not that annoying guys, seriously.

Yes NVidia's standard drivers for desktop computers will not work with mobile GPU's, but it is so that the laptop manufacturers are "supposed" to check the new drivers to ensure that they are compatible with the entire machine and then release them with the modded .inf file to install them.

Unfortunately laptop manufacturers do not follow this practice as was originally agreed and are usually at least a year behind in driver updates. Making us find/make the modded .inf's ourselves. In theory it is sound (like communism), but nobobdy follows it.(still like communism). I know this from trying to get the NVidia BioShock drivers to run on my laptop.

In otherwords the bottom line is: "Official NVidia drivers not installing on laptops is not Microsoft's fault. Not everything craptacular is Microsoft's fault... just a lot of it." :)

P.S. No i'm not a microsoft fanboy, I too am in favour of a stripped down performance oriented Operating System. :)

Just a month or 2 ago I was on youtube and somehow one of the "recommended" videos was a Linux one. I watched it and was AMAZED. I mean I had heard of Linux before but always thought "in my head" it was some lame ass OS that was very very secure and hard to use.

I started searching youtube for more and more linux videos and was wow'ed by the new eye candy linux had.

I just grabbed a video for anyone interested in how Ubuntu's new release Gutsy Gibbon includes Compiz Fusion and blow VISTA out of the water!! Don't believe me? Don't watch.

I finally installed Ubuntu a few weeks ago and absolutely love it and the idea of Open Source Software, it is the future. I am not a gamer and like the majority of computer users who are not gamers I have come up with a solution I think I will be happy with in the long run. VM ware with Ubuntu (or other distro.) and XP SP2.

Now don't get me wrong, it still takes some getting used to Linux but it is not far away from mainstream now. HP is gearing up to offer RedHat and Dell already offers Ubuntu. These are free and make your new purchase less expensive.

Anyways, here are two videos I suggest watching for anyone who wants to be enlightened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywhs2ADVLw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

These are Interesting Times for Microsoft. This is the first time Microsoft has released a new operating system into a market environment containing free alternatives that are easier to get up and running with than Microsoft's product, despite Windows being preloaded on the vast majority of new computers.

Unix and derivatives have always, since Day 1, been multi-user, multi-tasking, time-sharing systems. This has meant that there has always, in Unix culture, been a clear divide between system-level administrative tools and application programs, and it's very very rare to find an end-user app that wants admin rights it doesn't actually need.

Windows, by contrast, started out as a firmly single-user system, and that has created a culture that still today makes it take a fair degree of fiddling to get popular application programs working without needing admin rights to do so. The net result is that most Windows boxes run with full admin rights active most of the time - partly because that's how they usually come preconfigured, but mostly because most people don't have the time or inclination to tune their OS or fight with their apps to make this unnecessary. This, in turn, makes the effects of security exploits consistently disastrous, and keeps people like me in business just cleaning up the mess.

To give a system with this cultural inheritance any semblance of security, Microsoft has really had no choice but to bolt on fix after fix after patch after fix: virus scanners, spyware scanners, Malicious Software Removal Tools and now, in Vista, User Account Control and mandatorily signed device drivers - and all because the one security facility that actually can be made to work, and work very very effectively without causing any stress at all for users (non-admin rights for most programs most of the time) is Too Hard for cultural, rather than technical, reasons.

With Vista, the security bolt-ons have become so visible, and so confusing and annoying, that people are actually starting to have almost as much trouble dealing with the security stuff as they have ever had dealing with advertising pop-ups or spyware.

With Ubuntu, the Unix family has finally got its out-of-the-box usability act together. It really has. And the result is a secure and mostly trouble-free system that's genuinely pleasant to use, genuinely easy to do family tech support for, and free.

And that's why I'm a Linux fanboi, and that's why I recommend that you at least give serious consideration to the notion of ditching Windows entirely. In 2007, Ubuntu is simply less trouble than Windows. This wasn't true until about last year. It really is true now, and given the cultural legacies of both systems, I can't see it getting less true any time soon.

actually, i tried drivers made for laptops, i meant, the nvidia "go" series, even an online technician from hp site gave me a driver which was supposed to be compatible since on its readme, it confirmed to be for the "geforce 6100 go" i needed, but driver wizard still complained.

Still waiting on those 8 new features...

Blessman - "Vista is better then XP at every step of the way"

Jimmy - "Yea it takes more resources but on the right system and if you know what you are doing it will still run fast."

Jimmy can you please help the tomshardware testing staff? They must 'not know what they are doing'

"Our hopes that Vista might be able to speed up applications are gone. First tests with 64-bit editions result in numbers similar to our 32-bit results, and we believe it's safe to say that users looking for more raw performance will be disappointed with Vista. Vista is the better Windows, because it behaves better, because it looks better and because it feels better. But it cannot perform better than Windows XP. Is this a K.O. for Windows Vista in the enthusiast space?"

"We are disappointed that CPU-intensive applications such as video transcoding with XviD (DVD to XviD MPEG4) or the MainConcept H.264 Encoder performed 18% to nearly 24% slower in our standard benchmark scenarios. Both benchmarks finished much quicker under Windows XP."

www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page11.html#conclusion_ko_for_windows_vista

Aegis are you running vista and roller coaster on the exact same machine it failed with XP? same setup and only a new OS?

ZyN - "Stop bashing a company that actually delivers proper software compared to the alternatives..."

LOL can you look up the history of service pack 3 and once you've read it come back and post why it has been delayed and bugs not fixed by that "company that actually delivers proper software" AKA copy cat software.

R - "accept Vista as superior"

Is there any chance of post 7 more? I mean I gave you 2.

Where do you guys run too after a lame post?

I bet you were this hard headed about XP when it came out wern't you. I bet you were all gung-ho about 2k at the time and swore that you would never use that bloated, craptactular win XP with no improvements but fancy visuals. Complained that it ran slower than 2k did. Complained about every change made in XP. But now you have changed sides to XP and say the same about Vista. When Vista's replacement comes out I bet we will be hearing you sware how good Vista is and bash the new version of Windows. Give it a rest already and buy what you want, but don't repeat the same trash everytime a new version comes out. Buy it or don't, just shut up.

I got both Vista and XP installed in separate systems and I can say Vista is much slower and far more unstable than XP. To be fair Vista is still in it's "Retail Beta" stage so future revisions will hopefully make it much better.

what ???

There are a lot of people here complaining about Vista's instability and performance, and there are a lot of other people here telling the first lot to shut up on the grounds that it's all been said before about previous Windows versions.

The simple fact is that these familiar-sounding complaints have always been perfectly justified. *Every* new version of Windows has had stability, performance and usability issues, and some of those are deal-breakers for some people. It's generally quite sound policy to avoid adopting a new Microsoft OS until MS has pushed out at least one service pack or major update, application software vendors have had a chance to adapt, and support professionals have got themselves up to speed by dealing with problems found by the early adopters.

I don't hear anybody here saying "Vista blows chunks *and always will*". I hear people saying "Vista is too much trouble right now, and XP isn't" - which, for those who value reliability and performance over eye candy and new features, is perfectly true. The "retail beta" comment above is right on the money.

I think you'll find that most of those Windows 2000 people who complained about XP when it first appeared would still happily be using 2000 if it was still as well supported now as XP is. I expect that many of them will start switching to Vista later on, much as they switched to XP once 2000 support started to dry up.

What will be really interesting, though, is watching the reaction of people who buy new computers with a low-end Vista version as their only preinstalled option, and end up striking trouble. There are a lot of voices out there now (mine included) advising people in that position not to shell out extra bucks for a retail XP licence until they've spent a week trying Ubuntu out instead.

The main thing standing in the way of Linux on the desktop has historically been that although Linux can take you anywhere you might want to go, getting there has felt like hiking through knee-deep mud - a long slog that leaves you feeling exhausted, if oddly happy. But with Canonical releasing genuinely improved Ubuntu versions every six months, and their extreme focus on instant usability, this is simply not the case any more.

I've set up hundreds of Windows boxes and tens of Ubuntu boxes, and I can assure you that for people with everyday general computing requirements - secure web browsing and email, office work, multimedia and a bit of gaming - getting an Ubuntu box productive and secure currently takes about a quarter of the effort of doing the same thing with Windows XP. Vista's missing-drivers, User Annoyed Constantly and extra DRM features can only make that gap widen.

Unix has always had far more solid security foundations than Windows, and open-source systems in general are not bogged down by a requirement for endless binary backward compatibility. If Linux is a hiker making slow but steady progress through knee-deep mud, Windows is a force-fed elephant struggling to stay on top of huge a pile of its own turds.

editor what was said in my post for it not to be posted...

why can I not respond?

If security one of the main features over XP then why oh why has there been many security updates prior to SP1?

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34202/140/

EDITOP... Any chance for an explanation why post THAT DON'T violate your posting rules don't get posted?

Who is the sensitive oprah winfrey fan there?

I fail to understand the inconsistency in the posting approval process there...

Re Vista, XP, Win2K, Win98, DOS 6.2, etc... I'm still waiting for Windows Explorer to let me send a list of selected files to the printer! And, I'm waiting for the COPY command to check FIRST -- *before* starting a multi-file copy -- that there is enough space on the target drive and give me warnings about R/O files up-front, instead of 10 minutes into a large copy.

Lazy, lazy, lazy Microsoft!