Vista is the best thing that Microsquish has done for Apple.
XP should be extended indefinitely, or until Vista isn't a buggy, one-way mess.
Same for the 64-bit platform

The sooner Windows 7 is released, the sooner MS can forget about the Vista nightmare.

LOL "Windows XP has become a painful, never-ending story for Microsoft".

Only because they decided to abandon Windows XP. Most people I know still use Windows XP. This is another instance of a company trying to push around their customers, like a jerk or bully might do.

Microsoft has lost lots of fans with their actions. Of course, who cares, it's just another clueless company?

Bring BACK 98

The Dell "downgrade" is $99.

Hello Microsoft? No one wants of likes Windows Vista!
It's slow, sucks for people that have legacy software or hardware and the UAC DOES NOT protect the end user because they just get use to clicking yes on everything. If Windows 7 does not really shine I think Microsoft will be in major trouble.

Microsoft meeting synopsis:

"Hey, let's take our most successful, best working operating system that our customers love and insist we keep alive and get rid of it."

The date they discontinue support for XP is the date I will switch to linux. I would Microsoft is listening, but i doubt it.

Why are people still using XP even on new computers? I used to be a very long time vista hater because all I tried was vista at launch but now after service pack one and new drivers from other companies means vista is just as stable as XP. I have been using vista for about 4 months and love it. I can't stand XP anymore.

But any gamee should choose Vista because of DX10 and soon to be DX11. The myth that vista is worse then XP at gaming because of slower Frames per second is bull. On some games like World in Conflict I get a few more FPS.

Let's face it. XP needs to die unless you have an old PC or a netbook(but then Linux is better anyway for that)

"Windows XP has become a painful, never-ending story for Microsoft"

Wouldn't XP be the success and Vista be the "painful, never-ending story for Microsoft?"

[I agree that this may be a another viewpoint. However, XP is truly a painful reality for MS at this time - if there was no XP, it may be easier for them to push Vista. -ed]

XP is a good product. Corporations still want to use it on their desktops. Microsoft is foolish to want to kill off something that people still want to buy.

Listen to your customers Microsoft. If people still want to buy it, why not sell it?

doea any body realize that?

In my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes Microsoft has made to date, is waiting 6 years between OS releases.... Too long of a life for XP, or any OS... One of the obstacles Vista is facing, is simply that people are exceptionally comfortable with XP, and Vista just isn't XP. Add into that some bad publicity at launch to failures of third party drivers, which MS may have had some fault in due to certain aspects of the launch, and you have the current situation. Vista, with certainty, isn't perfect, but it just isn't THAT bad. I actually kind of like it myself. Sure, it's a touch bloated, but it's been rock solid for me at both home and work on three decidedly mid-range PCs (Athlon X2 4400, X2 5200, Pentium D 840, all with 1-2GB of RAM) and it has some pretty cool new features. Just a matter of time before people are going have to switch over, whether it's Vista, Windows 7, OS X, Ubuntu, or something else entirely, but it's going to involve "growing pains." In any case, hopefully Microsoft, for their sake, learns something from this whole debacle. I, for one, am tired of all the fan boy flame wars over Vista versus OS x versus Linux versus XP et al.

As someone who dual boots both OSes, I can say that I find Vista a somewhat better experience to use. It just looks better (I'm running uxtheme msstyles, I don't use defaults. I still think Vista looks better overall, with Aero transparencies et al) the system is easier to use and every "annoyance" everyone has cited early on in the OS's life are easily fixable on the command line or a few option dialogs.

XP does run faster, though, and it is simpler. When my computer's off and I need something fast, I boot into XP because it boots near instantly for me, whereas Vista can take a few minutes. For a low end machine (which are becoming popular in the form of netbooks) it seems XP is the better suited system.

However, XP seems less secure. I can't tell you how many times a week I've had to remove malware rom my PC. I'm running an On-Access malware scanner, and a firewall, and stuff still gets through. I have to run a full system scan every few days and I get a few detections here or there. Without protection software you can expect to contract malware in as llittle as 30 seconds after just plugging your network cable into XP. On Vista I've yet to see a virus. I don't know how it does it... Maybe the UAC, maybe the way it handles Programs Files, I am not sure, but Vista *IS* more secure, and for a home PC I will always want the secure system over the faster one. On a desktop PC, performance isn't really a problem for Vista, anyway.

Also, inb4 "or you could just get a Mac or linux PC." I would love to install OS X on a Dell/Gateway/HP/Alienware PC. I really would. However, even if I could, there'd be fewer drivers and more incompatibilities than Vista ever had. As for linux, I like linux, but after using a few distributions (although I personally found them very usable) I can understand that the average user could be overwhelmed by learning a completely different OS like that.

People who say Vista is Windows ME 2 are just ignorant. You've never gave Vista a chance. Now the 3rd party driver support is stronger and SP1 is released you don't have an excuse. Just like Jay - I still yet to see adware/virus for Vista(they do exist I just haven't seen them like in XP).

The true identifier of a monopolistic business is one that can plan an obsolescence of one of its successful business products.

It's so funny how some rave about Win7 being the replacement of Vista when the OS is basically Vista with a few touch-ups and bug fixes in some crucial areas.

They tossed away the Vista name because the word Vista has one of the worst connotation to it, due to the very bad publicity.

I wonder how many people will be more pissed off when they find out that people using Vista SP2 or SP3 is getting the same performances as Win7.

I own 3 XP old hardware rigs and 2 Vista rigs and playing with Win7 beta on a spare HDD.

Microsoft and its partners see nothing but money, and money is the name of the game. If people want to buy a real old OS that is literally pure profit at this stage of its life cycle...so be it...rake it in.

"but actually delivery can be taken up to 119 days after that."

Delivery of what? A license number? There's nothing to store, this is stupid. You still have to put the money up front and order it all. Dumb dumb dumb.

Just let people skip Vista, suck it up and admit it. We don't want Vista and 7 will probably suck too. You are still making money, let people keep giving you money for what they want.

Microsoft is so dumb.

I'm one of the ones that have raved about windows 7 from long ago and begged and pleaded for users to skip this era and not pay to be 'up to' $399 beta testers...

Blu - 'I wonder how many people will be more pissed off when they find out that people using Vista SP2 or SP3 is getting the same performances as Win7.'

You are clueless... reading is fundamental ad comprehending is a must...

What you are looking at is microfluff watering down the windows 7 realease.

But there were two seperate teams working o idependent projects starting from the server 2003 codebase.

windows 7 is not and will not be equal to vista sp2 or 3.

Had you been reading you would know that vista x64 only was retro fitted with windows 7 code.

not sure what the hype is about, I love Vista, never had any trouble with it.

I'm a religous gamer. I have two new gaming machines that I built recently with xp, with one of them dual booting for vista.
I can tell you this, that with 4 gigs of ram and everything overclocked, the DX10 effects on games I've tested doesn't really make a difference (if any). Though I would eventually like to upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released, 32bit xp is fast enough if you have a decent pc.

It's is a marketing ploy by microfluff to continue milking $$$ from vista...

But please realize the pattern...

Some windows 7 changes were retrofitted into server 2008 which in turn was retrofitted into vista x64 in SP1, which marked the first time the kernel was basically replaced.

Did you miss that? because it is important for you to know microfluff did what they lied and said couldn't be done. They totally changed the kernel, remember excuse DX10 couldn't be on XP because it would require kernel changes to make it work?

There are many changes that will never be in vista. Example the gui doesn't take advantage of DX api or hardware. That seems awefully stupid... doesn't it?

It does't properly use multi-core hardware... It also wont fully take advantage of I7 hardware. It wont allow control of application execution. It will never have workspaces (virtualization and workspaces is the future of computing for advanced users and will allow you to run legacy hardware and xp inside of windows 7 for full compatibility). vista wont take advantage of full dx11 etc etc

Over half of the features have been upgraded or replaced from networking on. The workspaces offer businesses many uses as well. More than one employee can use a machines, one work space can be limited to two core and the other utilizing the other two cores. Same for home use, two PC's aren't required just two monitors and keyboards etc

The point is vista doesn't offer enough new features to justify the price. Futhermore, the limited 2 year(roughly) ME like shelf life made it worth skipping.

And both vista and windows 7 isn't viable for people with limited uses computer uses. Neither is dual or quad core. excel, word, web surfing, solitaire etc doesn't require multi-core.

We only needed three thigs from microfluff
1) Put a similar effort into completing XP as they did for vista - anyone that has followed vista can look at some of the log time error fixed for vista such as memory reporting etc things that has been unfixed for well over 5 years even the crappy windows 2000 unchanged code

2) backing of XP x64 for short-term computing - which was built using server 2003 codebase. Making it more stable than 32bit version, better/similar kernel and ability to take advatage x64 hardware/software etc

3) windows 7 un-watered down - features such as minwin etc were removed just as vista was watered down

Vista was scrapped about 3 times for good reason, it was hard for them to muster up features over server 2003 R2. DX10 is a manufactured vista feature as I explained above.

So please stop the vista equals windows 7 crap.. that's microfluff spin crap

If you ca't see the pattern
vista x32 SP1 kernel unchanged
vista x64 SP1

To futher prove you have no clue...

bLu - 'They tossed away the Vista name because the word Vista has one of the worst connotation to it, due to the very bad publicity.'

The name of windows 7 was originally vieanna...

And not a tossed away vista name. As explained earlier a seperate team worked on windows 7. And the team that worked on vista failed over and over and over. The vista roll-out was a campaign to replenish the coffers and have paying beta testers.

Vista also has many limitations for SSD use and unfortunately wont be fixed ever.

In fact you use vista and dont turn off auto defrag your SSD may not even last for 2 years. And superfetch/readydrive also kills the life of current SSD's.

Windows 7 rectifies the problem, so it's better to not endure the SSD high priced growing pains right now. Multilevel cell (MLC) technology will give us the tremendous size and speed enhancemet worth paying for, this current crap is all stop gap solutions that like blu ray isn't worth the high price.

It will handle the various ssd's differently.

In fact by the time windows 7 is released DRAM prices and size may be so low and large in size that their uses become very viable.

Think about it! DRAM SSD in the mid to high end home PC market can finally make cheap DDR2 uses expanded. And flash SSD with never beat DRAM SSD's.

So imagine this, DDR3 used as your systems main ram. And a dram ssd utilizing cheap OC'd DDR2 ram. Remember even though minwin will no longer be part of windows 7, the kernel has been reduced significantly.

This is why windows 7 giving the user the ability cotrol what is loaded and executing in the background is very important. Get the fluff out and allow our systems to be customized to each persons needs.

Many of you don't realize, the more code and background process that are added to guess and decide all users best needs eat up resources.

My PC use varies tremedously per use... so prefetching in most cases is a waste of resources etc. But a person working primarily on word documets may love word or documents startig to load instantly.

Wasting many cpu cycles to determine if you are utilizing your dual or quad core better than XP (I say that because windows 7 totally revamps this) it a waste to me when you can't easily control and prioritize the applications that are running.

I also don't want all foregroud application to be given an automatic priority over back ground processes. For example start copying a dvd, then open explorer and surf. Web surfing gets priority to cpu ad i/o operations which in turn slow down dvd copying. Simply because it's your background task/application. Vista is more concern with the users feel of the current environment they are working in, when the user may just be browsing to make busy time.

If I'm missing something or need to be corrected please feel free to do so...

But the thigs I'm talkig about offer significant features and advancements that make a ew system worth getting. Again only for mid to high end PC users, excel, word and Interet browser do not need this stuff. This is why PC sales will decline tremendously as consumers become more and more educated regarding their true PC needs.

Until someone can point out ANY non-trivial advantages to using Vista over XP then I see no reason to "upgrade".

Speed - XP wins across the board
Security - XP has less unknown bugs
Graphics - Vista Wins (slightly)
Compatibility - XP wins
Ease of use - XP wins for anyone that doesn't have the brain of a Mac user
Features - Vista has more but nothing really mind-blowing
Bloat - Clean Vista install takes GIGABYTES. Clean XP install < 600 mb.

Final Score:

XP = 5 Vista = 1.5

MS has been jerking us around for years.
Then they force us to learn a new operating system.
I just bought two Macs and could not be happier.
I have zero MS software on either machine. Neooffice takes care of compatibility.

Enjoy being an island. Want to game? Can't. Want to do business tasks? Can't. Want to do CAD/Solidworks? Can't.

But I bet you still think $2000 for a 1.9 ghz CPU was a good deal. Mac users disgust me.

What do most people use their PCs for?

1. surf the web/browse naughty sites
2. listen to music
3. socialize with friends
4. type out a Word document or spreadsheet
5. watch video (usually from said naughty sites)

Any current-gen OS can handle these tasks with flying colors when configured properly; what incentive is there for these people to upgrade? If they have a taskbar, a start button, and a shiny skin, then the rest is just a bonus.

I see Windows 7 as being what Vista was supposed to be 4 years ago. I use linux more anyway, so to me Windows is "that thing I need to play games with."

XP Pro does all that I need, Business apps, Photography, music and gaming. Vista just doesn't offer me anything compelling enough to make the migration.

Apple....Piff..over-priced white tissue boxes...that attract fanatics who just want to be a part of something in this world.