dell rolls back to XP...

linky

i'm not sure what value M$ gets in trying to spin this, if anything it indicates they need to extend XP's lifespan and seek to get more profit out of XP sales.

i think this is also a case of M$ being a victim of its own success and lack of its consumer nous, back when XP came out the home PC was only just becoming popular and so people got what they were given.

years on, and the home PC is a substantial market and you get people wanting what they're familiar with. they don't mind buying new hardware, they do mind having to deal with a new interface - something gartner seems to oblivious to as well.

it'll be interesting as to how this plays out, i suspect for home PC's we'll see plug'n'play operating systems embedded on flash chips in the near future - you just plug-in the latest OS and your hardware provides the GUI that speaks to it.

Not surprising. There's people out there still clinging to Windows 2000.

me being one of them - it does everything i want it to, and i'm going to have to reluctantly upgrade in order to use flash 9

It's supposed to be better for network security, IIRC.

But anyway, meh. Remember all the crap about XP when it first shipped?

"venerable"??

People preferring to stick with what works for them? Wow, what a concept

I've never used Vista so I don't have much say, but how bad could it be, it's not like it's Windows ME.

I like Vista. Unfortunately, some peripherals don't support it.

Logitech's setpoint drivers are screwy with Vista. I have an MX1000 and it randomly "jumps" the cursor to a far edge of the screen.

Common issue on logitech forums it seems. You can uninstall the setpoint drivers and use default mouse drivers and there is no problem... but then you don't get to use the special buttons (you just get right/left/wheel click and scroll wheel). I pretty much only use 1 of the extra buttons, and then only when I'm playing games + using ventrilo, so it isn't a huge deal, but it is still annoying.

What's even more frustrating is that an older version of the setpoint drivers did not have this issue (even on vista). And OF COURSE logitech doesn't let you download old driver versions.

1 supposedly successful workaround is to use the USB->PS/2 adapter rather than a USB port. However, I've left my adapter at home so I'm unable to try it.

Win 2K was great. I have it installed on my old laptop still. Not that it could support anything higher (hell technically it can't support 2K but I tricked it...shh!)

They didn't really roll back, they're just offering the option I thought?

Yes... on a handful of low-end models only, they are offering it as an option.

Well, clearly this means that Vista is a failure and we should all spend a week doing Gentoo installations.

Definitely. It'll work perfect until someone tries to use their printer.

But OMG Linux is teh l33t! How dare you diss it?!

Nothing 1337-er than spending more time futzing with the command line than actually getting work done!

Right now, XP is a great option for people who aren't early adopters. I'm waiting on Vista. I might get it when SP1 comes out, or maybe wait until SP2.

-J.

As of now, Vista is a steaming POS. Yes, it will get better with driver support and computers (particularly laptops) once they are tailored for it, but the system is not leaps and bounds different than XP, and the marginal difference is the reason people aren't lining up to buy it. It's just like the Blu-ray/HD-DVD thing. Most people don't give a shit about marginal improvement and aren't going to shell out hundreds of dollars for it.

I'm actually buying it today for my new PC. I don't feel like re-installing it down the road and since I never bought a copy of XP, I might as well buy Vista. I can't stand trying to get around copy protection anymore, it's a pain in the ass.

I'm not worried about driver issues really. I don't use non-standard parts really, nor anything that is to generic. All of my new components have Vista drivers (I checked), so I'm not worried about it. I was reading about a lot of the new features and it has a lot of new features that appeal to me.

Be prepared to be annoyed the fuck out of the User Control Console BS and endless amounts of pop-up ballons!

Not worried one bit. I am also excited about using ReadyBoost with my new Patriot Xporter 200x 4GB Thumb Drive.

People complained about XP in the same fashion as Vista when it was new, yet today, I doubt you'll see anyone prefer to use 98 over XP.

Driver issues are not Microsoft's fault. Manufacturers have known this was coming for years. Microsoft has thrown out betas left, right, and center for hardware manufacturers to get their shit together for a change.

Guess what? They didn't. They fucked up. Instead of writing drivers and supporting their hardware, nVidia and ATi/AMD have their little passive-aggressive circle jerk and Creative is fucking around with X-Fi and other marketing hype bullshit.

Or it could be that they were expecting Vista to flop completely given the meager marginal utility, and didn't want to waste money writing drivers for it.

Or even more likely, they focus on where the majority of the market is.

Vista has failed to fuel a massive, new round of computer buying, unlike previous versions of Windows releases, so I'd say that the manufacturers have been right on the money to not cater to it.

Bullshit on all counts...

It's running fine on this laptop not designed for it. You sound like one of those "I'm cool, I hate MS" people.

EDIT: After reading the rest of your replies, I see I was right.

Vista is fine.

UAC is annoying, but it's not a hard task to turn it off, a few clicks and a reboot.

Don't let the MS haters worry you.

Oh I don't. Xerafin has always complained about MS, so I'm not worried.

XP was never given a warm reception either, I have no idea what he's talking about up there. Vista will also catch on, most likely with SP1, like XP did.

Once Dx10 games start arriving, Vista's sales will start booming.

Also, it takes most businesses a year, sometimes 2 or 3 after an O/S is released to adopt it. I'm not worried about Vista being any sort of a 'failure'.

XP got, what, a 10th? of the release celebrations that Win95 did. Vista got about a 10th of that. While business didn't adopt XP immediately (and there's still places that won't upgrade past 2000, and I can't blame them), consumer reception to XP in the first few months was much more positive than reception to Vista has been.

XP also had 'benefit' of following the worst iteration ever, Windows ME. Vista is following what many people now consider to be the best iteration.