Users petition to keep Windows XP (CNN)
 

"Windows XP is set to be pulled off of store shelves in June, but supporters hope their petition will prevent that."
Link to CNN Article

Personally, I hate Vista. I have used it and found it to be nothing but bloat and trouble. Every other forum I visit describes nothing but incompatibilities, errors, and administrative rights issues. It is a headache within a CD. I switched from 98 to XP with nearly no problems whatsoever. My school even tried to make a movement with Vista. When absolutely none of the academic software my school uses is/was compatible, what were they supposed to do other than go back to the friendly XP?

There is this petition here to keep XP still on the shelves after June 30. I haven't signed it yet only because I can't think which email address to use.

Yeah, Vista has more holes in it than an Ivan pop-up at Fort Bragg.

I run XP and I find myself having to download utilities that allow me to read the new formats (such as .DOCX and .DOCM) because upgrading isn't worth it.

Next computer? I'd rather buy a blank laptop and install XP myself instead of trying to get rid of the everlasting cooties that Vista seems to infect.

how is XP going to stop existing? seems like data will never die, it just wont continue to be updated is all *shrug* Yeah it's still "better" but in the same way that 98 is better for some things too.

C'mon, if this doesn't make you appreciate Vista, what possibly could?

companies like microsoft don't have to care too much about keeping an OS on the shelves that people like. They are free to eliminate the old and bring in the new because people will continue to go with the flow, no matter what.

A petition isn't going to do it. Hit MS where it hurts, in their bottom line. DO NOT BUY VISTA, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING THAT USES VISTA, AND DO NOT BUY OR USE ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES A VISTA FILE FORMAT!!!!!!!!!!

I use Vista myself, and I'm mostly just a regular user. Music, games, video, etc. And to be honest, I haven't really had any issues. All my programs work fine, old and new, with no compatibility problems. When Vista first came out, of course it had a few problems like any other OS, but after SP1, runs clean as a whistle.

Is that for real? Where on earth did you find that?

I rolled my laptop back to XP. Vista was a steaming pile of bloatware that went slower than the last two weeks of high school.

Plus, it wouldn't run some of my programs. I tried installing them under the XP emulation, but no dice.

I didn't even bother to see if my printer worked with it.

How much does MS water you, Plant?

Kidding, I swear. I just have been working on that joke for too long now not to use it on someone.

The only real reasons I would even consider the switch to Vista is the security. However, I have the security aspects almost all covered, and if I get paranoid enough, I can use Sandboxie to emulate the same security features as Vista.

I think most people that push for XP to stay around are the power users that don't want to have their power usurped from them in the ways Vista most certainly will.

BEST MARKETING PLOY EVER.

Buy computer with Vista, buy XP at full price.

i have Vista and I too have zero issues with it (and I only have 1GB of RAM)

how many of the "non-compatible" programs people have trouble with are shit like bit torrent or other questionable stuff? or is it games? i honestly don't know

Yeah, I run Vista, and I haven't had any problems with it other than some minor networking issues I was able to resolve easily (the laptops we have that run Vista would not recognize the XP computers on the network).

It's certainly not enough of a pain for me to want to uninstall Vista and install XP.

I refuse to pay Microsoft $200 or more for the privilege of continuing to use my computer, particularly when there's a possibility that my existing hardware will be incompatible not because of any fault with the hardware itself but because Microsoft requires all drivers to be 'Microsoft certified.' Vista will not install uncertified drivers, which removes an element of control from the user. Anything, anything that arbitrarily restricts the way in which I can and cannot use my computer is not kosher with me.

If Vista were offering any real advantage over XP, I might understand; but so far as I can see, all Vista has going for it is eye candy (and DX10, but that was an arbitrary decision to 'encourage' users to switch). Personally, I think the Windows line peaked with Windows 2000, and would've happily used that over anything that Microsoft has released since had it been an option. As it is, I see no useful features in Vista whatsoever, and a whole lot of kludge that will at best adversely affect performance and at worst could render my perfectly good and reasonably powerful computer unusable.

All of that said, I don't reckon a petition will do much good. Microsoft is too heavily into the idea of controlling it's userbase to let something like that fly. My solution was to give up Microsoft entirely. Linux has come a long way in terms of usability.

I was always a win2k fan and slowly progressed to winxp which i never had any problems with.

My new laptop came with Vista install and i have had no problems yet, old games, apps and new stuff all works fine. The only compliant i have is that it is designed for non computer users. You have to dumb yourself down to do stuff in the vista control panel, i have to hand it to MS if you were a novice they're making it easier i guess.

still if you know more than two ways to access the control panel Vista can crush your spirits.

Sagernotebook.com You can still get laptops with XP preinstalled ;)

I have switched my entire house to Linux (and car too.). I could care less what they do to XP or Vista. XP never worked that well on my laptop anyways after the first 3 months.

I have Vista, and love it. I've only had ONE compatability issue, Medieval Total War I... which doesn't bother me because II is so much better.

I also like my games being able to use the multiple cores I have... not even possible with XP.

wait what? games can't use dual cores under xp?

Augi, didn't you mean to say "push for XP to stay around"?

I used Windows 2000 for a year and a half before I switched to XP, enter SP1. Nowadays XP is stable, great, no real reason to upgrade to Vista. Back then, however I remember there being something with XP about DirectX ;) And a few other conveniences in the way the filestructure was layed out. Maybe I'll have to switch to Vista someday, but I don't see it any time soon.

*nix is great for whatever purpose you have. I run FreeBSD for my router/firewall, no real reason to use a Linux distro due to my XP machine handling my Exchange calendar/sync to my phone. Thunderbird for email and I game like a madman.

I could use an apple, but I haven't had the need to feel cool in a while.

My point is that I feel you should use whatever OS it is you feel most comfortable with. A lot of people don't have the knowledge to make that decision. That's why something like Vista is even possible.

XP even supports quad core technology.

Maybe if you bought XP home a long time ago and haven't upgraded it to SP1 or SP2?

I don't even know. Some games implement dual core technology poorly and split processing unevenly across the two cores but that's universal across all the operating platforms.

I don't like vista, because it's not an upgrade that's worth $200. I don't even think it's worth $50. When I upgraded (after the service pack which corrected many of the incompatibility errors etc) I found that everything I did or played took longer than on XP. I had to reduce quality and resolution on my games, autocad and maya chugged along, i had drawing lag in photoshop, even browsing slowed. I have a good system and none of these should have been issues. This was even after the hard drive indexing, which was ridiculous to me and felt like it shortened the life of my drives.

So I switched back. I'm now hearing about a modular system for the next version of windows that will have me pay out extra for the programs and architecture I take for granted as part of a regular operating system. It's likely i'll move to a linux or open source OS when I do decide to upgrade, because i'm frustrated with microsoft and I don't want to give them more of my money.

I had to get a new CPU at work and it has Vista. We don't use torrents, we use legit software and Vista acts like we're punishing it, so it punishes back.
Here's just a few of the issues that make me curse up a storm daily:
1) It dumps programs randomly. Irfanview good Monday, gone Tuesday. Photoshop good Tuesday, half its modules missing Wednesday.
2) Random network dumping. Not just disconnecting-DUMPING me so that I have to go through re-setting it up.
3)Will not allow me to upload interactive Java Script needed for online ordering-PROS and ROES will NOT work on this pc.
4)BIOS is not accessible. This might be an HP/Compaq deal, but it's not accessible to me.
5) The mysterious user factor. I am the administrator of this pc yet I get "access denied" when trying to extract zip files or downloading some exe's. The pc came with a preset user, "wwwww" which I can't get rid of. Again, might be an HP deal.
6) Unfriendly user panel. With slight differences, I can get into Device Manager 2 or 3 different ways. Why??
Other issues included AOL acting so much like an annoying Trojan, I had to delete it entirely(that's where our emails are, so it was needed. Now I go in it thru IE).
Edit after reading skier's response: Out of the box, the pc started up with 55 processes!! WTF??? I reconfigured the startup and still get over 40processes running, due to fear I eliminate the wrong one.

According to my friend, a pretty high up manager in the DoD, the US government runs on XP. Since the inception of Vista, they have been trying to incorporate it and can't. Nothing they have will run on Vista and it has too many issues to attempt the changeover. MS is screwing not just the lowly consumer but the entire government with this piece of shit.

It cost me $1200 to custom order my Dell loaded with XP and I'm thrilled-worth every penny. Not one of my software packages would run on Vista, they're too old(all before 2005). I guess Mr. Gates thinks we're all rich and can afford to replace $1,000's of dollars worth of software because he says so.....and last I read, mega-companies like Adobe are not offering patches or discounted upgrades to run on Vista. If you can't, oh well....shell it out or suffer.

I would at least hope that MS would issue a service pack that would backtrack Vista to accept older software, but I'm not optimistic. There's no money in that.

I just built a new system and installed XP on it. I'm running an AMD Sempron LE 1300 (@ 2.31 Ghz unclocked) processor with 2 GB of DDR2 ram and I can do a full reboot (from clicking the "restart" button to ready to compute) in under a minute.

What are the chances that I'll be able to do that with Vista?

I'm inclined to say that you probably don't know the half of it.

I personally think the Hallowe'en documents should be required reading for anyone purchasing a new computer.

*Sits on his Windows XP SP2, patiently awaits Windows 7, and looks to his OS X 10.4 lovingly, pondering 10.5*

Don't know the half of what?
I know Vista SUCKS...that about covers it.

Which means that you may or may not be aware that Microsoft is more concerned with dominating and monopolizing the desktop market than creating a quality product, but are probably not aware that they have created an entire business strategy that revolves around eliminating their competitors, rather than allowing their product to compete in an open market.

Microsoft's goal is not to win market share by creating a better operating system, but rather to dominate the market by removing consumer choice. They've already done an excellent job by establishing themselves; Vista is going to outsell all other operating systems combined this year not on any technical merits, but because so many programs that are essential to so many people are not available under any other operating system. They are attempting to continue and strengthen this trend by cornering the market on formats and protocols and locking out their competitors, allowing them to release barely functional products with exorbitant prices because their consumers don't have any choice.

Further reading.

Oh, that's old news. I'd addressed that on a blog, talk about it with my geek friends for years....that's why it's referred to as M$.
It's why M$ will never allow any OS to read Mac-based data, why it's harder to find Mac based software, etc.
Vista will outsell because it is the policy of computer makers to preinstall an OS and as long as M$ is the only game in town re that, they can hold the balls of every manufacturer with clawed fingers.
What's needed is a major manufacturer to say Thanks, but no thanks-we'll sell'em blank and let our customers decide.

HAHA! I made a funny. :D

It is old news, but no less relevant.

The Hallowe'en documents are approaching their tenth anniversary. October of 1998 this information was leaked, and Microsoft doesn't seem to have changed at all in the intervening decade.

I'm predicting that if this trend keeps up, more users are going to get sick of that crap and end up making the leap to either Mac or *nix. Like I said, Ubuntu and other distros are making Linux more accessible to the new user than ever before.

Mind you, given Microsoft's strong commitment to maintaining deadlines, the next version of Windows ought to hit the shelves around 2015 or so. Vistas already in the wild, any major new policy changes are going to be most evident in it's successor.

Windows 7 will be launched in 2010, Vista is the new Millenium. Link
I just bought a Dell with Vista pre installed, after a week giving it the benefit of the doubt, I installed my copy of XP Pro. When I first used XP as a beta tester back in the time, I never, ever, thought of going back to 98. XP was an improvement over '98, Vista is nothing more than eye candy for XP trying to imitate a lot of features that XP can do with free apps like Google Desktop.

Perhaps you misunderstood the irony inherent in my assertion that Microsoft has a 'strong commitment to deadlines.'

I am concerned about this, as I am soon to get a spanking new laptop...it will probably come with Vista. I want my XP...meh.

I am an Xp user since september 2001. beta release. And overall, i can't think of using anything else.

Now that I bought 2 computers with Vista on it, I have to say: it's really not that bad!!

if you disable user control, and get rid of the crappy vista look(just the same as the crappy xp look), then it runs fine without any problems. the only thing I hate is the windows explorer window. No up button?! what's up with that?!

Actually all of my simple programs failed to work under Vista: my password manager, my cd ripper, my FLAC codec. I listen to lossless music and no longer support MP3. My damned media player was not allowed to scan a directory for media files!!



@ Martian:
I would love to make the switch to Linux. I know Ubuntu is the simplest (and built from my first, Debian) but even that boggles my mind at times. The simplest programs that are available through windows (like some mentioned above) are completely devoid in Linux. One cannot find accurate secure ripping tools, password managers, or decent "do it all" media players. If FooBar2000 was built to run native in Linux, most the battle is won for me (FB2K under wine blows)



Yes, yes I did.

Did not have one issue with any of those on my Vista.

I have a trojan horse in my house now... I have a dual quad core Mac Pro shiny steel tower sitting near me. It's strictly being used for Final Cut Pro only.

I started on an Apple][+, DOS 3.3 with a tape drive and disk drive. When the Mac first came out in 1984 MSRP $2495 and I knew my father wasn't going to pony up another round of monies to get one. (It wasn't foreseen that you'd upgrade your machine every couple of years) so when an IBM XT came out at a much cheaper price, that's the direction I went.

If MS creates an environment wherein I'm not able to do what I need to do with the freedom I'm required to do it, the Apple may be an easy choice for me to make.

What software were you using?

I think vista is shipped like old packets of cereal used to be. Theres a man at the end of the conveyer throwing in special treats, but he gets bored and doesn't do loads, then throws a bunch into one packet.

That person then has that packet come round, bend them over their desktop and sodomises them with their mouse.


Vista was brilliant for me when i first got it, then it became a hog. Now i have 4gb of ram in my laptop and it still only works a tad better.
Plus i still don't have a fraking clue how to change vista settings like i used to in XP, so i can't alter everything to work smoother.

Grrr.

That was true once, but is less so now. To use your examples, Linux has Keyring (a password manager), Sound Juicer (a cd ripping utility), and VLC (which is also available for Windows). In your particular situation I think you may like Rhythmbox; I have yet to find any features that foobar2000 offers and Rhythmbox does not, and it's a slick little program.

With the exception of VLC, all of these ship with Ubuntu. If none of the pre-loaded software is your thing, however, you can always open Synaptic and browse the thousands of programs freely available there. Installing and uninstalling is as easy as a couple of clicks, thanks to Debian's package management.

The only users who are not well served by Linux at this point are gamers and the Photoshop crowd. The interesting thing about Linux, though, is that software is developed by the community to fill it's needs. The wider the community, the more needs there are to fill, the more software becomes available.

Being in IT myself, I have my own opinion about Microsoft's latest offering as well as a very deep well of other opinions to draw upon.

Some in my organization like Vista a lot while I join the "not" crowd.

Either way, Microsoft probably won't back off too far regarding discontinuing new XP sales, because frankly, they can't. They've spent too much money and new OS's are their bread and butter.

At this point, XP is running fine for me and Vista can't do anything I want that XP can't. My mom's laptop has Vista, and on the rare occasions she needs me to help her with something, I get the feeling that Vista is intended to treat the user like an idiot and prevent proficient users from accomplishing anything in a non-Microsoft-approved way.

When I get a new computer, maybe I'll find something that XP can't do and file the XP CD away next to my copies of every Windows OS since 0.7. I doubt I'll be upgrading before W7 comes out, and if I do, I'll have to find someone who doesn't want their 64-bit copy of XP.