Save the best Windows ever, Windows XP!

We have got to save Windows XP. As of now, it is one of the most stable Windows systems, and there are plenty of software availability for it. Windows Vista has still not been debugged enough and a good deal of (rather important) software are still glitchy under Vista. So until the situation is improved on both Microsoft and Third Pary Vendors sides, we need to preserve Windows XP some more time. I know Microsoft wants to make more money, but killing Windows XP right now might cause a lot of people to migrate to Linux (they have been improving greatly over the last two years, Linux Debian is more than a match for any Apple System, for instance)

Lets save Windows XP!

Stay aware of "Death by Update" as that is what half-hearted integration of IE, net-framework and Directx-9c did to Win98se.

Come on Microsoft Vista is not yet ready, its just like putting go faster stripes on XP.

I'm running Win'2K SP4 on a 1.6mhz Pentium, and see no reason to upgrade to Vista or XP for that matter. If the only way MicroSoft can make money is to keep coming out with non-compelling OS upgrades, and forcing people to upgrade, then they clearly have deteriorated into a truly pathetic company. What's even more embarrassing is Bill Gates himself spearheaded Vista development, and has little innovation to show for his efforts. no wonder that has-been is retiring.

Most of my family use XP , I think it will need hard efforts to move VISTA.

my best wishes

Vista is a bloated POS! Plain and simple.
This is about what it is: "non-compelling OS upgrades."

Just bought a new Lenovo laptop with Vista Business and PAID $52.50 extra to get the XP Pro (upgrade) restore disks so I wouldn't have to use that useless piece of dog schmoo Vista. I have far too much investment in hardware, software and my own piece of mind to go there!

IMHO Xp is far better than Vista , faster and it is more simple to manager and develop applications for it.

Just got a new Everex system with Vista Home Basic on it. 38 startup items upon booting the machine. Ridiculous!!

IMMEDIATELY blew off Vista and installed XP Pro. Machine runs like a raped ape now.

YO MS something to think about.

My company is NOT going to move to Vista. Our new CS department will come online in July. As XP is going to be EOL by then we have scheduled to install UBUNTU as it will run our custom apps on the hardware platform we are currently running. XP will also work on that same platform and will run our custom apps.

Vista wont. We're currently running W2K. You've already started to lose our server business to Ubuntu. Do you want to lose our desktops too?

Keep XP, Vista is nothing but a headache and will never work as well as XP, You should have put more into improving 2K and XP instead of trying to re-write a whole new platform that has proven it isn't worth the time it takes to type its name.

Have any of you nay-sayers actually used Vista for any length of time? Remember the learning curve when we went from 98/2000 to XP; Same thing, put some effort in and you might not be so negative about it. I've had Vista on my laptop virtually since launch and I haven't had any major issues with it.

@Saddletramp: I think you have Everex to blame for that. It would have run just as fast if you had installed a clean copy of Vista without Exerex's startup items.

No-one is forcing you to use Vista. If your PC with XP is fine then why would you want to change.... and in which case, why are you moaning about a product that you don't need or want? On the other hand, if you do need a PC and you can't get it with XP, then so what? Jeez, PC World (UK) have decent spec systems with 22" TFTs, more than capable of running Vista for about £500. Powerful computers are cheap nowadays.

Our company use one Ms Windows 2003 server and several workstations, based on WinXPproSp2. If we will change OS to Vista, we must throw away all of our PC, because our PC's have only 512Mb of RAM. WinXP run's excellent, how's about Vista on this amount of RAM? Sound's lika a joke.

How You think - a newbie, when he get new PC (HP or Dell - not matter) - HE CAN PROPERLY USE VISTA?! I don't thnink. But one i must say - Vista is more bulletproof than XP especially for newbies. Sorry, gays, it is true.

XP should be allowed to stay for all its users - they have paid good money to microsoft for it...
sounds very much like microsoft grabbing what it can yet AGAIN...

Vista is ok! Don't be idiots and let Vista prove itself. Nobody liked XP neither when it showed up.

I have been trying to get my wife's new laptop running with Vista. It SUCKS so bad we want to throw it away! the new MSOFFICE is absolutely terrible, unusable, useless. The whole GUI is some Seattle nerds wet dream, but i just think it's kinky. Do you get the picture? it is the worst thing in computers since... maybe EVER!

Vista is overweight in a sense and it really does not bring anything new to business. Why waste all the money upgrading your hardware because you are going to be force into buying to Vista. I have used Vista and really kind of frustrating with those extra pop-ups and stuff warning you on these and that. There is alot of round about ways of doing stuff. I have a Mac too. Frankly if I am force to upgrade my XP machine I am going to OS X since I have to buy new hardware etc.. just to move to Vista.

I think Windows XP and Vista should co-exist for several years. We have a some applications developed for our client using Visual Studio 2003. However, VS 2003 cannot be installed on Vista. How can we provide maintenance for our clients in the future if all our new PCs are forced to upgrade to Vista?

It's not so much that the gui is laid out differently in Vista (although it does take longer to perform any task) but that the damned thing runs 1001 useless processes, eats up your ram, and has forgotten how to do the most basic tasks (like copying a dozen files to a different media or playing a movie properly) i disagree with the thought "powerful pcs are cheap nowadays" so what? Just because big engines are cheap in cars doesn't mean you bolt an airplane to the back just coz it's a new thing to do.
I agree with Josh that it is a complete waste. as for arguing that the weight is necessary for a good os, whatabout gOS? it's very good, and only doesn's support most apps because it's not the majority OS.

Keep XP, don't force us to pay for malware. XP was at least easier to use and had many useful new features. and for a nicer gui, just skin the deuced thing if you want.

I have been working with windows ever since Windows 3.1. I support the desktop environment in a public school system and at this time because of hardware limitations are running a mix of Windows 2000 and XP. There is no way this hardware (to old to upgrade) will run Vista and because of budget constraints will not be able to purchase new hardware.

I have nothing against Windows but I do have a problem with Mr. Gates forcing us to eventually have to upgrade by dropping support of the other O/S's. I personally run and like XP and have had no major issues. If I am not mistaken I believe to make Vista more secure the O/S is based on Unix. There is also so much bloatware to give you that fancy GUI/Graphics you need to purchase a new desktop/laptop to run it.

I am starting to look at Linux distros to possibly use on the older PCs we have in the district which has been running great on the older hardware. Billy is slowly digging a hole for the company. BTW: I installed a Linus disto called FreeSpire on my Toshiba laptop and it has been running flawless.

In order for me to update to Vista, I would need a new computer. I am not going to spend my money for a mock OS. If I'm buying a new computer, I'm getting a Mac.

The old story. Repeated again. Will people never learn?
"If it ain't broke, don't mend it"
But no, having brought something out, and struggled over time to get it right, just as it is about perfect go and scrap it for something new.
THEN START THE UPHILL STRUGGLE OF SORTING OUT ALL THE BUGS AND PROBLEMS IN THE NEW!!!!

What applies to Microsoft also applies to all other programme writers as far as I can see. They want to hang more bells and whistles on it, often of little or no value, and then spend more time trying to sort it out and get it to work properly!

It has to be a no brainer.

What Vista is giving us is a lot of resource hogging eye candy, and little else. I have a friend who just purchase an Alienware laptop with the latest highend processor and 4 Gb of RAM. He told me that he thought Vista ran pretty good on it. I told him I have a 3 - year old XP laptop with 512 Mb of RAM that is quite capable of handling all the functions I need for my network administration tasks. I do not see why I should be forced to purchase a powerhouse machine to "accommodate" Microsoft's latest O.S. I can use an XP machine to perform my duties faster, more efficent and with system robbing things going on in the background. Why switch?
Plus, XP readily interfaces with all the programs and equipment that I need to interact with. The same can not be said of Vista. I can't understand why they would introduce a product that will not readily integrate with current devices. As the Apple commercial suggests, if your equipment will not work with Vista, go buy new equipment. This is so VERY WRONG! I guess we should also trash our software too.
I work for an auto dealership that is struggling just to keep afloat. Appoximately 85% of the current equipment would not support Vista in any fashion without costly upgrades, most not at all. They are running 2K and XP quite handily and getting the job done without added costs. The techs and Sales staff just need a basic tool to perform their duties. Nothing fancy...nothing more. Cost is always a major concern here, as I'm sure it is with most other smaller companies. Stable, and doing everything they need to do, without the eye candy. We also are still running IE 6, as some third party companies we deal with STILL do not support IE 7 yet!
Hint: Hey Microsoft, not everybody can afford to keep up with your payroll.
I have defended Microsoft in the past when compared to Open Source offerings, telling people that Microsoft has to integrate with just about everything under the sun, which can cause some vulnerabilites, whereas Open Source does not. It seems that Vista changes that argument, as Microsoft produced a product that does not work with many devices. Plus now there are many more Open Source offerings that run MUCH cleaner and efficient with a larger support system than before.
By the way, the same can be said for most of Office 07, more flash, not much bang for the buck. I guess that is Microsoft's new motto. If so, their employees should start looking for work elsewhere. I hear Google is looking to expand...

Let's think to the mountain of ewaste the forced adoption of Vista could produce... My firm uses about 500 PC (desktop+laptop), many date back to 2001/2002 and are doing their daily dirty work with W2K and XP and could go on and on (maybe with some added RAM to balance SPacks and Antivirus). Now think of 400 PC in your backyard (China, Africa?) to dispose of, full of plastic, heavy metals and so on.
No, we don't NEED Vista and our planet do not deserve it.
I'm running the first Vista in the firm, it HAS its pros and cons, like Office 2007, but you can live without it...

Windows XP and Vista have been created for different purposes that are in conflict in converting from one program to the other. To me it seems that Vista has been created for the users that use the PC as a toy while Win XP was created for the PC as a useful tool for all that use it. Then there is the cost of having to convert to Vista by replacing PC's that are only a few years old and have been serving the users very well. This is an excessive hardship to the consumers and users of home PC's that are already in a financial crunch. Especially on a PC that several thousand dollars have been invested to keep XP and its PC hardware up to date. XP has been a very good program and is still very useful and should have continued support by Microsoft. As a tool, the XP is far more useful for those not interested in high graphic capabilities that Vista has been created for, like gamers and picture storage. XP is a tool, Vista is a toy program, each with its abilities and purposes.

As an IT professional I have become used to change I expect and welcome change (when it improves my experience), otherwise we would ALL still be counting on abacus beads. I guess that is the real point, some people still are… why? Because they choose to, it works for them and they would find the alterative slow and expensive.
Likewise the few small business’s that I support are staying with W2K/XP because there is no perceived benefit; only pain and expense. This is also true for many of my domestic clients (silver surfers), who don’t have the time or inclination to move to vista and have all specified XP as the OS of choice when buying a new PC which Excludes their shopping at PCWorld.
The OS is supposed to facilitate the execution of the programs chosen by the user to perform tasks which justify ownership of the computing equipment; this is true for domestic as well as business users.
The trouble is this latest iteration of Windows is so busy monitoring and securing itself; just in case the user or some bogey man from under the bed should try to; install, change, or perform a function which could possibly compromise the smooth harmony which is the Vista experience. So that suddenly there’s no resource left to perform your chosen Apps.
If we could take out all of the monitoring (who’s stats are collected by Microsoft, no personally identifiable data of course), disable some of the overly intrusive security and clean up the front end; getting rid of the overblown resource wasteful GUI that adds nothing but fluff… Oh, but then we’d be holding a copy of XP so why not cut out the middle man and give us “THE CUSTOMER� what we want. Sell Vista by all means but don’t claim success of this brilliant new jewel by taking away our choice.

XP is a very stable enviorment. It took me several years to convert from WIN 98 to XP but it has worked very well for me. WIN ME is an example of microsoft jumping the gun an I was not a believer until XP had proven its worth. Now it has shown to be a stable operating system and VISTA still has a few bugs it is not easy for me to jump into it with both feet. I love to build my own system and the XP operating system has proven itself.

I attended one of the Microsoft mobile units that traversed the country this past fall (2007). I did not like what I saw. I am an XP lover. From what I saw and learned at the numerous classes I attended between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., I was not convinced this was a good product. Regardless of the learning curve that someone mentioned above (and I never encountered when I went from one to the other), Vista is NOT a userfriendly product! And as to the large sale of Vista to the consumer. The consumer has no choice when purchasing new computers. Vista is already installed in the computers. In other words, this is "COMMUNISM" since we are being forced to purchase the Vista with a new computer! I needed to purchase Access software 2003 and I did so but by going on eBay to get 2003.

Save XP? Indeed, Microsoft needs to keep it alive, at least until a serious overhaul is done of Vista.

Something is dreadfully wrong with an operating system when every government agency in the United States has a moratorium on installing it on their own desktops.

To date, (IMHO) the only useful purpose that Vista install DVDs serve is as drink coasters.

The resource (memory,CPU power,energy,...),
consumed by Windows Vista compared to Windows XP
is so huge, that if everybody would have to
migrate, the power consumption of the CPU's
needed to run it and consequently the CO2 dissipation involved by the increase of
electricity needed to run Vista on all
the Microsoft platform on the planet
would still grew more than necessary by bringing nothing more for most of the usual desktop usages.
Copying a file from one place to another, was already working correctly on a 33 Mhz PC (even less)...(with Vista under 1.5 Ghz, and 512 Mbytes RAM, forget it...).
The battery of my laptop with Vista is already
exhausted after the boot sequence has been completed, after deinstalling Vista and reinstalling XP, now I have a fast normal computer.
Please, let first Microsoft review his copy,
and the efficiency and resource usage of Vista
also on the energy consumption and CPU power point of view before even think about migrating
to Vista.

I run a small law office, and I can tell you that I cannot afford the learning curve time it would take to move to Vista, even if I liked it, which I don't -- it is, as we lawyers say, a freakin' disaster.

And I will come right out and say what no one else seems to have been willing to put on the table (unless I missed it): I will stick with Windows as long into the future as I can when purchasing new equipment, but when it comes time to replace my machines, if Vista is all there is, I will be headed to (GASP! Is he going to say it? He is, he is!) the Mac or whatever Apple is purveying at the moment. All I care about professionally is the ability to use WordPerfect, maybe Word, Excel and Acrobat, and to have a wireless connection. It had better dawn on Brother Bill that with the right software the Mac can do this!

sas

vista, with it's new hardware requirements, was nothing more than microsoft and the hardware makers getting into bed together and making plans to force us to purchase new hardware and software. It will backfire on them as badly as any plot ever has.

I had to buy a new laptop and it came with vista. It SUCKS. Many of the apps I need to run refuse to run dependably under vista, even in the XP compatibilty mode. Since my laptops are frequently used to transmit emergency information this is serious business for all. There are no plans to make the programs do so either so thanks to microsoft I have a computer I cannot use.

Fortunately there are Linux versions so when I can no longer use XP I will convert to Linux or to Mac. But never vista. Fool me once, shame on me. Try it twice and watch me pad your competitors pockets instead.

Windows Vista is the most intrusive, resource hogging and utterly useless OS ever created. I believe it is even worse then the dreaded Win ME. I recently purchased a Acer 5100-3357 with Vista Home Premium. The system took forever to load programs (even after uninstalling all the Acer backround junk). So I purchased XP Pro 64 bit and formatted the ol' drive and now the machine screams. The next time it will a open source OS.

Maybe Microsoft should consider putting XP on the open source market. A little altruism never hurt anybody.

Out of the 130 or so laptops and 30 or so desktops in our org. only one has vista. This was our "trial" system and it was and is still a total flop. I will not purchase new systems unless they have XP Pro preinstalled or are cross compatible with privious XP systems. Takes a bit longer to find them, but HP seems to have found a nitch market selling them to business clients.

I usually buy 25-30 desktop PCs per year and influence the purchasing decisions of well over 1000 people a year. I gave up on Vista and will go open source if I have to. We've been experimenting with open source and like what we see so far. Microsoft is forcing us in that direction. Vista is mostly change for the sake of change and wanting control of my PC. Ain't gonna happen.

As an instrument vendor we spend hours turning off and removing "features" on every computer that ships with an instrument. The worst offenders are file indexing and firewall and virus checkers that kill real time performance, but many other "features" also cause problems. The last thing we need are bells and whistles that provide zero advantages and hurt core performance

I have been using and developing software in Vista for 6 months now and I prefer it to XP, sure there are a few small things to sort out but overall the OS is very easy to use.
The multi threading makes app's much more responsive than XP, the only learning curve is the Office Suite, the ribbon is great but takes some time learn where all the old funtions and such are.
I'm also into gaming and haven't had issues except drivers that aren't yet properly designed for Vista.
Change is the only constant.

As a college deployment drone, we just got Server 2003 and XP working harmoniously. And now comes Server 2008 based on the whole Longhorn initiative. Will I mix? No. We are not even pushing Office 2007. By the mere fact we aren't pushing these technologies, the client base has shown a lot of concern as to why, and in response they too haven't willingly upgraded at home. They too have much to benefit yet from this "Save XP" adventure as well.

Technically there is nothing wrong with Vista. It is exactally how Microsoft designed it. I just hope it was released as a marketing plan to see how the public would react to higher levels of security and privacy. Perhaps the next major Windows release (Vienna?) (is more like/based on) Linux. It has worked for Apple, why not Microsoft?

I work for a system integrator and the only feature of Vista that's any use to our clients is DirectX-10 and that's been implemented so poorly that the performance drops for 90% of computer users out there are not worth the hassle. So many "features" of Vista are simply unnecessarily system intensive so as to make using it over say dedicated 3rd-party apps a foolish endevour.

I think Vista is fine for home users (the movie and picture features are nice) but it has no place in the business as it brings more quirks than anything useful. I ran Vista Enterprise on my desktop for about a year and just last week went back to using XP Pro x64. There are too many internal applications that just don't work. Vista in a domain environment is slow and problematic... just look at how easy it is to implement logon scripts! *sarcasm*

Does anyone know of a site which tracks people who have "downgraded" from Vista to XP? I just made the switch back and would like to find out who else has done the same.

Thanks!
Mark

The real problem with Vista is the lack of drivers for existing equipment and incompatabilty with many applications. Equipment being repaired that had Winxp OEM origionally on it sometimes will not activate when major changes are made. Then Microsoft will not reset the activation. This has happened several times leaving our customers with a system that is unusable without purchasing a new Winxp or Vista. Vista can be tweaked to run most of the applications our customers use, but this requires a lot of work. This ultimately cost customers much more than maintaining Winxp or Win2k. Example: One of our customers had a pc die, just went and bought a computer at Walmart that had Vista On It. His Quickbooks would install on it. Had to buy update On Quickbooks. The Update would not run on any of his Win98Se computers. They had to be replaced. The end result was a few hundred dollars for a new computer cost them several thousand dollars. Forcing companies to Vista on new computers would not be such a problem if Vista was compatable with existing applications. Most companies cannot afford to upgrade every piece of software they use
even if it available. Companies with custom software (Which in our case is basically all of our customers) may not have a way out.

At work we have no plans on upgrading anytime soon to vista (I work for insight communications), 3/4s of our software is not vista compliant. (thats well over 1000 computers just in my building, not counting the dozens of local offices)

As a home pc user that has xp and used vista (on a friends pc) I can say there is no way I am upgrading due to driver issues and just the overall vista "experience"..

As I tell everyone, the only thing I like about vista is the games that come preloaded....

"Does anyone know of a site which tracks people who have "downgraded" from Vista to XP? I just made the switch back and would like to find out who else has done the same."

We're just ordering approx 100 new HP workstations with Vista, that will all have be upgraded to XP Pro!

We made a corporate decission to standardise on HP kit many years ago, but have just bought a load of Lenovo laptops with XP Pro, because all the HP models we wanted were only available with Vista.

I have been using Windows based OS since Win 3.0. Also been test driving Vista since it's developement stages all the way till this very date. My conclusions on it? It is far more secured then any other versions developed, resourse hungry, lack legacy hardware support (drivers), to run the Vista experience (glass effects, eye candy) requires new hardware (videocards + ram), the list goes on and on... In a nutshell, While XP can run efficiently even in a 233 mhz proc and it's system requirements are peoples choice to run current and old hardwares, the main turf here is software compatibilities on Vista. It's become a huge problem and forces users to stick with XP. Why migrate to Vista if your current apps run flawless? Upgrade to Vista just for the Aero effects, etc? Or cause it is more secured? I don't think so. Mac Os is one good example of how they maintain harmony among thier customers. Their OS can still run on systems that are so called Legacy harware fine. I have a Mac laptop running OS X 10.4.11 on a 366mhz proc with 256mb system ram and only 8 mb onboard vid memory and it runs all the eyecandy the OS offers flawlessly. While on my other laptop with a celeron 2.6 mhz proc, 1 gig ram, 64 mb vid ram, Vista restricts running well and denying me from getting the Vista eyecandy visuals, hardware compatibility probs and add to that the softwares not being compatible? Not a good deal, so then, why force the windows users to migrate to Vista currently? I belive 100% that XP needs to remain till Vista is ironed out, tweaked and the system load and requirements are fixed. Period.

I am all for keeping XP around for as long as possible. Truth be told, I was not against Vista until I used it for 6 months at work. We had one upgraded machine (Vista Business / Office 2003) and one preinstalled machine (also Vista Business / Office 2007). Both experienced similar headaches with screen lock-ups (both computers had 2GB of RAM), the print service would stop and start for no apparent reason. Blank CDs were not recognized and Vista wished them to be "formatted" before using. These along with other issues caused us to move back to XP.

For the technical work I do, there are many tools I use, which run fine on XP Pro; but not on Vista. If XP is no longer made available, I have no issue using my current workstation until it the hardware is outright unusable, and then moving to a Linux-based platform.

I think Vista was designed for the casual home user who wants email, web-browsing, and working with digital photos.

Vista is not the future. XP is. Vista is a memory hog, full of bloatware, and uses too much power. My laptop's video card, a 128MB ATI Radeon, is constantly pushed to its limit just to run Vista. That's sad, Microsoft. You leave me no choice. It's come to this. *holds an ubuntu disc behind back* But seriously, XP is faster, more reliable, and uses less resources. Why fix something that isn't broken?

I have been a PC user most of my life. I am now considering a MAC. Why??? Well, I called Gateway the other day to purchase a new computer. I had a desk-top that had Vista in it, and I absolutely hated it enough to have the OS changed to XP. Vista wouldn't work with anything: my printer, my fax machine, etc . . . So, I have had a Gateway laptop, and asked them if I could order a new computer and explained that I wanted to have an XP OS. The woman said that they could only sale computers with Vista on it, because they had a contract with Microsoft. I explained that XP was by Microsoft, and that I didn't understand why I couldn't order a new computer that I wanted with a Microsoft OS that I wanted. She said she was sorry, and I informed her that I was too! That she was losing a sale because I couldn't get what I wanted! Vista simply sucks and I think it is irresponsible that Microsoft is trying to force people that don't want to use their "new and improved" Operating System if people don't want it!!! I will learn MAC if I have to, but I would rather have what I want, and what I am willing to pay for! Someone advised me that they are still selling laptops with the XP systems at J & R Music World in New York, and they are! They are selling the programs and upgrades still everywhere, but the idea that they will become obsolete because of Vista is unconscionable!!! Microsoft, you really need to wake up, and listen to the peoples voices. Remember we have supported your system, when others are available! Nonetheless, you are attempting the masses to use a system that no one wants! Come on Bill and Melinda, listen to the people!!! Let folks choose the Microsoft system that they want!!! What difference does it make, especially since they are still all of your operating systems. Otherwise, I am going to go to Apple and get my a MAC and learn a new system, and trust me if I am forced to do that: I'll never look back. If you want this kind of backlash, then keep trying to force the masses to do what they don't want to do! I hope you truly take heed to these messages and this site. It will truly be your loss in the long run!!!
Respectfully Submitted,
Veronika Cauley, LVN
Commissioner of Veteran's Affairs,
City and County of San Francisco

Vista needs more PC power than is reasonably available right now. Many notebooks and some desktops are being sold with Vista pre-installed which are just not able to run Vista at all efficiently. So XP needs to continue to be avialable onnew PCs. Vista 64 bit has very liitle support and most of what is claimed to work in it does not, hardly any better than XP 64 bit in fact. Many of Vista's new features either don't work properly or are not needed/wanted. Network discovery is a blight which needs fixing properly. The inability of WHQL signed drivers to work properly, networking especially and with the WAN Miniport PPPOE in particular, is unforgivable. Until these things are sorted XP must remain available to new PC buyers. XP was only adopted properly once SP2 came along and the hardware improved (after 2+ years) to the level required. WinME never took off. Win2K was only accepted by a few. Claiming that millions of licences have been sold proves nothing, most were sold to customers denied any choice and most of them wish they had not bothering buying a new PC. Sure, after soem familiarisation one can work around some of the more significant glitches and learn the new interface, even if no perceived benefit ensues. But short of replacing all your hardware, all your software, giving uop some of both as no Vista replacement is available and still not getting the remainder to work properly does not sound like progress to me. Maybe in 2 years time things will be different. Then, and only then, let XP die a graceful death.

XP SP2 is the first decent version of Windows since Windows 2000.

Vista in my opinion is the modern equivalent of Windows ME it's redundant, unnecessary, and unliked.

Win XP SP2 is the best OS up to date, Vista still has issues and is not compatible with a lot of 3rd party apps.

As a small business owner needing a new laptop. Many of my suppliers programs will not work with Vista? What was Microsoft thinking??

Well, you know what i think, i think microsoft should get the old far superior builds of longhorn and turn them into windows 7 when vista goes thats what i think, i mean longhorn had its problems, but thats only cos it never got much further than alpha but if they tuned it up it could be good enough to replace vista (and dont say longhorn became vista cos i no tht but longhorn is way better). As for Windows XP i say we keep it BIG time, vista got more performance issues than a dung beetle on crack.

the most embarrassing fact is, that microsoft got no great improvements, they are still using they're old core instead of reprogramming it to get more performance, it semms like they only change the visual style of the system and then all this pre-installed spyware. they are forcing us to change to vista and the main reason for the change is directx 10 which they should give free for xp also.
i actually installed a very nice linux system called ubuntu it's faster, it's got a great community, it's open source it's still improoving and i'm ready for the change course i won't let them kid me like they want. we're the costumers and they should begin treatening us like those.
and pls stop this crap with ultimate home and all the other variants you've created to earn more money ... if i buy an os, i require that it got everything this os offers and of course no programms in the backround to check the validness of my system it's all perfomance devouring and just peeving.

I have been using Vista Business on my work desktop for about 6 months now. After disabling UAC and some of the other visual "enhancements" it seems to run alright. However, I had to install VMware on my Desktop and install an XP VM session to run some of our custom apps. Because of this I would not recommend Vista for anybody until at least SP1. All being said this OS is no different from all the other OS’s from Microsoft. Over weight and not ready for primetime until a major software patch.

Vista is a mess. XP is viable. Do the math.

Vista is not yet 100% compatible with majority of the pcs. so MS should still keep XP alive.

I would like to add a comment about saving windows xp, i have found xp to be the most realiable windows i have used so far, why discontinue it?? if its not broken why fix it??. I have windows vista installed on another H/D and well.... rubbish comes to mind its slow doesnt like the hardware on my motherboard even though the motherboard compatable test i did from microsoft web site said it was ok for the full version of vista. I have also found vista not to be compatable to other software ether. I think vista was released before it was totaly bench tested to knock out its persistant problems, microsoft were promoting vista as the '' most reliable window to date '' eh i dont think it comes anywhere near to xp.

Please Keep XP Alive. We have to save it!!!!!!

Total XP Fan.........

For Microsoft to selling XP is like if Sony stopped selling the PS2 in order to get people to buy the PS3. Think how many millions (billions?) they would lose!

Why can't we have both OSes?

Now you are forcing more people into pirating a copy of XP because they are not able to buy one.

XP is cool system. I've tried Vista several month ago and didn't like it at all. Why don't they support both versions.

Good going InfoWorld - Thumbs Up!

I'm not against change when it comes to operating systems!! What I am against is a operating system
that has a lot of hardware/software compatibility
issues and is not Green(Environmentally friendly)!
Microsoft Vista requires you to dump a 3 to 4 year
computer or older, hardware such as scsi scanners, printers, etc that still function properly! Also, Vista requires energy hogging hardware to run properly!!! This doesn't make sense in a environmentally conscientious world. I'm surprised that the EPA didn't go after Microsoft. All I can say to Microsoft " Fine, I'll buy Vista if you buy my computer and hardware and properly dispose of it for environmental reasons and give me a good discount on new hardware that doesn't use a lot of electricity!" Windows XP needs to stay around for a very long time for these reasons mentioned above!

Windows Vista is non-green because it uses massive PC resources blocking the functionality of hardware and degrading high definition video & audio which Microsoft calls "Premium Content".

Microsoft wants everyone to switch to Vista so they disable your PCs and then tax you in fees for every little extra you want.

And it going to get worse when Microsoft starts pushing Windows 7 aka Vienna when your PCs will be even less functional than running on Vista and you will be forced to pay a yearly subscription & product activation fee or else Microsoft shuts down your PC until you decide to pay them.

Microsoft only understands one thing and that's money, stop paying them and you'll catch their attention. Some or most of you may have to switch to Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, or simply just buy Apple Macs from now on. WINE from http://www.winehq.org/ is a legal Open Source alternative that allows some Windows applications (even Windows XP ones) to install & run non-Microsoft operating systems, http://www.codeweavers.com/products/ is the commercial version that's offically supported.

Power to the people, don't let Microsoft force feed you anymore BS.

I've used all windows variants from 2.0, and with only a few exceptions haven't had major issues with any of them. And I've NEVER written anything about software good or bad anywhere until now. This is my first ever post anywhere on the 'Net. Neither have I used Vista, but have fixed about 8 PCs with Vista installed ex-shop. All have complained about slowness - bootup, software loading and general use: even on one high-end Core Duo 2.0gHz machine.

I'm planning to stay with XP until it falls over from old age. Mine's a P4 2.8, 1.5gb RAM, 180GB SATA HDD, etc etc. Was latest tech when I bought it about 2.5 years ago, so I think it'll last for a while yet. (Proviso being part availability.)

If there's not something less of a HOG than Vista around at the time I'll seriously look at an Open Source alternative, even though I haven't got a clue on installing and configuring it at the moment. HOG used to mean "Harley Owners' Group", but now seems to have been overshadowed by Vista.

Why oh why did Microsoft release such a load of rubbish - I know it's money, shareholders demand ROI, but MS is operating like it believes no other person's opinion matters except its own.

A good way to lose customers - unless they're in India, China and the rest of the underveloped world.

i have 5 pc's
2 laptops with XP
1 laptop with vista
1 desktop with XP
1 desktop with vista

vista GUI is really great i LOVE vista EXCEPT for one very major glitch
VISTA WILL NOT HARDLY WORK WITH ANYTHING
that is why i decided to buy my laptop from ebay with XP installed

I develop software for video security. Vista hogs too much in the way of resources and 1000's of clients won't buy it. Vista will accelerate the move to Linux for all types of video security applications. Big mistake since many of those use XP embedded. All of the new features are useless in these type of applications. The end users see a blank screen.

XP is an operating system designed to run programs efficiantly on the hardware it's given. Vista, on the other hand, is designed to run itself efficiently, not other programs. 75% of the time it can't even run other programs because of compatability. The people who have the arguement that XP was the same way when it was first released obviously don't have a very good memory. XP actually worked and didn't hog the crap out of your system. Also, all the programs that worked with windows 2k still worked under XP.

I building computers for a living, and until Microsoft really proves to me that Vista is worth the extra hardware, I'm only building with XP Pro (SP3, when it comes out).

Ok...Somewhow I agree what others say:

"We just need some time to see all PC using Vista as it just coming out...Like during the time XP come out..."

But duh! Like ppl says, XP still work fine with the software that use under Win2k but Vista?? Headache!! Some more it eat ur resources! I do like Vista interface but now I rather use XP with a Vista Visual Styles! No worries of slow PC performance but get the beautiful interface of Vista!

Microsoft...Rather than stop selling one of your most reliable OS, why not keep it alive and try to stable your new OS first? You can't expect customer to buy something that not give customer convenience but problems right?

My dealings with Vista have been almost 100% bad. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I can't. After wrestling with it for about 8 months I gave up and went back to XP across the board. Space prevents me from detailing the nightmare story I lived last fall when I bought my wife a brand new tricked-out laptop running Vista Home Premium. Suffice it to say that, no matter how much tweaking and reloading I did, it ran substantially slower than her 3-year-old Celeron machine running XP. What a joke. Microsoft has never put out a product this slow and useless.

To those here who post the Microsoft mantra of "newer", "better", "must upgrade", or what have you, I ask this: Can you sincerely point to a feature set that makes the upgrade worthwhile? I've asked this question of every Vista fan I can find (not many, I'll admit), and their answers are always one of the following:

1. Aero interface! (This is like telling me I should junk my car and get a newer one because it has better paint)
2. Direct X 10! (Niche requirement at best)

and my favorite....

3. Well, we're all going to have to upgrade eventually, so I'm just going to do it now! (I'll not even bother rebutting this load of crap)

Let's be real, these reasons all suck. XP works fine, and realistically, Win2K still works great if you don't have the hardware to run XP yet. There is absolutely NO reason to upgrade to Vista. Like many here, the siren call of Linux gets louder and louder for me.

To cut a long story short, Vista is an half-baked attempt to a radically new OS.

Some of the promised features - like WinFS - were dropped because it took so long to develop the lot that they ran out of time (and budget, I suppose).

Many of the expected benefits aren't there, and so many problems are crippling the USEr eXPerience (pun intended).

Vista is condemned, like a building that took too much time to build, with the beams exposed to the elements without protection for so long they are rotten inside, and the designers tweaking the blueprint so many times that some of the pillars the engineers wanted are not there.

Vista is the hallmark of a bloated, unresponsive and falling software company, too big to adapt and follow the market, and its next products will be of the same flesh (see Office 2007).

It's sad to say for me, a very long term Microsoft Certified Professional, but if XP is withdrawn from the market I'll give up with Windows and switch *everything* is under my control (and that's A LOT) to a Linux distro, my preferred ATM being Ubuntu and derivatives (Kubuntu, etc.)

I'm VERY impressed with it, and it's *really* easy to install, maintain and upgrade. Runs on almost everything (Do you have a spare toaster? Try!), P&P support for thousands of devices, Wine can run almost everything Windows-y (even very old stuff compatible only with Win '95, 3.1 or 3.0), stable, secure, and - activating the proper stuff (Compiz) - all of the bling, bells & whistles Vista promised and didn't deliver - except if you run it on a 4'000 quid monster machine.

Bill, listen to us. If this is your battle plan to push us to Vista, we will withdraw. You have to entice us into it. But - at the stage we're into - I can't see it coming...

Long live XP.

I concur with many of the thoughts put forward here. I upgraded my operating system from XP x32 to XP x64, December 2007. I researched thoroughly the availability of drivers for my hardware and the ability to run my software. I could find drivers for most of my hardware, I have to use the XP supplied driver for my HP1220C printer and I had to replace my HP4400C scanner. I could also find and run 64bit versions of my software running under WinXP. I cannot say the same for Vista x64. It was an easy choice to remain with XP.

I have two issues here.
First, if Microsoft is concerned about revenue stream, whether they are selling XP or Vista they have a user base that prefers not to change and they will maintain that revenue stream by selling both. In fact, by selling XP they could reduce their commitment in Vista, downsize their workforce and actually increase the profitability of the company. They could still develop Vista or Windows 7, but on a smaller scale. It would be nice if they could release it and it actually worked before SP2.
Second, in Canada we are now facing additional taxes in the form of green taxes. The first tax of this type is a carbon tax on fossil fuels. This type of taxing is directed at consumers in order to change their purchasing habits. In the case of Vista, the consumer has lost his ability to remain green by being forced to buy new more powerful hardware to run an operating system. The additional power translates to electricity. We are running out of 'clean' sources of electricity and many of the new sources are coal, wood waste, biofuel or natural gas based. All of these produce additional greenhouse gases. The direction that Microsoft is pushing consumers flies in the face of current trends. If they continue in this direction, governments should in fact be charging them a greenhouse tax for the additional burden they are placing on the environment. Of course the alternative, as others have mentioned is to switch to Linux or Apple.

Enough Said.

Remember the other dinosaurs went extinct also.

Regards,
Softedge

Windows XP with the new SP3 it would be 100% as analyst say.. making Windows XP twice fast compared to Vista. Why moving on the Buggy Vista.. which is memory hungry and it's just have some visual effects and some stuff that don't work? Some say Vista is just like the Millenium, do you remember Millenium?... it was a bad OS.. and most people stayed with 98SE ..so again we should stay with XP(simular to 98SE) and not move to the buggy Vista(simular to ME or Millenium)

IMHO XP is a most stable OS today. So why kill it? Personally I prefer to have a choice which OS to run. I have nothing against Vista but again let ME choose what to run on my PC. Conclusion: XP should stay around and be supported by Microsoft.

Bill, listen to us. If this is your battle plan to push us to Vista, we will withdraw. You have to entice us into it. But - at the stage we're into - I can't see it coming...

Long live XP.

I teach computer skills to a range of people, underprivileged kids pensioners,ect
we upgraded 10 out of 40 desktops to new vista systems
the pensioners were badly confused and the kids disgusted
the verdict: EVERYONE HATES VISTA

I recently bought the best laptop Dell had to offer, XPS M1710 with XP installed. I opted for the Vista option and dumped XP for it....due to the fact that I, like some others thought Vista was to be the Knight in shinning armor. Wow, what A let down. I have never had such a mixed up situation, and have since contacted Dell about my dissatisfaction, and they were nice enough to send me a new hard drive already loaded with my primary order. Vista is not ready for me.Love that XP.

My business is an architectural design company. We have a $20,000 large format plotter for printing drawings. I have done some preliminary testing with Vista and the software for the plotter is not compatible with Vista. The plotter manufacturer is no longer supporting our plotter. IF we updated all our computers to Vista, would that mean we would have to get a new plotter? We are a small business and with the market the way it is right now, we can't afford a new $20,000 plotter... the cost for us to upgrade to Vista. I am still hoping with SP1 I can find a work around but as of now, XP is still our primary operating system and we have no plans to change anytime soon.

It sounds like Microsoft is about to make another huge blunder. Don't they realize many people, including myself, will switch to another operating system intead of using Vista. A smart company would continue to offer both XP and Vista. Instead of increasing sales, they're going to lose sales and hurt their reputation. Does Microsoft have somebody from Apple on their Board of Directors?

I don't thing there is a problem to solve. As the day comes when there is no Xp in the store. I bet people would already have a mac on their machine and big companies are going to say that they can do their things without something expensive like vista. It's as if Microsoft is trying to prove that they can rule the world with their trash. Monopoly is hell of a game and it will eat you alive if you can't stop.
This is one of the reasons I love cross platform programming.

I think it's good if we don't take this seriously and try to look at it as a good thing. You know, fill the hole that they've dug and make em pay for you. Just don't do it by your self rather get a team because it's a big big hole