Vista

[BlueFlare]

This thread is funny. Five and a half years ago we had the same discussions here at Talkgraphics about XP; "No, I pass, I doesn't have anything I really need".
My web sites statistics now tell me that 83,5% use XP, 3,2% use Windows 2000, yet there is very little hard- or software that doesn't run on Windows 2000.

I strongly believe when we meet again after 12 months that the majority will be using Vista. I've seen every Windows version passing by in my life and it was always the same story.

[Egg Bramhill]

I think the last OS I purposely bought was RiscOS2 for the Archimedes. This was a great OS which was held on ROM. The hard drive only wound up when you saved a file etc.

XP's been around for 5 years now and I don't know what the life expectancy of a PC is, but I guess that 90% are younger than this. I believe most folks adopt the OS when they purchase a computer and very few actually purchase the OS as software.

[alanstancliff]

I don't plan on getting Vista anytime soon. I didn't even get XP until a couple of years ago. XP now runs all my programs quite nicely, thank you. I have an older system, AMD 1800 Athlon XP with 2 gigs of memory. You can't even buy that chip anymore, it is so old. But it seems to suit my needs okay.

I don't trust the EULA that Micro$haft has built into Vista. Moreover, reports I have seen say Vista seems to bugger up all kinds of programs I use. For example, I use the font utility in Coreldraw, and that does not work under Vista. Even Xara software is reported to have problems under Vista. Most third-party security software does not work well under Vista, and the big two that may (Symantec and McAfee) are so buggy I have not used them in years. I sure don't want to trust Chairman Bill to protect my PC.

The only reason I use Windoze is that it runs programs that I use. I hope that by the time I upgrade my system, I'll find alternatives with the Linux OS. I suspect XP will be the last Micro$haft OS I'll be using.

By the way, the cheap shots I took above were a compromise: I restrained myself in expressing my real feelings about Micro$haft in suitably vulgar language so that this post could remain on a family-oriented board like this one, without frightening the horses. .

[BlueFlare]

The hard drive only wound up when you saved a file etc.

I think XP users would be annoyed if it would have to wound up the drive for every save operation. Or am I missing something.

[handrawn]

This thread is funny. Five and a half years ago we had the same discussions here at Talkgraphics about XP;

In the long term your probably right, only question is how long is that? - we may all have different answers to that I suspect.
After spending 3 years getting my XP to sit up and beg, Im not about to change it unless I have to, as I seem to recall saying elsewhere "if it aint broke...."
So until I actually need feature[s] vista has that XP dosnt no change.
Point to ponder: Ms operating systems are getting very heavy in terms of hardware and resource, neither of which are guaranteed to stay as [relatively] cheap as they are now. Maybe I'll run XP offline in 2014 and surf with linux? - Mind you I said the same sort of thing when running 98...... [ME and 2000 past me by]

[ankhor]

I strongly believe when we meet again after 12 months that the majority will be using Vista. I've seen every Windows version passing by in my life and it was always the same story.

The only reason I upgraded to XP was that it had problems with my internet
connection under 98. (you see, not ME, I skipped that one)
The later XP`s came with the computer. So not really a choice.

And I don`t intend to buy a new computer in the next 12 months, so
you can count me out for Vista.

Eventually, I will hav to upgrade, new games and software will
be running, maybe even better, under Vista, so when it is time
for a new computer or I really need it for a piece of software,
I will upgrade.

[BlueFlare]

Guys, I said that the majority will upgrade, so yes, I’m quite aware that 49% or less won’t upgrade in less than a year. However most businesses will upgrade much later.

The only reason I upgraded to XP was that it had problems with my internet connection under 98.

You can't compare upgrading to Vista from XP with upgrading from 98/ME to W2k/XP.
An upgrade right now is not as important as switching to an NT based OS was.

That you waited so long to get rid of a poor OS like Windows 98 (and only because you were forced) makes me believe that you don't or didn’t understand what NT technology stands for. Windows 2000 was not an upgrade of ME, Windows 2000 was based on NT, an operating system family independently developed my Microsoft for businesses that required higher reliability, security and better use of resources, in plain English; the best Windows OS at that time when it was released. Most people however didn’t know of its existence because it was mainly used by a few businesses.
The first version of NT already appeared in 1993, that was the time that most users were still mostly using Windows 3.11 and was also the first fully 32 bit OS.
So when NT technology became available for the masses, there was absolutely no reason to stick to a much inferior technology that the old operating systems were based on, unless you were playing a lot of computer games. And trust me, as a system administrator since ’87 who had/has to install, upgrade and maintain Windows computers/networks on a daily basis, I know how bad the old operating systems were compared to NT. NT wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge improvement.

The reason why people didn’t switch to Windows 2000 immediately was plain and simple because of the fact that most thought that Windows 2000 was just an upgrade of the worst Windows OS ever…cough, cough…Windows ME. What they didn’t know is that they got an operating system that was basically developed about 6-7 years earlier and which was really put to the test in businesses during all these years. It actually took several years after the introduction of Windows 2000 before the majority of less experienced users started to understand that they were basically dealing with a different family (NT) of Windows. However Vista is a further development of XP and less revolutionary as Windows 2000 was compared to Windows 98/ME and therefore I personally think it’s less urgent to upgrade.

So don't understand me wrong; the fact that I predict that the majority of the home users will use Vista after one year, doesn't mean that I think people should upgrade, I have a different opinion about that.

[WolfMoonHP]

When my office "upgraded" to Windows 2000, it was a nightmare.

I worked for a large governmental entity with over 8,000 pc's connected in a network. Under Windows 98, everything worked adequately. Once we made the switch to W2K, all sorts of things quit working. The IT department, with 62 Microsoft Certified Systems Analysts and a large support staff, was inundated with problems.

My personal printer, a Hewlett Packard color laser, totally refused to print anything other than gibberish. We were in the middle of a number of large projects and a number of us had to work from home because the machines at the office were virtually useless. We lost so much production that it took us months to catch up.

I'm sure there were some who had good luck with Windows 2000, but I know a lot of people whose experience was similar to ours.

I am perfectly happy with the results I am getting now with Windows XP, Media Center Edition, on all four of our home networked computers.

I have no intention whatever of installing a new operating system on any of them.

When one of them needs replacement (and since all four are fast machines with plenty of RAM, that may be awhile) I will consider installing Vista in the next machine I build.
---
Will

[AntonyF]

Has anyone seen the Mac ads?
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

In particular I LOVE Security, which is UAC in Vista in a nut shell. Also great are Restarting and Better Results.

Great advertising, even if MS could do quite a few good anti-Mac ones. "What's that Mac, you can only buy one color shirt? What's that Mac, you need more storage space and can't easily add it?"

[WolfMoonHP]

Antony...

These ads are clever and fun to watch. Even though I switched from Mac to PC years ago---when Windows 3.1 was new---I still appreciate the humor. Each platform has its own foibles and eccentricities.

My main reason for switching had nothing really to do with the relative merits of the operating systems, etc., but simply because the PC's were much easier to build, modify, upgrade, etc. My computers are always "works in progress," so the PC was a more natural choice for me.

The only computer I own with a brand name on it is my laptop (Toshiba.)
---
Will