Microsoft selling Vista Licenses; a third become XP
I’m no fan of Vista, for a myriad of reasons both technical and personal. I knew that many companies continued selling XP after the cut-off date, using the downgrade feature of Vista, but I wasn’t aware how many machines actually ended up running XP in the end.
I think it’s very telling that over a year since Vista was released, Windows XP is still selling strongly amongst not only common end-users, but people who actually know the technical differences enough to make an educated choice. Personally, I think Microsoft should use Windows XP as a base for the next version of Windows, if they have to base it off an existing OS.
Personally, I’m wishing they’d restart like Apple did. Make an OS that doesn’t share any code with Windows, and then make an emulator to run Windows programs. At least I can dream…
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I think most of the problem with Vista is one of comfort. I use Vista mostly because it came on my computer, and there’s nothing /wrong/ with it. Once you learn it, you can do everything with it that you could with XP. The thing is, it doesn’t really feel like it has improved very much so much as it has made it harder to find some of the things that are kinda useful. If you’re comfortable with XP, know where to find things in XP, there just isn’t any pressing reason to upgrade and go through the hassle of learning where Vista hid what you’re looking for.
Personally, I disagree. I do dislike the look and feel of the UI in Vista, but my issues, and I believe many of the issues that keep it from being accepted by the technical crowd, go above and beyond subjective experience.
I have little doubt that part of the slow adoption amongst the average End-User is due to XP being the longest “New” OS from Microsoft for so long. As you said, people get used to it, and that’s that.
But the reason I dual-boot with XP instead of Vista is technical. I can make Vista mostly look like XP if I really cared to; that doesn’t stop it from remaining bloated. Even with all of the eye-candy and pointless services turned off, like Indexing, System Restore, et cetera, it continues running slower then XP.
I think that’ll change as hardware gets better and better, but I think we’re still to the point where the impact that Vista has on hardware resources, even at its’ lowest settings, are non-negligible compared to XP.
Point. My computer is pretty good, so I don’t see too much of a slowdown from Vista compared to XP, and I’ve also noticed that it’s gotten better with the updates from when I first was running it a year ago. It’s improving, and I don’t really feel it’s out of line with how XP was when it first came out. Hell, it wasn’t until SP 2 that people really warmed up to XP. But if your computer isn’t new or damn close to, XP will run faster and really I doubt that will ever change. The gap will close, but Vista will always take more resources.
Aye, Vista is definitely improving. But I think, compared to XP’s reception, Vista still has a ways to go. The earliest I could see myself using Vista is SP2, for instance. Then again, it seems like all the new programs are heading towards shitty releases and getting better with updates. Look at KDE 4.