Replies

You're missing the point, which was that you blamed OEMs for improperly configuring Windows, while the configuration is the same as Microsoft's own. Besides, even if retail sales are a small percentage, it's still millions of machines.

Uh, dude. The default install of Red Hat installs a root account. That's it. It doesn't install a freaking user account. You have to add that, yourself. So lay off the indignation. It doesn't suit you.

They only lost the ability to tell OEMs they can't offer other OSs or install other software in the OS. Otherwise, the OEM's configure Microsoft-standard, as is evident by their config being the same as the retail config.

Wrong. You don't know SQUAT about what OEMs are allowed to do with Windows today. They can configure it any way they want to -- and the DOJ will kick MS's ass if it tries to say otherwise. The consent decree that MS signed specifically authorized OEMs to do so.

I can't find hard numbers of current sales, but extrapolate from this article citing 650,000 retail sales of XP during only two months in 2001 -- and that's when XP sales were lagging behind 98 sales.

No, do yourself a favor and don't extrapolate -- because extrapolation wouldn't be an accurate reflection of what happens in retail software markets. Software has a very short shelf life. It will only provide sales within the first 6 months. After that, sales turn into a trickle.

Uh, dude. The default install of Red Hat installs a root account. That's it. It doesn't install a freaking user account.

Have I ever claimed that Linux is ready for general home use? I'll be the first to say that it sucks for almost all home users. But if you are in the enterprise, a standard install, after making basic user accounts, is generally more locked-down than a Windows install.

You don't know SQUAT about what OEMs are allowed to do with Windows today.

I do know they apparently follow Microsoft's example in how to configure Windows. First you want the users to make up for Microsoft's shortcomings, now you want to lay that on the OEMs?

No, do yourself a favor and don't extrapolate -- because extrapolation wouldn't be an accurate reflection of what happens in retail software markets. Software has a very short shelf life. It will only provide sales within the first 6 months. After that, sales turn into a trickle.

That figure was from before retail sales of XP even hit their high, still being second to a years-old OS. It would be extremely illogical to assume that these sales dropped to nothing immediately after this article, and therefore sales were not able to reach the millions of copies sold that I claimed.

Admit it, there are millions of retail copies of XP out there, all configured by Microsoft, all approximately the same as the OEM configs. I have one of these retail installs, an upgrade for that machine that started as a 486/66.