Review: Windows XP [the advantages of upgrading]

Coding Sanity ^ | December 14, 2007 | codingsanity

[Golden Eagle]

“they should stick with XP”. Sorry, typo, due to history repeating itself.

[zeugma]

I'd guess by January of 2009 Vista as we are discussing today will be ridiculed if remembered at all. The Vista codebase as we are bashing today won't be MS's flagship OS by then, in my opinion.

I don't think there is any way in hell that MS will get a new OS out by 2009.

I'm sure the FUD campaigns will be in full swing, but they'll be delivering nothing but vapor util 2010/2011.

From what I've been reading it is DRM that is really the performance killer with Vista. Once people really start caring about HD content, they'll see just how badly MS screwed the pooch on this one.

Thank G-d I don't have to use windows. Consumer choice is a great thing!

 

 

[Golden Eagle]

We can compare links, but from what I’ve previously read you need HDCP compatibility to display most HDTV signals, and Vista is or at least was the only way to do that, while Linux is rendered incompatible due to a licensing conflict with the HDCP protocol.

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/02/vista_month_wel.html

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hdcp-vista.ars

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/wtf-does-hdcp-mean-for-me-605708/?s=fbde1c6712464335619540d23a4f3656

[zeugma]

All posts by known troll Golden Eagle have been Blocked, to view posts by this person you must edit the FRTrollBlocker.user.js file.

[Golden Eagle]

LOL. If anyone else has newer or better technical info than the above links regarding HDCP compatibility with PC operating systems, please let me know. Thanks.

[Southack]

"But they won't run on anything else, either. They should stick with 98, until they re-write it for something more modern, like they had to do when 2000/XP first came out."

Companies don't want to spend new money to rewrite software that already works...especially just to enable running it on some new OS.

Companies want the old software to run on newer, faster hardware.

That's a large market demand. MicroSoft is shooting itself by creating that demand on the one hand, and not filling it on the other.

Eventually, someone will fill that market need...that's the invisible hand of capitalism.

[Golden Eagle]

Once again this is just a typical evolutionary cycle of Microsoft products. In fact they’re experiencing record sales and revenue because none of their competitors have a better solution to the problem you’re describing.

[Southack]

"Once again this is just a typical evolutionary cycle of Microsoft products. In fact they’re experiencing record sales and revenue because none of their competitors have a better solution to the problem you’re describing."

That's irrelevant. There's a demand. It's a large, well-financed, corporate demand.

Leave it unfilled long enough and someone will figure out how to serve those customers.

...and that's a long-term strategic error on MS's part.

[Golden Eagle]

Not really, they still support backward compatibility to a much greater extent than any of their competitors. Check out the history of the 2 biggest competitors they have in desktop OS anyway, Apple and Red Hat, both of which have completely abandoned entire platforms before, and also have a history of announcing such changes unexpectedly. You’ve still not named any legitimate threat that can better answer your problem than MS.

[MarkL]

Well I was wrong, very wrong. Vista is really that bad. And now I am in the process of purchasing XP and figuring how to wipe the new computer with a reformat, then install the new XP. I was thinking of copying and storing my version of Vista for later but I have a feeling as many do in the blogosphere that Vista will go the way of Windows ME.

Don't just buy a copy! Contact the manufacturer of your new computer, and ask them if they've got a "downgrade" to XP. I don't believe that Microsoft charges anything for an activation key in certain circumstances, based on the version of Vista you have.

Mark

[MarkL]

What’s really needed, IMHO, is software that can integrate the virtual-machine concept with a general operating system such that Windows programs that want to make changes to directories like “\program files” and “\windows” are free to do so, but those changes will only affect those particular programs.

VMWare does exactly that... If it's an X86 OS, that doesn't require specific hardware (like OS-X, and how it requires a MAC to run) then it will run under VMWare. VMWare emulates a PC, right down to the Phoenix BIOS. I regularly run Windows 2000 professional, Windows Server 2003, Linux (SuSe and Ubuntu), and NetWare 6.5 within VMs. Oh, and I've even got an MS Dos 6 VM as well.

Mark

[Southack]

"Check out the history of the 2 biggest competitors..."

Irrelevant. You're missing the point entirely. It's not about the current market.

It's about an unfilled need. Businesses *need* to run their existing proprietary software. Since existing products like Vista and Mac and Linux won't let lots of XP/2000/NT/98 business software run on new machines...that means that there is an unmet market demand for an OS that runs old software on new hardware.

And any student of capitalism will tell you that an unmet need, especially when well financed, will eventually be filled by the Market.

Which is to say, MicroSoft is making a grand strategic blunder by rolling out and sticking with an OS that isn't backwards compatible with a Trillion Dollars worth of legacy business software.

And please, stop repeating that no one fills that need any better. Slap yourself and catch on to the fact that there is a large unmet need out there.

[Golden Eagle]

So there’s a need for XP in some environments is all you’re telling me, which I agree with. But it’s still an option, no one has taken it away. You can still buy new licenses for Windows 2000 from CDW, if that’s what you truly need. You seem to be dreaming up some imaginary, unnecessary product to replace XP for some people who still need XP. But they can get XP, so it’s really not a problem. Trying to switch to some imaginary currently unknown product = problem.