Is WinXP to become the last embraced version of Windows?

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

I'm not really trying to start a Vista bash, but in my IT experience, I cannot foresee Microsoft bringing another version of Windows to the table that will be as widely adopted as XP, or any previous version for that matter.

Speaking strictly for my company, every aspect of sales, production, and QC revolve around our main server and about 30 computers around our facility, even our punch clock reports back to the main server. We're running a mix of Server2003, Ubuntu, Win2k, WinNT, and WinXP around the building, every piece of hardware communicates flawlessly with its counterpart and with each other.

Speaking for personal use (myself, my friends, family, coworkers), I only know 2 people running Vista, in which they bought the computer with it, one has asked me to downgrade them, but they have yet to bring the machine to me, everyone else runs XP.

I've downgraded about 7 machines so far (personal and business), any Vista machine brought to our company fails to communicate with any printers, let alone proprietary drivers required for many of our machines.

What gets me is how well in tune Win2k and WinXP are while WinXP and Vista are as different as Mac and IBM. For that matter, XP gives me no problem when I dig out 12-year old drivers from the Win95 era. I'm running proprietary software on my XP machine that was 'recommended for Windows 3.1" Try shoving that floppy into your Vista machine.

My family members are all running well maintained XP computers that are 5,6,7,8 years old with no issues, not even speed issues. My main rig is approaching 5 years old and 3 of those years are overclocked. It's a fuggin power house. Why would I go out and buy an operating system that will render all my machines virtually useless?

And let's look at Windows 7. Didn't they promise that 7 was going to be a 'from-scratch' Kernal designed to lighten the load carried by 6 previous versions of Windows? Wasn't this supposed to be their first attempt at a fully functional Micro-OS that utilizes the advances in modern hardware and promises better compatibility and easier-to-write software/drivers? When was that thrown out the window in place of a Warmed-over version of their worst software to date?

I guess Vista really did do THAT bad when Microsoft cannot afford to change paths. Does anybody think we'll see a Windows successor to XP within the next 5-10 years? How long until XP begins to lose its popularity, or better yet, when will it stop GAINING popularity?

 

[ALiEN2953]

honestly windows Vista is a perfectly good operating system it just got a bad stigma associated to it. Microsoft's main issue will be how they publicize 7 and how well the marketing is for it

 

[Adragontattoo]

honestly windows Vista is a perfectly good operating system it just got a bad stigma associated to it. Microsoft's main issue will be how they publicize 7 and how well the marketing is for it

MS needs to stop supporting every previous possible printer, video card and assorted peripherals at some point.

6? versions of an OS? Really? Do we need that many?

Basic
Home Premium
Office Premium
Ultimate
thats all that is really needed and Basic should only be sold in developing countries for a low cost.

UAC has premise but it lacks refinement, MS needs to go back and look at it again and then look at the linux way it is done. I dont have to click Yes I want to install this, Yes I know I am installing it, Yes I want to allow it to install, Yes I want to allow it to access the internet, etc... I should have to type the administrator password in, have a box come up that says
Install
Allow to connect to the internet
Allow to start at boot
etc
with a check mark next to each and that is it.

WGA, Check at install, check at service packs THATS IT. Dont phone home to see if somehow I magically converted it to a pirated copy, dont randomly decide a legit copy is pirated, dont lock the machine if the WGA server crashes. IF the OS is using a pirated key, LOCK it down to a CALL MS or ENTER SERIAL HERE screen and that is it.

There are more issues related to DRM that I wont get into but if the backlash from Spore is any example, DRM is starting to royally tick people off and by the next version of Windows, MS may well have to change their plan a bit.

 

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

it just got a bad stigma associated to it

So, really, all the incompatibilities, inconveniences, bulk, and confusion, is just bad publicity?

On a side note, I found this very entertaining. 3 network printers in the building, all have up-to-date drivers, as per windowsupdate.com. All the computers in the building communicate fine, including the NT4.0 machine. A guest comes in with a Vista laptop and goes onto our network. He wants to print, I set him up. Vista pops up a message "The drivers on the HOST computer are out of date. Please upgrade the printer drivers and try again."

I find it humorous that Vista passively passes the blame onto the XP machine when in reality, the problem is with Vista.

 

[benbaked]

I think MS will be alright when Windows 7 comes around. They haven't marketed Vista very much in the land of TV, up until now. Apple on the other hand has been widely advertising Vista's faults for over a year now, causing damage to Vista's reputation among the average Joe Sixpack user. I don't think Vista's problems are that much more then previous versions of Windows. XP and 2K also had their issues with peripherals when they first came out, my printer and TV tuner card weren't supported by Win2K until two years after the OS was released. MS needs to promote the hell out of Vista and I'm glad they're finally doing it via TV ads.

 

[Albyno]

ive just downgraded my t2310 laptop with 2gb mem to windows XP and the thing absoltly flies! Vista has and will always be a flop. even MS has stated that like the majority of the world it will be 'skipping' vista but unless windows 7 is a total rebuild micro OS then i doubt ill run that either. i dont upgrade my computers to run the most boring game ever created (windows) i upgrade it to run real games.

 

[terran2k]

I've held on to my XP install for quite some time, I tried Vista on a few occasions but I always reverted back to XP. But couple days ago, I made the switch back to Vista, I think it'll be for good. The drivers have gotten better, so while at work XP will be there for years to come. At home, I'll learn to embrace Vista.

 

[Albyno]

i only this week DL 2 versions of linux all i can hope for is there easy enough to use and office is compatible with them. if so ill be at least dual OSing all my comps. untill MS makes Win7 =< WinXP usage im not moving

 

[smokie mcpott]

i only this week DL 2 versions of linux all i can hope for is there easy enough to use and office is compatible with them.

you need to install OpenOffice. MSOffice will not run natively in linux...

 

[I.M.O.G.]

No, it won't be the last embraced version.

In a monolithic, burueacratic organization like Microsoft things have to get really bad before they improve. They are doing well enough, they leverage their market dominance, and all that makes it hard to pitch an idea to "do things differently" to make things better.

The poor introduction of Vista is an opportunity to rethink and redesign - I don't know if this is it yet, I don't think so, but eventually things will get bad enough if they keep along this path that those within the MS organization suggesting better ways can and will actually be heard.

On their release schedule, I don't expect anything soon... but in 4-6 years they will release an OS that gets people popularly excited about using their software again. Vista isn't all that bad, but DRM scares, poor marketing, poor UAC implementation, lack of control of 3rd party apps loaded by OEMs, and shoddy 3rd party driver implementations (crashes and instability from this) came together to make its launch an effective disaster.

All of those can easily be improved by better planning and coordination. There are no fatal flaws in what Microsoft is doing, they just need to implement and execute better.

 

[Albyno]

you need to install OpenOffice. MSOffice will not run natively in linux...

yea or buy CossOverOffice.

 

[Ebola]

People are afraid of change. Eventually they will accept it. Same happened to XP and 2000.

 

[johnz]

if so ill be at least dual OSing all my comps. untill MS makes Win7 =< WinXP usage im not moving

Why does everybody think MS should make Windows lighter with each release? Every O/S including Linux gets bigger every time. Ubuntu and Suse are absolute pigs, but I never hear anybody complaining about that. To get modern features, you get modern bloat. There's no way around it.

Edit:
For grammar

 

[Gunlance]

using vista since release. I have no idea what people complain about and I'm using vista business 64. The only problem I find is when people REFUSE to change their methods and just buy into the hype. Granted vista DOES have its flaws, but I am EQUALLY annoyed at OS X and I DO own a new MacBook Pro. I currently have a Ubuntu server, Vista64 desktop, xp for parents computer, and os x on the MBP. Guess what? None of them work 100 percent perfect 100 percent of the time.

 

[McTimson]

Right now, XP reminds me of Windows 98 when XP first came out. Everybody was keeping an extra partition for Windows 98 for all those games and programs they couldn't run, and XP was just being used for new stuff. Now, XP has turned into that 98, Windows 7 may be the new XP, and Vista could be that middle child that used to be Windows ME.

XP is just a solid operating system, at least for me, and every time I try to switch over to Vista, something gets in the way, either a program not working right, or not being able to find the right drivers. It does have lots of good features, but XP works for me right now.

 

[Albyno]

its simple windows is an OS it should not have a higher system spec demand then the games that will be run on the OS+ system.

Why does everybody think MS should make Windows lighter with each release? Every O/S including Linux gets bigger every time. Ubuntu and Suse are absolute pigs, but I never hear anybody complaining about that. To get modern features, you get modern bloat. There's no way around it.

Edit:
For grammar

 

[johnz]

its simple windows is an OS it should not have a higher system spec demand then the top games that will be run on the OS+ system.

So you're saying it takes a Crysis machine to run Vista? :^/

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Why does everybody think MS should make Windows lighter with each release? Every O/S including Linux gets bigger every time. Ubuntu and Suse are absolute pigs, but I never hear anybody complaining about that. To get modern features, you get modern bloat. There's no way around it.

Edit:
For grammar

Lets assume every OS does in fact get bigger each release, even tho in some less common situations thats false.

Unlike what you imply, just because every OS gets bigger, does not mean they are all equally bloated. Windows is inarguably the worst offender for backwards compatibility and bloat, and Vista boasts one of the highest system requirements.

Some may like or dislike that, but those are facts and you are trying to twist the facts rather than argue their advantages or disadvantages.

To me, Vista brings a lot more weight, little as far as exciting features, and nothing interesting under the hood. In comparison, the chrome browser is light on cool features also, but reading their comic its clear theres a lot of progressive cool things going on under the hood. I'd be interested in the cool features Vista brings, but there isn't much to talk about.

 

[usp8riot]

Has anyone seen the Vista vs XP benchmarks? Sure, Vista 64 is bloated in disk space but for one, due to the large winsxs folder which is needed for 32bit compatibility. Are we still in the 90's frame of mind that more the more ram used is necessarily bad? Vista caches lots of ram if you have it to speed up the loading of apps. I have XP and Vista but I choose Vista because to me it seems just as fast and having Ultimate which has Media Center, it's a wanted feature for me.

Try doing much windowing tasks in XP and see how much cpu it can take. Vista makes use of the gpu and offloads work to it for such tasks if you enable Aero and have a modern gpu. I like Linux, Vista, and OSX and they all have their disadvantages, but the Vista bashing is so overblown. If it has too many drivers, it's bloated. If it doesn't, it's crap and doesn't work with much hardware. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[Albyno]

So you're saying it takes a Crysis machine to run Vista? :^/

in my opinion it takes a very overpowered machine to run vista the way it should be run for the result you get.