“Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft’s latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews,” Jessica Mintz reports for The Associated Press.
MacDailyNews Take: The only “fans” of Windows are those who’ve not yet tried a Mac.
Mintz continues, “No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can’t be wowed. They complain about Vista’s hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows. For them, the impending disappearance of XP computers from retailers, and the phased withdrawal of technical support in coming years, is causing a minor panic.”
MacDailyNews Take: Why panic when you can simply get a Mac? You can even slum it with XP until you quickly figure out that you don’t want to boot Windows anymore.
Mintz continues, “Galen Gruman… a longtime technology journalist… started a Save XP Web petition, gathering since January more than 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments, mostly from die-hard XP users who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010.”
MacDailyNews Take: The depth of delusion boggles the mind. When the wheel was invented, do you suppose there were cavemen who just completely ignored its existence for years and instead clamored to “Save the Sled” instead of using the “New, Improved Sled with Spikes” that some Neanderthal had just introduced?
Mintz continues, “Microsoft already extended the XP deadline once, but it shows no signs it will do so again. The company has declined to meet with Gruman to consider the petition.”
More Luddite lunacy here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MidWest Mac” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: The Windows sufferers with their Stockholm Syndrome are just so amusing sometimes! They’re sitting in a leaky, rapidly-listing barge and we’re floating alongside in our gleaming yacht and they just simply refuse to get in. They always yell the same thing, too: “We just need one more patch!” Whatever. We have lobster to eat and champagne to drink.
“I have put up with so much utter nonsense from IT depts for the last 25 years that I have to say that, the preliminary phrases, “… I [We] just…”, or, “… all I [We] need to do is…”, should be eradicated from the vocabulary’s of pro IT and support personnel.”
Those phrases should also be eradicated from the lexicon of Mac users that pretend to be authorities on IT management but yet don’t know a damn thing about enterprise computing. No, we don’t just need to move everything to OSX to make everything wonderful and reduce IT costs and ensure end-user satisfaction. It doesn’t work that way in the real world, and never has.
Separately, the SaveXP imbecility is a great example of the fickleness and idiocy of the buying public, really.
Two of the biggest strikes against XP were/are inherent security problems and cumbersome, problematic and never-ending legacy support. And Vista does away with a great deal of legacy compatibility on the hardware front (totally new driver model) and its overdue security changes destroy software compatibility for legacy run-as-admin applications (privilege elevation). So M$ gives users (especially IT managers) what they’ve demanded for years, and now some of them don’t want it. Morons. They’re basically pissed off that Vista isn’t XP. Dumb. They deserve to be unhappy.
The bigger morons, however, are people expecting Windows 7 to be more like XP than Vista…even though 7 will just be a refined (perhaps smaller) version of Vista.
If only M$ could have cut off legacy support post-W2K the way Apple did in the PowerPC/Intel transition.
Six years old…? Getting closer to SEVEN years.
These current “fans” of XP should not be concerned. “Windows 7” will be Windows XP Service Pack 3
This is another Coke moment. Just rename Wiindows XP as Windows Classic … and ka-ching ka-ching … <g>
@scottschor,
My coke moments tend to be trying to figure out why I am still at a club at 6 am and dancing with a chick with purple hair.
“
These current “fans” of XP should not be concerned. “Windows 7″ will be Windows XP Service Pack 3”
Um, no. SP3 is just the last 92 WinXP updates all rolled into one package with a couple minor networking enhancements, slated for release in Q2 08.
Thanks for playing.
Our company won’t migrate to Vista. And we don’t dare sell our clients Vista PCs because there are too many questions related to graphics performance/stability. Now everyone’s asking if we should switch to Linux or “something else” that shall not be mentioned.
(Mac is kinda treated like Lord Valdimort around here.)
I say cut out XP right this moment and sit back and watch the howling begin….heheheheheh
Serious 2000/XP/Vista question, and I welcome input.
I switched to Macs in 1998 and haven’t looked back. However, there is one single program I need and it’s windows only. I have harangued the manufacturer relentlessly, offering many reasons (Mac’s increasing market share, customer demographics, etc) he should port his software to the Mac or at least cooperate with Codeweavers. They’re just not interested.
I’ve been running WinXP via Virtual PC on my Mac G5 dual 2GHz/4GB RAM but it’s still painfully slow. I’m planning to upgrade to an Intel Mac this year, making Windows via Parallels or Fusion possible. Much as I hate the thought of sullying my Mac with a windows installation, I’m going to have to make a decision about this.
The options are Win2000, XP or Vista.
* I already have an older Win2000 install CD.
* My WinXP is part of the VirtualPC install and I don’t know of any way to get it to install Windows without attempting to install VPC. So I would have to go buy the XP disk before it’s gone.
* Wait and see if Vista gets any better.
The question:
Which of these is the least odious option and why?
thanks
We should all go sing up on the petition to Save XP just to irritate Microsoft!
http://reg.itworld.com/servlet/Frs.frs?Context=LOGENTRY&Source=entdesk&Source_BC=13&Script;=/LP/80276783/reg&
Is it just me, or do the Windows IT guys submitting comments sound a bit arrogant and on edge?
> Um, no. SP3 is just the last 92 WinXP updates all rolled into one package
@Another IT Guy
Since you took my comment so seriously, thanks for the correction… Windows 7 will be Windows XP Service Pack 4.
Copy / Paste / Find / Replace
OpenBSD / NeXTOS Anyone?
Apple’s answer to everything, copy, paste, change the name, put an expensive $ on it…
Think Different feltchers
Taking XP of the market is the only way that Vista is going to sale and actually be used… if you can use the term “used’ and Vista in the same breath!
It’s time XP users stop bitching and starting walking into the nearest Apple Store to buy a iMac with OS X!
Grow up folks Vista is yesterdays product and crap too!
On a personal note, I have recently returned to my former company, one named for a plentiful eco-friendly natural building material. Instead of the StinkPad laptop I was saddled with before, I got a lovely MBP and a Quad Xeon MP for the office. I’ll be getting some sort of Windows box to test PC software, but to my delight I will no longer have to use virtualization to perform certain day-to-day tasks in XP/IE. Sometimes life is just good like that.
Long-time Mac supporter though I am, I have to point out again that switching to the Mac is not the best option for all Windows users. Many computer users are rank amateurs who have managed, over time, to memorize by rote the keystrokes needed to perform simple computer tasks. These people should not switch to the Mac unless they have a source of ongoing support after the switch is made.
The Mac may be easier to use than a Windows machine, but it is still different. Many people are not interested in learning things. Many more are not mentally prepared for the challenge. It does folks like this no good at all to be lured into a decision they may later regret.
Congrats C1. Now you will no longer have to wash your hands at the end of the work day after using your StinkPad with…..yup XP!!!
@Guest51
The options are Win2000, XP or Vista. XP, it’s the most stable and least buggy
* I already have an older Win2000 install CD. Irrelevant, it’s already activated, Microsoft will not allow you to activate it again
* My WinXP is part of the VirtualPC install and I don’t know of any way to get it to install Windows without attempting to install VPC. So I would have to go buy the XP disk before it’s gone. Buy the OEM version at Fry’s or TigerDirect for $90
* Wait and see if Vista gets any better. Enjoy the wait, pay more money, all for just one application??
Chrissy, congrats on leaving Adobe
to Guest51:
I believe there may be a way to clone that VPC drive image and restore it into Fusion/Parallels. If your VPC XP instance is already installed and configured, you may want to create a new one from the original installation CD. If I remember VPC well, it will create an XP image similar to the OEM distributions, which is ready for user configuration and registration. If you can clone that, XP should work with Parallels. You will need BootCamp drivers, though, but they come on the Mac Install DVD anyway.
If it doesn’t work, I would choose between a retail version of XP home or the existing CD of W2k. I would avoid Vista like the plague – no benefit there for running it in emulation.
@ Buster
No kidding. I hated to even take it to meetings, even though everyone else had one, too. Funny, though… this time around, I am noticing a LOT more MBP’s in those meetings.
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To SheepRegister (re: Guest51 question):
Windows 2000 had no activation process. You install the software, punch in the CD key and it works. They introduced the idiotic software activation (of the Adobe CS kind) in XP, and have ‘perfected’ it with Vista…
@Guest51:
Some time ago I was in the exact same position. After giving it some thought, I went with the cheapest solution: I bought VMware Fusion and installed my version of Windows 2000 Professional. As I already owned Win 2000 pro, it was much cheaper than buying XP. None of my Windows programs require any XP features.
So far, things have worked out very well. The Windows programs I am forced to use run better on my Mac than on any genuine Windows computer I have used – much better. They are heavy technical number-crunching programs with some semi-serious graphics interspersed.
Hang on a minute. So, Microsoft roles out it’s biggest-rip-filled-drawn-out-pileofshit ever on the form of Vista. Current Windows users are appalled. So far, this is all normal. But. Then it becomes apparent that the ditch that is Windows is so deep that its users can’t see through the crap, and so the users either run deeper into the shitty ditch or push on, in the hope that there may be something better coming, delusionally place trust in the same company that released Vista to bring out something better? I rode away on my big cat ages ago. Enjoy being stuck in the Windows ditch. Things aren’t going to get better…
I would have bought a mac years ago. But one thing remains for me as an XP user. And that is PC games. And no…I will never buy a console. The PC game will always be superior in terms of power, versatility and control.
Because windows is threatening to destroy pc gaming with its insistence of tying DirectX 10 with vista while vista itself is failing I’m not sure what to do.
I wish Apple would take advantage of this and make a move to make PC games natively work with mac. And no, I’m not talking about the few games that they have.
I want Steve Jobs to seriously pursue making some sort of translator or encouraging the entire PC gaming dev community to start making games in openGL. Or perhaps Apple’s CIDER initiative could gather more steam.
*sigh* At least though I plan on buying the Newton 2.0 or whatever it turns out to be. Hopefully soon.
“We have lobster to eat and champagne to drink.”
Who says Americans are not civilised ? Not me.
Really inane MacDailyNews article author comments.
I work with clients on both Windows and Macintosh. There is no need to try to demonize and blame Windows users. Those who are trying to get XP sales to continue are actually very well-meaning. And for some people, switching to a Mac is not a current option.
My take: Public outcry to continue XP sales and support, and to avoid Vista is sensible and shows how out-of-touch Microsoft’s current operating system development and marketing is.
Suggest, encourage switching, yes, and don’t bash those who don’t.
‘those who live by the sword will die by the sword’
‘those who live by criticizing, demonizing others will have that judgment returned onto themselves’ it’s just the way life works.