CNN Article: Users petition to keep Windows XP

It is bound to happen eventually. XP will be pulled from store shelves.

Vista has come a long way. I was a very early adopter of it, and had nothing but problems. Since my two installs (on both main systems in my home) about a week ago, it has been great. Absolutely zero problems.

I guess to each their own.
 
One of these days I will take the plunge and install Vista, seeing as I paid for it and it is just sitting here on my desk.
 
This is not directed at the OP.

The only interesting thing about that article, aside what else might you expect from CNN is the fact that people as a whole resist change. Many also suffer from laziness and simply don’t want to learn the very minor changes Vista requires.

Vista is probably the best out of the box OS MS ever released and I’m anything but an MS fan-dude.

The main issue from day one was the manufactures of hardware and associated drivers resisted (refused) to write proper drivers for programs that you paid for, be angry with them not MS. Only now are many companies just playing catch up and from a customer point of view that is not acceptable.

As to Vista SP-1 has anyone but me read the MS information on the upgrade? If it doesn’t show up in your updates either you don’t need it at all or the specific version for your particular configuration hasn’t been released yet.;)


 
This was already mentioned in another thread. Actually several since the petition was first mentioned on tech sites back in January when Infoworld first started it. For some reason the AP is only picking it up today.

Personally, I find it funny that the Stop Uwe Boll from making movies petition has gotten almost double the amount of signatures in just over a week than the Save WinXP petition has gotten in 4 months.
 
griffinhart said:
This was already mentioned in another thread. Actually several since the petition was first mentioned on tech sites back in January when Infoworld first started it. For some reason the AP is only picking it up today.

Personally, I find it funny that the Stop Uwe Boll from making movies petition has gotten almost double the amount of signatures in just over a week than the Save WinXP petition has gotten in 4 months.
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Who the hell is Uwe Boll?
 
The guy that keeps butchering movies based on video games like Blood Rayne, Alone in the Dark and Dungeon Siege.
 
They should petition!. Vista is a flop and Windows 7 will be even a bigger flop!. Microsoft never learns!
 
jedimasterk said:
They should petition!. Vista is a flop and Windows 7 will be even a bigger flop!. Microsoft never learns!
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Please don't post rubbish like this again. It's getting tiresome reading things like this.
 
The article has so many errors.

The June deadline is not when XP is "getting pulled from store shelves," it's the last time big OEMs can preinstall XP using volume licenses. Those systems will be available until they sell out.

Retail and OEM system builder copies are available until next year, and even then copies will be around until it sells out some time later. MS extended XP Home sales for low end computers for 2 years.

The hysteria and ignorance surrounding Vista is getting ridiculous. Geez.
 
athlon1.2 said:
Who the hell is Uwe Boll?
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That's why it's funny. :D

He's the director who takes video games and makes them into god-awful movies.

At any rate, I'm a big fan of Vista and have no qualms about switching over from XP. My system is running great, although I've only been using it for just over two weeks.
 
...and simply don’t want to learn the very minor changes Vista requires.
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I'm not sure that I would classify Vista as a "minor" change in regards to the previous operating system. If you adapted to it quickly, great -- but in the real world, people are having a hard time adapting.

With Windows XP, your hardware just works. Granted, we're years into the life cycle of XP, but thats what people want. Back in the day when OS companies were making products for hobyist, it wasn't as big of a deal. We made things work for us. But now they're catering to everyone from Grandma and Grandpa to Farmer Bob who has a PC hooked up to his cows to milk them. Some people do not adapt to change well, and in some cases, it's impossible. For these users, the change is anything but minor.

The main issue from day one was the manufactures of hardware and associated drivers resisted (refused) to write proper drivers for programs that you paid for, be angry with them not MS. Only now are many companies just playing catch up and from a customer point of view that is not acceptable.
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Thats an interesting take on it. I know that vista has it's share of driver problems, but so did SP. By SP1, most of those issues were worked out.

But I have a different stance on that. From the articles I've been following, and the lawsuits that have been filed, it looks like Microsoft is indeed at fault for most of the driver problems. They have a certification for vista drivers that they were very firm with and refused to change for vendors. Many vendors modified their hardware and software to be compatible becuase they wanted vista certification.

Shortly before the release of vista, Microsoft relaxed their certifications for a vendor (I want to say it was intel) to allow their hardware to be certified for vista. In my eyes, Microsoft caved and caused their own driver problems. Dig around on google and slashdot and you'll find internal MS emails that talk about what happened. They are actually a pretty interesting read.

Sure, you've got vendors like creative that arn't supporting legacy hardware with updated drivers. That is most likely due to the major changes in vista.
 
Demon10000 said:
Thats an interesting take on it. I know that vista has it's share of driver problems, but so did SP. By SP1, most of those issues were worked out.
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The issues worked out were that by the time SP1 was released, Vendors finally got their act together. It wasn't the release of SP1 that fixed driver issues, but the time elapsed between RTM and SP1 that was the factor.

But I have a different stance on that. From the articles I've been following, and the lawsuits that have been filed, it looks like Microsoft is indeed at fault for most of the driver problems. They have a certification for vista drivers that they were very firm with and refused to change for vendors. Many vendors modified their hardware and software to be compatible becuase they wanted vista certification.
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MS has always had firm guidelines for drivers. The big difference in Vista is that the 64Bit version requires signing. The 32bit version is more lax in this regard.

Shortly before the release of vista, Microsoft relaxed their certifications for a vendor (I want to say it was intel) to allow their hardware to be certified for vista. In my eyes, Microsoft caved and caused their own driver problems. Dig around on google and slashdot and you'll find internal MS emails that talk about what happened. They are actually a pretty interesting read.
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This was nothing about drivers. This is about the system requirements of the Vista Ready vs Vista Premium Ready stuff. In a nutshell MS created the lesser Vista Ready logo in response to Intel. In the end, I think MS will be vindicated on this one. While I agree they shouldn't have bowed to Intel on it, the program was very clear on the differences between being Vista Ready and Vista Premium Ready.

Sure, you've got vendors like creative that arn't supporting legacy hardware with updated drivers. That is most likely due to the major changes in vista.
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Not at all. It's more that some companies saw an opportunity to sell more hardware. In Creative's case they are seeing how the sound card is becoming less and less needed. Sound quality on even inexpensive motherboards are now Excellent. More than good enough for your average PC owner. They are coming with more and more features like Dolby surround, optical outputs etc.. Stuff that used to be only available on sound cards. And given the power increase of modern multi-core CPU's The processing load they save is becoming less and less relevant to all but the most hardcore gamers.

In other words, their market is shrinking. They saw this as an opportunity to sell more soundboards.

There is nothing in Vista's driver model that gives other hardware manufacturers reason to not make new ones for older hardware. Printers and Scanners, for example. There is no excuse for HP or any other company to just leave a portion of their customers hanging.

Take my HP 1012 laser printer as an example. HP didn't release drivers for it simply because it's a discontinued model. They didn't even make XP64 drivers for it, and it doesn't use Vista's driver model. In the end I had to use a generic PCL driver to use a 3 year old printer. HP didn't create a Vista driver because it didn't want to. Not because Vista was hard.
 
Ok but your HP issue is moot basically. As long as you don't have any duplexer, extra trays, hard drive, flash card, etc. its a non issue. And the printers most likely to have these options support PostScript and on those printers the manufature usually writes their PPD file and yes there is a "driver' but its basically the PPD file and an INF that's telling the printer to use the standard MS PostScript driver. Given that PPD files are totally standard and describes all the features of the printer (trays, duplexers, memory & flash upgrades) it's a non issue. FWIW the PostScript printers I've setup in Vista have all worked with the "XP" drivers even when the manufaturer hadn't officially released Vista drivers for it.

And AFAIK there's a standard PCL5 driver built into Windows that works just like the PS drivers it just needs an INF and some sort of printer description file.
 
griffinhart said:
There is nothing in Vista's driver model that gives other hardware manufacturers reason to not make new ones for older hardware.
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Well, except that it is a new model, and requires an investment of resources that will provide little financial gain.

Furthermore, they probably aren't obliged to write new drivers since they never said the hardware supported Vista. I don't complain (much) when my hardware isn't supported in Minix, BSD, Solaris, etc. if the vendor never promised any such support.

It's not their responsibility to provide support for legacy hardware for someone else's operating system.
 
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