The end is nigh for XP

[John_Nevill]

It looks like Windows XP is going to be faded out by the end of 2007. Microsoft have told PC suppliers that OEM versions of XP will no longer be available despite customer resistance to buy Vista.

Time for me to think about buying a Mac then!

[Nicolas Claris]

LOL from a Mac user (since 1984...)
But is your decision made because you don't like Vista or because you don't like to be obliged?

[John_Nevill]

To be honest, both.

I think Micro$oft are putting the pressure on customers to move over to Vista at a much faster pace than previous roll outs.

If one looks back at the NT to XP migration, it was a slow and drawn out transition for many corporates / customers. Not good for revenue nor support.

Secondly, I've played with Vista and its seems a bit bells and whistles, don't get me wrong, Macs have a similar amount of eye candy, but from what I seen it just works on a Mac. Maybe because the hardware and software are developed as one, unlike the PC.

Ironically I've built and used PCs since the 80's, so I could be Mac convert before the year is out! I just hope that the software vendors offer competitive cross grades.

[Nicolas Claris]

I can fully understand what you mean (we, in fact have 2 PCs among 7 Macs). And our PC guru is not really in rush to move to Vista!
I'm not very sure you'll get good rebates for the transition, but may I remind that with the new Intel Macs you can use your PC softwares thru bootcamp or parallel... and it seems to be quite fast!

[Ray West]

Hi John,


It looks like Windows XP is going to be faded out by the end of 2007. Microsoft have told PC suppliers that OEM versions of XP will no longer be available despite customer resistance to buy Vista.
Can you post a link to the microsoft statement, please?

Best wishes,

Ray

[Paul Caldwell]

I doubt that MS will drop support for XP anytime soon.

MS may stop selling XP, however they will continue to support it for quite a while, and companies IMO will not stop making drivers for it for at least 2 years. There are a lot of XP machines out there. Of course MS support means fix packs, and updates.


Paul C

[John_Nevill]

Hi John,


ICan you post a link to the microsoft statement, please?

Best wishes,

Ray

http://apcmag.com/5835/vendors_in_no_rush_to_ditch_xp_for_vista

[Ray West]

Hi John,

Thanks for the link, but I was asking for what microsoft were saying, not some third party interpretation. FUD....

It would not surprise me, if M$ cut it short, but they have changed tack before, hence my request for a link to the M$ site.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Ray West]

From the Microsoft site

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

and from information week, and many others -
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AEOSWNUCQFRQ2QSNDLRCK H0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=197000165


At the end, xp will have been supported for 13 years - not bad for today.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Daniel Harrison]

At the end, xp will have been supported for 13 years - not bad for today.

Best wishes,

Ray

13 years, good grief! that is a ridiculasly long time!

Vista is nasty though, but in a year or so things will have settled down. it's main problem is that it like fast machines.

[leonardobarreto.com]

It is interesting to see how the Macs are getting better and PC's worst.... and that people insist in consuming the more expensive inferior product. Is like East Berlin with no wall and no one escaping to the west.

In retrospective what Apple did, to migrate from Os 9 to OS X and then again change everyone form PowerPC to Intel could have been difficult for Microsoft to say the least.

Lets see what happens with Leopard ... probably nothing, people would -- no yet. Thank you -- flee the Win empire.

Almost everyone of my non-macadict friends that I ask about this say "I'm not upgrading to Vista" and for some reason that statement seams wrong to me, but can't specifically think why...

[Ray West]

I think, for most folk, there is no need to upgrade to vista at the moment, or anything else, unless they succumb to the marketeers. Gradually, as they buy new hardware (printers, scanners, and so on) the earlier drivers will not be included. If they buy a pre-built machine, it may come with vista pre-installed. They can put on whatever os they like. The PC is an open architecture. Windows is probably the most used pc operating system, thanks to good/bad marketing deals by M$. (I changed 'most popular' to 'probably the most used' because I have no idea on the % of linux/other os installations, and every heavy user of windows loves to hate it)

However, my current pc, running windows xp, will run software I wrote in 1980, before windows was even around. M$ are now generous enough, that they give free development software. I am able to write stuff, without to much difficulty to control a machine tool, say, something of my own design, via a serial interface, from a local pc, or from one of my network pcs or even across the web. The cost of the development software - nil. If I want a full 'enterprise development version' I can pay a few hundred pounds and get that.

I can purchase first rate software - qimage, and so on, at almost give-away prices, and there is plenty of first rate free-ware there too - Irfanview, Picasa, etc. Some of the more technical stuff I use will never be available for the Mac, the market is just too small among the technical/engineering users.

There is no need to upgrade to vista yet, I expect the raft of add-ons I have may not have drivers now, but in a year or so time, it may be worthwhile. Most of the teething bugs will be known by then.

I see no advantage for me, in any shape or form, to go to a mac type platform, but mac is coming the windows way.

It could be worse, we could have had Adobe trying to write operating systems... I just do not understand their mindset at all, maybe its they show the trait of a wannabe, but are just not being quite good enough to make it.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Klaus Esser]

"Some of the more technical stuff I use will never be available for the Mac, the market is just too small among the technical/engineering users."

you know already that OS X is Unix? Some scientifics here at the university run highly specialiszed technical programs under the OS X-Unix on a Mac G5 dualprocessor with 8GB RAM and REAL 64bit . . . ;-)

best, Klaus

[Ray West]

Hi Klaus,

I can run Unix, or Linux or whatever on a PC. The mac hardware is overpriced, at least in the UK. OS-X is supplied with m$ xp with some ibm type pc's now.
.....
cut two paragraphs explaining the way the mac is going, but removed since it would start yet another mac/pc thing - horses for courses etc...
........

Large scale users, uni.'s, etc. will get heavily discounted prices, and will go which ever way suits their needs at the time. For my comparatively trivial purposes, windows 2000 works fine.

Much of Europe has been very anti-microsoft, possibly with good reason.

and so it goes...

Best wishes,

Ray

[Klaus Esser]

"OS-X is supplied with m$ xp with some ibm type pc's now. "


WHAT? :-) :-) Where did you get THAT funny thing from? (only for sure: OS X is Apple´s Operating system . . . named "Tiger") ;-)

bst, Klaus

[Ray West]

Sorry Klaus,

A bit of duff information I was given. On checking back, I was referred to the following site http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=41775

It is not quite the same as I was led to believe. Maybe next year.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Klaus Esser]

Hi iRay!

"Maybe next year."

Lots of pc-users hope that (which i fully understand ;-) ). But i don´t believe it will happen. Apple´s advantage is a consisitent workflow between it´s hardware and os.
The inconsistency of pc´s hardware often doesn´t give guaranty of perfect working together. Evereyone using Windows knows that . . my kids run two pc for gaming.

MS is trying to copy OS X for years. XP was the first try . . and, well . . . ;-)
Vista is going to be the next try.
Traditionally these copys of Apple´s os are clumpsy and by far less elegant and ergonomic.

I mean: Windows is a good and functional os! No question! Why trying to copy Apple so desperately? Why over-packing it with features nobody wants and which demands a bunch of new hardware, just to look "hip" as Apple?
MS never was "hip" and never will be - it´s "normal". And that´s not a mistake (it´s just boring and terribly styled :-) ) and works fine - most of the time - and it keeps lots of supporters making their incomes.
That´s good. Never seen such an army of supporters, "pc-doctors" and helpdesks in my whole life with Macs (12 Years now) and never needed os-support from them in any way.

The word "never change a running system" must have come from a Windows-user, does it?

btw.: is Vista 64bit? Which of the 3 or 4 or 5 versions of it is?

best, Klaus

[leonardobarreto.com]

The PC people must really be demoralized, in other times a thread like this would be full of posts stating that "there is no difference in MacOS and WindowsOS". I remember the discussions going for ever on DPRreview.com. The topic is probably the most debated rivaled only by the Canon Nikon theme.

I don't now why macadicts insist in converting the unbelievers, imagine if there was a mass switch to Mac? it would probably force Apple to become more "normal". But may be not, after all the iPod is probably as dominant in music as Windows is in the personal computer and remains very-much "mac".

Ok, so, if you use a pc, please go here ... http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/sb-switch/apple/index.html?s=203

[Klaus Esser]

The PC people must really be demoralized, in other times a thread like this would be full of posts stating that "there is no difference in MacOS and WindowsOS". I remember the discussions going for ever on DPRreview.com. The topic is probably the most debated rivaled only by the Canon Nikon theme.

I don't now why macadicts insist in converting the unbelievers, imagine if there was a mass switch to Mac? it would probably force Apple to become more "normal". But may be not, after all the iPod is probably as dominant in music as Windows is in the personal computer and remains very-much "mac".

Ok, so, if you use a pc, please go here ... http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/sb-switch/apple/index.html?s=203

That also came to my mind . . it´s very calm about the Mac/PC-battles . . :-) . I nearly miss those wonderfull times of hot debates . .

I really hope, Apple will NOT go normal - no way. Unimaginable. :-) Is the iPod "normal"? No. Is Apple gpoing "normal"? No - they´re making their usual silly mistakes we love them for . . and driving us crazy by selecting a bus, nobody in the world uses two years later: PCI-X, which i have in my G5 2GHz. It´s not that i would NEED to put any card in it . . but i´d like to have the choice between more than a Fibrechannel-card and one or two others - IF i WOULD need them. Or an up to date graphic-card which doesn´t cost a fortune simply to run Aperture . . .
Maybe i have to buy a new Mac with the worldwide common PCI-E . . .

But - we love them for beeing a bit funny . . . :-)

[Ray West]

Hi Leonardo, Klaus, et Al,

If you want dpreview type spats, then go to dpreview.

John initially mentioned that xp was being faded out at the end of the year, I tried to verify that, and came up with some facts that I found sort of surprising.

I deleted two paragraphs earlier on in one of my posts, to try and avoid the usual pc/mac baiting that often develops. Prior to that, I mentioned about my personal software requirements not being suited to a Mac, and there was no need for most folk to upgrade to vista.

What else is there to say? You can spend your money however you like. You can decide what suits your needs, in the same way I decide what suits mine. If I see a statement I think is wrong, then I may try and correct it. I saw the link Leonardo mentioned. It is of absolutely of no interest to me. Also, of course, it is a sales pitch. You may as well argue about Black & Decker and Bosch power tools....

Best wishes,

Ray

[KrisCarnmarker]

If you want dpreview type spats, then go to dpreview.


Well said! :) I'm glad nobody has raised to the bait Leonardo and Klaus put out there. That type of posting use usually called trolling, and I was hoping to not have to see that here. But I think some Mac users just can't help themselves; they're on a mission from Go...erm, I mean Jobs.

[leonardobarreto.com]

Kris,

You are totally correct, there was little value left from the long Mac versus PC thread at the other forums, and, yes, I may rightfully be called a troller, but on the other side, how would be the world if we all lost our sense of humor? I don't totally understand posters that go to specific threads to protest the existence of the thread. Isn't it ironic?: just by posting there they are validating the need for such discussion because they do have an opinion about it. In this case KrisCarnmarker may have revived a "troll" that was already dead or almost dead by going personal on "Mac users" that "just can't help" to Go...erm, I mena Jobs." -- by the way, I don't understand it, but sounds as if we Mac users are conspiring to something.

I'm sorry if I was misunderstood: the link to the Apple site where you learn how to switch from PC to Mac was just kidding, I don't work for Apple and I'm not trying to convert PC users, -- I am a bid preoccupied because Vista apparently has 50 million lines of codes and that may cause a world of trouble to PC photographers though --

We are all happy that this is not DPReview, and I apologize again...

[Klaus Esser]

Well said! :) I'm glad nobody has raised to the bait Leonardo and Klaus put out there. That type of posting use usually called trolling, and I was hoping to not have to see that here. But I think some Mac users just can't help themselves; they're on a mission from Go...erm, I mean Jobs.


Hi Chris!

No - not a mission, just kidding. It´s like English and French or Cambridge and Oxford . .

best, Klaus

[Ray West]

The thing about irony - as soon as you add a http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif

the effect is destroyed

Best wishes,

Ray

[Ken Jackson]

"Vista is nasty though, but in a year or so things will have settled down."

Tell me about it! I have been running vista ultimate 64 and have hangs and crashes and reboots still happening. I installed SP1 and it cleaned up some of the probs, but I have gotten to the point of building a new box and use Ubuntu 64 bit Linux... I am burnt bearing on Microsoft. I have been with them from the days of DOS. I have seen and heard about all of their scandles and pirating of others software and adding it to their operating system, Nah, Lil billy found out that he could market a faulty product and have the people who paid for this product, fix it through forums and bulletin boards. Everytime a new launch happens many of the drivers will not work, or microsoft will not allow installation of a driver as it isn't on the access list.. I want out and Ubuntu seems to be the most user friendly version of Linux out there. Besides that, It WORKS! You have a program crash, you go out find the fix and install it, and restart the problem program. Problem Gone! No Reboot, or statement that the fix will not take effect until you restart the system.... I like linux... Vista Hell! I'm staring into the Abyss!

[Will Thompson]

"Vista is nasty though, but in a year or so things will have settled down."

This may be so but it's main flaw will never be cured, IT IS A MICROSOFT PRODUCT!

[leonardobarreto.com]

It likes fast machines because it has 50 million lines of code, if I'm correct, but may be more, which means that you are using your fast machine to move all that junk anywhere you want to go.

The end of the world for MS is near, there is a scientist that discovered a law where a company that was dominant in one technology cycle will not be able to maintain its dominance in the next. MS was the dominant in the PC revolution and now we are well in to the internet cycle, so: The King is dead. Hail the King. and that would be... Mr. Google.

I am happy that Apple was not dominant in the las cycle too.

Microsoft is loosing hundreds of millions of dollar in their attempts to brake this law and try to be good at the internet while maintaining their dominium of the PC world, that is why they are running around attempting to eat Yahoo, but even having that pray in their stomach will not make them be cool for to the internet people.

Now a days Google is everywhere, they have Utube and are moving to the cell phone arena.

But what is happening to Vista may be the story of the Armada Invencible, the Invincible Armada of Elizabethan Spain that was scattered to the North Seas by the wind. The where the larger armada, certain to overwhelmingly dominate the small island kingdom and "bring it back to the True Faith" but the English had a more flexible agile ships that could maneuver under high wind conditions.

Vista can be suffering from obesity -- with so many lines of code -- and has become too big and difficult to steer that may a strong wind come ....

[Asher Kelman]

Leonardo,

My Apple 2e had 64 K or RAM. The software was therefore efficient. I was able to plan all my work on spread sheets, write proposals and though I had a miracle machine!

Frankly, every time Apple boasts the latest and greatest, I must admit I didn't see a lot of difference. But maybe I should now time something on my G5, G5 and Macintel to see what on earth I actually got for my money. I really suspect that a lot of the processor speed is just waisted on programming bloat!

Asher

[leonardobarreto.com]

I'm sure you can't handle 50 million lines of code with 64k

I was talking with a good friend that works on a PC, he is a journalist that works with text and audio. He told me that "I'm not upgrading to Vista", as usual and that he did not needed a OS upgrade since he is fine with the applications the way they are for what he does.

On the other side, I remember using a my wife's PC and how Windows 95 was making the experience unbearable until I upgraded her computer -- yes, I am the IT at home -- to XP and it was a big difference in a positive way. Almost to the level of the user experience of a Mac.

Using a car analogy would be the VW beetle. I had two of these -and a Safari- when I was a student and I used to think that the car was fantastic, super dependable, handle well, economic and, in other words, all the car I ever needed to have.

When I lived in Guatemala, many years latter we had a chance to buy a brand new model of the beetle that was being made in Mexico (they stopped a couple o year ago to make them even there) because my wife said it would be nice to have one and remember the time we were going out while living in Nicaragua.

The car was the same, but I had change my ideas of what a car had to be, visibility was bad -- in the beetle --, no power anything, steering even on such a small car seams hard compared to power steering.

I don't understand how 95% of the world that uses Microsoft OS are just not going to upgrade to Vista and pretend that the can just keep on going with the old OS indefinitely.

[Kathy Rappaport]

Yes, in a few weeks XP will cease being available on new computers. Some of my software would be useless - I have some older programs that I need to have accessible. The UPS man brought me a new PC and a new laptop this week from Dell. There won't be a new operating system until 2010. I can't afford the risk of using Vista with my business applications for my non-photography business. I think Microsoft blew it with Vista. All that said, I'd hate to go back to the old days of Dos 3.1.1

[Cem_Usakligil]

"Vista is nasty though, but in a year or so things will have settled down."

This may be so but it's main flaw will never be cured, IT IS A MICROSOFT PRODUCT!
Hi Will,

If I understood it correctly, Ken was not supporting his above quoted statement in his post, on the contrary.

Nevertheless, could I kindly remind everybody that one of the things we have always been proud of not having here in OPF is exchanging of flame posts about any particular manufacturer, be it MS or Apple, etc. No matter how much problems a particular manufacturer might have introduced in the past, it is not OK to generalize such that all of their products will be faulty by default.

The chances are, any complex software package out there will be bug ridden at various levels. The technology is way too complex and the sizes are huge, a simple human being cannot oversee the QC/debugging process anymore. So we need tools, and guess what? They are complex too ;-)

Just my Euro 0.02

Cheers,

[Georg Baumann]

Just my Euro 0.02


<mutters> which is more than $ 0.02, more it is in deed ;)

Personally I don't care what OS Platfrom is behind my application, as long as the application is not troubled by the OS that is. In case of music, windows until XP always was a bugger, XP was the first stable, my installation is still the original from 2001, never had to reinstall ever since, and I do run complex programs on it. Vista opened a can of worms, everything turned instable again, so I am not bothered and said hasta la vista and decided to go Mac OSX.

Cem is right, the source code debugging is massive these days, then again there are companies that provide a well structured programming from the start, other don't.

And of course, no sweeter business for some of them than the upgrades, often only fixing what was broken in the last release, adding a few new gimmicks, which again brakes something else, which requires a future upgrade, and so on... nice cycle, some call it the perfect money making maschine, and for some companies out there, this is certainly true. LOL

My old Atari 1024 ST had a quantum SCSI harddrive with a whopping 20 MB, and I ran applications "in windows" there without a glitch when Bill Gates was still having Akne problems Remember the early DOS? Everything had to be writen to the root, not folder and subfolders possible. LOL Geeze, I remember that I wrote massive configsys and autoexecs if blah blah go to error loop1 endif blah blah LOLOLOL, what a waste of time. <grins> But was fun.

I hope OSX will give me the stability I need for music and picture processing, chances are it will. <crossing fingers> ;)

[Richard McNeil]

I guess I must be the only person that actually uses and likes Vista! I am running Vsta 64 Bit and have had zero problems! Much better and faster then XP (IMHO). All my Apps work (Photoshop, Lightroom etc).

[Rhys Sage]

I understand Vista home has issues. My wife just bought a Dell PC for her office with Vista Business on it. It that goes haywire then I'll downgrade her to XP Pro (I have a Dell XP Pro disk). She really doesn't want Vista because of all the issues surrounding it.

I personally went down the Mac route after they brought out the Intel Macs. I'd wanted to go Mac after Windows 98 and regretted that I didn't. The difference is night and day.

I notice that XP is being crippled by Microsoft. My printer-server downloaded the latest Microsoft update yesterday and was noticeably slower afterwards. My printer-server is a Dell 4300S which came with 128mb RAM and which I upgraded to 256MB. XP originally ran well with 64mb ram and a 600MHZ CPU. Now it crawls on 256mb RAM and a 1.7Ghz CPU. What's killing it is the updates. Get rid of those and get rid of Direct X and it'll run well although what with the viruses etc, Microsoft is truly an offline OS.

My Mac works flawlessly and has since I bought it :) I have a new data storage model though - everything gets chucked onto an external hard drive. I wish it were possible to make it a permanant feature that all OSs looked for their data on a portable external hard drive.

Going further down that route, it'd be nice if software would run from an external hard drive without needing to plug the software into the registry - then you'd be truly able to use any PC for all your work. It'd make you a computer whore but I kinda like that idea!