Windows XP to be phased out by year's end...................

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

The beginning of the end...........................

Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems.

By early 2008, Microsoft's contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. "The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January," said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. "At that point, they'll have no choice."

Despite Microsoft's relentless promotion of Vista, manufacturers are still seeing plenty of demand from customers for systems preloaded with XP, especially in the finicky SOHO market.

In a recent post on its Direct2Dell blog, Dell reaffirmed to concerned customers that it wasn't about to force small business users -- who typically purchase PCs piecemeal, rather than in large enterprise-style orders -- to shift to Vista, which has experienced a less-than-stellar reaction from many buyers because of driver issues and moderately beefy hardware requirements.

"Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system," the post read in part. "The plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron systems until later this [northern] summer."

"From a local perspective, the post was a reminder more than an announcement," Dell ANZ corporate communications manager Paul McKeon told APC.

"This was something we'd always planned during the transition phase since businesses will have different time frames to adopt the new OS. If you're a consumer, you're unlikely to be managing more than say 2.4 OS images at home, so it's less of an issue"

There's general agreement amongst PC resellers that Vista has provided a minor boost to PC sales, but hasn't produced blockbuster numbers. A similar story applies in the retail space. Figures from marketing consultancy GfK suggest that after an initial sales surge, around 1500 copies of Vista are now being sold through Australian retailers each week, according to a recent report in the AFR.

While Dell's post suggested it wouldn't be promoting Vista systems to the home market, manufacturers still have the option of selling XP-based systems for consumers this year.

[SarahG]

Well, what can we say...

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Ecstatic]

Well, I bit the bullet today and bought a new PC loaded with Vista Ultimate. We'll see how it goes.

Dell XPS 410
Core2 2.4GHz E6600
4 DDR2 SRAM
nVidea GeForce 7900 GS 256MB
DataSafe 320GB hd (2x320, RAID 1 + Norton Ghost)

I was going to wait a year, but my wife's pc died, so we had to invest in a new one, so I decided to go for Vista since it seems inevitable.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

based on those specs you're good to go

[ILuvGurls]

bought one as well about 3 months ago, but i stayed with XP.........figured i'd wait till all the bugs are worked out of vista.

[Ecstatic]

I hope so, JWBL. I spent a few hours purusing different config's and evaluating options. I might've gone for a more extreme rig except that I also just invested in a new server as well (Dual Xeon 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, 4x 80GB hd in RAID 5).

Now I just need to make some money....

[ELAGESE]

vista is a crap operating system that will only hog resources UNNECESSARILY and require you to run a more expensive & powerful computer. So, it's good for computer resellers because it forces consumers to pay for more computing power than most will ever need, all while wasting all that power on a really really badly coded "Vista" operating system. If you like to waste money and be a lemming, buy Vista and an upgraded computer :wink: .

[MacShreach]

I decided to go for Vista since it seems inevitable.

Congrats on your new purchase, but it's not really inevitable.

I have yet to see one thing that I actually need to do, that I could do better on either XP or Vista than I can do on Win2KPro. In fact for some apps XP is demonstrably slower than 2K. I haven't been able to really give Vista a thrashing using intensive graphical apps, but I'm not really tempted to either.

To be quite honest there are not that many things that I couldn't quite happily do under 98. I wouldn't want to go back to 98 but I'm sure 2K will keep doing what I need it to until Linux is up to speed in graphical and publishing apps. It's much closer now than it was even 2 years ago but basically if it won't run at minimum Photoshop and InDesign, or equivalent professional apps, I can't use it. (Please don't talk about the GIMP-- fine for hobbyists, not for pros, and there is no credible open-source typesetting program.)

Linux needs to push into the marketplace more so that companies like Adobe have the incentive to make their progs compatible--this farting about with Windows emulators is nonsense. However I think this will come over the next five years.

I have to say if Linux fails to deliver I'd go back to Mac rather than put up with any more Mickeysoft bull. </grump>

[Ecstatic]

Great points, Mac. Of course, nothing is inevitable save death and taxes (and my fascination with beautiful tgirls....). But while I could switch to Mac (I do have an OSX iMac and would love to upgrade to a serious Mac), most of my sw is Windows-based, and I'm 20x more efficient on a WinPC than on a Mac, not to mention that the equivalent (if with superior OS) PC in a Mac will run at least $1000 more than in a WinPC.

As for inevitability, yes, you can stick with older apps as long as you want (I'm still using HomeSite 5 for coding, though it's showing its age especially in terms of standards compliance, because no WYSIWYG editor can touch it--yes, Dreamweaver incorporates it, but still has serious limitations plus you have to load all that bloat to get the coding engine), but as apps progress, you need to stay current. PS CS3 may run on XP, but it's optimized for Vista and OSX and later releases will leave XP behind completely.

I love Linux for my servers, but I agree with you regarding the available apps. And I still run my Win98 machine as a dedicated CD burner.

[MacShreach]

Great points, Mac. Of course, nothing is inevitable save death and taxes (and my fascination with beautiful tgirls....). But while I could switch to Mac (I do have an OSX iMac and would love to upgrade to a serious Mac), most of my sw is Windows-based, and I'm 20x more efficient on a WinPC than on a Mac, not to mention that the equivalent (if with superior OS) PC in a Mac will run at least $1000 more than in a WinPC.

As for inevitability, yes, you can stick with older apps as long as you want (I'm still using HomeSite 5 for coding, though it's showing its age especially in terms of standards compliance, because no WYSIWYG editor can touch it--yes, Dreamweaver incorporates it, but still has serious limitations plus you have to load all that bloat to get the coding engine), but as apps progress, you need to stay current. PS CS3 may run on XP, but it's optimized for Vista and OSX and later releases will leave XP behind completely.

I love Linux for my servers, but I agree with you regarding the available apps. And I still run my Win98 machine as a dedicated CD burner.

It's going to look like I'm a Luddite, but I'm not, and I'm certainly not criticising you for buying some new tackle.

What I've been saying for years is identify what you need to do, then make sure you have the tools to do it. PS CS3 is in functional terms no better than CS2 and in fact there is very little gain in functionality--I have yet to find any of real-world value in PS CS2 over the old PS 7 and if I was to be quite honest PS has really been pretty much sorted since 5.5. A few extra bells and whistles have appeared and the interface is a bit better, but really....

Same is true of Indesign-- yes I have CS2 but again in terms of functionality it's actually no better than PageMaker 6.5, but it had to be replaced because PM6.5 will not run properly on NT-based Windows. (Well not without the knd of faffing about I'm not prepared to do.)

Of course this is directly counter to what the computer industry wants, which is that you keep up with the upgrades. But why? If what you got does what you want to do, fine, and the advantage of the older Windows (pre-XP) is when you bin one computer you can just transfer the OS and your progs and know everything is going to work. Just do xcopy to a temporarily installed HD or even a USB HD and Bob, as they say, is your uncle. Bill the Hick doesn't like us doing that.

The one thing that has really helped in recent years is the abundance of cheap RAM. That makes a real difference when you're handling big graphics files with say PS, Indesign and Illustrator plus others all open at once.[/i]

[Aragon21]

I will believe XP will be phased out this year like I believed 98 was phased out in 2002. Didn't happen...Bad business move.

No matter what people might want to say about Bill Gates...he doesn't piss on his product and ask you if you like lemonade!

[classydtwngrl]

It's been out since 2001, what more could some people want from this OS after 2008?

LOL what more could people want with win 2000?? its only been out since 1998.............. Yet!!! I STILL USE IT ON MY SERVERS!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Paladin]

WTFC - I'm still using winBLOWS 98!!

[Ecstatic]

It's going to look like I'm a Luddite, but I'm not, and I'm certainly not criticising you for buying some new tackle.

What I've been saying for years is identify what you need to do, then make sure you have the tools to do it. PS CS3 is in functional terms no better than CS2 and in fact there is very little gain in functionality--I have yet to find any of real-world value in PS CS2 over the old PS 7 and if I was to be quite honest PS has really been pretty much sorted since 5.5. A few extra bells and whistles have appeared and the interface is a bit better, but really....
Oh I agree with that principle, which is why I'm still using Homesite 6 or 7 years on, despite the fact that there's no upgrade for the program. And I prefer PM 6.5 (or even the previous two versions) over any version of InDesign or other programs (yes, QuarkXpress is also a great program, but I never quite took to the basic layout metaphor employed by Quark as opposed to PM). Then again, I haven't used a layout program in years.

As for PS CS2, as someone who started with v. 2.0 at work and bought and has upgraded since 3.0, I resisted buying CS2 for two years, thinking "how much more can it offer?" Of course, in part it depends on one's skills; I worked with a PS guru a few years back who could do things with 4.0 that I can't touch with CS2 or anything else. But anyway, I finally did buy CS2, and while I haven't found much use for the much-hyped Adobe Bridge (and haven't bought into Lightroom, which I did run as a beta), I've found a number of extremely useful features in CS2 that were lacking in PS 7: smart sharpen (which sometimes isn't, but sometimes is very useful), bicubic smoother and sharper resampling, the filter gallery, vanishing point, the additional blur filters (especially smooth blur), smart objects, and more.

I think it's funny that you hold 5.5 as the pointed where they got PS "sorted": I think so, too, and thought that the 5.5 designation was an interesting bit of print media snobbery on Adobe's part as most of the enhancements (and there were many, among the most useful ever introduced) were intended for the Web, not for print, and that made it an interim release rather than a full release.

[SkyTwo]

Opensource, anyone? I'm toying with the idea of switching, and already use some software. Open Office blows the doors off of MS Office.

[Ecstatic]

LOL what more could people want with win 2000?? its only been out since 1998.............. Yet!!! I STILL USE IT ON MY SERVERS!! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Not me. Linux all the way on my servers.

[lewdguppy]

W2K was the best most reliable thing they ever made; I still use it as well.

it doesn't "think for itself" as much as XP, it doesn't spy on me as much either (didn't install the spying bits, well most), fended off most of the creepy crawly's with a whoppin' bog router and for the rest there's spybot, adaware and responsible surfin'.

XP sucks ass, Vista's not even going to come near my place, since I'm busy studying how to use Linux. so once the ol' reliable W2000 gets really obscure and unusable I'll switch away from anything remotely Windows-like.
:wink:

[MacShreach]

smart sharpen (which sometimes isn't, but sometimes is very useful), bicubic smoother and sharper resampling, .

I do agree with those Ec.

As to 5.5, it was when the PS format really cracked all the issues across the Mac and PC platforms-- the subsequent additions and changes have sometimes been nice, but not really essential. 5.5 was when PS blew all the others off and it has stayed ahead since.

[MacShreach]

Opensource, anyone? I'm toying with the idea of switching, and already use some software. Open Office blows the doors off of MS Office.

I absolutely agree about Opensource and about Open Office, all but for ONE THING, and that is that there is no open-source alternative to Outlook that will run on Windows.

Outlook is far and away the best program of its type (unfortunately) and nothing esle comes close. But as soon as a decent integrated PIM/Address Manager/Calendar/Email client (and the rest--Outlook is one powerful package) is added to Open Office, MS Office will be history round here.

Meantime Outlook is essential business software IMO.

[SkyTwo]

[quote="MacShreach"]Outlook is far and away the best program of its type (unfortunately) and nothing esle comes close. But as soon as a decent integrated PIM/Address Manager/Calendar/Email client (and the rest--Outlook is one powerful package) is added to Open Office, MS Office will be history round here./quote]

Can't argue with that. Love Firefox, hate Thunderbird, et al.

[Phat]

I've got XP on my new laptop, I actually really like it

[Ecstatic]

I do agree with those Ec.

As to 5.5, it was when the PS format really cracked all the issues across the Mac and PC platforms-- the subsequent additions and changes have sometimes been nice, but not really essential. 5.5 was when PS blew all the others off and it has stayed ahead since.
Yeah, it just surprised me and seemed almost snobbish that they designated it 5.5 because most of the changes didn't directly affect print media, but Adobe hadn't fully bought into the online world yet. And cracking the PC/Mac cross-platform issues was major.

One caveat about the CS2 filter gallery: when I'm loading a filter that I know is the one I want, I don't need the overhead of the whole gallery opening. Let me click the Filter Gallery for that, and give me the old school UI for individual filters.

[Kriss]

:popcorn