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 .

[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.

[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]