Dell Brings Back XP

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

From CNET:

Amid significant customer demand, the computer maker said on Thursday that it has returned to offering the older Windows version as an option on some of its consumer PCs.

Analysts say that this move is VERY bad for Vista - it sure says something about the lacking 'intuitive' UI...

http://news.com.com/Dell+brings+back+XP+on+home+systems/2100-1046_3-6177619.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

 

[Swarmlord]

Well, they continued to offer it on the home models, but had removed the option on the business level computers. A lot of businesses held off on new purchases because they found that Vista broke some of their applications. (A SAP application was the case where I work).

Microsoft has delayed the product so long and failed to demonstrate that Vista is any more than than a UI change which would require companies to retrain their employees. I have yet to read where the current version is performance improvement over XP with SP2.

 

[OllyW]

It seems Michael Dell prefers Linux

 

[sushi]

I recently queried a group of 10 computer users.

For their home computers, with the exception of one person, all said they were not planning on upgrading to Vista or Office 2007.

Vista may not be as popular as Microsoft expects it to be initially. I think most folks are going to wait to upgrade when they upgrade their hardware. And these days it seems many folks are waiting longer to upgrade their hardware than before.

 

[roland.g]

Makes sense, I priced a new Dell a couple weeks ago for my work, my computer needs replacement and dual core badly. I was shocked you couldn't still get XP. My work would not buy me a Vista machine with everyone else on XP and no plans to upgrade until they absolutely have no choice. Our outsourced IT tech has told me that he has yet to do an office wide upgrade for any of his clients to Vista, has discouraged it and will hold off doing so for as long as possible.

He's also buying my Sawtooth G4 so that he can start to learn OS X.

 

[johnee]

yeah, dell has really been making some incredible moves given it's past. I think they are actually LISTENING to their customers now. The linux news was flabbergasting, and now XP. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Redmond.

Actually, now i'm pissed cause I bought my daughter a cheap dell laptop, and I had to get vista.

 

[gkarris]

Are Dells Even Vista Compatible To Begin With?

My friend bought a Dell with Vista and half the stuff (like the DVD, CD-R, etc.) didn't even work - even to this day...

I told him to buy a Mini....

 

[ChrisA]

From CNET:


Analysts say that this move is VERY bad for Vista - it sure says something about the lacking 'intuitive' UI...

http://news.com.com/Dell+brings+back+XP+on+home+systems/2100-1046_3-6177619.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

Our company prohibits computers running Vista to be connected to the company network. When they do buy computers and they have a program of buying a dozen or so every week they simply image the disk with the "standard" corporate image. that now has XP, Office, Lotus Notes and so on. I suspect everyone with more than a thousand or so desktops to support does exactly the same

So, NO. Most new computer will not have Vista. Many will have disk images installed either just prior or after delivery.

 

[gkarris]

Our company prohibits computers running Vista to be connected to the company network. When they do buy computers and they have a program of buying a dozen or so every week they simply image the disk with the "standard" corporate image. that now has XP, Office, Lotus Notes and so on. I suspect everyone with more than a thousand or so desktops to support does exactly the same

So, NO. Most new computer will not have Vista. Many will have disk images installed either just prior or after delivery.

Is that legal? At my company, the OS has to match the license sticker on the machine...

All the new machines we are getting in have XP Pro stickers on it...

 

[yg17]

Is that legal? At my company, the OS has to match the license sticker on the machine...

All the new machines we are getting in have XP Pro stickers on it...

Perfectly legal if they have a site license. Where I work, we have an image (a few of them, depending on configs) that has XP, Office and a bunch of other stuff we have licenses for. And this makes setting up computers easy because it's an unattended install and automatically does our active directory stuff

I think Vista will be the next Windows ME. A joke of an OS that people will have forgotten about in a year.

 

[gkarris]

Perfectly legal if they have a site license. Where I work, we have an image (a few of them, depending on configs) that has XP, Office and a bunch of other stuff we have licenses for. And this makes setting up computers easy because it's an unattended install and automatically does our active directory stuff

I think Vista will be the next Windows ME. A joke of an OS that people will have forgotten about in a year.

I actually like what I've seen - I think it's more the computer manufacturer.

My friend with a Dell - well we know that deal.

My other friend got a terrific deal on an Acer laptop with Core 2 Duo, 1 Gigs RAM, and it's been flawless...

 

[mac-er]

Perfectly legal if they have a site license. Where I work, we have an image (a few of them, depending on configs) that has XP, Office and a bunch of other stuff we have licenses for. And this makes setting up computers easy because it's an unattended install and automatically does our active directory stuff

I think Vista will be the next Windows ME. A joke of an OS that people will have forgotten about in a year.

Oh yeah, our company will open up a new desktop and immediately put their corporate image on it. For a long time, the computers came with XP, and they overwrote it with 2000.

 

[Benjamin]

No real surprise they brought it back, vista real push won't be till business upgrade, many left over XP stickers, and dells market-share dropping.

 

[SkyBell]

Yay, this is cool for people who dont want Vista yet.

 

[Shadow]

Windows Vista = Windows Me.

Utter failure. Even Microsoft fanboys dont like it.

 

[hulugu]

Our company prohibits computers running Vista to be connected to the company network. When they do buy computers and they have a program of buying a dozen or so every week they simply image the disk with the "standard" corporate image. that now has XP, Office, Lotus Notes and so on. I suspect everyone with more than a thousand or so desktops to support does exactly the same

So, NO. Most new computer will not have Vista. Many will have disk images installed either just prior or after delivery.

I have responsibility for one site of 13 machines and I do something similar. If a new machine shows up, it's getting the image, regardless of whatever goofy software—Vista included—it arrives with.
This works to make my troubleshooting easier, helps to set-up each system with exactly what everyone expects, and removes all the adware and trial-ware that ships on most PCs.

Vista remains non-standard for this deployment and will stay out until I can actually test it against all our standard software and expect it to work.

 

[Sesshi]

A lot of it seems to be FUD by self-important & inexperienced tech 'journalists' and bloggers too happy to be sheep. Home users are especially the sort of people who should be upgrading to Vista. It automates or beefs up a lot of features which home users would benefit from.

It's true that Vista breaks some apps - but I've had all my Vista issues addressed by the software / firewall / etc manufacturers to the extent that I'll probably accelerate the Vista upgrade of all my for-work systems to late summer or autumn instead of next year.

Ironically my games computers remain XP and will probably only be upgraded in late summer - but my general purpose systems are already largely Vista, and I'm pretty happy with things so far.

I've found on using it as my main home OS that it is definitely a worthwhile upgrade over XP. And the hysteria over some features is in many cases rather amusing - all that fuss over UAC for example, and the bashing of it by many members here? It's virtually the same under OS X if you set yourself up as a regular user (as you should) - which makes the recent Apple ads all the more sadder.

It has been utterly stable on all my systems so far - something I can't say for all my Macs.

 

[hulugu]

A lot of it seems to be FUD by self-important & inexperienced tech 'journalists' and bloggers too happy to be sheep. Home users are especially the sort of people who should be upgrading to Vista. It automates or beefs up a lot of features which home users would benefit from.

It's true that Vista breaks some apps - but I've had all my Vista issues addressed by the software / firewall / etc manufacturers to the extent that I'll probably accelerate the Vista upgrade of all my for-work systems to late summer or autumn instead of next year.

Ironically my games computers remain XP and will probably only be upgraded in late summer - but my general purpose systems are already largely Vista, and I'm pretty happy with things so far.

I've found on using it as my main home OS that it is definitely a worthwhile upgrade over XP. And the hysteria over some features is in many cases rather amusing - all that fuss over UAC for example, and the bashing of it by many members here? It's virtually the same under OS X if you set yourself up as a regular user (as you should) - which makes the recent Apple ads all the more sadder.

It has been utterly stable on all my systems so far - something I can't say for all my Macs.

Weird. The two Vista installs I've dealt with were buggy and unreliable on brand-new hardware, which has been the last nail in the coffin for me. XP is currently a good investment, requiring nothing more than average hardware and it works with everything. Vista, on the other hand, offers eye-candy at a serious cost, has serious reliability issues, and breaks a significant number of applications.

However I agree with you about UAC, it's a teapot tempest and an easy joke.

As for Macs, I have 4 currently in possession and all of them have been reliable and stable—my 867mhz Titanium finally had a monitor problem after years of significant and daily use. Each experience is different I suppose.

 

[johnee]

Windows Vista = Windows Me.

Utter failure. Even Microsoft fanboys dont like it.

All MS has to do is drop support on XP, and that equation is false.

Don't think they won't do it either.

 

[Sesshi]

Weird. The two Vista installs I've dealt with were buggy and unreliable on brand-new hardware, which has been the last nail in the coffin for me. XP is currently a good investment, requiring nothing more than average hardware and it works with everything. Vista, on the other hand, offers eye-candy at a serious cost, has serious reliability issues, and breaks a significant number of applications.

However I agree with you about UAC, it's a teapot tempest and an easy joke.

As for Macs, I have 4 currently in possession and all of them have been reliable and stable—my 867mhz Titanium finally had a monitor problem after years of significant and daily use. Each experience is different I suppose.

It depends on what you mean by 'brand-new hardware'. If it's a Mac - forget it as a valid experience. With two exceptions, all my Vista purchases have been pre-loads. With the machines I was putting together myself (and that's a fairly rare occasion) I was extremely careful about choosing for Vista compatibility as I've heard some nightmare stories - and both the systems updated without a hitch from Windows Update, finding all the drivers automatically. I haven't been running the parts-build machines long enough to make any judgments yet about their stability, but the Vista-preloaded machines have been completely stable - i.e. no equivalents of kernel panics at all since any of them booted up for the first time.

Dunno if you're running any Intel systems at all, Mac-wise.

 

[hircus]

I've found on using it as my main home OS that it is definitely a worthwhile upgrade over XP. And the hysteria over some features is in many cases rather amusing - all that fuss over UAC for example, and the bashing of it by many members here? It's virtually the same under OS X if you set yourself up as a regular user (as you should) - which makes the recent Apple ads all the more sadder.

Hmm. I'd agree with you that Vista, the OS itself, is not as bad as people make it out to be (Aero even runs passably on my desktop's integrated GMA 950), and the issues with some computers are mostly driver-based.

Two points, though:
1. I would not put Vista on a laptop right now. During the beta period people report their battery life getting much worse; according to a friend, on his Thinkpad the released version still does this

2. UAC. Number one, on Windows it does not add security (you don't have to input your password). Number two, it pops up *way* too often. Number three, for security reason it is not displayed on the same "display" as every other window (preventing other malicious apps from taking over the window and clicking the "Yes" button), but a lot of time the UAC display fails to be brought to the foreground.

Considering OS X and Linux have had sudo-based security systems for ages (if you have admin rights, your account is a perfectly-normal user account, but when you need to perform admin tasks, you can elevate yourself to superuser privileges *with the admin password* (though you can configure Linux to not require it), it's amazing how wrong Microsoft gets it.

It has been utterly stable on all my systems so far - something I can't say for all my Macs.[/QUOTE]

 

[Sesshi]

2. UAC. Number one, on Windows it does not add security (you don't have to input your password). Number two, it pops up *way* too often. Number three, for security reason it is not displayed on the same "display" as every other window (preventing other malicious apps from taking over the window and clicking the "Yes" button), but a lot of time the UAC display fails to be brought to the foreground.

Considering OS X and Linux have had sudo-based security systems for ages (if you have admin rights, your account is a perfectly-normal user account, but when you need to perform admin tasks, you can elevate yourself to superuser privileges *with the admin password* (though you can configure Linux to not require it), it's amazing how wrong Microsoft gets it.

The latter is how UAC works if you set yourself up as a user. When prompted - e.g. for program installation, you type in the admin password to elevate yourself to superuser. It's no different. I think this is perhaps what people are confused about. Vista UAC checks certain things even if you are a superuser - but the normal user experience is not very different to OS X in terms of security prompts.

Now that I can in Windows (XP was distinctly substandard in this respect), I don't run as a computer administrator, the same way as I don't under OS X for example.

 

[Winterfell]

It doesn't much surprise me. Vista is very different from anything before on the outside, and only seems more clumsy.

But XP wasn't a breakthrough sensation when it was released either. It probably performed better than Vista sales are currently, but it wasn't a breakthrough sensation.

It is arguably a superior product and worth the upgrade, but businesses (which account for the vast majority of Windows deployments) didn't move to XP en masse until after SP1 was released.

I anticipate the same will happen with Vista. Am I excited about Vista? Not particularly. But it is down the road, and most of us will have to use it at some point, be it at work or elsewhere.

 

[miniConvert]

I'm not surprised, as many of you aren't.

XP is 'fine'.

Unlike when XP came out and replaced some truly outdated and awful operating systems, Vista is competing against a largely stable environment that supports a massive, massive variety of peripherals and applications. I believe there are very few people who are considering upgrading to Vista, and indeed few who will draw anything but minor benefits from it, but the vast majority will want Vista on their new computers.

A minority of new computer buyers, however, will still want XP for the reasons above and more. Microsoft is still selling OEM licences until 2008 so, really, pulling XP so abruptly was just Dell's stupid mistake. Just one in a long line of many they've made over the last 3 or 4 years. I mean really, why limit choice so close to Vista's launch? Let consumers decide when XP dies.

Even if Vista were a revolutionary vision of computing, which it absolutely isn't, folk would still want XP for compatibility and legacy reasons.

I, personally, don't intend to upgrade my own machines to Vista. But I wouldn't deliberately not have it if I needed to buy a new Windows PC.

 

[hulugu]

It depends on what you mean by 'brand-new hardware'. If it's a Mac - forget it as a valid experience. With two exceptions, all my Vista purchases have been pre-loads. With the machines I was putting together myself (and that's a fairly rare occasion) I was extremely careful about choosing for Vista compatibility as I've heard some nightmare stories - and both the systems updated without a hitch from Windows Update, finding all the drivers automatically. I haven't been running the parts-build machines long enough to make any judgments yet about their stability, but the Vista-preloaded machines have been completely stable - i.e. no equivalents of kernel panics at all since any of them booted up for the first time.

Dunno if you're running any Intel systems at all, Mac-wise.

3 PPC machines and one Intel Core 2 Duo. All seem perfectly fine and the last time I've seen a kernel panic was when I tried to something dumb with an old Powerbook.

As for the Vista machines, they were brand-new (out of the OEM box) with Vista pre-loaded and they were just...squirrelly. One was a Dell desktop and the other was an Acer laptop.
I think Vista isn't quite ripe yet.