Users Fight to Save Windows XP

[meegbear]

Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker. But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system. Unless it's someone running Windows XP, a version Microsoft wants to retire.

Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.

No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.

For them, the impending disappearance of XP computers from retailers, and the phased withdrawal of technical support in coming years, is causing a minor panic.

<snip>

http://www.comcast.net/news/articles/general/2008/04/14/Microsoft.Save.XP/

[mwb970]

1. I've been lucky enough not to have had problems with Vista.

XP wasn't really broken, but they fixed it anyway! Now everyone wants it back, and I don't blame them, after all the Vista horror stories I have heard.

[iamthebandfanman]

2. i still cant understand what the deal is with vista

if you know how long this project had been underway(several years) youd think they wouldnt have stability issues ...
this is by far the worst blunder by microsoft.
maybe they should just scrap it n start over ;)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. I guess you don't remember

windows 2.0.... now that was a disaster

3.0 okay

3.11 great

and on and on

[iamthebandfanman]

7. nope

i have no experience with 2.0...

but i do 3.0 and upward ;)


i just know i remember seeing 'longhorn' back in 2001.

[meegbear]

11. Part of the issue was with Apple ...

they had Tiger released well before Vista and they were touting some of the same features. At the WWDC in 2004 previewing it, they gave us attendees t-shirts that said "Redmond, we have a problem", mocking the delay.

They went to market too fast; MS should have made sure that they were hardware compatible with everything XP was. And the security feature, a boon to IT administrators, blows in the real world. I don't think they should scrap, but they should admit it sucks, overall it, and get it out there.

Now Office 2007, there's a product they should scrap and start over.

[iamthebandfanman]

12. u hafta admit a mistake

before u can truely fix it.


hence the problem with our government ;)

[EOTE]

28. Worse than Windows ME? Surely you jest.

This stuff happens any time MS rolls out a completely new OS. XP had its share of issues when it was released, and now Windows users are very fond of it because the bugs are all ironed out. It will take some time with Vista as well, but the recently released SP1 has made quite a bit of difference in terms of stability and speed. I think Vista has done fairly well its first year in spite of how aggressively Apple has attacked it. I've been using Vista 64 for almost a year now and I've had almost no issues with it.

[iamthebandfanman]

33. i never had a problem with ME

but then again i ran it all of a couple of weeks before i switched back to 2000(just wanted to see what ME was like).

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. We have Vista U, 64

the list of programs that it will not run is to the point that I am typing from my MacBook

Why? It runs these programs

Hell, will get XP Pro after a trip and put it on a partition on the vista machine, so we can run those programs that will not RUN on Vista or run poorly

[keroro gunsou]

74. vista is to XP

what ME was to win95/98

[FatDave]

87. Nah, this is the third worst blunder.

The second worst was Microsoft Bob. The worst was Windows ME. The first release of Windows 98 was pretty bad too.

None of it matters to me though, I switched to Linux years ago.

Edit to add: XP is the best product they ever put out, and to force people off of it in favor of Vista is a huge mistake.

[global1]

3. I Actually Have More Success With My Windows 95 Than XP But......

Vista is really, really problematic. I'm for keeping XP and dumping Vista.

[iamthebandfanman]

9. please dont be running that win95 machine

on the internet without lots of protection friend ;)

[leeroysphitz]

21. Success with what? Playing Myst? :) n/t

[Blue_Tires]

24. Rise of the Triad, baby! n/t

[L0oniX]

41. Duke Nukem forever

[leftofcool]

5. High end graphics programs do not run well with Vista

Vista is one of Microsludge's worst concepts for digital artists

[SteinbachMB]

6. XP

...is fine. I skipped Vista, and will use XP for a while, yet.

[Breeze54]

8. Microsoft has always pulled support for their OS's after 5 yrs or so....

This is nothing new but you can still get support at other tech online support places but you just won't get any upgrades to that OS. I have XP and I'm not worried about it.... until something new comes along that every one is using and I can't use it due to no updates to XP, then I'll be forced to upgrade.

[pocoloco]

10. I love Ubuntu

:loveya: :loveya:

[kineneb]

65. running Kubuntu

:loveya:

[FatDave]

88. Ubuntu amd64

My only wish is better video editing. Cinelerra is major buggy.

[THX1138]

13. I installed Vista this weekend

and honestly, I don't know what all the whining is about. It installed fine (on a home built PC), in a dual boot configuration on one of my Windows boxes. It recognized all my hardware, I didn't have to install a single driver, I had no problem authenticating and accessing my Linux Samba box and shares, and it seems to be humming along just fine. Visually it looks like a sloppy version of KDE 3, but it is an improvement and there are more customization options available.

The security might seem a little paranoid (when trying to download and install something, I got no less than 4 prompts) but I can see how it might help some from inadvertently installing malware. Also the security can be tweaked via Local Security Policy. There were a few annoyances that I disabled, but surprisingly there wasn't much of a learning curve in adapting to the new UI, it's not all that different from XP. After an hour with it I was comfortable navigating my way around. I was also happy to see that MS put Device Manager back in Control Panel, where it belongs.

Anyway, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Do people just hate change?

[CRF450]

15. Do people hate change? Sure seems like it!

I havent had any problems with Vista either. And an upgrade to SP1 brought a bit more improvement in speed, maybe compatability problems but I havent had any issues with that either. Overall I really like it, no reason for me to switch to Apple.

Oh and if you have Vista Ultimate, get Dreamscene, its fuckin cool on the desktop! If your wondering what that is, here you go! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og-PkLfiN6w

[leeroysphitz]

22. Lol. and people wonder why Vista runs slow! Looks sweet tho. n/t

[CRF450]

25. Not really, its only downloadable.

Theirs hardly any noticable slow downs on my pc using it, than again its a high performance gaming system. Plus its only available for the Ultimate version.

[lildreamer316]

49. That just about sold me right there!

Thanks!

[BuelahWitch]

17. My new system has Vista

When it was shipping I was incredibly nervous because of what I'd heard. I've been working with it a few weeks and no problems.
There is NO WAY I could have run Vista on my old machine though. The hardware just wasn't up to snuff.

[HughMoran]

53. It's just slow and those of us who adapted early were nearly insane before MS put out some patches

You haven't experienced the many blue-screens and having to throw away perfectly good software (like Acrobat Pro) and waiting for drivers for more remote software. Try doing data-acquisition with a Vista laptop and when it freezes up and you can't do anything, what are you supposed to think? It's bad enough the graphics can't keep up with the display of the gauges - which wasn't much of an issue with XP as it left enough memory for the shared graphics cards to use. Vista? nah, wan't the memory all to itself.

[LiberalAndProud]

59. I'm not whining.

I'm on a WAN and Vista is stuck up. It doesn't play well with XP systems or XP servers. Microsoft is strong arming the business community. The Resource Overhead (both RAM and ROM) required to run the thing is ridiculous. And every single business application runs slower under Vista.

I could could go on, but let it suffice to say that every computer that we get in with Vista preloaded is wiped and reloaded with XP. We won't be migrating any time soon.

[THX1138]

69. I Wasn't

speaking to a corporate model, that is a whole different sitiation. We are running XP as well, in fact we just upgraded from 2000 about six months ago lol, and this is a pretty big international firm, not Billy Bob's auto parts or something. 2000 was dog slow for users but it was stable and working. Why "fix" it? Corporate logic. It was only when 2000 became hopelessly obsolete from a management perspective that they moved on XP. Vista is nowhere on the horizon for us, but I wouldn't expect it to be. Like you said, that's what Ghost is for. Who in the business community uses Dell's default HD load anyway? XP will be around in a corporate setting for a while, like 98 and 2000 was, until the day MS kills support and stops offering updates.

The whining I was referring to was on the consumer side. I steered clear of Vista for months because I had heard all the wrenching stories about what a godawful experience it was, both installing and using it. What finally prompted me to was a post I saw somewhere, may have been here, or maybe digg, where MS was trying to give away copies of Vista or something, and post after post said "yeah, but who wants it?". And I thought, can it be that bad? Can it be so horrible that they can't even give it away? People were describing it like it was the 2nd coming of Millenium, which truly was a first class POS. I'm always up for a challenge so I dove in, expecting to enter the gates of the worst computer hell imaginable. It was a nice (and welcome) surprise to have everything go without a hitch. That's a big step for MS. The setup was fast and mostly unattended, very clean too. I've also heard a lot of people dissing the changes and saying the improvements to the UI are negligible, but I think it looks a lot cleaner and it's a bit more intuitive when navigating around. The only real annoyance was the security prompts, and as others have said that can be modified. So it reinforced an old and valuable lesson for me: Don't believe the hype.

As for the HW requirements, 512MB - 1GB RAM is not exactly bleeding edge these days, that is pretty standard. The machine I'm running it on has a 3 Ghz processor, 1GB RAM and a 128MB video card, not exactly high performance by todays specs and I have no issues with slowness at all, even when running "aero" or whatever it is.

I can't speak to any issues it has with XP boxes, although it works with Samba just fine. I can access my Vista box from an XP laptop and vice versa with no problem, it was pretty seamless to join the the workgroup and start sharing data. But I haven't seen it in a commercial setting or in a Domain, also have not seen it perform on a laptop, so all that may add an extra layer of slowness. Like anything I guess, YMMV

[drmeow]

80. You sound like you are

significantly more computer savvy than the average user.

[Neshanic]

14. All yurz XP's belongz tu us! Vizta futur YU be muzt be glady!

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. Each subsequent version of Windows is incrementally worse than the last.

I was more productive with windows 3.11 than I am with Vista. It. Flat. Sucks.

It fucks up everything, unpredictably. It is impossible to diagnose failures because the events leading to the failures happen in the background. Further, every action you need to take to mitigate those failures are placed behind a figurative firewall of presumption that I am an idiot and the cause of most computer related problems.

If you want to copy a file, the computer prompts you log in as an administrator, which has the practical effect of simply forcing you to click through two dialog boxes. I don't think these extra steps have ever saved me from doing something inadvisable, but they have consumed many hours of my time and aggravated my hypertension.

Windows 98 was okay. XP was tolerable, after a fashion. Vista is unacceptable. I wish my CADD program would run on Linux.

[Breeze54]

19. You can turn off UAP

Indicating a Program Always Runs with Full Administrator Privileges Or NOT!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa906025.aspx#EJH

There may be situations where certain applications will not function correctly unless they are run by a user with full administrator privileges. This can occur with older programs that are not designed to operate under the UAC environment. Microsoft has provided a mechanism to ensure that these applications can be enabled so they will always be invoked with full privileges. A check box on the Compatibility tab of Program properties can be selected to cause the program to elevate on launch. To do this, right-click the desired executable, select Properties (Figure 8), and then click the Compatibility tab. On the tab, there is a check box within Run Level that indicates the program should run as a member of Administrators group with full privileges (Figure 9). Select the check box, and then click Apply or OK. This will mark the application to run elevated the next time it is launched.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa906025.uaprot_fig8(en-us,MSDN.10).gif

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa906025.uaprot_fig9(en-us,MSDN.10).gif

If this is the first time this particular application was marked, a message will appear indicating that the operating system (OS) will instruct the application to gather information about which operations the program is performing that requires it to run with full administrator privileges. This information will help Microsoft determine if any steps can be taken to correct the program in the future so that it will no longer require full administrator privileges.

-------

Known Issues and Work-Arounds

The following table shows common known issues when UAC is enabled for administrator users on the system.

Non-Admin users cannot create files on the system root drive, for example, c:\


Create files and folders in the user’s profile (under \users\(user) or \users\public).

Right-click Command Prompt and select Run Elevated. Create the directory from the elevated command window.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. My Cadd program...

Which
* Is a core function of my business, and
* I use every day, and
* I must run in XP compatibility mode, and
* crashes (requiring a complete reboot of my computer) approximately every 4 working hours
* is currently set to run as administrator

... still causes Vista to prompt me that "an unknown program wants access to your computer" when I launch it. If Vista were so smart, it would know after I launched the program for the 500th time, that this, my single most used piece of software is not "unknown".

Goddamn piece of shit.

[Breeze54]

29. But that link explains how you make it stop doing that!

Run it as ELEVATED!

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. I'm familiar with your link and I do run it as elevated...

... it is set to run as administrator.

Microsoft's software is built to serve their interests, not those of their users. The software is built to obfuscate its limitations behind a facade of "You users? You're all idiots."

So much so that this is the default presumption even among fellow victims.

[EOTE]

31. Then turn of UAC...

And no, I don't think there's an operating system that exists that can tell the difference between your CAD program and some other application that might have an almost identical file signature that some hacker out there wants you to run to gain access to your computer or do something else malicious with.

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. Vista dialog boxes, like warning labels on lawnmowers

... have become nothing more than hurdles to get past as quickly as possible so that you can do tasks.

User account control is useful for allowing multiple users on a shared computer.

Most applications are recognized by Windows as programs I've launched more than once, otherwise at every bootup, I'd get dozens of "a new program is trying to run" dialogs.

[THX1138]

34. The point is

A virus or piece of malware is not capable of clicking those dialog boxes. So it's a little more effective than a warning label on a lawn mower.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. Right. It's more like the lever that you must duct tape in its engaged position...

... to start the mower.

[Breeze54]

38. You also need to click APPLY and click OK and then reboot your PC

to make changes on ANY Windows OS.

Perhaps, if you are getting all those question boxes still popping up, you didn't do that.

[lumberjack_jeff]

56. Changing the run level permissions on an application

doesn't prompt me to reboot, but given the high frequency crash rate, reboots happen often enough that this should not be the issue.

[Stinky The Clown]

47. What CAD program do you use?

[lumberjack_jeff]

52. General Cadd Pro

http://www.generalcadd.com/

[Stinky The Clown]

66. I know we get attached to the familiar, particularly software .......

.... but if you're ever looking, think about this one. We just standardized on it for our company. It is easy to use, 100% Autocad capable, and 3D/BIM ready out of the box.

http://www.nemetschek.net/

[lumberjack_jeff]

73. I know I need to get with the 21st century.

With me the learning curve for new software is nearly as big an investment as the seat price. I'm not as quick a study as I once was.

About how much does a seat run and would you recommend it for steel detailing (e.g. are there symbol libraries available)?

[Stinky The Clown]

81. Seats range from 400 to 2000, depending on the flavor you get

I think ours cost 1200 per seat for their 'architect' series. I also suspect that's what you'd need. But when you're ready, talk to them. They're very helpful. Tech support (live, by phone, to a US location, with smart people) is free for one year when you buy, and extends every time you upgrade. They're also loose about the time frame.

I'm not familiar with steel details, but they have a bunch of smart symbols. For example, the I-beam tool allows you set the parameters for all manner of details on the I-beam you're drawing.

They started life in the Mac world, but added PCs years ago. Now, PCs are their largest installed base, but they are still seamlessly cross platform. We have a mixed Mac/PC shop, so that was important to us.

Import/Export to AutoCAD is flawless and seamless. But it is an import/export function; you can't open dwg files directly. They build their own translators (unlike others, who use third party stuff) and are always ready for the current version of AutoCAD.

[sentelle]

58. and lets not talk about Wide Format Printer Compatbility

Pretty much any ink-jet plotter not designed in the last 3 years is incompatible with Vista.
HP Designjet 5500 (or 5000 for that matter) no.
Designjet 4000 nope.
1050 nope.
500 you must be kidding.
oce? uh uh...

You'd almost be better off in mac land.

[Stinky The Clown]

82. Oh please ..... what a pain in the ass that is

HP is less than useless with their tech support. I have a 42" DJ500.

The good side of it ...... this may be my last plotter ever. I bet I don't plot ten sheets a **year** anymore. We send PDF files to a Kinkos closest to where the client needing the plots is located. They plot them for some ridiculously low price and then deliver them for an equally low price. The fact is that this system winds up costing us less than plotting in house and sending by Fedex - and can get there faster if you get the files to them early in the day, or they're not busy.

Who needs a plotter???

[npincus]

90. I use AutoCAD, and looked high and low for a laptop running XP

finally, I bought a (new) refurbished laptop-- last year's model-- because it ran XP. I had researched the compatibility issue and saw Windows Vista was incompatible with my version of AutoCAD (not the latest).

Can you change your OS to XP? Vista is SHIT... how dare Microsoft not address this issue and develop software that can be used with existing XP-compatible programs.

Sorry for your troubles!

[Occulus]

76. Did you try to Wine your CAD app?

I've had some very pleasant surprises when installing apps in Wine I never for a moment seriously thought would even install, much less run.

Command & Conquer 3 actually runs without a linux binary, as does Bryce 5. I've yet to try something like Maya or 3DStudio, though.

[lumberjack_jeff]

83. The app runs under wine...

the problem is that the copy protection security device (a usb dongle) won't work. Without the dongle I can't print or save.

[FatDave]

89. You might want to look at BRL-CAD

I know nothing about CAD, but supposedly this is good enough for the US Military to use it.

http://my.brlcad.org/

[Oilwellian]

18. I watched my computer expert son battle all day when installing Vista

He had to use my computer (with XP) to overcome the obstacles Vista presented to him when he tried to install it. Took the better part of his day but finally worked out all the bugs. Now he loves it but I know if it were me trying to install Vista, I'd be totally lost. I'm totally satisfied with XP.

[Craftsman]

20. Vista Sucks!!!

I had to get a vista laptop because my old one died I miss XP.

[Bake]

23. We bought a Vista PC, tried it for about two days, and took it back!

I called all over town to find a machine that came with XP (successfully). Vista was incompatible with my printer (a Lexmark, of all things, how common is that??), and utterly incompatible with two programs my wife uses daily for her work, and no patch or driver was available to fix the problem.

In short, the machine (which we bought for my wife's business) was USELESS with Vista.

Bake

[THX1138]

35. Sounds like

that's not a Vista issue. It is up to Lexmark to provide compatible drivers for their own products. Would you sell your brand new car because you bought a 3rd party seat cover that didn't fit?

[Bake]

43. They all worked just fine and dandy with XP

But when the 800 pound gorilla delivers a new OS, compatibility doesn't mean squat. Everybody else better get in line and make their stuff compatible with IT!

B.S. I didn't need all new hardware, and the drivers (at that time) didn't exist. What I didn't need was Vista.

Bake

[THX1138]

46. All the vendors

had plenty of warning that Microsoft was releasing a new OS. I have been reading about Vista, or some variation of Vista, for 3 years now. The release was even delayed, so they had extra time. Anyone who doesn't have Vista drivers available by now is slacking.

[Breeze54]

37. That is EXTREMELY common!

Microsoft doesn't write the drivers for the PC peripherals.

The companies that make them have that responsibility!!

You had FREE tech support with your new laptop.

You should have called and they would have told you that and sent you the driver via e-mail.

Or you could have gone to Lexmark and downloaded it yourself.

[Bake]

44. The drivers did'nt exist at that point (about nine months ago, I think).

And the publisher of my wife's primary application didn't have a Vista-compatible version. So we were pretty much S.O.L.

Bake

[Breeze54]

45. The venders (most) are always behind Microsoft with the drivers

Have you checked those SW application company websites for fixes or checked at Microsoft?

Sometimes I just google the actual problem and I get tons of fixes on other techie sites.

[Bake]

50. Not an issue now.

I was able to get an XP machine, and I don't expect to need another computer (or a replacement) for at least a couple of years. By then, hopefully, the glitches will be worked out of Vista, and the vendors will have caught up.

Bake

[hunter]

26. Microsoft should base it's next O.S. on Unix or Linux, sorta like Apple did.

Say good-bye to the limitations of all that hideous legacy code, Open Source the whole damned rat's nest, and turn it into wine.

[AdHocSolver]

75. Microsoft DID have an operating system based on UNIX back in 1984.

It was called XENIX and ran on Motorola 68000 chips. Intel chips at the time couldn't handle the memory requirements.

I "played" with a really nice single-user computer that had XENIX installed. It had two 1.x megabyte floppy drives and most of the bells and whistles that UNIX had at the time.

I was programming IBM PC's running PC-DOS and had a dim view of MS products back then. Unfortunately, Microsoft learned early on that they could make more money selling sh*t, than developing a quality product based on UNIX.

[hunter]

92. Very cool. I remember Xenix, mostly what I read about it.

The Intel 8080 family architecture was (and still is) truly awful. Hammering it into something that could run a real operating system didn't happen until the '386, and that was a hideous thing to look at, especially when it was running msdos/windows. Modern processors simply emulate their '386 ancestors; their internal structures work their way around the quirky '386 instruction set, they do not reflect it.

All in all, the msdos/windows operating system and the '386 instruction set have become things that won't die, sort of like the QWERTY keyboard.

IBM plus Microsoft was a match made in hell.

[paulk]

39. I just got 2 computers - one with vista one with xp sp2

The one running XP is noticeably faster. Especially on the programs that Vista WON'T EVEN FUCKING RUN. And that's not even mentioning the hardware issues, like my printer/scanner which magically doesn't work anymore, even though HP says the new drivers are OK. How much money amI expected to pay for software and hardware upgrades so I can run an OS that's slower than my "old" one?

Vista is a piece of crap, I wish I'd bought another XP machine.

[Breeze54]

42. You probably need to UNINSTALL that hardware (the printers)

and then reboot your computer, and then shut it off completely.

Then re-attach the USB cable ONLY and then REBOOT.

Follow the directions from HP for installation from there...

... Windows should 'see it' when you connect the printer/scanner to the USB cable.

Printer/scanner installation can be tricky, if you do not follow the directions to a T.

Did you check with the manufacturer of the Software's website for compatibility with Vista?

[paulk]

91. I will try that with the printer/scanner

yes, I did check with the software manufacturer's websites for several different software packages I use - and found that vista is not supported.

most important program - steinberg cubase sx - NOT supported - as a semi professional musician with several years of files on this platform - that's kind of a big deal.

[L0oniX]

40. FreeBSD operating system ...it's not for lamers.

[Leftist Agitator]

48. Well, when two things happen, I'll switch to Vista:

A: Vista needs to do something functional that XP doesn't. I have yet to see the former demonstrate any sort of superiority over XP, provided you factor out the "Wow! That looks like OSX 10.4" element.

B: Vista is compatible with my antiquated hardware, and supports all of my drivers, which will never happen.

Loathe as I am to admit it, XP w/ SP 2 is as close to a stable OS that Microsoft has ever released.

[Cronus Protagonist]

51. Vista is the best OS MS has ever made

Only microsoft haters would diss it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

54. Being a windows hater is a learned state.

Only windows haters diss it? Perhaps. The other 4% of the population work for Microsoft.

[Cronus Protagonist]

60. Some of us aren't emotionally invested in our operating systems

And the rest of us? Well, they only need 6 software packages and an appliance to be satisfied.

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. I wish I weren't emotionally invested.

Abandonment, deceit, enabling and co dependence has made the relationship with my computer fairly dysfunctional.

I would kick it to the curb in a cold second if the applications I need could operate on anything else.

[AdHocSolver]

79. There are some programs that run under Linux and will run MS Windows software.

The most notable program is WINE that is a free open source program. WINE stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator, a recursive acronym. It will run many MS programs, although not all. It is worth looking into.

There are commercial programs such as VMWare which can run Windows software also.

There is a program called Open Office that is more MS Office compatible than the various versions of MS Office are to each other. It can be downloaded for free (Versions for Windows also) at:

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Since Linux will run smartly on computers that aren't rated super computers, you should do some Internet surfing to see what you might do to rid yourself of some dependence on MS.

If you have an independent clone builder in your town, check with them to see how much they know about Linux. A lot of old hardware will run fine on Linux, or it might be worth it to buy a "low end" computer from a clone shop to set up with Linux.

[lumberjack_jeff]

84. I've run Ubuntu, Mepis, Redhat (fedora), Dreamlinux and AntiX

They're all good. Unfortunately the security dongle for my main application won't run under wine.

[Codedonkey]

55. *gasp*

I know you, you're the project manager for Vista, huh? :P

[Cronus Protagonist]

61. No, I'm a happy Vista user

Is that so bad?

[HughMoran]

57. LMAO

You have the correct attitude for a poster on DU who has been around the block a time or two!

:rofl:

[AdHocSolver]

77. If Vista is the best that MS can come up with, then they are a poor excuse for a software company.

I have worked on or programmed IBM PC's or clones running MS software since 1983. I also worked on and programmed other computer systems from microcomputers to mainframes. Only one other computer system sucked more than the PC. You have to have experienced working with other systems to appreciate why MS sucks.

[GeorgeGist]

64. Vista finally cured me of Windows

It's so 'secure', even I (the sole user) can't control it.

[hunter]

93. XP "cured" me.

I build and rebuild my machines quite a bit, and I didn't want to be bothered with product activations and such.

[Rex]

67. Well Bill just ain't rich enough. He can't just stick with a stable platform

and just sell 'upgrades'! No...to, hard, to, understand, easy, money...ack...

[BlooInBloo]

68. Vista blows. XP works fine. Cept I do wish it could use all 4gb of memory I have.

[cynatnite]

70. It took almost six months for Vista to work right for me...

I got my computer right after Vista's release and I should have waited longer until a lot of the bugs were worked out.

[aikoaiko]

71. i remember when....

[goldcanyonaz]

72. I really thought Linux would be a household name by now.

Oh well.

[AdHocSolver]

78. Microsoft has had a grand time spreading FUD about Linux and every piece of software they don't sell

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. They aim their FUD particularly at business executives, the "deciders" who seem to be technologically challenged, but are the ones who determine what computers and software are purchased by a company.

Before the IBM PC got a stranglehold on the IT market, business transactions were handled using PAPER. It made no difference what computer system you used. You printed off a letter or a purchase order or an invoice onto paper using ANY computer that you had, and the recipient could understand it immediately. The business receiving the data would have clerical staff input the data into their own system and go from there.

Then someone decided that all business should be handled electronically. This was supposed to save paper and save money. Before the World Wide Web, there was no standardization, so MS saw an opportunity to frighten all business executives with the lame argument that these companies had to "standardize" on Microsoft or their businesses would fail. Hence, the FUD factor. Then Microsoft periodically changed their "standard" to obsolete their own software. This is why, for example, programs that worked fine with XP, have problems with Vista. The old software is "supposed" to have problems with the new OS.

Business executives fell for this scam completely. MS considered that anyone wanting to do business with the companies that were first to upgrade would have to upgrade as well. Bill Gates laughed all the way to the bank.

Linux will run fine on old hardware. If you have an "old" computer that you aren't using, try out one of the several dozen Linux distributions and take it for a test drive. there are several "live" distributions that you can load from CD or DVD without installing on a hard drive. Be sure to try a distribution with a copy of Open Office, the office suite that is MS office compatible, and better quality, as well. Both Linux and Open Office can be downloaded for free off the internet.

A web site that describes several linux distributions and contains links can be found at:

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

The free version of Open Office can be found at their web site at:

http://www.openoffice.org/

Versions of Open Office for different languages and different platforms (including MS Windows) can be found at:

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

[hamerfan]

86. Vista cured me!

I'm now happily (and I do mean HAPPILY) running OS X 10.5 on my iMac! Thanks, Vista! :7
dumpbush

[Perry Logan]

85. Microsoft is an excellent argument against the capitalist system.