MandarJul 27th, 2007 - 15:21:14

As a network engineer for a consulting company I see computer trends, at least in my companies region. Since its release I have only seen 2 computers running Vista (Both from Windows engineers at my company) However every new computer I have seen at our clients have the Vista sicker on them. The computers either come with Vista and are downgraded to XP or are shipped with XP even though they have the Vista sticker. Dell is a great example of a company that is willing to place the older more popular OS on new computers even though they seem to have no choice but to put Vista stickers on them. What does this mean to me? As the article states '‘shipped’ unit figures (not sales)'. Microsoft is selling Vista licenses and that is what the new computer industry is selling but it is not what people are using.

One other interesting fact. A client needed to buy a Volume License for XP for a deployment project we where doing for them and the only License that they could buy was Vista but they got a copy of the XP Volume License as well. If MS is still counting the number of XP licenses they are selling I can't help but think these numbers are being double counted with the Vista licenses they are selling especially on the corporate level.

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AnnJul 27th, 2007 - 22:19:48

Dell would not even give me the option of purchasing XP with a new computer I bought in Feb/Mar 2007. I was forced to take Vista - believe me it wasn't voluntary!

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DanielloJul 27th, 2007 - 22:48:57

Vista is a disappointment.

For a newbie, or non-technical user it's needlessly complex and unintuitive.
Its interface, even with more eye candy looks unpolished and it's not seamless and consisted. The countless security prompts are a shame for 'computing' in the year 2007.

My boss excitedly bought Vista with a new laptop from DELL, and now is very disappointed with it and sorry he even bothered.

This can't be completely masked by spin and sales figures...

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jscottnicJul 28th, 2007 - 07:42:37

I have purchased 2 new computers. Both came with vista. No choice. Guessing, each has crashed (blue screen of death) or worse yet (no screen, no response, unplug the computer time) at least monthly. Sometimes, weekly. Also, vista fails at simple tasks like listing all the files in a directory when in os based file search on software by others.

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LarryJul 28th, 2007 - 16:50:10

Hmmmm, interesting statements. Like listening to politicians. I work for the Feds. We had systems running Linux and Windows. The windows systems need rebooting a minimum of once per day. Sometimes rebooting 3 times at once just to get it working again. This NEVER happened to the same hardware runnimg Linux. Funny this is, ALL our systems were changed to windows recently because of 'support' from M$. In my home, the computers came with Vista. One was downgraded to XP and the other is running Linux. BUT, the figures from M$ include my 2 'shipments' of Vista which are NOT used. ONE Vista was activated, but is no longer used. Can you guess why?

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SchmagagledJul 28th, 2007 - 23:37:29

Interesting story...

but in the 'un-reported category' nobody has any numbers on how many of those Vista licensees have opted to 'downgrade' back to the various versions of XP (including Media Center 2005) because of compatibility issues that manufacturers, Microsoft, and software companies have yet to come to grips with.

Head on over to the forums at 'notebookreview.com' and do a search on 'downgrade' and see how many results pop up. Or better yet, try the same thing by doing a search on Microsoft's own community forums. You might be surprised at the numbers.

Many businesses (as well as a large majority of the US Government installed base and new PC buys) are specifying XP Pro SP2 as the OS to be installed at the factory (in fact the US Government hasn't even adopted or authorized IE7 to be installed yet -on a large scale- due to incompatibilities with existing web resources they operate).

But nobody's talking about the downgrade numbers. The fact that MS can count the numbers of Vista licenses that OEMs installed as part of the 'Vista only' dictum looks good to investors (I happen to be one of them) but is disingenuous in light of the fact that there's more to the story. Vista may not have many security issues at this point, but my XP Pro with all the updates doesn't either. And the differences between XP and Vista are NOT significant enough for the business community to warrant an immediate upgrade. Regardless of what any pundits might claim.


Somebody please do a story on the other side of this issue as a counterpoint.

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JohnJul 29th, 2007 - 07:08:03

Vista has been forced down the consumers throat by collusion between Microsoft and most major hope computer manufacturers. It's amazing that no consumer advocates or government agencies are working to protect the hapless consumer here - there's simply no choice - u buy a new laptop - u get vista, soon the same will hold for desktops.

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KramerJul 29th, 2007 - 17:31:14

Vista is the worst.Xp was better.
I'm trading up to Linux.

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You're All Blatently BlindedJul 30th, 2007 - 04:14:35

I believe you have all been blinded to the truth by your own dislike of Microsoft. Did any of you even give Vista a chance before you downgraded? I bet you only spent around 2 hours on Vista before you made up your mind. I will admit Vista doesn't look that good when not in the Aero mode, but graphics cards do not cost that much anymore.

I've ran Vista on my gaming laptop since Feb. and it has run perfectly. I have had zero crashes or blue screens of death. The only problem I sometimes have is a game crashes every now or then due to my graphic card overheating. How can you even compare XP to Vista? Boot time is amazingly fast and the smooth UI is so much better.

For those of you complaing about all the security popups, they can be easily rectified by simply disabling them in the startup configuration. The gadgets may have been a ripoff from Apple's widgets but I still love them none the less.

The only reason your Windows OS crashes is because you put software on it that was written like crap. I only put good software I know and trust on my desktop and laptop and my Vista runs perfectly. I even put a game from the 90's on Vista and played it and it was still perfectly fine.

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A tech guyJul 30th, 2007 - 04:52:27

Hmm, Dell forcing you to buy Vista--I'm not sure I believe this. We just purchased another 35 boxes for our site, and had the option of XP or Vista. I also doubt the comment that a user was forced to buy Vista back in the early part of 2007. And Dell still sell XP machines--I just checked their website. Get real, people.

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