[infoshare] Time is Running Out for Windows XP
- From: "Luis Guerra" <blindsingle@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "InfoShare" <InfoShare@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 01:12:34 -0400
*** Time is Running Out for Windows XP (PC World)
Published Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:00:00 GMT
PC World - Microsoft will force PC makers to stop selling machines running
XP by the end of this year, despite ongoing compatibility problems and
demand
for XP from users.
Yahoo! News
Matthew Broersma, Techworld Thu Apr 12, 12:00 PM ET Microsoft will force PC
makers to stop selling machines running XP by the end of this year, despite
ongoing compatibility problems and demand for XP from users.
Demand for XP is particularly strong among small and medium-sized
businesses, according to Dell, which announced it will continue offering
some machines
with XP pre-installed.
However, the clock is ticking, and Dell and other PC makers will be obliged
to stop selling machines running XP by the end of the year, despite ongoing
compatibility and performance issues with Windows Vista.
Dell has decided to continue offering XP on business systems through the
summer through a feature called "Customize with ," the company said in a
recent
.
Dell said the move reflects strong demand for XP machines, especially for
smaller businesses, which often buy systems in small numbers from OEMs.
"Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that
more time is needed to transition to a new operating system," said Tom West,
director of small business marketing at Dell, on the company's blog. "The
plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron
systems
until later this summer."
Dell isn't planning to offer XP on consumer systems, saying they prefer the
"latest and greatest," a situation that displeased some customers. "Thumbs
down
for not offering this to home users," wrote one user.
"Many home users- especially gamers- do consider XP the 'greatest'-
especially after all the media articles and benchmarks showing very poor
gaming performance
and compatibility on Vista," wrote another.
At the end of this year, however, Microsoft OEMs' contracts will no longer
give them the option of selling XP-powered machines. This is despite
problems
that have surfaced for consumers as well as businesses, such as games and
application incompatibility and driver problems.
Most recently, users that Vista's start-up, shut-down and application load
times are far too long compared with Windows XP. Users on Microsoft's
Performance
& Maintenance forum, who sound pro-Vista for the most part, have vented
about a variety of speed issues.
"I have XP and Vista running side-by-side [but] I twiddle my thumbs waiting
for certain apps to load up on the Vista machine while the load is
instantaneous
on the older XP machine," wrote a user identified as William. "I've tweaked
it as best as I could with the info available and I am still very
disappointed."
Doubts have also been about Vista's security, after it emerged that Vista
was affected by recent widespread hacks involving Windows' animated cursors,
even
though that portion of the code was addressed by an update more than two
years ago.
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