Most of my purchases, reports, and recommendations under my budget have been for computers that have XP and I always recommend DELL. They're the only company that will sell it. Other than that I would purchase the license and build the computer myself.

This week, Microsoft posts a new news release announcing the hiring of the Enron marketing team to manage the public view of their hit Operating System, Windows Vista...

@xint:
Don't know where you are shopping, but all the HP & Lenovo machines that I have sold in the past 6 months have had downgrade rights. In the past quarter both sets of media have been included in the box, as the manufacturers got tired of shipping them separately.
I sell B2B only, I have no idea what the consumer space is like these days.

@Rhodizzle:
Haven't they already been responsible for Zune reporting?

Honestly sometimes I feel like buying a Mac and trying it out when my laptop that cost me over a thousand dollars gives me problems b.c vista is on it. I know that not everyones Vista computer gives them problems but mine do and no matter what updates I put on it the o.s is still buggy. I honestly believe MS came out too early with this O.S because I believe more people hate it then like it.

When I think of Microsoft Vista I, for some odd reason, think of the Ford Fiesta. Anyone with me?

I hear you guys. I'm about to get my free copy of Vista for letting MS spy on my computer. I'm debating whether I should sell it (assuming it's actually worth anything) or install it.

Why the Fiesta? It's a decent and popular car, at least in europe where it's selling ... :>

I have no issue with Dell doing this although it bugs me that Ballmer gets to make false claims about Vista sales as a result - I can't imagine anyone's ego being so big they would purposely hurt their company's image and financial income to save face.

I agree that Vista w/SP1 is a total turd for performance but I have to admit I've tried Windows 2008 server on those same machines and the performance was GREAT. It copied files just as fast as XP - boot up and shutdown was quick. Apps opened MUCH MUCH faster. I could throw on the aero interface and sidebar gadgets and it is SNAPPY. I know WIndows 2008 SP1 shares a LOT of the same code as Vista but it is much much much faster than Vista. So in theory Vista could be fast - but for some reason MS crippled the performance of it.

@nicjasno: haha I'm talking about THE IDEAL IMAGE of a Fiesta.80's,that fake cheese orange...on a windy day and WHOOOOOOSHHH flys right off the bridge you're going over,lol.

Of course in Europe, those crazy cats are willing to try anything once ;)

@jamesr242: Honestly if the computer you're going to install it on is in PERFECT shape and can handle how intensive the software is, go for it. If not crush it up and tell a drug addict it's MS crack rocks and it will make them rich like Bill Gates, hell people are stupid enough,lol.

I love XP... but I find nothing wrong with Vista. In fact, I can booth either.

Hmmmm... for some reason, laptop cant boot Leopard! Maybe because its the least user-friendly OS at the system-level?

XP>Vista>Poop>Leapord

typo... let me reiterate...

XP>Linux>Vista>My fecal matter>Leopord

In a way, they are selling a license to vista, but it has a "Replace every instance of Vista in this license with XP" addendum. At least that's how I'm picturing it.

@rexplex: I have had trouble with HP (and I think also Toshiba) trying to get downgrades...

I've never had any trouble with DELL... and in the past HP's support has been a gamble... again, never had trouble with DELL... so... why go with anyone else...?

When I need equipment or I have users that need equipment I don't go straight to the DELL webpage, I look for what I need and go with the company that caters to those needs...

Just so happens that DELL has always
come through...

@mcsurfer3393: > "for some reason, laptop cant boot Leopard"
You do know that Mac OS X only runs on Apple hardware*, right?

*Virtual machines and unofficial porting projects nonwithstanding.

@mcsurfer3393:

Chuck Norris>XP>Vista>Your fecal matter>Leopard>Linux.

Jeez. You gotta be accurate.

Hmm... since Vista is the default option and John Q Public doesn't care what OS he uses as long as it works - and Vista, its faults aside, does work - I don't think this will make a huge difference to sales figures.

So now XP sales = Vista sales?
Enron Part II?

Sony already has a downgrade included with the TZ and SZ.

I have been running Vista Ultimate since the day it lauched with no problems. Maybe you all need to drop your Commodore 64's and get a real computer.

Well that certainly puts an interesting twist on Microsoft's earnings/conference call last week. Not only did Vista's sales numbers dip, they weren't even all Vista sales.

Part of my business is helping people buy new computers. I have been recommending Dell since they have the most XP options - this has led to at least 10 sales in the past year.

I am very glad to hear that Dell will be offering systems (pre-loaded) with XP past the June 30 date.

I just want to have choice at the point of sale.

All of my computer's since 2004 have used the same xp disc (or copies of copies of copies), activation key, and good old WPAkill.exe. I expect things to stay that way for a good deal longer, even though I have vista readily available to me, unless I make the unlikely full transition to linux. I think I'll stick to dual-booting though.

@Totorototoro:

Indeed... probably majority of those are the "downgrade license"...

I love Dell, they use their market power to make options available for consumers.

I love the fact that the big makers nixed the whole serial code and validity check bullshit and made is so any dell version of windows works on any dell bios without having to key crap in.

The downgrade license has always been around, I use it all the time at work because I have some old software that needs 2000 still.

@sguth925m:
Or maybe we need to stop using industry specific software that only runs on XP eh?

Some of us have jobs and are required to make money with our computers. That is why we dont use Vista or OSX.

I know I'm in the minority, but I love Vista. I would never install XP again. It runs great and I haven't had any hang-ups or anything. So let's see: NOT Mac OS X, NOT Linux, and NOT XP... what am I, in like the bottom 2% maybe. Oh well.

@xint: Toshiba is still being stubborn about it. There are plenty of places (the Laptop Forum on CompuServe being one) where people have posted links to XP drivers that will work on Toshiba computers that were sold with Vista. Needless to say, though, Toshiba will pretty well kiss you goodbye if you dump Vista in favor of XP.

@sguth925m: At least a Commodore 64 is ready to go the minute you flip the switch, and software compatibility is never an issue.

I'm trying out Vista Ultimate and it's less annoying than I thought it would be, but I suspect that's precisely because I started out with Commodores and have worked my way through Commodore, Apple II, Mac original, CP/M, DOS, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Mac OS X Tiger and Linux already so I'm willing to go with the flow. I did get rid of most of Vista's candy-ass interface first thing, though.

Ok, no more HD shots of the Ballmer please!

It's bad enough to see the sweat stains and bovine-like tongue flopping out of his mouth but I can do without the liver spots and reptillian skin texture..... ugh.

If it was possible for M$ to simply just rename Vista (right click and rename) to (Experience Vista) XPV, I'm sure they will do just that to retain the XP name..since it is best OS of choice among the Win user base and it is loved by all fans out there...except for the pple in d low 2% of vista fanbois.

@Jrsy: for a second, I felt like I was at animal kindgom... you know the zoo section? :)

Vista should have been printed on tissue paper then all I,de need to install it is an asswipe drive

@Jrsy:

Seriously, that photo is going to give me nightmares

I don't want Vista. I'm running Parallels and Boot Camp on a MacBook, and from what I've seen in benchmarks XP runs about 100% faster than Vista under virtualization.

There's nothing I need Vista for, anyway. I don't need the GUI because I'm running XP in coherence mode, so it mostly looks like OS X when I'm using it.

I don't need DirectX 10 because I don't bother using my computer to play games-- That's what I've got an Xbox 360 for (and I'll be busy enough with GTA IV that I won't care about running crap like Crysis).

The only programs I ever run in Windows are Internet Explorer (to watch videos on demand at Netflix, or for the rare website that ONLY works on IE) and VirtuaGirl HD (which is pretty cool running on my Mac's desktop).

If I want to play Windows games (a rarity) I can always pop over to Boot Camp, but even then I haven't heard of any games that require me to use Vista.

Honestly, there's NOTHING compelling me to use Vista when XP does everything I need.

wow, so many low blows at mac os x, i think theres more important issues in the world than 'my os is so much better than yours'

how about we all use what we like using, cos everyone is different.

@archercc: Some of us have jobs and are required to make money with our computers. That is why we dont use Vista or OSX.

That's odd. I've been earning a living with my Apple gear since 1995.

Our ecosystem rocks?

Is anyone else a little creeped out by how many times Ballmer just happens to mention that he thinks he would have been more attractive as a woman??!!

@infmom:

My Commodore 64 had dual floppy drives, a dot matrix printer...it still took some time to load whatever program I wanted to use, and I had to change floppy's on a constant basis, but yes...when you flipped a switch it was on.

And remember when you could upgrade your Amiga to 1mb of RAM?

I still don't understand the Vista hate. I've been using Home Premium x64 for 4 months now, and I've had no problems with it at all.

@Knight: Ever used any other operating system produced by microsoft? yes? and it's still that hard to discern why this is the wost OS since ME? are you twelve or high?

Vista it's ok, Ubuntu is really good, Leopard & XP are excellent though, but hey it's your call if you think Vista rocks that's cool too, at the end of the day your the one who is going to have to deal with it, but let me tell you if you have not try the rest your missing on a lot. I have a new HP dv2000 that came with vista & a 20" aluminum imac, (the cheaper $1199 model) running Leopard, Ubuntu & XP. Dude vista is not good at all in my own opinion, thank god is a company own machine & i didn't have to pay for it

Vista by and large isn't bad, however games on Vista using the SAME exact settings (copied user profiles) get on average 100 less FPS on many popular games. BF2, CS:S, TF2, HL2 etc. And I have a q6700, 4 gigs ram, a wd Raptor and 8800's in SLi. Its definately the OS causing games to run like trash. Other than that, I like Vista.

I dont get all the vista hate i have been using vista since feburary 2007 on my desktop and yes it had some problems at first but for the most part it is very stable now only problem i have is i cant use it on my laptop for work. The programs i have to use for building automation are not compatible with it. So yes i wish it worked with them that is not microsofts problem it is the software makers problem.I would never go back to xp on my home computer and i cant stand the cartoonish look of xp only thing i see is a bunch of people set in their ways and dont like change.

I laugh whenever I read about Microsoft saying Vista sales are picking up. I work for a Microsoft-partnered IT provider, and ever since I learned about the downgrade rights I've been purchasing all computers with a Vista license, then doing the downgrade to XP. My theory is that, even though I think Vista sucks, you never know what might happen 2 years down the road, especially in a business environment. If some software comes out that requires Vista, you at least own the license.

Naturally, these PC's I've installed count as Vista purchases, although in reality I have yet to see ONE install of Vista in use in any of the dozens of businesses I serve.

Also, an FYI to the users who complained of manufacturers giving them a hard time about downgrades. As I understand it, here's a couple facts about your downgrade rights:

1) Only Applies to Vista Business or Ultimate.
2) If you own one of these products, get your hands on ANY Windows XP CD, and install XP from it. Try the activation, and if it fails call the Microsoft Activation 800 number and tellt hem what you're doing. They should be able to activate for you.

I used XP for 6 years previous. I don't see the drastic difference. I didn't use them on the same computer, and perhaps if you put Vista on an old computer you'll have trouble, but any decent computer runs Vista without issue. I don't really have to deal with the file transfer issue, and if you did alot of that, I could see where you would take issue with the OS, but besides that, it is very stable, and keeps itself working very well. Vista has already crushed my max XP uptime.

P.S. I like your Ad hominem, it really shows maturity.