Save Windows XP

[invisiblebond]

Thirty thousand people have now signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition, which was launched a week ago. Roughly half were from the U.S. and the rest from other countries.

The petition asks Microsoft not to discontinue Windows XP as planned on June 30, but to instead keep it available alongside the newer Windows Vista indefinitely.

More than 100 people have added their own comments to InfoWorld's Save XP blog, and many external sites have promoted the campaign by adding InfoWorld's (a sister publication of PC World) countdown clock to their sites. The vast majority of comments supported the petition drive, providing a variety of reasons that both individuals and companies do not want to lose the option to obtain new XP licenses available after June 30. Lack of compelling benefits in Vista, coupled with the training, support, and other costs of upgrading was the most cited reason. Some cited compatibility concerns.

Some commenters thought the campaign was silly, arguing that change is a fact of life in technology and that there's no sense in sticking with older technology. This argument drew retorts that change for its own sake was not a worthwhile approach.

In an interview, Burton Group executive strategist Ken Anderson suggested that the strong emotional support shown in the comments indicated a fundamental shift in how people, including IT staff, now think of operating systems. They have become a familiar extension of what we do and how we work, thus not something want to change often. "When technology becomes part of you, you don't want people to mess with it," he said.

Anderson likened the reaction to XP's impending demise to what happened in the 1980s when Coca-Cola replaced its classic Coke soda formula with New Coke, causing massive protests and forcing the company to bring back the now-rechristened Coke Classic. "XP has come to the point of being Coke Classic," he said.

"Save XP"

For those wanting a disposable email address to give to them use Slopsbox.com

[powah]

Well good on them, surely Microsoft must know that Vista was not exactly the best follow-up to XP. I joined it

[-Cpt. J.-]

So they are going to completely stop supporting and updating XP or are they going to stop producing copies? In any case that BLoWs. Vista is shit on a stick, I know Microsoft released a flawed OS and they know it too, why the fuck would they want to FORCE people to use a shit-on-a-stick?

Monopolies suck ass. It's a fuken shame Linux is not compatible with most games and programs that are designed for Windows. Eventually there will be a user friendly multi compatible Linux I hope.

[Lilleput]

Vista is fine, stop repeating stuff you have read because hating on Vista is cool right now.

[powah]

^ I'll admit, it's working fine for me now because I installed the SP1 patch thingy.

[Final Daihatsu]

Originally Posted by Lilleput

Vista is fine, stop repeating stuff you have read because hating on Vista is cool right now.

I don't care about what's cool, Vista is just generally rubbish. Like Peugeot 206 and 207

[Greatgraddage]

I've been running Vista for a month with no problems

[TomCat]

I've been running Vista for about 9-10 months without a problem. Better then I can say for XP Pro that I was using prior to this.

[Lilleput]

Originally Posted by Final Daihatsu

I don't care about what's cool, Vista is just generally rubbish. Like Peugeot 206 and 207

The 206 is a great car and based on that comment i'll disregard everything you say about anything from now on because you clearly don't live on the same plant as the rest of us..


Edit: Most of the Vista Bash™ probably stem from the Launch when a lot of tech wizzes came out and complained about stuff real people would never notice and thats just been echoing for ever through the uninformed minds of the Internet.

[Adunaphel]

Originally Posted by Lilleput

Vista is fine, stop repeating stuff you have read because hating on Vista is cool right now.

I gave up defending Vista long ago. I've been using it for almost a year now without problems (at least, no problems that i didn't create myself by screwing around), my wife has been using it for the same period of time, without any problems, and my parents have been using it for over a year without problems. But because hating on M$ is cool nowadays and there's tons of very cool blogs on the internet that love to hate on M$ and glat about how bad the giant did something that it's impossible to stem this flood.

About conitnuing XP: Happy virus hunting everyone. XP is to Vista security-wise what a colander is to a nuclear bunker.

[geeman]

My Vista works fine too

[Phinn]

I'm using Vista now and it's bloody awful. Save XP though? Nah, I'll be happy when I get round to installing Windows 2000 Pro on my laptop. 8 years old and still runs anything I want and a lot more powerful and stable than either XP or Vista.

[epp_b]

So they are going to completely stop supporting and updating XP or are they going to stop producing copies?

June 30th is Microsoft's current cut-off date for selling XP retail and OEM. I know better though, that will be extended.

8 years old and still runs anything I want and a lot more powerful and stable than either XP or Vista.

Yup, Windows 2000 is great, except that there's pathetic support for gaming.

[MadCow809]

Vista is awful, the whole interface is fucked, most of the hotkeys are changed, lots of programs are not compatible with it(i have lots of jp/tw programs).

But i agree on the safety features, it is miles better than XP in terms of safety, even the OS as a whole, its more stable. I just dont like the interface.

[petarkb]

Originally Posted by Lilleput

The 206 is a great car and based on that comment i'll disregard everything you say about anything from now on because you clearly don't live on the same plant as the rest of us..


Edit: Most of the Vista Bash™ probably stem from the Launch when a lot of tech wizzes came out and complained about stuff real people would never notice and thats just been echoing for ever through the uninformed minds of the Internet.

Tech wizards ARE real people (you asshole), and they pave the way for new technologies that the average-computer-using-Joe eventually uses one day.

[FATMOUSE]

Originally Posted by -Cpt. J.-

Monopolies suck ass. It's a fuken shame Linux is not compatible with most games and programs that are designed for Windows. Eventually there will be a user friendly multi compatible Linux I hope.

It can be done. Just write standards compliant code, use opengl/openal instead of directx, qt or gtk instead of the win32 gui api, and just recompile. See also: Firefox, Pidgin, every other open source app that works perfect on Linux, Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc. on x86, ppc, sparc, etc. processors.

The onus is on the developers of the programs, not the Linux or the WINE developers.

[bry789123]

Originally Posted by Lilleput

Vista is fine, stop repeating stuff you have read because hating on Vista is cool right now.

exactly, vista is barely flawed at all.

[Lilleput]

Originally Posted by petarkb

Tech wizards ARE real people (you asshole), and they pave the way for new technologies that the average-computer-using-Joe eventually uses one day.

Okay, i'll explain it.


By Tech wizards i meant people that use Windows for obscure tasks most people never heard of, so when they went out on their silly blogs and complained that vista was 16.432% slower than XP for Coding Binumural excel client betas people took it as if Vista was rubbish.

It has been explained again and again: if your having trouble with Vista not working right, it's your hardware drivers that is causing the problems.

[powah]

Yes, but there was/is still some noticeable compatability issues.

[.cmd]

I'm not sure if its just blind luck or something, but for the 9 months that I've been using Vista Home Premium I haven't had any compatibility issues at all.

The thing that really annoys me this whole thing is that people install vista on their old XP machines, expecting it to work just as well as XP, find that it doesn't and then run off crying to post on the internet about how Microsoft has released a flawed product and swearing themselves off vista for life.