Windows XP

Video: Chris Pirillo explains why he’s upgrading from Vista to XP

 If you’ve never seen Chris Pirillo on video — or you just love Wayne’s World — here you go.

Overheard: Dual-boot XP and Vista

The question I am asked most often is “How do I install a dual-boot with Windows XP on my new Windows Vista computer?” The answer is that it’s not that difficult, it’s just very time consuming, and you need to own a copy of Windows XP. The How-To Geek, Install Windows XP on Your Pre-Installed Windows Vista Computer

Home users are pretty much stuck with Vista unless they want go to someone like The How-To Geek for help, but vendors have found a better way to continue giving enterprise customers XP. Apparently there’s a loop-hole called Downgrade Rights in Vista Ultimate and Vista Business licenses that allows the vendor to downgrade the operating system if that’s what the customer wants.

Rumors that Microsoft had confirmed a release date for Windows 7 in two years got a lot of people excited last month, but according to Ken Fisher over at Ars Technica, it was just spin.

Overheard: Ballmer says customers love Vista

“In the business environment, we still have customers who are buying PCs with XP because information technology departments often have to work with old machines.” Steve Ballmer as quoted in Microsoft could keep XP if customers want it: CEO

I don’t know which was more entertaining — Ballmer’s spin — or laughing at how this Reuters headline was written for search engines.

Microsoft, by the way, has announced that the cut-off date for XP will be June 30.

Overheard - In the game of scissors, rock, paper — XP beats Vista

“In the Windows world, Vista is the current rage. And you can define “rage” in a couple of different ways.” David Risley, Why I Downgraded to Windows XP From Vista

Overheard - Vista, the walking dead of the operating system world

“Vista has turned into the desktop operating system no one wants, and even Microsoft is beginning to get it. Today, I think of Vista as the zombie operating system. It stumbles around, and from a distance you might think it’s alive, but close up it’s the walking dead. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Night of the Living Vista

Stephen writes: There are many reasons why Vista is doing the zombie stumble. Microsoft has and continues to mislead customers about how much PC is really needed to run Vista. Even some of Windows’ most loyal users are finding that its poor performance, lousy software support and pathetic driver support is too much to stomach. And, last but never ever least, if XP isn’t broke, why “fix” it with Vista?

Now you might think some of this is legacy backlash. People don’t like change. They’d rather use Windows 2000 than XP, Windows 98 SE than 2000,and Windows ME more than…well, OK, no one liked ME. But I’ve been through these cycles many times before. This is different… I can’t think of a single reason to switch from XP to Vista. I’m not talking a good reason, I really mean any reason.