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Dell casts doubts about Vista

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Not really Apple news....but....

It seems like Dell (who was a major supporter of Vista, prior to its release) has some reservations regarding Microsoft's latest OS offering.

Link to story
 
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Well, at least they are offering their customers a choice in the matter....
 
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Actually, IIRC, they continued to offer Windows 2000 as an option for a long time after XP came out. I was surprised that they went to Vista only when they did, because most people that use computers for critical business operations tend to be very conservative when it comes to upgrading the OS. People in such situations will usually wait until at least the first service pack is released, and most will wait years before they upgrade.

What happened was that Dell realized that they had dropped the ball and that customers didn't want a brand new OS as their only option.

XP retail and OEM won't be available after Jan., 08, but will continue to be sold by system builders for another year (until Jan., 09). And seeing as in the past customer demand made MS extend their support for Win 2000, I imagine a similar thing will happen with XP.
 
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Dell is not the only one, a few weeks ago my brother noticed that other small manufaturers like iBuyPower are also offering Windows XP as an option.
 

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Actually, IIRC, they continued to offer Windows 2000 as an option for a long time after XP came out. I was surprised that they went to Vista only when they did, because most people that use computers for critical business operations tend to be very conservative when it comes to upgrading the OS. People in such situations will usually wait until at least the first service pack is released, and most will wait years before they upgrade.

What happened was that Dell realized that they had dropped the ball and that customers didn't want a brand new OS as their only option.

XP retail and OEM won't be available after Jan., 08, but will continue to be sold by system builders for another year (until Jan., 09). And seeing as in the past customer demand made MS extend their support for Win 2000, I imagine a similar thing will happen with XP.

You are correct. My company uses primarily Dell machines on the desktop. I can tell you that we were buying NT machines long after 2000 came out, and then 2000 machines long after XP was released. Interestingly enough, I've seen about a dozen new machines come in since Vista was released and none of them had Vista COAs stuck on them (of course we use a volume license so that factory install is usually scrapped anyway), so this was not really news to me. I think the article applies specifically to consumer-level machines.
 
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Nice link, but as has been said this is nothing really new. I think Dell are at fault for trying to push Vista so hard, particularly to people who just need a stable machine. I think XP will be a favourite amongst many Windows users for years, in fact anyone who doesn't game should probably stick with it until it's no longer supported.
 
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Actually, IIRC, they continued to offer Windows 2000 as an option for a long time after XP came out. I was surprised that they went to Vista only when they did, because most people that use computers for critical business operations tend to be very conservative when it comes to upgrading the OS. People in such situations will usually wait until at least the first service pack is released, and most will wait years before they upgrade.

What happened was that Dell realized that they had dropped the ball and that customers didn't want a brand new OS as their only option.

XP retail and OEM won't be available after Jan., 08, but will continue to be sold by system builders for another year (until Jan., 09). And seeing as in the past customer demand made MS extend their support for Win 2000, I imagine a similar thing will happen with XP.
I see a lot of semi-modern Dell's with a 2000 COA. Mostly at businesses, most businesses seem to like either their own software for the POS systems, or Win2k
 
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One of the first rules of business...give the customer what they want. Dell sees enough people not wanting the new OS to continue offering XP.

The company I work for just switched to XP last year.
 
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I don't know anyone with Vista yet...I do know several peple wanting to buy new pc's that are having sleepless nights wondering whether to stick with XP or not and mot are erring on the side of caution. Dell sells lots of PC's so this is interestig. They are obviously getting lots of requests for XP as opposed to Vista
 
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I think the Mac NN story is a load of spin and FUD.

Dell are simply providing choice due to demand. Vista is good for Dell as people upgrade their hardware to use it.
 
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I don't know anyone with Vista yet...I do know several peple wanting to buy new pc's that are having sleepless nights wondering whether to stick with XP or not and mot are erring on the side of caution. Dell sells lots of PC's so this is interestig. They are obviously getting lots of requests for XP as opposed to Vista

1,222 requests isn't a lot.

There's 10 times more people asking Dell for Linux.

Change is always going to be uncertain, but anyone that ever moved from 98/ME to XP will know the drill.

If your software and hardware is fairly recent you wll be ok.
 
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It agree with some of the comments before hand, this doesn't really show any problem with Vista itself. It shows a failing in Dell for not offering consumers choice to pick with OS they want to use.
 
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After reading all the negative articles regarding Vista I'm going to stick with XP when I upgrade my fiance's PC. I'm trying to convince her to switch but she insist on Windows. She may change her mind when I get my 24" IMac. :mac:
 
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I have got a mate that purchased a new Vista laptop, and he is sick of the site of the new system and is going to return it under UK "not fit for the purpose it was sold" law, it has been nothing but trouble from day one and each time there is an update which is most days hehe there is another problem with it. Thank god for MacBooks
 
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interesting find. cheers for the link.
 
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Most of Vista's problems spring from incompatibility with hardware drivers and basic machine performance vs. a user's knowledge.

Once hardware manufactures learn how to write a decent driver for Vista, then people will stop having as many problems. This is once again Microsoft's fault for brining out a new OS (yes, sarcasm).

I think the other big problem is users getting systems with Vista that aren't meant to run Vista with a basic setup and require some OS tweaking before they become compatible, with the problem of the user not knowing how to change settings or what settings to change in the first place.

If you don't have a good enough graphics card, turn Aero off. Pretty effects will not work with budget video cards until budget video cards are 256mb ddr3 AGP or PCI-express cards.

Memory. Once again, trying to buy a computer with 512mb of ram and running Vista on it will not be a rewarding experience.

Processor. People running p4's with Vista will have a machine that runs slower. period. I have a 2.0 c2d laptop and a 3.0ghz p4 desktop. The laptop runs much smoother with Vista, has the same hard drive speed and memory. There are people out there that are probably trying to put Vista onto old P4's and wondering why it's crawling. Eventually technology will catch up where the cheapest bargain PC has a 2.0 c2d or greater in it.

Compataiblity of programs. Some people are trying to run programs and having problems with them. I find for the majority of programs that won't run right or seem buggy after a clean install require you to run them as admin(because the way they access files conflicts with the way Vista's security is) and/or change compatibility options to run under Win XP SP2 mode.

This will eventually become irrelevant as technology catches up and a $200 PC includes a c2d chip, 1gb of ram, and a 128mb gpu that actually is worth. It's inevitable. At least Microsoft didn't release an OS that is going to be outdated by hardware in a year. They could have made Vista compatible with everything on the market now and so that it runs with all feature on 512ram, an old processor, and integrated graphics, but then people would be 2 years down the road because they're stuck with an out of date OS.
 

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