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A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP

Vista’s death march picked up some pace yesterday, after a metrics researcher revealed that nearly 35 per cent of PCs built to run the Windows operating system have been downgraded to XP. In a survey of more than 3,000 computers, performance testing software developer Devil Mountain Software estimated that more than one in three …

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Calvin Davidson
Gates Horns

"But Microsoft really does need to dish up an operating system that is "just right" this time."

If they manage that, it'll be a first.

Michael
Thumb Up

Too dumb by half

D--R--M -- they did it to themselves & now it's biting.

My sympathies, M$ :-)

Colin Morris
Thumb Down

Downgraded / upgraded

Downgraded ?....... or upgraded? hmmm......

A have a laptop with vista pre-loaded. Hate the way that when you press the power button to suspend/hibernate it sometimes cannot find the wireless network point (hidden ESSID - WPA security) when you press the power button again!

Does this happen with XP? If not then maybe I should 'upgrade' to XP! Am I allowed to use my 'un-used' 5 year-old OEM XP licence with a new laptop?

Tony
Linux

When's ontime...?

Have they actually said when 'ontime' will be?

Anonymous Coward
Flame

yeah and they are corporate ones

yeah so these are the corporate refresh ones - we dont have vista - is XP as standard - all new pcs get downgraded as per our standard build.

Terry

Oooh The first comment

Of course by the time I finish typing it probably won't be, but still, it's exciting.....

Anyhow, the first thing EVERYONE should remember is that windows 7 will be based on the vista code base. This means it will be shite. Now MAYBE a lot of vendors will be able to muck about with their drivers so the overall smell won't be quite as repugnant, but it will still be a DRM laden floater.

On the plus side, you don't here vista people crowing over the crappy driver support in Linux any more. <evil laugh here>

Finally, your article was dead wrong on one point. While Linux may be a dubiously creditable threat, and the EU regulators are a real concern, it was done and dusted 5 years ago that there is absolutely nothing microsoft can do that will evoke the anger of the US government. Don't forget they fired the judge who had the honor to side with the persecution in the first trial.

Jared Vanderbilt
Paris Hilton

Vista killed our hardware upgrade cycle.

We no longer buy new PCs. We had our Vista experience during an upgrade cycle 6 months after Vista was released. We ended up Craigslisting all the kit for a 20% loss. Now we only buy used equipment with valid XP licenses.

That's good for our bottom line - not so good for our favorite big box maker.

Paris 'cause she's trailer park trash born into old money.

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

My experience...

Here's my experience - figures rounded off.

In my company there's 140 computers. 90 XP with Office 2003/2000, 30 Vista with office 2007. Rest are Unix/BSD/Linux/2003 Servers.

Of the 30 Vista, 15 users have requested going back to XP. 10 of these users can't be bothered to learn anything new and like the XP (which they've used a long time now despite the fact we've "gone back to classic view"). The other 5 are more technical, 1 is an accountant who likes to dabble in Excel VBA, he's threatened to resign if he doesn't get XP and Office 2003 because the security stuff and everything new is doing his head in! The others have various (and genuine) issues regarding the existing special applications we use.

We're not a big company and having to learn something new is a huge strain on resources. Vista is just too much stress and strain to support compared to XP. One chap had to spend over 20 hours trying to find an answer to a Vista/office 2007 configuration fault.

Nope, it's too revolutionary for the average user and support. We'll get there eventually, but we don't have the training support many other companies do. If a car manufacturer decided to shift pedal controls in cars after a few years what do you think would happen?

Anonymous Coward
Heart

Je'Taime vista

I love Vista,

seriously....

i do!

*runs and hides*

David Webb
Gates Halo

Vista

I actually like Vista. Sure at the start I was finding myself switching back to XP rather often, but now I only have XP if I need to use my camera as a webcam. Vista is actually pretty good when you get used to it, I don't think I could go back to XP, it just looks so aincient in comparison, a bit like going back to Win98 from XP.

Of course, the Vista haters will also hate Win 7, simply because the UI will be the same as Vista, and they are happy with their XP interface and pretty much refuse to give Vista a decent chance, may as well switch them to Linux (Suse 11.0 with KDE 4.1 is pretty good!) if they refuse to use Vista 2.

Obligatory "Apple suck" comment here.

Robert Lee
Happy

Only if you know best.

All new machines for our customers are either from Dell or PC World buisness, where you can still order them with XP, or with the XP downgrade path when its stuffed with VB.

I still cant believe how crap it is, reapiring them is a lot more painful, there are really no real tools to get the job done like XP, if the OS is really really stable and it doesnt crash, its fine, but its not, so for someone who has to repair the OS for a job, its a pain in the ass, not to mention the stupid long winded, time wasting interface, looking at the networking on Vista is like a maze, it may be stable (according to MS), but at the cost of the users, I dont use Vista even though we have licences coming out of our axxx.

That 30% may be under estimating, I personally downgraded almost all our customers from Vista to XP, either due to their software wont run, or run like a dog even on the latest hardware.

Vincent
Paris Hilton

@ Downgraded/Upgraded

"Am I allowed to use my 'un-used' 5 year-old OEM XP licence with a new laptop?"

Technically OEM versions of Windows are for System Builders. Microsoft will probably frown at you for doing it but I don't think they'll call the lawyers on you or anything.

Paris because she's been downgraded.

Gordon Pryra

@AC - about your experiance

"Nope, it's too revolutionary for the average user and support"

this needs fixing

"Nope, it's too slow for any user and support costs go through the roof"

Tim Brown
Stop

Incremental updates anyone?

Am I the only one that thinks the whole concept of releasing a new OS every few years is past its sell-by date?

The computer market is mature enough now in that people have largely got what they want. Modern OSes are, if anything, overspecced for home use. Unless and until there is a major new must-have innovation that simply won't work with existing operating systems, better to patch the devil you know than dump it all for the bug-ridden unknown.

chris
Gates Horns

Dell - NHS - WinXP

The NHS has only just completed upgrading its machines to WinXP

there is no way it has the hardware or the software compatability to even contemplate using Vista for a few years to come.

It was simply a bridge too far.

Anonymous Coward
Alert

Bloated Piece of crapware...

I know lets turn our ok product into playskool (tm) brand and pretend its a cool(aid) OS... I wonder where MS went wrong?

Question is will Windows 7 (ver 6.1) will work without an onboard powerstation?

incase your wondering:

NT4 = NT4

Win2000 = NT5.0

XP = NT 5.1 << as its based on the NT5 Kernel

Vista = NT6

Windows 7 = NT6.1 << as its based on the Vista (NT6) bloated DRM'd Kernel

XP fine for Me (tm)

Bill Cumming
Paris Hilton

only 35% went to XP...

wonder how many went to Linux ? higher or lower than XP's 35%

Paris 'cause she's just as cute but more user friendly than the penguin...

Lude E. Chris
Go

Win Server 2k8

If you must have Windows, a better choice than XP or Vista is Windows Server 2008. After some tweaks, it works fantastically as a desktop machine.

Alexis Vallance

Fix it

They don't actually need new features. They just need to streamline and simplfy what they've already got.

You've just got to look at the control panel: 52 choices. OS X has 25.

Everything needs stripping back and made to work.

Ditch crap like 'Welcome Center'. Ditch marketing crap like 'Windows Defender'.

And ditch any piracy crap which disables legimate users' machines. Just sell it in two versions: home and business, for £50 and £75.

This isn't the world that MS thinks it is. Consumers are much more savvy nowadays and can see what is and what isn't a good deal. This sums it up: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f234/PORSCHER/osx_vs_vista_upgrades.jpg

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Here is a good idea

Why don't they stick to what their good at. Operating Systems.

Let 3rd party players do the add-ons.

Serves you right Microsoft for being dumb enough to build a bloated operating system around DRM. STUPID STUPID STUPID!

This post has been deleted by its author

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

XP for me

We have many many pcs in our organisation. No intention of going Vista - too many incompatibilities. Until a week or 2 ago I shared an office with a consultant who, among other things, ws responsible for Network and PC support for his clients - he's had Vista and Xp on his notebook since he got it 6 months ago.... Still hasn't got the Vista installation stable, despite spending weeks on new drivers, tweaking....

Got a new machine for home, recently - it got XP, the consultant said it was a good decision.... Probably didn't want me bugging him with Vista problems. I didn't want them either. Haven't yet met one person who's challenged the decision to go XP - except on Mac die-hard. And he had no real answer when I said the software I use won't run under MAC and I don't want to waste performance giong through an emulator - same reason as the machine isn't running Linux.

I did notice that MS are actively trying to get guys off XP - SP3 is the start, loading it crashed my WLAN by overwriting the .dlls for the wireless card.... Good move MS - stops me from getting out to support sights to find out what you've screwed up this time.

So they're trying to level the playing fields I suppose... Stops XP users getting too smug. When will these guys get it right.

A thumbs down for Vista and XP SP3.

David Cornes

plus ça change

I tried Vista SP1 (as a dual boot alongside my existing XP installation) a month or so ago. I found it ok enough, and would've put in the effort to learn to use it full-time, but the graphics chipset on the PC (an nVidia 9100 IGP) wasn't supported so I only got the crappy default driver, which was unusable for playing video etc.

So it's gone. I've now fill the empty partition it left with the latest Ubuntu. And guess what? The IGP isn't supported properly by that either... :-(

XP forever!

Duffy

After years of adding to my computer I finally have a "new" one

Yes, my old computer lasted 13 years starting with 95 and 4 gigs, I added on getting win98 and 20 gigs but I finally took the plunge and bought a new computer. On my college campus many of the win2000 computers were taken out for Vista and a few XP's. Lets just say the Vista computers aren't used very often. People would rather cram around the Macs.

On my birthday I received a never been used XP desktop so far I love it. No errors or crashes. No blue screen or stupid Vista death screen. I feel bad for those Vista capable computers that Vista rejected. In time Vista will be forgotten or find itself as the "link" in evolution from XP to 7, kind of like ME/2000 were.

Anonymous Coward
Boffin

Mozart? That explains it all then.

I never liked Mozart, especially dislike his operas. Not that I don't like art music, I find Bach amazing, Beethoven revolutionary and bedazzling, Brahms soothing, Dvorak uplifting, Gershwin modern, Bartok mindboggling, Shostakovich awesome, but Mozart is just plain boring. Thanks to Microsoft's OS head honcho it all makes sense now, though.

Dave

Too much complexity

I'm guessing that the large enterprise user is probably the most important type to Microsoft.

Keep in mind your average enterprise IT manager....

He wants simplicity, he wants security that he can understand and trust, he wants a OS that's going to run office in a stable way whilst making the most of a hardware budget.

He's not going to get that when Microsoft keep piling rubbish in.

Am I missing something?

Anonymous Coward
Boffin

Just another reason to try ReactOS

Or switch to a Mac. Microsoft could not even get "Microsoft Virtual PC" to be a true virtual PC capable of running any x86 OS.

Bronek Kozicki
Coat

@Lude E. Chris

you know of course that Windows Server 2008 is just Vista, server edition, with integrated Service Pack 1?

Glyn
Flame

@David Webb

I'm happy with the XP interface because it doesn't insist on changing each directories view every time I go in. Honestly, it's like Russian roulette will I get the useful detail view I had last time or will it have the file name as an icon 1/5 the size of my screen and the startags there for me to ignore.

And when I copy a file I want the "date updated" property to be the date the original was updated, not the date the file was copied.

And...

And...

And...

Gary F

Too revolutionary?

@AC who said "Nope, it's too revolutionary for the average user and support".

That can't be the right choice of word. Too "different" maybe, but I'll go for either too "illogical" or too "frustrating".

Bring back tabs on control panels! Having a different panel for everything that used to be tabbed is deeply annoying.

Mark
Stop

re: plus ça change

"the graphics chipset on the PC (an nVidia 9100 IGP) wasn't supported"

Hey, hey hey. That can't be right! Only Linux has a problem with no support for drivers! MS told us so!

jason
Stop

C'mon then.....Where is all the DRM?

I've been using Vista now for nearly a year.

So far I havent seen any evidence of DRM at all impeding my use of my PC. Where is it? How should I find it?

C'mon show me? I also use a Zune that also 'full of DRM' so they tell me but I still havent found any. I've been able to do everything I want to so far.

No one has pinged up a RED card saying I cant.

DRM is a fanboy FUD dream I must assume.

amanfromMars
Alien

WE7....... for Cosmic Crack Core Code Compilation?

"there is absolutely nothing microsoft can do that will evoke the anger of the US government." .... By Terry Posted Tuesday 19th August 2008 13:41 GMT

Oh yes there is, Terry, should they start to Develop a Secure Trustworthy Transparent Computing Environment with Special Access Privileges Granted to Peer Reviewed [Positively Vetted] Full Personal Disclosure Personnel with Advanced Mutual Intelligence ....... for that would, by Natural Default, leave the US government dancing to Microsoft's tune which would be a SOLO Virtuoso Performance to Set the Future Stage, albeit IT being one of their New-Fangled and Entangling Openly Sourced Compositions .

In fact, if that is not what Windows E7 is all about, that is what they will be up against in another Operating System from the Competition/Opposition/Underground .......thus to render the Efforts another Colossal Failure in Future for Fitness Purpose.

It is certainly something which HyperRadioProActivity would be/could be/is Building across Every Platform for Ubiquitous Selfless Application and therefore Exclusive Executive Administration without the Cowboy Elements pimping Missions Impossible.

Avi

Incremental Updates

Having recently come back to Windows, I realise I've been spoilt elsewhere by how transparently things update and upgrade.

The problem, in my opinion, isn't so much the Whole New OS idea, but the Whole New UI idea - I'd be fine with the guts of the system changing completely, so long as when I look for something it's where I expect it to be.

I don't know of anyone who finds the Vista UI easier to use than the XP one (though, admittedly, I've only been asking people who are new to Vista and used to XP). Surely they'd have taken the hint with the amount of people who switched their XP control panels back to classic view?

There are good, strong examples of OSs which manage to be updated without alienating and confusing existing users. If everyone else can do it, why can't Microsoft? Or, rather, why don't they?

Usama

Windows Vista downgrades needed for some, but not all

I installed XP and Vista on a new PC I built last year (Vista came free w/ the XP MCE 2005 OEM DVD I ordered). I mainly used XP of course as Vista was confusing as hell.

Then after 2-3 weeks I tried to boot into Vista more often, just so I would know about the OS. After a few more weeks I haven't looked back at XP. There's nothing XP can do that Vista can't do better, except of course run on computers with lower specs.

For example someone posted about their frustrations w/ the new Control Panel. Indeed it takes me too long to find what I need (mainly because I never had the patience to read through everything) but that's why there's a search bar nearly everywhere.. if you need to adjust your display just type in "display" and only the display-related control panel options show up.

By the way the Vista install has been substantially more stable than Windows XP, and because I made a computer with decent specifications (cheapest dual core Core2, an NVIDIA 7600GT video card, 2GB RAM 800Mhz DDR2) Vista simply flies. Such a computer can be made for less than $500 USD (including hard drives, power supply, and case).

Admittedly there were many PCs that were being sold as Vista Capable that would have been much better off w/ XP, and Microsoft should be focused on making their OSes more efficient w/ hardware, but it's hardly something to whine about. Rumor is Snow Leopard will only work on Intel macs, and OS X variations significantly raised the bar required for Mac computers (if you wanted it to run well that is).

Roger Pearse

Tried to migrate to Vista this weekend

I have a very nice XP machine, but the hard disk is full. I've bought a new one which came with Vista Premium. A weekend of pain later, I truly hate Vista. Everything I do is blocked by 'permissions', files are silently not copied, etc. My elderly printer won't work any more, my digital dictation device 'has a known issue'. etc. It's just an utter pain out of the box to use.

Wish I could face the idea of a downgrade. I never realised how good XP was.

Usama

1 more thing

This probably won't make it past moderation but regarding an earlier post (hopefully that one did), I wanted to clarify that I love my Vista, and I have Ubuntu 64-bit installed too. Using Ubuntu I realize how a lot of things are closed and handicapped in Vista but the same could be said for many other OSes (like OS X).

And I'm not upset at Microsoft for not supporting my old scanner... it's not their responsibility. Typical of most 3rd party companies my scanner company decided this was an excellent opportunity to boost sales, so when I went to their support website to download the latest vista drivers they told me my scanner would only work on XP and that if I need a scanner to work w/ Vista i should look at their new line. Of course.

Nick Palmer
Stop

@Jared Vanderbilt

I'm assuming that the Vista machines were loaded with either Vista or Ultimate? If so, then bluntly you took a needless loss. You SHOULD have kept the machines and used the downgrade rights which apply to OEM VB and VU editions and downgraded to XP Pro. You'd have had your money's worth in shiny fast kit and still kept the users happy - and yes, we downgrade all our Vista equipped machines to XP Pro via this route.

Jodo Kast
Alert

Microsoft's plan doesn't work

Microsoft's plan doesn't work: Vista is fine for the average consumer, but not for business.

Business requirements should be more important to Microsoft. Sure they can ditch the market, but why?

Something is wrong in Redmond. Seriously, seriously wrong.

Brandon

if microsoft is mozart...

...then Vista is atonal music... you could remove all the notes, and you'd be at peace again.

keith

microsoft

id say go on microsoft you know you can do it im with microsoft on this one if they make windows 7 compatible like xp and all of xps programs work under windows 7 then i will upgrade to it so come on microsoft you can do it

Mark
Happy

hitting MS where it hurts..

It's good that customers are voting with their feet and making MS get their sh*t together for the next OS.

Microsoft must be kicking themselves for making XP a decent operating system in the first place. If it had been crap then Vista would have been received more gratefully.

Windows 7 will have to be decent for people to want to upgrade to it. It'll be interesting to see whether they cut the bloat and make it an operating system that people actually want to use.

Jonathan Tate
Unhappy

Eh...

As a computer engineering student I find it depressing how many armchair OS kernel designers there are here...

And as for the UI, I have yet to hear an argument that it's "bad" that isn't correctable by way of either UI configuration or "user (re)configuration". Ever heard of the acronym PEBKAC?

James O'Shea
Unhappy

For the Vista haters

I really, really, hate to do this, but...

I'm primarily a Mac user. I've been a Mac user since 1984. I use Windows when I have to, and only when I have to.

That said... I have set my Mac to use Apple's Boot Camp, and have a Windows partition on it. I installed Vista on it. Now, Vista is far from perfect (plain Vista had WGA issues and idiot-design issues, Vista SP1 has those, plus issues with Apple's software, gee, it's almost as if _someone_ went and inserted some code to make it work worse on Macs, I wonder who could have done such a thing?) but it's not as bad as some of the Vista-haters make out. Y'all should know that you've gone over the top when a _20+ year_ Mac user starts defending Microsoft...

If Microsoft dumped some of the DRM, got rid of WGA (that thing has told me that my copy of Vista 'may not be valid' three times, and me with the install DVD and 25-digit key right in front of me. Cue screaming call to Mickeysoft 'support', fixing the problem... until next time.) and tuned up the speed a little (Vista, while not as slow as some make out, is noticeably slower on my Mac than OS X is, and this thing allegedly has a 'Vista experience index' of 5.4, God help those with anything lower if this is how a _high-end_ machine behaves...) then Vista wouldn't be too bad. I _still_ wouldn't use it except when I absolutely had to, but at least I wouldn't cringe at the thought of rebooting...

jonathan keith
Gates Horns

@ Jason

Here's one little piece of DRM nonsense:

http://tinyurl.com/4sp537

"NBC-Vista copy-protection snafu reminds us why DRM stinks"

Andrew

Not so bad

I've been dual booting XP and Vista for over a year now. Once you get it to stop nagging, there's nothing wrong with Vista on a reasonable spec machine. It's no slower than XP, and actually more stable for me. Not to mention the relief of a GUI that doesn't look like it was made by Fisher Price.

I can see why it's not taken off outside the home market though. We're only just migrating from 2K to XP at work, and the oh so complicated new GUI nearly caused a mutiny. I definitely can't see them chucking around the kind of money to get the hardware up to Vista standards when XP does everything they want.

Nic Brough
Linux

@Jason

>DRM is a fanboy FUD dream I must assume.

Try monitoring your network throughput whilst watching a DVD. They may have partially or totally fixed this "feature", but the last I saw about it was MS saying "it's by design, so we won't change it", which tells me all I need to know.

I don't know anyone who has got Vista and kept it - all my friends and relatives have upgraded back to XP, or jumped to Mac or Linux (only the hardcore geeks have gone Linux though - still not quite there). Myself, I have it for basic support testing, but most of the time, I end up saying "sorry, that doesn't work in Vista".

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

Windows Server 2008 - does it do HD playback?

Does Windows Server 2008 do HD playback of any kind? 'Cos that's what Vista's DRM infestation was mainly about under the hood - end to end copy protection for HD content, from ROM drive to monitor, everything controlled and certificated and tamper proof and allegedly cryptographically leakproof.

Whereas a server doesn't need to do HD content, therefore doesn't need HDCP, doesn't need HDMI, probably doesn't need HD-DVD or movie/music BluRay, and can therefore ship without all this embedded DRM nonsense without visibly losing any functionality for server use or even for today's typical (ie non-HD) PC use.

But without the end to end copy protection there's no way the MPAA etc are happy. Which is fine by me.

Flocke Kroes

Marketing is not the same as Advertising+Spin

Marketing involves researching the market to find customer requirements. Implement the requirements and then demonstrate the value of your new product so customers buy it. (Advertising vendors often have a different opinion: any money spent on market research is money not spent on adverts - and might reduce the need for adverts.)

MS selected new features for Vista that are opposed to customer requirements. They implemented some, and scrapped others because they could not get them to work in a reasonable timescale. For the first time in decades MS are now involved in sales (product is cast in stone - convince people to buy it as it is).

In the past, if you bought a computer you had to pay the Microsoft tax. MS honestly believed that people would have to pay for whatever MS told them they had to buy, so customer requirements were irrelevant. As far as I know, Dell still throws a windows licence in the bin for each Linux machine they sell. Asus and Acer now sell Linux machines cheaper than equivalent hardware with windows, so MS now has to compete.

If you want Windows 7 to be any good, try Linux. It is the only way you will get MS to consider doing some real marketing.

Anonymous Coward
Gates Horns

When I recently visited Microsoft's London office

the majority of the PCs that I saw were running XP rather than Vista...

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