How Long Can XP Last?
It’s been roughly seven and a half years since Microsoft released Windows XP to the masses in October 2001. Meanwhile, it’s been a little short of a year and a half since Vista first became widely available. However, many people, myself included, are still running Windows XP. Some people don’t like the changes in the new OS, while others like me just see no reason to shell out the money and buy it. Windows XP has served us well, and many would like to keep it that way.
I personally have always maintained that I would jump to Vista in a heartbeat if we got a machine, but that time hasn’t come yet, and frankly, for my pocketbook’s sake, I’m glad. There are some, though, who still want to get Windows XP when they buy a new machine. I’m not about to jump into a big debate on the topic – it’s just the way it is.
Many computer manufacturers took to expected approach in early 2007 of going “Vista-only”. People asked to get XP back, and many companies (Dell especially comes to mind) went and offered it up again. Microsoft then came out at a later time and said that they would continue offering XP to OEMs and at retail until June 30, 2008 – the end of the month. Some were maddened by this, wanting still to stick with XP.
While I was browsing around last week, I came across this interesting gem on a local computer shop’s web site:
Now as the image says, this shop is no small little thing, they are Microsoft Gold Partner and have close ties with Intel as well. However, I found it interesting that one of the biggest computer manufacturers, Dell, would stop selling XP on new systems on June 18, while this small shop could sell it until January 2009. It now appears that Dell figured it out, and mooted the point made in the above image.
According to a story on Neowin, Dell is now going to offer Windows XP Professional on new computers through “at least 2009 and likely longer.” The story mentioned that this means either Dell stocked up on a “year’s worth” of licenses, or is preceding an announcement by Microsoft saying that XP Pro will continue to live on. Note that Dell is not forgetting Vista here – they are including both media so that users can upgrade when they’re ready. Is it a smart move on Dell’s part? It would appear so at first. I mean, it will surely make people happy, at least those not sure if they’re ready to take the plunge yet
But come on, it’s been 16 months since Vista hit the shelves and some people are still not ready to give up XP? If you’re going to miss a car 16 months after you sell it, or call your son or daughter every day, twice a day, for 16 months after they move out of the house, people will: a) think you’re crazy, and b) in the case of the children, probably hurt you, or at least get rather irritated. However, it’s a completely different story here, and I’m not convinced it should be. Service Pack 1 is here, and although it’s not a huge “life saver”, it is a service pack. This is the magic milestone many people wait for (just look back over comments concerning Vista’s launch). And then look back further. I’m sure there was a transfer period with 2000/98/Me to XP, but was it over a year long? It surely wouldn’t seem to make sense.
The “magic” Service Pack 1 for Windows XP was delivered on September 9, 2002, about 11 months after it became generally available. For Vista, SP1 came on February 4, 2008, literally just 5 days after its one-year anniversary of general availability. So while it was a little longer development time, it still launched five months before XP is to “die”. I think that’s plenty of time to get adjusted.
Tags: Dell, What’s Done, Windows Vista, Windows XP
June 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Windows seems to be affected by the poor economy in the US, since basically this is what everyone is doing, not buying anything they don’t need.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I’m happily typing away on my x64 Vista Ultimate, though I did wait until the beginning of this year to purchase it and the computer that houses it.
Back in the DOS days, the consensus was to never upgrade to a “.0″ version, especially a “1.0″. Since most of today’s “decision makers” and “movers and shakers” are from that era, it makes sense that corporate buyers are hesitant. I suspect, though, that Vista is the OS of choice for new home computers (games, video, etc.) and eventually, it’s worth will “trickle up”.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
it’s worth will “trickle up” –> its worth.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hmm, I never really saw it that way. But it definitly makes sense.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I am currently thinking: Why switch when it works? I switched from win98 to XP because it simply didn’t work. Why should I switch to Vista? XP Works well for me, and there will pro’lly still be XP (64 Bit) on my new computer. At the point where Vista is going to work smoother and better then XP, I’ll switch.
…Wait - we have linux too…
June 14th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I think XP will live a bit longer than microsoft has anticipated. Even though the first service pack has been released I haven’t seen mobs of people running toward Best Buy to get vista. Many manufacturers are still offering XP and will for a while longer. On Dells part, I think it was a waste of time giving people XP pre-installed and giving them a vista upgrade CD. I dont care how much easier Vista is to install, I personally dont think people are going to want to bother installing another OS and then having to run upgrades, and dont forget backing up all of your files before the upgrade. I know many many people who are too lazy to even run disk cleanup or defrag or they just dont want to be bothered. What makes dell think people will spend hours “revamping” their laptop. In my opinion and from past experiance people want a computer that will work out of the box and not need anything done to it during the time they own it.
I also agree with the economy thing right now. People are just not spending frivilously now like they were in the past. The money that the goverment sent out that was supposed to boost the economy was a flop in the least. Statistically most of the money was spent paying bills and debts, and most of the other people put the money in the bank for a cushion. It didn’t help the economy much at all. Vista would be considered frivelous spending at the moment as many people have a perfectly working copy of XP so there is no reason to upgrade. Also service pack 3 was just released giving people more of a reason to stick with XP. When vista was first released the bad vibe kept people from buying it and this still hasn’t gone away. Apple is partially to blame also, their getamac ads point out every single flaw in the Vista OS and they pound it into your head with a hammer. This has people still thinking vista has all of these problems. For the most part it hasn’t boosed apples sales at all but it has kept people from upgrading to vista.
June 15th, 2008 at 2:20 am
why change at all windows is windows . xp runs faster smoother and can look like vista i think they jump into vista to fast and ar trying as for apple whatever name one game thats worth buying for it they make there systems so small cause there is nothing in them all for all microsoft rules and ill wait to upgrade for now
June 15th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I dunno about runs faster and smoother part. If it’s a PC from teh last era, it might be true. But if it’s a latest quad core PC, then Vista is the most obvious choice. even with the patch to run quad core processor, XP still lags behind Vista in term of how well it can utilise the processors. Heck, just read the difference on how the OS handle file copying too
“Windows XP/NT5.x - LARGE cached async IO
Method: Fetch in Blocks of 64KiB, cache in RAM and write asynchronously to destination
Pros: Very fast intra disk copying
Cons: Copying large amounts of files/large files quickly fills up cache and causes RAM pagination: this is very very very bad, users tend to pull plug even before the writeback cache has been flushed to disk.
Vista RTM
Method: Get size of file to determine IO block size: For large files, this is typically 2048KiB, writes asynchronously to destination as soon as the block is full (non-cached).
Pros: No hit on RAM. Good for high latency networks. fast interdisk copying. No more corrupted files due to silly users
Cons: out of sequence copying: high IO seek rate; very slow intra disk copying; Explorer takes a long time to estimated transfer time because the IO block is variable.
Vista SP1
Method: Cached-IO is back for both local and remote file copying: 2MiB read ahead cache, 1MiB write cache. Variable async I/O block size of 128KiB to 1024KiB
Pros: Significant improvement in PERCEIVED performance. Even better copying on high latency networks (slashed SMB I/O size from 60KiB to 32KiB). Greatly improved system responsiveness.
Cons: slow intradisk copying of large files.
”
Which leads to slower rate BUT more reliable data. If i was to do business, I would choose an OS that can handle my data more reliably.
Another thing that you might want to consider is that when you skin your XP to look like Vista, the resources will also go up.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Why would you skin a computer to look like Vista? There is nothing great about the way it looks. I support 300 desktops and 100 laptops; they all have XP Professional on them, except for a handful of Vista computers. The reason I was told that I had to get Vista Machines was “Downgrading is not a proper technique; New Technology is the best Technology”. Needless to say that is so wrong on so many different levels. I am currently in the process of working with our CFO to go back to XP Professional on those machines.
I belive that Vista is a flop and it will be a lot like Windows ME, it will need to slip silently under the rug.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Well you could escape that by replying, “I’m not downgrading, I’m just not installing the most current thing,” (assuming you truly aren’t downgrading).
Anyways, for personal use, I really wouldn’t mind upgrading to Vista as long as it’s with new hardware. But that’s me with two computers on a home network. For a pre-existing corporate network, I could understand staying on XP.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:19 am
I have had the chance to use Vista on several different machines and on each one it ‘felt’ slow.
I didn’t benchmark any of these - it just feels slow.
My new laptop come with Vista (C2D T7300 - 2GB RAM - GeForce 8400 GS 256MB Acer Inspire 7720) felt slow. I nuked and re-installed fresh copy of Vista with Service Pack 1 to get rid of all the Acer crap - still felt slow.
I nuked again and put XP Professional SP3 and now it responds and feels as fast as this machine should.
http://tnetech.net
July 10th, 2008 at 4:43 am
The proof is in the usage for me. I first installed Vista Ultimate alongside XP just over a year ago and in all that time, I accessed XP 4-5 times. I’ve since gotten rid of XP altogether and I haven’t looked back. Quite frankly I’ve had less issues with Vista than any other OS. For me it simply works and I’m only using a Pentium D 2.8 with 1.5gb ram and I find it to be smooth. I’d rather take the improvements over XP’s few milliseconds difference any day.
Vista bashing is boring and passe.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I have been running dual-boot for almost a year now, XP MCE and Vista Ultimate. I find both OS’s to be fine for my needs and the reason I run them both is because I create skins for both, visual styles and Windowblinds. I boot into XP mostly, and into Vista usually several times a week for other purposes. Nothing wrong with either OS, but I imagine for business use, I would still rely on Windows XP Pro, it will be around for a long time I think.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Why snapperheads behave as though it were the RESPONSIBILITY of consumers to upgrade to the latest bit of failware to come dribbling out of Redmond is beyond me. Microsoft doesn’t get it - which’s shocking given its size - and I/T nerds don’t get it, either (less suprising).
It’s not my responsibility to secure MS an income. Businesses are created for the sole purpose of turning a profit, BUT…this profit is EARNED through the application of principles based on a thing once called CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. Not Advanced DRM.
Whether users were able to back their claims that Vista sucked with an extensive and largely irrelevant lexicon of technical jargon or not, the public let Microsoft know they didn’t appreciate the notion of an O/S that behaved as though it were the sole reason users bought or built their machines.
And Microsoft were dense enough to argue the point.
Had they any brains or a modicum of class they’d have first listened, gathered information on user requirements, then gone back to the drawing board and responded with a) A half-assed attempt at a visually pleasing, succinct ergo reliable O/S or b) An apology followed by same in a year or two’s time.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Hey patrick,
I too, have a Pentium D, running XP Media Center. I co booted with XP and never used it. It was so time consuming to keep the two systems updated, software, documents, etc. Vista is good. Time will tell if it will be a survivor like XP. MS has to come out with a great app as they once did, year after year, in the 80-90’s. I have faith they will again.