Thanks, everyone. I called CPUsed in Toronto, where I plan to get my MacBook Pro (two weeks and two days and counting!) and they said they’d still have it two weeks from now.
(I was thinking about getting it at FutureShop, but the non-OEM non-bundled price of XP Pro there cancels out my friend’s Future Shop employee discount, so I might as well got to somewhere that is a) closer, and b) knows more about Macs. I’ll keep your suggestions in mind in case Bill pulls a fast one in the nextt wo weeks.)
My friend just helped his friend set up 2 Dell machines that other-friend got for $800 (total) from Dell’s “Outlet.” He called me up from the setup just to tell me that he did not have to de-crapify the Dells.
So it seems that no, the business models (and/or the outlet models) do not come pre-Dell’d.
I can see why people’d like it. There are some programs–Second Life is the one I’m familiar with–where Vista+Certain Graphics Card Brand = not running correctly, or at all.
Personally, if I had to buy a computer right now, I’d go with XP over Vista. Of course, given a practical choice, I’d wait a while and see how Vista fares before making the decision…
My rule-of-thumb with Microsoft products is that they generally start working on a new version once they’ve worked must of the bugs out of the last version. Therefore, this is the perfect time to upgrade to Windows XP and Office 2003. I’ll upgrade to Windows Vista and Office 2007 when the next versions are getting set to be released, circa 2010 or so.
I can’t get “my” $450,000 colour print server to play nice with Vista yet, and there are little problems with some of our custom database applications.
There are practical reasons for wanting the option of sticking with XP, besides neophobia.
In our office, the downsides to having a shiny new OS heavily outweigh the benefits.
Anyway, Vista sucks, My dad got a new laptop, and I’m going to call him and tell him how to redo his computer with XP now, because he doesn’t like Vista, he says it’s too slow even with a gig of ram. No point in it, if you ask me.
I was at a conference about 6 weeks ago, where Microsoft themselves had a big trailer where we could all go in and try Vista and Office07 out. It looked great, but they were in fact running 2Gigs of RAM
Care about running in a virtual machine, or care about what the license says?
I definitely care about running in a virtual machine. My main computer is an Apple laptop, and it’s a pain for me to have to reboot just to use Windows. Parallels works really well for me, and I wouldn’t want to give that up (or pay an extra $100 just for the privilege of keeping it.).
If you mean who cares what the license agreement says, beyond the obvious potential legal issues,
[ul][li]It is fairly trivial for an OS to determine if it’s running in a virtual machine, even if the virtual machine is trying really hard to mask its virtualness.[/li][li]Most virtual machines won’t bother to play cat and mouse with Microsoft for the purposes of out-doing a license agreement.[/li][*]Microsoft has the capability to push updates on its users that will make their software comply more precisely with the license they specified, and are increasingly not shy about doing so.[/ul]
I’m working in the computer department of an office supplies store at the moment, and we only sell Vista. All our new machines are preloaded with Vista and there are only a couple of older models left that run XP.
I estimate we have at least one machine returned a week because of compatibility issues with Vista. Our company’s policy on returns is that, as long as it’s within the specified period and they have their receipt, we will give them a refund no matter what their problem with the product is. It’s rather frustrating to see machines coming back because people can’t get their new computer to recognise their old printer and lack the skills/internet access to download the drivers to get it running.
I -wish- our store would offer XP as an option, especially as so many of the machines we sell are low end and are going to run slowly under Vista (for instance, we have only one laptop that has 2 Gig of RAM - all the others have 512 Mb or 1 Gig). If I was buying a new computer now, I’d go for XP with the intention of upgrading to Vista later. It needs time for all the bugs to be ironed out.
You’re kidding, right? If not, it would certainly be news to me that any Mac user has actually liked Vista. There have been quite a few Windows users who have been turned to the Mac side by Vista’s release, but I’ve not seen any of the reverse happening.
I didn’t say Mac users were switching to Vista, only that they liked it. Nearly everyone in Leo Laporte’s various podcasts who’s a Mac user says they like it (and that they hope Apple swipes things from it).
No, those stories just show that Microsoft is making a lot of money from Vista sales.
Not that it is ‘popular’ in the dictionary sense of “being well liked”, “appreciated by people”. As the statements here, and on nearly any online computer help forum show.
My sister is still waiting for print drivers to run with VISTA. The release date was last moved to the end of April so maybe she will be able to print something in a week. Like ussual the move isn’t smooth as silk as it was promised.
Sales figures don’t count when they include OEMs being forced to include Vista on their new systems. If you want a real gauge of popularity, count only those sales that came from retail boxes and OEM-with-hardware-purchase editions, and watch those figures plummet.
I’ll keep your suggestions in mind in case Bill pulls a fast one in the nextt wo weeks.)