That’s a good point and I wonder why nobody else in this discussion has made that distinction. The time and expense of removing pre-installed Vista from a new computer and replacing it with XP are definitely non-trivial.
I would avoid it if possible. I had it on my laptop for the first few months I owned it. It was clunky, slow, and took up enough space for 3 PCs (or at least it seemed that way).
Now I run Ubuntu, and after the first few initial problems (which turned out to be blessings in disguise) I would never go back.
Brendon Small
You can just download DirextX 10 for XP. That’s no reason to upgrade the entire OS.
I know of one project trying to port directx10 to XP but it requires over a gig of downloads worth of sdk’s and libraries, also last I checked, it still didn’t work.
Has there been further developments?
But it’s irrelevant. Pretty much all the major made-to-order PC makers (Dell, Gateway, etc.) have been forced by buyer pressure to offer your machine with XP pre-installed instead of Vista. You just have to specify that when ordering the machine.
And I know of a buyer at a big-box computer store who got the same deal on a high-end machine on their sales floor. He wanted it with XP instead of Vista pre-installed; the store techs installed XP on a machine for him (no charge). I guess in-store sales had been slow so far in the holidays, and the salesperson wanted that commission.
My laptop came with Vista Home Premium and I had no problems with it. I’ve also now installed Vista Business, after Linux wrecked my partitions, with again, no problems.
There’s loads of small improvements. One I’ve noticed is the fact that Wireless is connected by the time I see the desktop, whereas in XP it would take up to a minute to find the Wireless network, get a network address, then connect.
I have Vista on a new Dell laptop. I like it a bunch. It’s slick and shiny and it seems perfectly fine.
I wouldn’t fear it, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about it.
Really? (No snarkery intended.) You can’t just format the HD and install from CD? That’s what I did when my laptop came with XP Home, I wiped it and threw Win2K on with no issues. (Okay, I suppose formatting and replacing with a new OS you have to buy yourself is non-trivial. Still, better than the alternative IMO.)
I’m happy with XP, and when technology advances enough that I have to drop it, I’m switching to a Linux distro. Hopefully by then it’ll have stronger game support.