I was at a mom and pop type PC store over in PA yesterday. The salesman was showing a dusty used PC to a couple. It was some sort of 2-3 year old Dell that they were asking $350 for. The guy asked the salesman if it had Vista installed on it. The salesman said: "no, it has XP which is a good thing because Vista is nothing but problems and headaches. That's why many PC makers still allow you to buy XP on brand new machines."

I almost started to debate him, but hey it's his store. What the hell. The couple would be better off buying a brand new Dell (with Vista) or having a custom PC built. Of course, the salesman was playing up XP as being better than Vista as a sales tactic, to make it seem even better of a machine than it really was. He probably uses Vista.

I have installed Vista on 5 year old PC's with no problems. Just because some d-bag somewhere can't get it to behave right on his old P2 or Celeron machine doesn't make Vista a bad OS.

It's enough to make your blood boil. So many of these supposed experts know so little about the field it is astonishing. They hear something and just repeat it endlessly. An old dusty Dell for $350? No thank you.

For the record, DELL no longer ships systems with XP installation as of June 18. So if the couple orders from DELL directly, they will get VISTA. My question is when will VISTA 64 catch on enough to have builders like DELL even offer 64?

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9969444-1.html

My neighbor owns a software development company. In the past, he has mentioned he orders DELL computers when fulfilling the need for systems delivered with his software installed. DELL has the best service and just let them deal with it that way was his response. Last night I mentioned DELL stoped shipping XP sytems. He knew! I told him VISTA 64 was the way to go. LOL! I don't know, I bet He thinks about it.

Wrong! You can still get XP Pro with a Dell as long as you pay $50.00 to include Vista Business "Bonus". All you Vista fanboys should quit spreading FUD about XP.

Grumpy

P.S. You can buy Dells with 64 bit Windows. http://www.dell.com/content/produc [...] ~ck=anavml

How do you spell XP? Answer: FUD.

We'll stop spreading "FUD" about XP (don't get me wrong, I love XP more than any other OS MS released before Vista), when the FUD surrounding Vista stops. The fact is, XP will be discontinued at some point the same way 95, 98, ME and 2K were discontinued. After 7 years, it's really time to let go.

Agree with Zoron.

XP OEM is being extended to 2010 for low cost laptops. These Laptops don't have the hardware capable of running Microsoft Vista Bloatware.

http://www.thestandard.com/news/20 [...] st-laptops

Dell will also continue to offer XP as part of their downgrade program. That should read 'upgrade program' really

http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comm [...] ntil-2010/

I hope Windows 7 can deliver a true successor to XP

Keep hoping. I'll be the first one to giggle after seeing the first "Windows 7 SUCKS!" post. Just like XP sucked 7 years ago (it really didn't... but it apparently took 7 years for people to realize it)... so Vista does today and so Windows 7 will tomorrow. People almost seem to feel obligated to bitch about the latest version of Windows and how they can't wait for the next one because the one previous to the current one was the absolute greatest! We need a worthy successor!

Problem is, it will take another year or 2 before people realize that Vista doesn't suck nearly as much as some people like to make others believe. (Right around the time that Windows 7 will be released...)

I can see your point Zoron, but Vista just has not hit it off like Microsoft would have hoped. There's businesses that just will not ditch XP for Vista and computer Manufacturers advertising downgrade options because they know that there's still a market for XP. Although there is always going to be critics of each windows release, it's just that Vista is kind of like the successor to Windows ME..in the sense it's nothing unique.
You might class me as one of those Windows moaners who complains about each release, but that's not true. Windows XP despite it's abundance of early bugs was a real step up from the old 9x operating systems. Windows XP bought improved stability and Better security. After using ME, XP for me was a welcome upgrade lol.
I don't think Vista is completely terrible...it's just nothing groundbreaking.

Having used XP at release - I'd like to remind everyone that it was *barely* stable until after Service Pack 1. It got better, but it was still only SP2 was where XP really hit it's stride and became the OS we know today.

The difference between now and then is firstly that we used to accept that Windows crashed randomly and not necessarily for any "reason". We'd simply restart, pat ourselves on the back for being smart enough to save early/often, and get back to work. So if a new version crashed less than the old one, it became some magical paragon of stability. The fact of the matter is that XP at release was simply 'Less Bad' than what we had before (9x and ME), and over most of the next decade it was made into a very good OS.

In comparison, Vista is, and has always been, worlds better than XP was before that OS had it's successful Service Pack Surgery. In English: Vista at release is and was far far better than XP was at release. And it always has been. People just forgot how the older versions were at the same point, and forget how many years it took to get to "It Just Works".

Vista's only real 'failings' are that it doesn't have a "Gotta Have" feature to drive it, that the general user base is far far less technical now than it used to be (most people no longer learn/know even basic troubleshooting), and the magical power of the Internet to blow real or perceived issues WAAAAAAY out of proportion. So we all have to wade though situations where the 3rd 'Tard From The Left doesn't know what a driver problem looks like, let alone how to fix it, he absolutely can NOT be bothered to learn how, and yet he *does* have the power to make 500 thousand posts complaining about what a POS this new OS is.

The argument that a lot of businesses aren't using Vista isn't really a good one, either. For one thing many companies don't want to spend the money to upgrade operating systems or other software every chance they get -- heck, the place I work is still using software from the 1980s!

For another, as someone at an insurance company told me when I was interviewing there and asked about the software their claims people used on their laptops explained, some companies absolutely cannot afford for their employees to have computer problems. The particular company delays buying new operating systems until they are absolutely certain the new OS is at least as stable as the one they are replacing; they had just upgraded to Windows XP about six months before Vista's release.

(( Edited for clarity and grammar ))

^^ Exactly.

Banks are a good example. They will spend months or even years testing new software on their systems before they deploy it. Royal Bank of Canada upgraded to Windows XP about 3 years ago; before that, they had been using Win 2K. CIBC is still using Windows 2000. Scotia Bank uses Windows 95 on their client machines and their "server" is Windows 2000. I don't expect a business that hasn't even phased out Win 2K to all of a sudden upgrade to Vista.

Scotia bank is apparently upgrading to XP in the near future... quite a huge jump from Win 95. Of course, they've had a lot of time to test XP while Vista is only about 1.5 years old. So yes, the claim that "businesses don't use Vista!" is true, but it is also misleading. I personally don't give two s***s about what businesses load on their computers... it doesn't affect what goes on MY PC.

I don't run mission-critical apps at home. I don't necessarily need a computer that runs 24/7 without a single error. (Of course, I have that anyway). I like to tinker with my computer. Fortunately though... I haven't had to do any tinkering on this new build with Vista. I installed drivers for all the hardware and everything simply worked the way it was supposed to... probably the least troublesome install I've ever had. Of course, people only pay attention to the negative and rarely acknowledge the positive.