Windows XP goes bye bye

by Joey Celis Jul 1st 2008

July 1 will go down in history as the day that major PC manufactures can no longer sell Windows XP preinstalled. This news hasn't gone unnoticed; InfoWorld created a petition to save the aging OS.

The question is why?

Truth of the matter is that there are millions of reasons why one would want to stay with XP just like there are good reasons to upgrade to Vista. Each of them have their merits and it would be pointless to try to disprove any one of them.

But what's going to happen when its time to get another computer and the only option is Vista? Is the lack of an XP option enough to sway you to Ubuntu or OS X? According to Microsoft sales of Vista have reached 140 million copies world wide so it doesn't appear that most computer buyers mind upgrading to Vista.

But for those die hard XP users out there what are you going to do? The Grim Reaper has come for your OS.

Tags: vista, windows xp, WindowsXp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Max said 6:47PM on 7-01-2008

"But for those die hard XP users out there what are you going to do?"

I'll probably download it from my favorite torrent site :)
or go Ubuntu...

GK said 7:02PM on 7-01-2008

Umm, if we're die hard XP users, we already have XP, and won't be needing to buy it....so it doesn't actually matter that they've stopped selling it. They're still supporting it until like 2014.

Gnalk IT said 7:02PM on 7-01-2008

For those who really want to, there are a number of opportunities to put your hands on a brand fresh copy of XP also in the future. The first reason is that some computer stores, mostly smaller companies that build their computers themselves, will continue to be allowed to sell computers with Windows XP as an pre-installed operating system, at least until the end of January 2009.

There are several other ways to get a copy of Windows XP even in the future.

Read more... Windows XP is dead, long live Windows XP!

http://gnalkit.blogspot.com/2008/07/windows-xp-is-dead-long-live-windows-xp.html

alienvenom said 7:09PM on 7-01-2008

>> just like there are good reasons to upgrade to Vista

Uh, name one, please. I dare you.

The fact of the matter is, there is no "good" reason to upgrade to Vista. Aero is crap. UAC is a joke.

archpope said 7:24PM on 7-01-2008

Now that I've used Vista for 18 months on 6 different computers (some not even new), I think I can come up with a reason or two.

1. Being able to use 4+GB of RAM
2. Kernel patch protection
3. Much more secure
4. Offloads graphics tasks to GPU, so all that eye candy has little to no impact on CPU.
5. Infinitely better wireless network management

Those are just the objective reasons. More subjectively:
1. How did I ever live without the sidebar?
2. just type "ph" and I'm running Photoshop.
3. video wallpaper, and using

Ethan said 7:47PM on 7-01-2008

Absolutely right. Two steps forward, three steps back.

tha_rukus said 1:33AM on 7-02-2008

@ alienvenom

You do realize that you can disable UAC and Aero.....right? Honestly, your anti Vista argument is weak. Try again.

James said 10:18AM on 7-02-2008

Yeah, I put Vista on an older (but still not totally junk) Dell laptop and was having performance issues, until I switched to the "Classic" graphical style. It looks quite a bit like XP (except with the Vista-style Start menu) and performs almost identically. You get all the little UI improvements (win+# to launch Quicklaunch shortcuts, Start menu search, wireless management, etc.) with little to no performance cost. If everybody that bitches about Vista would try the Classic interface, I think a lot of them would stop having problems.

archpope said 7:10PM on 7-01-2008

Admittedly, the blogosphere was smaller back then, but I don't recall hearing even remotely as much whining when M$ stopped selling Windows 98 back in 2003. And at that time, Win98 was only 5 years old, whereas XP is 7.

;jksdfkj said 7:20PM on 7-01-2008

Saying that something is a joke or crap is not an argument. you are banned from the internet for a day.

thank you.

lancer said 8:35PM on 7-01-2008

that's why i dual boot ubuntu and XP Ultimate (by Johnny)
http://www.winxpu.info/

http://www.halocrusades.com?p=page&x=2961

hazard said 11:00PM on 7-01-2008

Wrong .. Dell [for instance] is still selling computers with WinXP preinstalled as a part of Vista's downgrade service. You just can't get WinXP without paying for Vista.

Mikey said 5:04AM on 7-02-2008

See, I like XP. In fact, I love XP. It's loved me and I couldn't be happier. But after the Vista SP came out, I thought of trying it since it was eventually going to replace XP.

I've had it ever since. No crashes, no slow downs, no annoyances, it's been a breeze. Even my partner loves it and she doesn't even like computers. It's not like I even use it for basic things. I play heavy games on it, I do a lot of photo/video manipulation on it, all of my computer development is being run on it, and I haven't had a problem.

Each to their own, but my experience has been pretty good.

copperfish said 6:22AM on 7-02-2008

Personally I switched to Ubuntu when the latest release came out. I've tried Vista a number of times and its just too clunky. That said, I tried XP again recently and found it to be clunky too. I think I'm too used to Gnome-Do, Compiz, Nautilus (only some features as it can suck). And since most of my apps are web based I don't miss the application support and my paid subscription to Crossover Office sorts out the MS Office need. Each to his own, but Vista pushed me to Ubuntu and I couldn't be happier.

Lee Mathews said 8:06AM on 7-02-2008

I love all the "UAC is a joke" stuff. Mac and Linux ostensibly do the same thing, and no one notices or what? Also, I'm pretty sure you can shut it off by running one reg file or clicking a couple things in security center.

Vista is not horrible. Play Crysis in high detail under DX10 and see why it may not be.

Bill said 8:52AM on 7-02-2008

I know what I'm doing; waiting for Windows 7 or whatever they'll call it.

Pegi said 12:51PM on 7-02-2008

I heard that the new windows 7 is going to be based on the same Vista platform? I think we are stuck with Vista for the future ... at least if we stay with windows.

BrianM said 9:42AM on 7-02-2008

Something MUST be wrong with my SO's brand new HP laptop (that has specs that Should make the thing at LEAST as fast at my 7 year old Gateway laptop!) But it's the biggest dog of a computer with Vista... even a bigger dog than my 1998 IBM 240 with XP. It's seriously the slowest computer I've used that I can remember... with 2gb of Ram and a decent CPU. With the addition of SP1, it's gotten worse. To the point of my SO says she could live with it, to telling me to get that crp off of her computer. This is withOUT Aero, all the crapware removed, and otherwise cleaned up as much as possible.

So in our 6 months of experience, it's Decidedly slower/harder to work with and the wireless is MUCH worse (small and medium business grade wireless APs need to be patched before they will work with Vista... it seems like this is not happening as her wireless will work almost no where, and she travels for work, using wireless to keep in touch with me ~ it's a crap situation no matter how you cut it). Doesn't matter how secure the connection Could be if you can't GET a connection. We seriously can not find a single reason to keep it other than she likes the looks. And I can easily put a vista-style theme on an XP computer.

Our downgrade will commence this holiday weekend. And I'm Damn glad that we have about 10% more XP licenses than computers at work, so we can grow while M$ takes care of "Windows ME" part 2. In the mean time, we will be exploring Linux as a viable option more closely and expanding our Thin client network.

Rodrigo said 11:43AM on 7-02-2008

this actually sounds like a sponsored post

richard.gailey said 12:59PM on 7-02-2008

Microsoft may go on about selling 140 million copies of Vista, but how many of those were pre-installed on new machines (each machine sold with Vista as the OS would count as a sale) and how many were actually asked for?

Then we would get a more realistic figure.

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

Add your comments

Your comments:

Remember me

E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters