Windows XP still outselling Vista

[Dalo Harkin]

As we approach Vista's second birthday and distance ourselves from the launch of XP further, you might assume that Microsoft would have had enough time to make Vista attractive enough for people to prefer it over XP. DirectX 10 exclusivity, restricting vendors from selling XP, marketing campaigns and so much more, all towards Microsoft's end of making Vista de facto apparently aren't working as fast as they'd hope.

 

According to some recent estimates, by the end of this year Vista will have been deployed in 9% of businesses and still won't reach 1/3 of the market by 2010. On top of that, factoring in downgrade licenses it seems that Windows XP is still outselling Vista. That must hurt Microsoft, especially when very large vendors have mentioned they simply will not deploy Vista, waiting instead forWindows 7.

 

Interestingly, Windows 7 has been in the works for a while and it's been rumored more than once that it will be released next year. That's just speculation, of course, and given the dollar investment Microsoft has poured into Vista I doubt they will just sit on their hands.

[RandyL]

But how long was Longhorn in the works. Pun intended.

[Dalo Harkin]

lol -

I think that they have made leaps and bounds with Vista - Vista is so much better than XP - I have used both and prefer Vista from installing - (not having to mess about with SATA drivers etc)

a gaming point of view (DX10 and 10.1 and 11)

 

Saying that I do understand why BUSINESSES do not change to Vista - would be a nightmare - and why upgrade if you do not need any of the features listed above, and thats without taking cost into account in terms of time and money.

[petef]

My guess, is that it will take a several more years for the majority of people

to upgrade to Vista. Reason being, it will take that long for the majority of

older computers to break down beyond repair or become obsolete due to

incompatibility with new hardware or software.

 

Especially now, with such a bad economy and increased expenses for gasoline

and food, most people don't have the money for new computers and since

Vista won't run well on the old hardware, people are going to stick with XP.

 

Microsoft always pushes the envelope by creating a new OS that requires

an upgrade in hardware to operate efficiently, but with Vista they may

have pushed it too far which is now being reflected in extremely low sales

of Vista. Of course there are other factors, but that is a major reason

why people are not converting their current XP computers to Vista.

 

For most people to be motivated to buy a new PC with Vista, they have

to feel that there will be a considerable advantage. Unfortunately, whether

it's true or untrue about Vista being a bad OS, Vista has aquired a bad

reputation that will be hard to overcome. That's why I say it's going to take

a while for most people to convert to Vista and only when their current

computer breaks or becomes too obsolete, will they buy a new one with

Vista.

 

---pete---

Edited August 8, 2008 by petef

[RandyL]

There's home users and there's the coporate and business evironment. Which one was Microsoft aiming at with all the bells and whistles?

 

From a business standpoint why upgrade every single computer since it needs new computers and licenses when the old software works just fine.

 

Of course if they use other Microsoft software they will make sure it won't run on the newer system. I can't run Office 2000 Pro on Vista. I doubt that Office 2003 will run on Windows 2007. Do you see the game?

 

As far as home users goes they will like the glamour until they find out their peripheals and other software are incompatable. In that respect it's a complete flop. I miss my old programs.

 

End of rant.

For now.

[Goku]

Does it needs to be mentioned that XP is still outselling Vista? We all know how reluctant most computer users are to upgrade to something new. I would have never upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 98 if XP couldn't run on my current specifications. If I can't run Vista efficiently enough on my current systems, its not worth upgrading to it. The Operating System should be compatible with hardware, not the contrary. Who would spend hundreds of dollars just to gain the Vista experience?

 

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

But it does depend what you use your PC for Goku -

An avid gamer would have VISTA no questions about it for the DX10 10.1 and 11 element, but also for the fact that to play games at higher settings you need the hardware aswell.

I agree that people dont want to upgrade - but we all have to at some point as technology will drag you along as components become obsolete - Pentium 2 anyone ?? (well other than Maynard lol)

[Goku]

Agreed Dave. But are most of home users are not heavy gamers and therefore have very high specification computers. If someone is a hardcore gamer, then he will have appropriate hardware to run Vista smoothly for example Sean a.k.a DragonSpawn. There is no point inventing an Operating System that does benefits only one group of users. Business users will have to shell out incredible amounts of money to upgrade their units to Vista when they might be having no problems with XP or any other OS. I think most corporate people are upgrading to Vista because Microsoft is bullying them into it. The average home user I come across hardly knows half of the features XP has in it. Think what will they get after they upgrade to Vista.

 

On a lighter note, read the following error codes.

 

Here are some errors you might experience while using Vista.

 

Vista_Error: 001 Vista loaded - Warning your computer is now in danger

 

Vista_Error: 002 No Error - Check again in 10 seconds

 

Vista_Error: 003 Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now in every file

 

Vista_Error: 004 Erroneous error - Nothing is wrong (just testing)

 

Vista_Error: 005 Multitasking attempted - System confused

 

Vista_Error: 006 Kelvin error: Type Mismatch - phone Kevlar

 

Vista_Error: 007 System price error - Inadequate money spent on hardware

 

Vista_Error: 008 Broken window. Path not found - phone Glazier

 

Vista_Error: 009 Horrible bug encountered - Press F13 for more help

 

Vista_Error: 00A Invalid property assignment. Promotional literature overflow - Mailbox full

 

Vista_Error: 00B Inadequate disk space - Free at least 50GB

 

Vista_Error: 00C Memory hog error - More RAM needed. More! More! More!

 

Vista_Error: 00D Window closed - Do not look outside

 

Vista_Error: 00E Unexplained error - Please tell us how this happened

 

Vista_Error: 010 Reserved for future mistakes by our developers

 

Vista_Error: 013 Unexpected error - Huh ?

 

Vista_Error: 014 Keyboard locked - Try anything you can think of.

 

Vista_Error: 018 Unrecoverable error - System has been destroyed. Buy a new one. Old windows licence is not valid anymore.

 

Vista_Error: 019 User error - Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!

 

Vista_Error: 01A Operating system overwritten - Please reinstall all your software. We are terribly sorry.

 

Vista_Error: 01B Illegal error - You are not allowed to get this error. Next time you will get a penalty for that.

 

Vista_Error: 01C Uncertainty error - Uncertainty may be inadequate.

 

Vista_Error: 01D System crash - We are unable to figure out our own code.

 

Vista_Error: 01E Timing error - Please wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

 

Vista_Error: 01F Reserved for future mistakes of our developers.

 

Vista_Error: 020 Error recording error codes - Remaining errors will be lost.

 

Vista_Error: 042 Virus error - A virus has been activated in a dos-box. The virus, however, requires Windows. All tasks will be closed automatically and the virus will be reactivated.

 

Vista_Error: 079 Mouse not found - A mouse driver has not been installed. Please click the left mouse button to continue.

 

Vista_Error: 103 Error buffer overflow - Too many errors encountered. Next error will not be displayed or recorded.

 

Vista_Error: 678 This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?

 

Vista_Error: 683 Time out error - Operator fell asleep while waiting for the system to complete boot procedure.

 

Vista_Error: 815 Insufficient Memory - Only 5,000 Gigawatts available

 

-- Goku

[RandyL]

I only upgraded because I had too. My Windows ME quit. Now that I have Vista thousands of dollars of my software is obsolete.

[RandyL]

Too right Goku and just too funny I might add.

[Dalo Harkin]

Goku - did you find those on the net lol

 

In terms of just being for one market - its not about that as technology advances so do the OS's and the OS drives the hardware.

 

My point being you buy new technology when you old one dies - if you have a PC that dies - and you go and get a new one and get a choice of XP or VISTA - you go with Vista as its future proof - well as much as PC's and components are anyway :D

[Goku]

Of course I found them on the net. I don't have the creativity to invent my own!

 

When it comes to buying a new computer, I would surely go for Vista. But what about upgrading existing units. If I wer to upgrade to Vista, I would definitely need much newer hardware. What I want to say is that should people scrap their current PCs they once considered high-end to upgrade to Vista so that Microsoft throws in a newer Operating System in the market till you get used to it? The answer is no. So, if it comes to buying a new computer, the user should ask for Vista but in existing units XP will be enough for them. :)

 

-- Goku

[RandyL]

I bought Vista instead of XP because of the life cycle of support. Microsoft doesn't want to support an operating system for more then 5 years if they can help it. No money in that is there?

 

But let me ask this. Would you buy a car/auto if you couldn't get parts for it 5 years after you bought it? What if your car was defective and the manufacturer knew it but since it wasn't made known to the public within 5 years they had no responsibility?

 

OK not quite the same thing as a car costs more then an OS but given that you also had to buy a new computer and you may have a ton of money tied up in obsolete software the cost could easily reach to thousands and thousands of dollars. Just to have to do it all over again.

 

Where is the consumer protection?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

A lot more business users are turning to Linux anyway these days to get away from the MS stranglehold.

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok look at it from this perspective - if we took businesses out of it - do you think more people use Vista or XP?

 

I vote Vista!

 

Randy what software are you talking about that cannot be used on Vista, that can be on XP?

[Dalo Harkin]

A lot more business users are turning to Linux anyway these days to get away from the MS stranglehold.

 

Agreed but there is a SEVERE lack of knowledge surrounding Linux systems.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

You ask Mike about Linux Dave, he loves it.

[Dalo Harkin]

I wouldn't stretch as far to say I love it - I use it, but other than that it's more stable and looks better than Windows.

[RandyL]

More people use XP because more people still have it. It's been around a long time. Most people don't want to replace a computer that works just fine until it quits working and needs replacing.

 

Then of course it's Vista as XP nears the end of support. Also it's hard to find XP OEM and will be harder still as Microsoft has finally cut off sales.

 

My software?

Let's start with Office 2000 Pro and move on to older versions of PhotoShop and PrintShop to start with. I have many others. (autocads etc.)

 

Office won't install right in any mode.

 

Other programs are buggy as hell. The functions don't all work the same, work right or work at all.

 

For instance Vista no longer supports .hlp files. I have the fix but no one else will. I'd better stop for now.

[Dalo Harkin]

Office 2000 - thats partly the reason - get 2007 - I know it's extra expense but it's the only way.

There are newer versions of all the programs you have said and as harware and OS's companies are in it to make money and they like MS they shell out new versions all the time

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I have yet to find a better way of printing envelopes other than by using good old MS Works Envelope option in the Word aspect.

[Dalo Harkin]

I just use the old fashioned way :D

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Yeah but unless your an expert in Calligraphy Dave hand written envelopes look naff.

[Dalo Harkin]

What are you saying Wolfey - did the router box writing look nice lol

well it was scribbled in a permanent marker lol

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Actually I should have edited my last post to reflect that, sorry mate.

 

Yes it was very legible indeed. :)