Vista

[Boss 97]

We purchased two new HP PC's with Vista, since they all come that way as of 3-1-07. Sure you get fancy new gadets on your monitor, but it also comes with lots of headaches!

The first problem was installing the HP printers that came with the units,Vista didn't have drivers for them and refused to allow the intallation CD to install the XP drivers that came with the printers. When we finally got the new Vista patches for the new HP printers and tried to network them into our local LAN, we encountered daily problems. An example is we can no longer print from an older program, such as MS Works on the new printers, it actually disables the program if you have one of the new HP printers as your default printer, even if you are on another PC. If you change the default printer to one of the older XP driver printers, then the program works fine!

We had all kinds of problems with our computers communicating with each other on our LAN and had to call in our tech for a large variety of problems created by just adding these 2 VISTA windows PCs.

Forget about using ADOBE products, PDF Factory is not compatiable,Audition 1.5 has issues with the display not being compatiable. The audio drivers are not easy to use, we had to screw around with the PC's for 2 days before the audio from the "line-in" on the PC would get past the VISTA internal program blocks to permit the audio to record on the Auditon 1.5, yes there's much more, but I think you can get the point from just these few items.

DO NOT GET VISTA WINDOWS FOR USE IN A RADIO STATION, UNLESS YOU PLAN ON GETTING ALL NEW PROGRAMS, MANY XP PROGRAMS NEED NEW DRIVERS OR WILL NOT WORK ON VISTA! THE BAD PART IS THAT UPDATED DRIVERS ARE NOT AVAILABLE YET!

[Tom Taggart]

See this which I posted over in the tech forum:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... ost.html#a

It looks like that Vista would be worthless for most of what we do.

[The-Hammer]

Dell Once Again Offers Windows XP

By JESSICA MINTZ

SEATTLE (AP) - Back by popular demand: Windows XP. PC maker Dell Inc. (DELL) (DELL) said on its Web site Thursday it will once again let home PC buyers choose between Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT)'s older operating system and Windows Vista when they purchase certain new machines.

Dell, like many computer makers, stopped offering XP on most home desktops and laptops soon after Vista launched at the end of January. By late March, the company said only two models aimed at home users could be configured with XP (the option still existed on many models for business users).

But on Dell's IdeaStorm Web site, where visitors can post suggestions for the company and vote on the ones they think are important, a plea titled "Don't eliminate XP just yet" racked up more than 10,700 votes.

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell responded in a Web posting Thursday.

The company said it will immediately offer XP again an option for four models of its Inspiron notebooks and two models of its Dimension desktop PCs.

This comes just weeks after Dell said it is also planning to offer PCs with Linux, a free operating system that competes with Windows.

"This is really odd," said Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner. "On new PCs, consumers usually do want the latest and greatest."

Microsoft countered that Dell's move was in response to a "small minority of customers" with a "specific request." Michael Burk, a product manager for Microsoft's Windows Client group, said in an e-mailed statement, "The vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista."

Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director of JupiterResearch, said many consumers continue to buy XP because it's familiar, it works with their existing hardware and programs, and is overall "good enough," even though Vista boasts a prettier user interface and stronger security.

"Microsoft is going to have to work hard to make sure that even if companies like Dell are offering XP, their customers don't want it," Gartenberg said. Now is time for the company to crank up Vista marketing, but that may be harder than it sounds.

"Operating systems inherently by nature are kind of boring," he said.

[Dave Loudin]

People pay good money for those Gartner and JupiterResearch nuggets?

[fearpeddler]

MS is really droppin the ball, I remember buyin my mac rouglht 7 months before the OSX dropped, I was kinda upset that I didnt get any kind of update offered or anything at the time when i purchased my machine, but roughly 6 months after OSX had been on the shelves I get a package in the mail from apple and u know waht? It was a full version of X ready to install.... thats a company for you, Apple may be expensive but at least they understand the value of your dollar too..

[Tom Taggart]

Microsoft don't give a shit!

They assume that Vista will dominate simply because they won't sell or support anything else. The Customer be dammed.

[sportsvoice]

Microsoft don't give a shit!

They assume that Vista will dominate simply because they won't sell or support anything else. The Customer be dammed.

OEM's are cut off from XP in a couple months too, I guess.

If it wasn't such a bitch to find codecs and drivers I would use Linux for more of my computing needs. My general browing and email as well as typing this post is being done on my old faithful home-brewed Athlon 1100 white box running Fedora.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Microsoft don't give a shit!

They assume that Vista will dominate simply because they won't sell or support anything else. The Customer be dammed.

Sorta like the NAB and IBOC ...