If you are of a mind to sign a petition to extend the marketing life of XP, consider visiting www.savexp.com.

I've read where support will be around until 2014 for XP.. by then Vista will have been replaced (probably with another dog OS).
I seriously am thinking Mac for the next computer...

I'm not on the attack, but will you explain to me why folks want XP continued instead of switching to Vista?

Vista is slightly more stable, is more secure, and is better suited for networking environments. I understand folks are upset with the graphics requiring more resources but 90% of those can be disabled....

Just Wondering.

Derek...the kid who uses XP through his Parallels on his Apple but also has Vista loaded....

I personally have no experience with Vista, so maybe I'm just following the 'Bash Vista' crowd, but I have heard nothing good about Vista.. D, you're the only one I know who says it's more stable... I know my daughter is constantly having to reboot her puter with Vista... she attends classes for Cal State Fullerton's online nursing MBA program and has lost all her work several times... she's so frustrated with it...

More stable... not in the experience of most who have tried it. And it's definitely not ready for corporate prime time.

Stability can be a function of the programs operating?

That's always true. But the OS must be able to handle them. See "real world" LOL.

I'm going on a year with my current Dell Inspiron 640m. It has Vista.

In all honesty, I don't think I've had to reboot any more than I had to with my previous Dell, which ran XP. My usage is more frequent/often than what I would consider typical. This is my business computer, which sees no less than 80hrs/week. More often than not, the number exceeds that. I have had the computer on for stints of 10 days at a time, without needing a reboot.

In all honesty, I'm not sure if it I was just sick of XP, or I wanted something new. But I'm pleased with Vista.

When I ran Vista on a daily bases, which was last Summer before I bought my MacBook, I had the same experience as F14. Vista integrates and array of handy built in features.

I ran Office 2007, AVG Free, and many other smaller programs. I installed Acrobat 6 but it was not Vista compatible so I dumped it.

I tend to think the REAL world needs to advance to modern times. If you're running out of date software packages, I think that your software package is the problem, NOT Vista. I think it's royally unfair to expect an operating system to improve on the old system, the old problems, yet not expect to use modernized software to go with it.

Is Vista the problem or is it the software that is 10 years old or based off 10 year old technology?

IMHO...it's not Vista.

C'mon D-Rod; I bet Vista still has 10 year old APIs in there.

And from a corporate perspective, if we upgraded to Vista, we would have to use Office 2007, and Microsoft did to Office what they did to Vista. Older versions of Office won't run.

The real problem is that for some unknown but stupid reason, Microsoft really changed the functionality of Office - so much so that I now need to send all my users to training - to use a word processor software that they have been using for 20 years.

That ain't gonna happen. Part of me thinks that Microsoft changed the functionality just to get more revenue for training.

In the REAL world, the application should dictate the operating system; not the other way around. Corporate America doesn't buy computers to play with an operating system - they buy computers to perform a function. The operating system simply provides a means to perform that function. When the system centers around the operating system rather than the application, as in the case of Vista, then its a means run amok.

We have one application that cost about $150K. Having to change out that application just to work with an operating system is asinine.

For these reasons, Vista will never make it in the business world - unless some things change. A lot of IT Managers are going to be fired if they start putting Vista into the corporate world.

Funny... we can still get new computers with XP loaded on them. We have a corporate select license with Microsoft, and we have not had any indication that XP won't continue to be available.

We just by-pass the gains with the new systems? Office 2007 is much better than 2003 in my opinion. Yes, it is a little goofy at first with it's different layout, but once learned, it *IS* more efficient. Word 2007 with a basic user can do many things that previously required InDesign (expensive). The new XML filing format is lightyears better than the old system. The multiple user system is where the gains are...a productive work environment managed by a computer with simple logins for users...not 15 million thumb drives, 17 million versions walking around on 5 different backup servers. The direction Microsoft is headed is the correct direction, IMHO.

And for 150,000k software that needs old equipment, use old equipment. Why should the rest of the World be stuck because there is still SOME antique software that has not be overhauled?

DOS 3.2 and WordPerfect 4.2

Who could want or need more???

ME!

OK...we'll through Lotus 1-2-3 in there too for spreadsheet work!

Eh Google's applications are 10^infinity times better than those antique [censored] programs.

I get the feeling i'm upsetting you guys. Microsoft has to be competitive. Google's system will run them out of the water in a hurry if they can't provide more features!

That's the "real world" there. Try to convince a 62 yr old admin assistant that would rather be using an IBM Selectric that she needs to use this "better" operating system and word processor. Most real world business work is simple documents of very few pages that don't need to do fancy table of contents, foot notes, etc. much less XML formatting, HTML coding and such.

It's the 21st century! We're going to get more advanced. Whether the 62 year old assistant jumps aboard or not, it's not changing the fact we're going to continue to advance! In another thread I stated that ALL engineers at KU are ran through a programming class. They're thinking about increasing it. It doesn't matter whether you're chemical engineer, nuclear, petroleum, civil, mechanical, architectural, computer, electrical. I suggest we get off the "lets not move forward notion" and move forward before the US is left behind in the dust, the the younger population overtakes the older population in the industry!

I think the problem is you are judging these products from the vantage point of a very technology literate college student vs what 90% of corporate world users are. You can make all the tweaks and adjustments I recall you recommending to another Vista user to get a stable platform. After 15 or 20 yrs supporting these products, sometimes change ain't always good.

D-Rod; you are such a young spirit - but you have no idea what the corporate environment is - you'll have to trust us on this.

As HB said, most people do not have the need for fancy word processing features. In fact, the more they tend to "play" with things, when all the boss wants is a simple letter, the more they risk getting yelled at for wasting time.

Ever since Microsoft introduced the "squiggly" red spell-check feature way back in Word 6 - there has been no need for any word processor improvement. The fact that Microsoft can still make money on a word processor is truly amazing.

And I am not saying change is not needed - but change for change's sake is not good. Not all change is a move forward. Afterall, if Microsoft isn't selling "new" software, they make no money. So Microsoft pushes "new and improved" software, and make my users have to be retrained to use a word processor, because they have to do that to make money. Maybe Microsoft is a victim of their own success, I don't know, but I do know that there better be a vaild reason for change.

That $150K application is on new hardware by the way; its not an antique application. Its also a client-server application. While there is a trend away from this model to web applications, the application's performance demands the client/server model, because it is a real-time data collection system.

The application just doesn't need Vista on the workstations to run, and there is no value added to the application by upgrading to Vista, and we see no value in paying the development costs to "upgrade". There can be a real risk here by taking a critical application to the "bleeding edge". We're not talking games and word processors here. Some software is such that lives can literally depend on it working properly.

And we have a very integrated network, which doesn't need any of the thumb-drive stuff you are suggesting. In my view, Vista doesn't really bring much of anything new to the table, other than having to upgrade a lot of the application software.

We have a very comprehensive in-house lab-tested hardening process that makes our systems very secure. In fact, the biggest security problem that exists is not the operating system - its the keyboard pushers.

If you cannot produce valid reasons to the boss to "upgrade", you are not going to go far in your career. If I tried to "sell" Vista to the boss, and I could not give him a very good example of why we need to replace the $150K system; he is going to take quite a dim view if I tell him "buddy, you better get with the program".

But that will never happen because I don't ever plan on upgrading to Vista corporately. And I am not alone; there are leigons of my counterparts that never plan on changing to Vista.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that Vista should die for the sake of XP. If Vista floats your boat, have at it. But in the professional world Vista doesn't even get out of the gate for all the reasons Al very eloquently explained. All I'm saying is, for the foreseeable future, XP needs to stay around. God knows Microshaft makes enough money to support both.

I had dinner the other night with a fellow who is writing code for the successor program to Vista. He spent ten minutes apologizing for Vista, putting it in the 'Window ME' category, and assuring me that the follow-up program is going to be very tight, very stable, on time, and with an emphasis on solidity rather than bells and whistles.

Whether they can do it remains to be seen---but that's the word from a programmer at Microsoft.

Just the new PowerPoint functionality in Office 2007 makes it a must have for me. The new smart graphics are awesome. I am not the artistic type but now I have really nice looking presentations.

*Unnecessary response....

I can't imagine the cost my school district would entail trying to upgrade to Vista. A very tiny percentage of our current machines are able to run it, the ones that can are in the video editing labs.

So, as others mentioned, between hardware, software and training costs, I don't even want to think about that bill. I'm certain the local taxpayers don't want to hear about it.

Windows bloatware drives me nuts. Wife got Office 2007 and you can't even read it on Office 2003 unless you save it twice, once as "2003 Office". That is just nuts.

And have you looked at how much space Vista takes up? Jeeeez...

I'll admit that I don't want to go back to Windows 3.1 that took up just under 4 MB of space on my huge 140MB hdd. And I had to set up the DOS kernal so that I could optimize the 640kb of RAM there. Boy, those WEREN'T the days.

But todays programs are insanely bloated, needlessly so.

BTW, 4 year old laptop and 2 year old desktop both with XP Pro, neither has ever crashed for any reason I can remember.

If you can switch to Apple, do it. Once you go Mac, you'll never go back.

Baloney! Used Mac at work for two years and couldn't wait to get back to 'work'. You guys are up to what, 3% of the market???

(Yeah fine---not an even playing field. But it woulda been different if Steve had known the difference between hardware and software...)

I hear ya, as I "learned" on a PC. But trust me on this. Go to an Apple store and test drive 'em. Things are different now.

In fact, I use Quicken 2008 Home/Business for the PC on my MAC because the MAC version of Quicken sucks. Point is, there's nothing it won't read...Office etc., unlike years before.