rickman wrote:
> On Jun 16, 9:07 pm, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@removethispacbell.net>
> wrote:
>> rickman wrote:
>>> I have been looking to buy a new computer for a bit and I had just
>>> about decided on a Windows XP based system from Dell.  Today I called
>>> them and found that not only are they not going to sell XP machines
>>> after tomorrow, but the orders are flooding in!  It seems pretty crazy
>>> to me that if XP is still that popular, they would stop selling it.
>>> Is this something mandated by MicroSoft?
>> http://www.dell.com/dellhasanswers
>>
>> Quote: "After June 18th you have the option to purchase Windows Vista
>> Business or Windows Vista Ultimate with a downgrade service to Windows
>> XP Professional."
>>
>> So it seems not all is lost.
> 
> But that means you have to pay for Vista *and* you have to pay for
> XP.   They call this *Vista Bonus*... talk about a marketing scheme!
> 

Yep, seems they want to milk you for more money.

> 
>>> So the question is, is Vista ready for prime time?  I have heard
>>> nothing but bad about it and I know that a lot of software vendors
>>> have yet to support it... at least the last time I looked.  Are the
>>> rumors true of Vista being a PITA or just plain incompatible?  Is it
>>> time to switch to Linux?
>>> What experiences have people had with Vista?
>> I don't have any because I opted not to use Vista. Heard and read about
>> too many incompatibilities WRT legacy software, DOS full-screen and
>> such. Also, I've heard of people who bought a stash of XP licenses just
>> in case.
> 
> I have a problem with paying Microsoft twice for an OS on the same
> machine.  This really is putting me off the whole idea of buying a
> windows amachine at all.  We'll see if it can actually push me over
> the edge to Linux though.
> 

May be ok as long as you don't have to do engineering work with it. I 
found that some of the software I need doesn't come in Linux versions.

It appears one can still buy XP though:
http://store.purplus.net/miwixpprwofa.html

They also have the cheaper home edition. If this continues places like 
Dell might have actually shot themselves into the foot by letting MS 
force them to accept Vista. Because potential buyers might be better off 
with the local PC shop that can put XP on without a cost penalty. If MS 
then curbs the sale of licenses then a gray market will pop up if it 
hasn't already.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:48:48 +0100, "DaveN" <D...@DaveN.COM> wrote:


>Don't really use Fedora much though apart from booting in now and again to 
>get all the latest updates which are certainly much more frequent and larger 
>in sixe than the XP or Vista updates!

Fedora is a lot of fun, and relatively cutting edge since it's
intentionally a development/test distro, with new versions every six
months or so. And you're right, one had better have a decent sized pipe
to stay up to date with the various updates. The cost of being a
pioneer, I guess.

For stable releases, but perhaps less glamour, try Gentoo, Mandriva,
Debian, or Centos. For a wilder ride, look around http://distrowatch.org
for some of the lesser known releases.

>Somebody also mentioned open office, I tried that a year ago and it kinda 
>looked ok at first, but the more I used it the more inadequate I found it. 
>I couldn't even create captions and references to those captions in the WP 
>app so gave up as it made it useless for writing any sort of report. 
>MSOffice is still way better than anything else I've seen and in my view for 
>my business is well worth the money.

Softmaker has a commercial "office suite," available for Windows as well
as Linux, that is a pretty close match for the MS products.
http://www.softmaker.com/english/

But also check out AbiWord http://www.abisource.com/ as a word
processing alternative on Linux (and now, I see they have a Windows
version as well). I still use WordPerfect and AbiWord had the best WP
import among the Linux word processors that I tried.

-- 
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

On 17 Jun., 09:06, David Brown <da...@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:
> rickman wrote:
> > On Jun 16, 10:29 pm, Jim Granville <no.s...@designtools.maps.co.nz>
> > wrote:
> >> =A0 That is likely also the legal framework, behind the note Joerg foun=
d :
>
> >> Quote: "After June 18th you have the option to purchase Windows Vista
> >> Business or Windows Vista Ultimate with a downgrade (sic) service to
> >> Windows XP Professional."
>
> > No, this is what they call "Vista Bonus" which is the most expensive
> > version. =A0In essence, you are paying for both versions of the OS.
>
> > Rick
>
> I don't think you are paying for both versions of the OS - you are
> paying MS for a single OS license, and you are paying Dell for the
> "downgrade service". =A0At least, that's how I interpret the wording.
>

yes, with Vista ultima and Business you have always had the option to
install XP instead, Dell just added the option that they can do it for
you
for a fee

and afair only ultima and Business can connect to a domain


> You can also think of it as a simple price increase - after all, XP is
> worth a lot more than Vista.

-Lasse

Tim Wescott wrote:
> Tomás Ó hÉilidhe wrote:
>> On Jun 17, 1:53 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I have been looking to buy a new computer for a bit and I had just
>>> about decided on a Windows XP based system from Dell.  Today I called
>>> them and found that not only are they not going to sell XP machines
>>> after tomorrow, but the orders are flooding in!  It seems pretty crazy
>>> to me that if XP is still that popular, they would stop selling it.
>>> Is this something mandated by MicroSoft?
>>>
>>> So the question is, is Vista ready for prime time?  I have heard
>>> nothing but bad about it and I know that a lot of software vendors
>>> have yet to support it... at least the last time I looked.  Are the
>>> rumors true of Vista being a PITA or just plain incompatible?  Is it
>>> time to switch to Linux?
>>>
>>> What experiences have people had with Vista?
>>
>>
>> I do a bit of "computer doctor" on the side for extra dosh. I hate
>> hate hate hate hate hate when I'm presented with a Vista machine. It's
>> an absolute hog of an operating system, ridiculously slow and full of
>> all sorts of "features" that hinder your every attempt to productively
>> use a computer. A lot of applications that worked perfectly with XP
>> simply won't work with Vista, even simple applications like Collins
>> English Dictionary. Plus it's slow, real slow. Plus Control Panel has
>> been given a disgusting overhaul so that even the most mentally
>> retarded people can use it, which is detrimental to the power user.
>>
>> Avoid Vista like the plague. If you can't get XP on the machine, then
>> just get Vista and then do one of the following:
>>     1) Pay extra for the super duper version of Vista, because with
>> the super duper version, Microsoft will give you a free license for
>> Windows XP if you decide to downgrade.
>>     2) If you're "honest": Get normal Vista, then go out and buy XP,
>> wipe the machine and install XP.
>>     3) If you're "dishonest": Get normal Vista, then download the
>> corporate version of XP via bittorrent. The corporate version works
>> with a universal CD key, and works perfectly without restriction.
>>
>> I got a laptop with Vista on it because the price was right. Two
>> guesses which of the above options I chose.
>>
>> As for Linux... well at the moment I've got Kubuntu and Backtrack
>> installed. Linux is still a long way away from replacing Windows, and
>> both sadly and frankly, I don't think a free operating system can ever
>> replace a paid-for one. Don't get me wrong, there's bucketloads of
>> fantastic free software out there, OpenVPN for example, but when it
>> comes to a great big operating system, you need to pay the lads.
>>
>> A friend of mine switched to Mac a couple of years ago and never
>> looked back. He was a power user of Windows, knew his way around the
>> system registry, did some programming with the Win32 API, but he still
>> hasn't looked back even though he had to start from scratch with Mac.
>>
>> I'd switch to Mac myself but I'm just a bit... eh... set in my ways. I
>> tried to switch to Linux but I jut got pissed off with the bugs and
>> lack of functionality and now I've pretty much given it the boot.
>> There's projects running at the moment where people are trying to get
>> Mac OS to run on normal IBM-compatible machines that normally run
>> Windows. I might give it a go at some stage... but for now I'm more
>> than happy with my heavily customised installation of XP.
> 
> Linux makes a fine 2nd OS -- I have one on my "traveling" PC, which gets 
> used for presentations, email, numerical analysis with Scilab, and 
> playing solitaire.
> 
> It helps that I do documents on OpenOffice, which works just fine and 
> dandy under Linux.
> 
> For everything else, I use XP (and I hope that Microsoft feels pressured 
> into continuing to maintain it; they've withdrawn it from the market 
> twice already to my knowledge, and have been forced to put it back).
> 
> Personally, I think that if Microsoft continues to jam Vista down the 
> collective throats of the world you'll see a lot more interest in Linux 
> and in Mackintosh.  I doubt that they've gotten quite that stupid yet, 
> though.
> 

I am not so sure considering their EOL declaration for new XP installs 
for end of this month. What I really don't understand is how big players 
like Dell could agree to that. It'll hurt them, big time. There may even 
be layoffs while the local PC wrench shops will jump for joy. Most of 
those won't have any problems "obtaining" XP for their customers while 
Dell and such will probably be contractually bound to push Vista.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Rich Webb wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:48:48 +0100, "DaveN" <D...@DaveN.COM> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Don't really use Fedora much though apart from booting in now and again to 
>> get all the latest updates which are certainly much more frequent and larger 
>> in sixe than the XP or Vista updates!
> 
> Fedora is a lot of fun, and relatively cutting edge since it's
> intentionally a development/test distro, with new versions every six
> months or so. And you're right, one had better have a decent sized pipe
> to stay up to date with the various updates. The cost of being a
> pioneer, I guess.
> 
> For stable releases, but perhaps less glamour, try Gentoo, Mandriva,
> Debian, or Centos. For a wilder ride, look around http://distrowatch.org
> for some of the lesser known releases.
> 
>> Somebody also mentioned open office, I tried that a year ago and it kinda 
>> looked ok at first, but the more I used it the more inadequate I found it. 
>> I couldn't even create captions and references to those captions in the WP 
>> app so gave up as it made it useless for writing any sort of report. 
>> MSOffice is still way better than anything else I've seen and in my view for 
>> my business is well worth the money.
> 
> Softmaker has a commercial "office suite," available for Windows as well
> as Linux, that is a pretty close match for the MS products.
> http://www.softmaker.com/english/
> 

Good price. However, it seems to lack one part of an office suite that 
is essential for anyone who has to do their own book keeping: A 
database. I could not work without that.


> But also check out AbiWord http://www.abisource.com/ as a word
> processing alternative on Linux (and now, I see they have a Windows
> version as well). I still use WordPerfect and AbiWord had the best WP
> import among the Linux word processors that I tried.
> 


-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

larwe wrote:

[...]

> BTW you haven't yet mentioned the fact that 60% of the drivers for
> embedded dev hardware are unsigned. Vista 32-bit will not by default
> allow you to load unsigned drivers (though it is possible to coerce
> it). Vista 64-bit will not load unsigned drivers, period.
> 

Which begs the question: What were they thinking up there in Redmond?

It's almost like offering a car and telling the cusotmers "Oh, and by 
the way, it won't be able to pass smog".

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:13:53 -0700, Joerg
<n...@removethispacbell.net> wrote:

>Good price. However, it seems to lack one part of an office suite that 
>is essential for anyone who has to do their own book keeping: A 
>database. I could not work without that.

True that. Fortunately, the OOo database app interoperates pretty well
with the old MS Access databases that I have kicking around. 

-- 
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

The design philosophy behind Vista appears to be to put the
wants and needs of the record producers and movie studios 
above those of the user.  Do a web search on [ Vists DRM ] 
and you will see what I am talking about.

I recently bought a Vista-based laptop and a retail boxed copy 
of XP.  Turns out that the laptop manufacturer deleted all of
the XP drivers from their website.  Doing a websearch for the 
drivers turned up page after page of sites that linked to the
now-missing drivers on the manufacturer's website.  I finally
found the drivers on the manufacturer's European website.

Without the drivers, I had no Ethernet, wireless networking,
sound or SD card reader, and the display had limited resolution.
I figure that Microsoft pressured them into deleting the XP 
drivers to force users to use Vista, and that they won't write
any XP drivers for the next generation of laptops. 

-- 
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>;

On Jun 17, 3:55=A0pm, langw...@fonz.dk wrote:

> and afair only ultima and Business can connect to a domain


Mother of Mercy.

Are you're telling me that normal Vista won't let you go into network
neighbourhood and browse through file shares, printer shares, etc..

If so, that's thoroughly disgusting. If so, I'm now going to start a
hate campaign against Vista.

In article <d...@giganews.com>, 
j...@gmail.com says...
> >I have been looking to buy a new computer for a bit and I had just
> >about decided on a Windows XP based system from Dell.  Today I called
> >them and found that not only are they not going to sell XP machines
> >after tomorrow, but the orders are flooding in!  It seems pretty crazy
> >to me that if XP is still that popular, they would stop selling it.
> >Is this something mandated by MicroSoft?
> >
> >So the question is, is Vista ready for prime time?  I have heard
> >nothing but bad about it and I know that a lot of software vendors
> >have yet to support it... at least the last time I looked.  Are the
> >rumors true of Vista being a PITA or just plain incompatible?  Is it
> >time to switch to Linux?
> >
> >What experiences have people had with Vista?
> >
> >Rick
> >
> 
> Rick I've run Vista for quite some time and although there are those who
> absolutely despise it, if you approach it with an open mind its not nearly
> as bad as what you've heard.  There are a bunch more "bells and whistles"
> to turn off than XP had

A rather large value of 'bunch more'..


> but Vista is capable of good performance. 

On a MUCH higher spec system, the only true comparison is same 
application loaded on identical machines and timed doing the same tasks.
My experience of mine and a VERY small number of my customers, is it is
more awkward to setup as you want. Don't get me started on DRM screw ups.

> Somethings you will like better than XP somethings you will not.  There are

Windows Mail (Outlook Express on Vista) is partly improved in message 
storage where email folders are actual folders and emails are stored
in seperate files. The importing is a pain from other systems/paackages.

Windows Calendar import from other systems especially using Outlook
WITHOUT a server is a nightmare. Mind you import/export and inability to
import AND export the same formats is a pain between even Micro$oft 
products.

> some incompatibilities just as their was when XP was new but these are
> becoming less and less common.  There are few reasons to upgrade to Vista
> but also few reasons to go back to XP.  It is the future and we'll all have
> to get used to it eventually.

It is yet another pain in the proverbial for things that have to have 
10 years plus support, as in a lot of places this means rebuilding and
VERIFYING the outputs match for all stages of projects. That is if you
can still get the package and/or hardware for something bought 5+ years
ago with company buyouts and EOL on product lines.

One of the things I recently worked on for a customer was part of their
contract with their customer which lasts TWENTY years!

For real fun commentary, (you need the sound turned up)

    http://tinyurl.com/28yfmh

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | p...@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>;    PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/>; Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>;  GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>; For those web sites you hate