Microsoft offering UPGRADE from Vista to XP

Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Location: In the Goatshed in Melbourne

Local vendors gear for Vista downgrade

Fran Foo | July 02, 2008

CONSUMERS will have to pay between $21 and $83 to downgrade from Windows Vista to Microsoft's older operating system, XP.
Microsoft has been struggling to convince Windows XP users to embrace Vista and PC makers have shunned the new operating system as well due to negative feedback from customers. The new platform, they claim, is too bloated and slow when compared with its predecessor.

Microsoft unveiled the corporate edition of Vista on November 30, 2006 and the consumer equivalent on January 29, 2007.

In a bid to boost Vista's sales, Microsoft had set June 30, 2008 as the last day for PC makers to sell machines preloaded with Windows XP - with the exception of low-cost systems such as the Asus Eee PC.

Microsoft decides which operating systems run on specific hardware. As a result, business and home users will be subject to different rules, and most corporate clients wanting to ditch Vista can do so for free.

The country's largest PC supplier, Hewlett-Packard, will offer Windows XP free to its business clients.

"HP will be offering the downgrade to Windows XP from Windows Vista on our business desktops, notebooks and workstations until July 30 next year," Rob Kingston, HP Australia's PSG Commercial Products manager, said. "We won't be charging our customers for this."

But HP's home users will have to fend for themselves, as all consumer machines come with Vista. Should they choose to install Windows XP instead, they would have to bear the cost.

At Dell Australia, the purchase of a Vostro desktop, laptop or XPS gaming system will incur a downgrade fee of between $US20 ($21) and $US50.

Lenovo Australia says select Vista models will ship with an XP CD.

"Microsoft will allow us to continue putting these CDs in the box until January 31, 2009," a Lenovo spokesman said. "However, the majority of PCs we ship don't have the CD. If a customer purchases a Vista system and wishes to downgrade, they can contact our help centre."

Lenovo customers will have to pay $82.50 for the XP CD.

Asus Australia has no plans to charge customers to switch from Vista to XP. "XP is not included in the package so this is based on customers sourcing their own valid XP CD and licence," the company's notebook product manager, Albert Liang, said.

"The licensing agreement for the Eee PC is separate to the standard Windows PCs and notebooks agreement, therefore the June 30 deadline does not affect the Eee PC."

According to Microsoft Australia, customers will receive mainstream support for Windows XP until April 2009. "They will be able to receive extended support under Microsoft's extended support policy until April 2014," a spokesperson said.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23956544-15306,00.html

Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Location: Western Sydney

Maybe consumers can pay the money to down grade on more RAM that will run Vista better.

The issue here is not Microsoft, it is hardware vendors who want to be able to flog off cheap low spec systems, they do not want there customers coming back and saying Vista runs slow so they chuck XP on it to hide the fact they are selling slow low end products.

I have been running Vista x64 for about a year. No problems

My family have 3 new low end HP laptops, all runing Vista Home. No problems it works OK for them.

I wonder in 5 years time when the new windows is out (Windows 7 is it) yes it will be late, will we be having this same argument that where people will roll back to Vista or XP.

Joined: 23 Jun 2004

And if you switch off all the fancy features and set to a theme like xp and set the computer for maximum performance then you can run vista no problems

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

toaddog wrote:

And if you switch off all the fancy features and set to a theme like xp and set the computer for maximum performance then you can run vista no problems

so whats the point, you may as well just have XP

Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Location: South Australia

bogged wrote:

toaddog wrote:

And if you switch off all the fancy features and set to a theme like xp and set the computer for maximum performance then you can run vista no problems

so whats the point, you may as well just have XP

ongoing support, can turn the settings up when you upgrade, manufacturers may stop publishing drivers for XP (try running windows 2000 sometime!)

Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Location: Acting the goat.

I couldn't get my laptop running Vista, to recognise my BT dongle. I found out that Vista doesn't support BT. SP2 will have it apparently.

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

bad_religion_au wrote:

... ongoing support, can turn the settings up when you upgrade, manufacturers may stop publishing drivers for XP

they are suppporting XP until 2013, they will have 2 more versions of windows fail by then.... MS will be going down hill and we will all be on linux or googles online office gig

Joined: 15 Jan 2004 Location: Melbourne

BowTieGQ wrote:

I couldn't get my laptop running Vista, to recognise my BT dongle. I found out that Vista doesn't support BT. SP2 will have it apparently.

I run 64 bit Vista and it's fine with bluetooth. Alot of older drivers won't work on Vista so you need to upgrade the drivers to get alot of bluetooth stuff working.

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: Townsville

My HP mini laptop with Vista32 business runs BT fine...

Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Location: Land of Plenty

BowTieGQ wrote:

I couldn't get my laptop running Vista, to recognise my BT dongle. I found out that Vista doesn't support BT. SP2 will have it apparently.

cough...bullsh!t...cough

Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Location: South Australia

blkmav wrote:

BowTieGQ wrote:

I couldn't get my laptop running Vista, to recognise my BT dongle. I found out that Vista doesn't support BT. SP2 will have it apparently.

cough...bullsh!t...cough

no, it's true... kind of.

Some companies supply stand alone bluetooth drivers for their dongles, BUT many 3rd party/smaller companies use a generic driver/bluetooth interface (can't remember the name of it), and it's THAT interface/driver package that vista isn't supporting.

so just because your "sony" or whatever brand dongle works, that just means the company has proprietary software/drivers for it, NOT that all users can use bluetooth.

Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Location: South Australia

bogged wrote:

bad_religion_au wrote:

... ongoing support, can turn the settings up when you upgrade, manufacturers may stop publishing drivers for XP

they are suppporting XP until 2013, they will have 2 more versions of windows fail by then.... MS will be going down hill and we will all be on linux or googles online office gig

same shit they said with win95/98 when XP came out too.

Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Location: Newcastle, NSW

Free Software FTW

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

bad_religion_au wrote:

bogged wrote:

bad_religion_au wrote:

... ongoing support, can turn the settings up when you upgrade, manufacturers may stop publishing drivers for XP

they are suppporting XP until 2013, they will have 2 more versions of windows fail by then.... MS will be going down hill and we will all be on linux or googles online office gig

same shit they said with win95/98 when XP came out too.

and they were right.. ME was such a good OS..

Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Location: In the Goatshed in Melbourne

bogged wrote:

same shit they said with win95/98 when XP came out too.

and they were right.. ME was such a good OS..[/quote]

Laughing

Fark I made so much money out of ME. Dozens of people wanting to go back to 98se armsup

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

AJFeroza wrote:

bogged wrote:

same shit they said with win95/98 when XP came out too.

and they were right.. ME was such a good OS..

Fark I made so much money out of ME. Dozens of people wanting to go back to 98se armsup

[/quote]did you send a thank you letter to Bill? #Rofl