Clock ticking for Windows XP sales

Slow migration

Hopefully that will start to force corporates to also address their policies.

If users start using Windows 7 at home, they are going to become ever more demoralised at work, when they have to work with the "clunky old" machines in the office - it was the same with the transition from DOS to Windows 3 and from Windows 3 to Windows 95/NT and yet again with 2000/XP - the 2000 user interface update for NT4 was always popular, as it made it feel more modern.

We are rolling out Windows 7 with new machines here, but our old kit is too underspecified to update (Athlon 1.6 or Pentium 4 with 256MB RAM), so we are replacing them with new Windows 7 machines as and when the opportunity arises. So far, we have only had positive feedback from users.

Luckily, we work in a, mainly, Microsoft environment, with few legacy applications to worry about - apart from a dBase DOS databases and a Canon Lide scanner...

By big_D on 9 Sep 2010

The major drag

...for us upgrading to W7 is a shonky build of, ironically, Microsoft Navision v4 that won't run on it. Go figure.

By nichomach0 on 9 Sep 2010

MS forcing their wares again

It's interesting how some people see things differently - having to 'work with the "clunky old" machines' is not the way I see it! Any machine specified for Windows 7 will fly with Windows XP, and I find XP is easier to maintain too. Keep it simple (or as simple as possible) I say! The "eye candy" of Vista/'7 (let's not forget that '7 is just a revamped Vista) is fine for a home PC, but it's something I can easily do without when I need a reliable PC to get a business critical job done. If there are no more XP machines available, maybe it's time to re-evaluate whether Linux isn't a better option. To pot with the MS monopoly; I'm fed up conforming to Microsoft's latest incarnation of how they want us to do things - take note Microsoft; I'm not a PC, I'm a human being, and proud of it.

By AceBain on 9 Sep 2010

Agree with AceBain

Big_D gives no reasons for his enthusiasm for W7.
Personally, I resent being forced to pay more for a new OS for no evident benefit, particularly as "upgrades" lead to even more expense on hardware enhancements/replacements. I do a modestly-specified machine running W98SE mainly to use a SCSI film scanner (though it has plenty else running on it too). Its boot-up and close-down speeds, in particular, are a revelation after working with XP.
I do wonder if an annual licence for running an OS would be preferable to "buying" them. Then the likes of MS could continue receiving modest payment from us dinosaurs in return for basic security/bugfix support. They wouldn't need to contrive new bells and whistles that many of us don't want simply to cajole us into buying a shiny new OS every few years.

By Walsallian on 9 Sep 2010

Keep extending XP

I am glad to hear that XP is being extended. I checked whether Windows 7 would run my software and found that most of it could not be run with Windows 7, including even my Microsoft keyboard! What price progress?

By Paul_Sandford on 27 Sep 2010