# Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?



## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

Microsoft announced that Windows 7 was to be released soon...and that it would eclipse Vista. Normally, Microsoft supports the current OS and one version back with patches. I run with Vista (ugh) but a lot of my friends and business acquaintances still run XP. Has anyone heard whether MS is going to continue to support XP?


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## ShadsTrains (Dec 27, 2007)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

End of support for Windows XP with service pack 3 is in 2014... Plenty of time to upgrade..


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

I have a newish lap top (May 2008) that was "downgraded"? to XP from Vista. 

It was a bit flaky on start up at times until service pack 3 was installed. Now it works flawlessly. Touch wood!!! 
Jen will be buying a low cost full size lap top thsi week whilst the prices are low and it will have XP fitted from the get go. So it is good news to me that XP will be supported until 2014.


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## thespottedcat (Jan 2, 2008)

The official release date for 7 is still 2010. 
I wouldn't hold your breath, the dates tend to slip, and they need to get this right.

Buy a Mac, or Vista Pro/ business, which you can downgrade to XP. 

Stan


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

So you can still (in reality) upgrade a Vista system by (officially) downgrading it to XP?  
good to know! 

I might be looking for a new home PC soon..in the next year or so.. 
I would definately want to go with XP.. 
is XP still available on new machines? 

thanks, 
Scot


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

It is here in Australia. 

Most netbooks come with with XP Pro as do some full size laptops and desktops. 
You do have to shop around.


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## Esppe Pete (Jan 21, 2008)

Apple is Pounding Vista with TV adds, I would not be surprised if the Launch a new Windows OS sooner than 2010.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Scottychaos on 10/29/2008 5:39 AM
So you can still (in reality) upgrade a Vista system by (officially) downgrading it to XP? " src="http://www.mylargescale.com/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/wink.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /> 
good to know! 

I might be looking for a new home PC soon..in the next year or so.. 
I would definately want to go with XP.. 
is XP still available on new machines? 

thanks, 
Scot 



Scot,

I believe Microsoft continued to supply XP until July this year, and there is a deal with Dell (and others?) that allows you to buy a machine with Vista Business or Professional and 'downgrade' it to XP. I don't believe XP is available on new machines, and Microsoft has this really irritating habit of recalling all copies of their older product off the retailer shelves - so you can't buy XP CDs at a store.

If you can get a legal XP CD (some retailers kept them and sell them - try your local computer show) then the instructions for the downgrade are online. Just reformat your hard drive, get the right disk drivers, and away you go...


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## pimanjc (Jan 2, 2008)

SP3 was installed on my XP Mediacenter laptop. Now I have drag and drop problems to FTP web sites like the MLS webspace, from my networked storrage drives. To date, Microsoft has not found a solution to the problem.
JimC.


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## paintjockey (Jan 3, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

What is the problem with vista? I honestly don't know. I have it, but must not use it enough to see the problems. So far to me, other than moving the butons around it seems just like XP, which seemed just like '98 which seemed just like '97....... The biggest bummer for me was that some of my video games quit working and there is no patch anymore.


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## ohioriverrailway (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

http://www.3btech.net/ offers PCs with XP. I've had pretty good experiences with these folks, both in getting parts and in having them build PCs for me.


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## peter bunce (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi, 

XP is likely to be around fort a while: Microsoft has increased the length of its 'support' - it was till 2010; now its 2014 as has been mentioned. 

Microsoft had (in the UK) insisted on computers sellers bundling Vista with everything, that was modified to a possible choice of an alternative of XP supplied but NOT loaded (as my new computer and guess what it was loaded with XP pronto!). That has changed and there are a few (UK) computer makers now offering XP instead of Vista (which has/had(?) very poor sales). 

The latest is that Microsoft (for the last 4 years ) are looking at 'cloud computing' (download or use web based programs, not' bought' programs - think of Google apps) and also the supposed Windows 7 is in effect a 'spares bin' fixup- the centre engines of Vista, with the drivers etc of Windows 2000 wrapped around it. (Using Vista, if you can't get drivers for your old equipment try a windows 2000 driver - it may work!).


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By paintjockey on 10/29/2008 10:42 AM
What is the problem with vista? I honestly don't know. I have it, but must not use it enough to see the problems. So far to me, other than moving the butons around it seems just like XP, which seemed just like '98 which seemed just like '97....... The biggest bummer for me was that some of my video games quit working and there is no patch anymore.


Simply stated...compared to the previous versions of Windows....Window's Vista sucks from a USER perspective.

a. It's biggest problem...it's SLOW!!!! It takes much longer to boot a machine up from a cold start than other Windows versions. Same is true for a start from the Hibernate mode. It's also a HUGE memory hog...I added 1G of memory to my computer (now at it's 2G max) and it runs a lot better. With only 1G of RAM, it ran unacceptably slow...swapping stuff on and off the hard drive.
b. It has an indexer (I shut it off) that allows you to search for stuff faster....problem is, the indexer runs all the time and slows the machine down further. If you run Google Desktop (which I do), the Vista indexer and the Google Desktop indexer fight for processor services...and the machine just flat crawls.
c. It uses a NEW interface for images...and older image interfaces (e.g. TWAIN interfaces to scanners or cameras) that you have become a crap shoot on whether they will work. In my case, NONE of my TWAIN interfaced devices will talk to the computer...two cameras and a scanner.
d If you have older versions of programs, you'll find the Windows Update function drives you nuts each time you boot up with it telling you an update is available for your old program...except the update that it finds is NOT compatible with Vista....and there's no way to turn that off (for that program).
e. Mine, and others I've spoken with, has this irritating issue where at startup, it logs onto my network, then drops the login, the restarts it automatically. Why I don't know. But, if you open you email program, or go to a web site, you get 404 errors all the time...until it figures out to re-login.
f. It's a crap shoot when you load and old program for it to work. Several of my GRR programs, one good one that rescaled photos, do NOT work under Vista...and the maker of the program won't upgrade the program to make it Vista compatible.


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## Bill Swindell (Jan 2, 2008)

As usual, Microsoft changed everything around. I think they do it just to upset the users and make more money. There was nothing wrong with the user interface on WIndows 98. Why can't they leave the stupid thing alone. I have my XP machine set up to look like Windows 98 and it works fine. I saw an ad the other day for the OEM version of XP Professional for $139.


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## thespottedcat (Jan 2, 2008)

I think what MS has done with XP varies country. Here in Aust, you can legally downgrade Vista Business to XP pro.
The HP's I have bought recently come with Vista installed, but with a disc to downgrade to XP. Painless, but time consuming.


You can still buy XP loaded on the sub 10" screen netbooks, (Asus EEE Pc's etc...) plus some HP laptops for some reasons


I main beefs with Vista is that it a memory hog, and that it's not very backwards compatible.

I have one dell with Vista in the fleet that has 4gb of ram to run, and that is with every "cool" feature turned off. Drivers for old printers are pigs as well.


For the average home user Vista is fine, but for business, it's very expensive to implement. The cost of re-writing our custom applications is prohibative, and I won't be doing it unless I have to.


If you dislike Vista so much, try a Mac. A third of my fleet are Macs, and I can't get the users to switch from Mac to PC. They are very stable and well built. I'm developing a soft spot for them.

Long live XP


Stan


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

While we are on the subject of irritating things. Have you guys seen the TV commercial with Seinfeld and Gates?
They are in a shoe store. It is so stupid and annoying I don't even remember what is about.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*


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## paintjockey (Jan 3, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

Torby, that is tooo funny. 
I guess i dont know enough about computers to notice the problems you guys mentioned. My vista seems to work fine for me. And yes JJ those are about the dumbest commercials I have ever seen.


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## armorsmith (Jun 1, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

Try one of the Linux distributions. 

A good portion of the Mac OS is Linux based (some directly utilized). 

Most of the Linux distributions come with Open Office (word processor, spreadsheet, etc), Gimp (Photoshop) and other good software included. 

Bob


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## Hagen (Jan 10, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

Dell still ships computers with XP-pro, officially they are installed with Vista Business, but if you order with Xp, you get XP. 
They are just not allowed to advertise for XP anymore. 
I got a phonecall from M$ yesterday actually, asking me why our business does not run Vista. I asked "Do you run Vista on yours?", "ehm, yes?", "Then you know why" " align="absmiddle" border="0" /> 
Got to give it to them though, Server 2008 is phenomenally user friendly, crap is you need a license for every person connected to the damn thing... 
Server 20000 
OS (2008), 7000 
Cost of client access licenses 30000 
Look on M$ reps face when you boot Fedora on the server: priceless 

(ooops, values are local currency, but the meaning is there " align="absmiddle" border="0" />)


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## Hagen (Jan 10, 2008)

We tried Vista in the company once, Fedora, Open Suse and Ubuntu are all easier to get working in a M$ Server 2003 environment...


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## KYYADA (Mar 24, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

Not to long ago everyone hated XP. Yes, its all a racket and all they really do is for the most part is change the timings so it slows it down so you will keep running out to buy new stuff so around and around it goes. You have to pay to play as they say. I have found turning off animations has helped alot. My laptop has a media slot and I put a 2 gig ultra II sd card in it and am using ready boost, I think it has helped a little too. Anyone else using ready boost?


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: Windows 7 is "announced"...will that mean XP dies?*

Can you 'splain, "Boost"?


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## Hagen (Jan 10, 2008)

Posted By Semper Vaporo on 11/01/2008 10:40 PM
Can you 'splain, "Boost"?

Windows Vista is capable of using USB sticks and external memory modules as "extra RAM" hence the boost


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## Rayman4449 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By paintjockey on 10/29/2008 10:42 AM
What is the problem with vista? I honestly don't know. I have it, but must not use it enough to see the problems. So far to me, other than moving the butons around it seems just like XP, which seemed just like '98 which seemed just like '97....... The biggest bummer for me was that some of my video games quit working and there is no patch anymore.


I know there was at least one reply to this but I think Vista's bad rap came from two things, 1) incompatibility with existing software when it first came out and 2) user interface as they changed everything around. 

I was one of the 'hate Vista crowd' when it very first came out because of the two reasons above. (and I mean I really hated it) To find the network card settings for instance now takes two to three steps as where before it was much more intuitive and direct. On the incompatibility, software makers for the most part have caught up and eveyone except HP has Vista drivers for their old hardware. 2 years later or so I've now gone to Vista for everying and love it. Vista is even more stable than XP was which is saying a lot as XP was really stable. I like the new features and the Ultimate version has a full IIS 7.0 web hosting package among other things. I actually found my system ran faster and better under Vista than it did under XP. Bootup was faster than before as well so I guess it just depends on what you have loaded to your system. Fortunately if you are running low on system memory, RAM (and Harddisk) prices have plummeted so you can max out your systems memory if need be for very little $.

I'm hearing that they may not release a Service Pack 2 for Vista and instead will roll out Windows 7. We'll see. 


Raymond


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2008)

*In my minds eye Vista is XP rewritten over and new look but slower than a camel crossing a desert.*
*Toad*


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