Most of the customers I support on the side are small to medium businesses who use very expensive, very picky, and very unforgiving proprietary software (doctors' offices, construction companies, accounting firms, etc.) This proprietary software, which works great under 2000 or XP, either won't work at all on Vista or will require a very expensive upgrade.

I get the little newsletters from the companies that make these software packages and most of them say "Do not try to run product xxxx on Vista. Internal testing has concluded that Vista is not compatible with the current version of our software."

So the real scenario is that most of these businesses will not upgrade since the package they paid a fortune for works and does everything they need under 2000/XP. Plus, most have extra licenses for their software packages, so adding another PC won't make them buy a new version of the software. But what happens in a year or so when they get another employee, need a new computer and can only get it loaded with Vista, not XP? Should I send Microsoft a bill for their software package upgrade?

I smell a ton of BS in those lines.

I think what MS really means is that no "mainstream" grade systems will have a XP license in 2008.

The business-grade systems will have the option of XP until it officially sunshines for business ring. IIRC, it is sometime in 2011.

Everything in Vista is tied to Media Center and other fully proprietary bloatware. Beyond that I tried to get things like WinDVD to work on a Vista dual boot system and it could not even display standard mpeg files that work perfectly on XP WinDVD.


What are you talking about? WinDVD 8 runs just fine on Vista. So do the new Nero and Roxio suites. And the Vista Media Center is pretty damn sweet. If you're pissed that you can't steal content as easily as before, don't blame M$, blame the content producers that hold the licenses that M$ and Apple need to offer HD content. Does anyone really think Billy G. or Stevie J. give a rat's ass about content-protection, other than to let users access those media formats through their OSes?

XP is already hard to get from White Box OEMs over here, the price jumped up by 30% over night when Vista was released.

Most of our government clients are mid way through rolling out a custom code checked version of XP SP1a with IE6 (big update from NT4 SP4). SP2 is scheduled to start rollout in Nov 07. But thats what you get for being on the DRN.

2 smaller clients have rolled out Vista and Office 2007, but 1 of them rolled it back since it was to different for there users.

i guess this is somewhat good for the little un-techy guy, since he won't end up buying an OS next year that will be unsupported a year after his purchase.

that said, though, i still think XP support should last longer.

Microsoft's contracts with PC makers will mandate that the firms sell only Vista machines starting in January 2008.

How could anyone ever say MS is bad for the industry? They're giving you what you want, whether you want it or not!

About 30% of the office software we're using still doesn't work either properly or at all with Vista.

Not only that but I've been using Vista at work for almost a year now and it's still bloated, interfering crap. The program installation procedures and riduculous nannying of any advanced OS feature is utter garbage

Give retards the nannying, not the IT professionals, please. God will have to intervene when the vista variant of server comes along, because nothing short of that will stop it being a royal pain in the backside to millions of IT people.

Wow. People who can't build their own are screwed.

I have a whole high definition recording, editing, and viewing process worked out on XP and none of the key elements, such as Nvidia Purevideo, will ever have an equivalent Vista component.

Everything in Vista is tied to Media Center and other fully proprietary bloatware. Beyond that I tried to get things like WinDVD to work on a Vista dual boot system and it could not even display standard mpeg files that work perfectly on XP WinDVD.

The key question for us is when will XP activation be cut off. If I have a license that has never been used, when will that no longer be useable? I want to stock up on hardware and licenses.

Don't see what the big deal is. When I upgrade (hopefully this fall....mmmmm, cheap quad cores), I'll be getting a copy of Vista. Like JaE said, it's out, so deal with it.

Now, for businesses I can see a bit more of a concern, but not much. I've only recently entered the corporate work force, but judging from how all the computers are the same, I'm guessing that companies by all their new machines at once. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong). If that's the case, then there really isn't an issue with Vista.

Aren't all new machines these days already installed with vista? All the machines at my local b&m already come with vista.

Vista is here. Deal with it.

Our corporate IT folks are proactively targeting a 2nd quarter 2008 rollout for Vista at work.