Microsoft: It's OK to Downgrade Vista to XP

Microsoft is doing the unthinkable: it's enabling Windows Vista haters to downgrade to Windows XP. Microsoft isn't actively promoting the offering, but has clearly conceded that some customers need to have XP. It's offering purchasers of business-orientated laptops with Vista Business or Ultimate editions installed the chance to get hold of a recovery disc containing the older OS.

[TriggerHappy]

Now here is something you dont see everyday. But then again, you never know what these guys are thinking.

[CRIMS0N_W0LF]

Its OK to UPGRADE from Windows to Linux and/or MAC OSX

[gololo]

as a programmer i was waiting for someone to make that comment :) (win to linux is always and will always be an upgrade)

[thewhoopimen]

Gaming may be Microsoft's future... not Operating systesms .... lol

[PimpHandHappy]

this means i shouldnt upgrade to Vista...

[arcadegoal]

No this dousent mean you shouldt upgrade to vista at all its about your personal choice,i upgraded and wow what a difference its more stable more versitile in many ways and dam it looks good. its been patched quite a lot over the passed months and i really carnt fault it now being able to multitask and better for the internet no slow down and boots up like really fast.not to upgrade then you would be missing out lol..

[Tyrael]

ehh, i dunno, Vista seemed so unnecessary to me when I tried it out on someone else's pc, didnt really have anything valuable to offer in comparison to XP

[Azurite]

Or is it mercy?

[BIadestarX]

I have a vista 64bit and I have no problem with it. Here is the trick.
I also have a vista machine and a KVM switch. I only install on vista certified vista software. As a programmer I understand not code not write for an specific OS is a gamble. This is something that most people understand when it comes to other OS. For example, if a software is designed for OSX (mac) you wouldnt try to install it on OS9 would you? well people for some strange reason can't get their heads around this. Vista runs faster than XP and have lots of extra features non-existent in XP. Vista have everything that XP does not.. and xp is missing lots of things that vista has? get it?
Now, the only reason why people should not upgrade to vista is because of the software support. Just like windows XP when it was first released lots of apps written for windows 98 had some problems... also hardware... 2 years later XP was safe to use since most developers already had a version of their software written for XP. same will happen to vista.

"Its OK to UPGRADE from Windows to Linux and/or MAC OSX " ignore comments like this one since they are just haters. There is intelligence in comments like this one. Fine I will bother explaining why.... What's vista primary problems? Legacy software support... or some applications that users need to use that were writen for XP now dont work property for Vista. Haters such as CRIMS0N_W0LF solution? Upgrade to an OS that will not support 99% of the software the user need to use. LOL. So, if the user needed excel, ms word, already purchased lots of windows xp applications, games, etc will not be screwed... typical hater solution. since they fail to undestand the reason why people use computers and an OS. APPS! then again that's predictable from these Microsoft haters.

[MrSwede]

You seem to know a lot about Vista and XP. What do you do with all the games and apps you have for XP? This is a serious question, I´m not arguing I just don´t know what I would do. For instance, I´ve got Godfather the game for XP, would I be able to play it on Vista some how?

[gololo]

is not hate dude...as I programmer I prefer Linux since it's stable and fast, and it offers a lot of goodies for programmers. Also, is not MS hate...is just that sometimes their apps are really buggy and not good....for instance Internet Explorer, even Office completely slows down a computer by installing all those processes needed to run a word processor. The only thing I use Windows is to play games....that's why I have a dual boot running xp pro...besides that i don't need anything from a windows machine.
@EDIT People that need office should look at something called OpenOffice! Much better, and it's free.

[CRIMS0N_W0LF]

Do you know that most programs are programed on Linux/Mac then Ported to PC. These include all Adobe products and most Music/Video programs.

Also your 99% is office which opensource is way better then office.

Stupid M$ D!ck sucking retard

Also do you know that 90% of servers are Linux/UNIX?

Edit: Did you know 99% of the world uses Firefox? And that Also includes Bill Gates himself because Microsoft Interenet Expleror suck

[Kholinar]

"Upgrade to an OS that will not support 99% of the software the user need to use."

For 90% of users, 99% of what they need to use is a word processor and a web-browser (and not of any particular brand or type.)

A small amount need things like photoshop, video apps, ms office, or (and this is the big one) custom business apps for their small business.

So I'd agree that Vista Pro is necessary. Vista Home, however, is simply not needed by the vast majority of users. Neither are Office or games for that matter (though OSx has the former and some of the latter). Very few people play complex games on their PC's.

[gololo]

@CRIMS0N_W0LF
Dude I was about to talk about the Mac...and you are right...at work 95% of the programmers run pc with linux...the rest use Mac...and this is for dev purposes...however Kholinar makes a good point about custom made apps...but then again I'd stick with XP Pro.

[BIadestarX]

@gololo thank you for giving your opinion in a civilize way unlike the other children such as _W0LF that simply can't give his opinion without feeling the need of swearing and cursing the people that have a different opinion than he does... kind of typical from his kind.

99% of the world uses Firefox? WOW! can you show me where you get this number from?

Also do you know that 90% of servers are Linux/UNIX?!!!!!!!!!!!

"work 95% of the programmers run pc with linux" do you think this reflect every development shop?
I'm a software/web/database lead developer at the company I work for over 60 developers. I've being programming since I was 12 years old (thanks to my dad and mon which are also programmer)... call it coding runs in my blood. Because of the variety of languages and technology I know I am able to supervise and work across projects and maintain a consistent set of best practices in our programs.
Of course I program using Microsoft technologies such as asp.net, vb.net, C#, ajax.net, and even WPF and silverlight which are relatively new. But we also develop projects for voice over IP companies using linux - Java, C++... even PHP (ewwww).. so I can give a detail difference between microsoft and non microsoft technologies that most programmers cant. simply because if you are a Linux developer you will most likely avoid microsoft technologies like the plague... let's just say that my experience with many developers is... they hold religiously the technologies, tools and languages they use and don't like when you tell them another technology might be better for a particular solution.

Let me give you an example:
Ask a php developer which one is better asp.net or php? he most likely hate asp.net though he may know very little... does he care about the benefits of interpreted code vs compile code? the advantage of generics, parameterized types or parametric polymorphism?

I written applications for linux down to the metal.. even using assembly for maximum performance, I know the linux kernel very well... every time a new technology comes out regardless of who makes it I eat it.. read and make my company pay for seminars and events and learn it and use them where appropriate.

You see guys like CRIMS0N_W0LF... miserable losers that simply play the "Monkey see monkey do" friend told them linux is cool and microsoft is evil.." and they go around repeating what they heard... why? because they feel that it makes them cool... some what computer genius... which is usually the reason why the most they ever get is a entry level position replacing broken computer parts... mostly plug and play ones.

I get monthly status on large web servers; some of them getting millions of hits a month. and 99% of the browsers are NOT firefox.. you got that out of your @$$.

I am going to help you see real world status just this time. I usually don't like helping people that do not deserve it. Here is a real list of browser statistic that I didn't take out of @$$.

http://www.w3schools.com/br...

As of July 2007 firefox stats is 34.5%, IE6 36.9%, IE7 20.1%...

Though browser stats are not 100% accurate it sure as hell do not show firefox is 99%.

lots of sad individuals in this earth.

@MrSwede - I may not be the best person to tell you if your old games will run on windows XP. if the game developers (the games you have) didnt you any windows XP deprecated function which may now be non-existent in Vista then you should be able to play that game on vista. If the game was designed around DirectX 9 it should work on vista since DirectX 10 API maintained the same interface as directx 9 api including the managed version. For the most part games break when they go outside of the directx sandbox and implement OS specific call to the OS API.

Let me give you a specific example as far as game development is concern.

DirectDraw for hardware accelerated access to the 2D framebuffer was deprecated in favor of Direct3D, which provides more general high-performance graphics functionality (as 2D rendering is a subset of 3D rendering).

When a interface is marked as "deprecated" chances are that it will be remove in future versions of the component. Now what if the developers ignore this or dont even know they are using deprecated code (using 3rd party Game engine) it may not be supported in windows vista.

You see that's the problem with most people... all the say... "Microsoft sucks!" but they don't bother to understand why certain things does not work or why they work the way they do.

bottom line, the best way to know if you game works on vista is to go to the company that made your game website blog and search for "vista compatibility" you will find people posting if they have any problems.

Me on the other hand I may not be the best person to ask about this since I keep my system free of stuff it does not support. If I'm going to buy a game I verify that the game runs on spec with the system I'm going to use it on. I would advice anyone to keep your windows XP until developer release updates and patches or verify that their apps work on vista. Now as much as many would like to make this a big deal... this always happens with new OS... I experience similar problems with APIs between a linux OS version to another when making applications, like the newer synchronize_rcu() primitives which is GPL-only.

[gololo]

@bladestar
Thanks for your lengthy response, I highly appreciated such thoughtfulness in the response...and yes you're right FF is not used 99%, although I wish it was. Although I am not as experienced as you are...I also have developed in various platforms and technologies including C++, C#, asp and vb (also Im VERY good with OpenGL, DirectX, Torque script and XNA, I dream of publishing a game on XBox Live). Also, currently, I am a web developer using technologies Java, Ajax and Javascript (people really have underestimated Javascript) and also writing prototypes for Google Gears and AIR...and having been in both sides I decided to stick with Linux and their software, I mean I know development technologies have their strengths and weaknesses but just talking about the OS I always pick Linux over Win simply for the system requirements.
(P.S. In my college days I did a little bit of 3d object modeling using Maya and 3DS Max...and for that kind of dev, I loved using the Mac lab at my school...so I think for graphics, video, and audio dev the Mac is superior to both Linux and Win)
Bubbles for you!!!

[MrSwede]

Thanx for replying Blade!

[thewhoopimen]

Great Response Bladestar but it still makes you a microshaft brown noser, even if an technology well educated and if I may compliment well written opinion.

I'm sure you could care less about how Microsoft conducts it's ethical business as long as you get enough simplified tools to make your coding work easier. Unfortunately for the mass majority of Microsoft disseminators, it isn't a simple I hate MS rhetoric without any backing. Since we're going to be pulling sources, why not take a piece out of history rather than your always fluctuating statistics?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

You're absolutely right about people sticking with the technologies they are more comfortable. But guess what? Comfort doesn't necessarily mean what is right or what is ethical. Microsoft should be noted from bringing and simplifying the divergent/oft conflicting programming technologies that existed prior to its inception. But guess what? If we're talking about pirating others work and branding it as one's own, I don't know if I can feel loyal to a company whose work comes from the sweat and blood of others.

Moreover, from a consumer standpoint, why shouldn't the consumer expect backward's compatibility of XP programs from Vista? I mean seriously, isn't that just a generation gap? How about the incessant security notices that spew irrelevant gibberish to the average consumer? I as the user, am not asking for a Windows 3.1 compatibility for chrissakes. You take a look at how shoddy Vista's backward compatibility support and you couple it with Xbox360 RRODs, and inferior Explorer is to current iterations of web browsers and you begin to see a company that thrives on just making enough incremental improvements to rake in the major dough.

Have you seen Microsoft's "fake" attempt at trying to contribute to the open source community? Look at their "crap". Most of it is stuff so half baked nobody can use it anyway.

Welcome to the Social.

[duarteq]

"it's ok to downgrade your Xbox360 to Xbox console. It's the best way to don't get the Famous RROD. "

This is the most ridiculous thing that microsoft ever said. "it's ok to downgrade to XP... Ohh poor Microsoft. If i was Gates i Would be Shame but seems there's no place to hide...
It's a Killzone...

[Shaka2K6]

vista is garbage.
xp is ok much better then vista, stop trying to force people into this miserable os microsoft.

[TitanUp]

ok have a question can you play old windows xp games on vista?

with different direct x versions with the games like windows xp 9 vista 10 not sure if you can install and play or not.