Re: our first pre-downgraded laptop

On Thu, 15 May 2008 17:42:28 +0000, Chris Cox wrote:

> But.. my point is what is RIGHT for Microsoft. 

So what's right for Microsoft is to force customers to use a product known
to not work?  Even Microsoft isn't that dumb.

> And I believe the original
> proposal was that Microsoft would go running back to XP... and that's just
> not going to happen.

No, that's not the proposal at all.  Microsoft can keep touting Vista all
they want.  They can keep improving it and telling people why they should
upgrade to Vista.  If they want to even make their own hardware (keyboards
& mice) only work with Vista that's even fine.  But what they need to do
is extend this June 30 deadline.  It's dumb.  It's pointless.  OEMs are
finding loopholes around it.  It's doing no good for anyone.

> Best thing is for force (as much as possible) people to Vista. 

That doesn't do anything other than give people something that simply
doesn't work and has worse performance than XP.  I'm not talking about old
hardware, either.  Dell sent the wrong laptop to my wife, so we're playing
with this one until they send the correct one.  Core 2 Duo T7250, 2GB RAM,
SATA HD.  Performance shouldn't be a problem with this guy yet Vista is
much noticeably slower on this machine than her old P4 running XP.

That is not the best thing for anyone.  All it will do is force people to
look even more at alternatives, especially Mac.  Driving away customers is
not in Microsoft's best interests.

> The problem is that there appears to be some kind of loophole that allows
> people to get a Vista COA yet have XP installed.  I think that long term,
> that is a bad idea for both Microsoft and the end user.

It is the only good solution for both Microsoft and the end user under
current conditions until such time that M$ realizes they must extend the
deadline out for purchasing XP.  The deadline for purchasing new licenses
needs to be extended at least until the middle of next year while XP
support needs to be extended to at least 2010 (the current ETA for Windows
7).

-- 
Joe
"Those of you who think you know everything are annoying to those of us who
do."