Vista

[Groucho]

Vista is on it's way out, probably next year.

That's just speculation, Vista will be around for a while even after Windows 7 is released. Look at how long XP has been sold for (since 2001). And if things go as they usually do with MS, Windows 7 will be delayed a few times. And even if it is - so what? Software will still work on it. Heck, the vast majority of new Windows software that won't run on Windows 2000, which is now 9 years old.

I also think you're ignoring the fact that Apple has released six OSs since XP came out, most or all a $129 upgrade. That'd be like MS charging whenever they release a Service Pack.

And how about this quote from Wikipedia...

Users of the original Mac OS generally upgraded to Mac OS X, but many criticized it as being more difficult and less user-friendly than the original Mac OS, for the lack of certain features that had not been re-implemented in the new OS, or for being slower on the same hardware (especially older hardware), or other, sometimes serious incompatibilities with the older OS. Because drivers (for printers, scanners, tablets, etc.) written for the older Mac OS are not compatible with Mac OS X, and due to the lack of Mac OS X support for older Apple machines, a significant number of Macintosh users have still continued using the older classic Mac OS.

Granted, you have to take things from Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but the point is, Mac users are hardly free from OS headaches. You could easily rewrite that quote and put "XP" in place of "Mac OS" and "Vista" in place of "Mac OS X".

 

[Master Mason]

One thing nobody's mentioned... have you thought about building your own PC and buying an OEM copy of XP?

Building your own PC is really quite simple nowadays, though some of the tradition price advantage has been erased by heavy discounting of prebuilt systems. As soon as you start adding options to the prebuild ones, they can get expensive quickly, though, whereas homebuilt ones usually don't have big jumps in price as you add more options like more memory, bigger hard drive, faster processor, etc. If you buy good components, I think you also will generally end up with better-quality hardware than the prebuilts. Another advantage is that you are more familiar with what's inside your PC, and it will be easier to upgrade or repair the PC if something breaks in the future. Heck, I don't think I've bought an entirely new PC in many years (if ever since my first PC), I just keep upgrading one component or another at a time.

FWIW, Microsoft has scheduled June 30th as the last day they'll sell XP, though that date could slip again.

As for Vista - I actually did beta testing for MS before it was out (finding a particular setup bug got me a free copy of Ultimate ) and I tried running it on my PC for a little after after a big upgrade - and I was back to XP within a week or so. I don't hate Vista, but there were just too many driver issues and such. I have been contemplating giving it another shot one of these days, though.

Back when I used towers I did build them myself, I built many over the years, but about 5 years ago, I bought a laptop and ditched the last tower. I know that a tower with a good monitor would be better for tweaking photos, but having the ability to take my computer where ever I go out ways that to me.

I went out looking today, but didn't find anything that fit my needs, so I'll look some more tomorrow. I have everything on this one backed up, and back anything I do up immediatly at the moment. Hopefully it will hang on till I get the new one.

 

[elizke]

We bought a new computer last year. I used XP for a while and then used a free Vista upgrade after the initial bugs were worked out.

I have no issues with it. I had a few older peripherals I updated drivers on, but that's all. Maybe it's easier for me since I came from Windows98, and only used XP briefly.

 

[boBQuincy]

I build my own desktop PCs, it's not that difficult but certainly not for everyone. Builders such as Puget Systems will assemble a custom PC (with XP) for a reasonable price and it has just what we want (and none of what we don't want).

 

[jann1033]

kind of ot but at least about computers ..i recently read that the quad core amd is not much faster ie in usage that the normal user would notice, than the dual core intels...yes or no,
and that really the quad core intel can't be utilized as of yet for the most part but is more for "future" advancements. yes or no... don't think that is really a bad thing since to me it 's like the computer store guy told me when we bought our little 160gb/512mb .."you"ll never use all that on your hard drive", which of course we have and then some. so i figure buying for the "future" on a computer is really only buying for the next yr or 2
so who wants to help me build my new computer? hehe just kidding, i am not that desperate yet( remember, i am the most computer literate of my immediate family, which isn't saying much)

 

[DueyDooDah]

...i recently read that the quad core amd is not much faster ie in usage that the normal user would notice, than the dual core intels...yes or no,

Yes, that's true (at present)

...and that really the quad core intel can't be utilized as of yet for the most part but is more for "future" advancements.

No. It can be used (I hate the word utilize --- it is just so over-utilized) it's just that it is not being taken advantage of by any applications I know of.

 

[JR6ooo4]

at one point my DWs computer said she did not have permission to access her "My Documents" folder.... whaaaaaaaah!?

you can still get XP if you order instead of buying off the shelf, last time I checked.

Mikeeee

 

[manning]

I you are going to buy an XP computer, you better hurry. Sometime in June Dell and the others will not be able to sell you one with XP on it. Microsoft won't allow it.

 

[Groucho]

Back when I used towers I did build them myself, I built many over the years, but about 5 years ago, I bought a laptop and ditched the last tower. I know that a tower with a good monitor would be better for tweaking photos, but having the ability to take my computer where ever I go out ways that to me.

Ahh, I didn't realize that you were after a laptop. "Never mind!"

Jann - the dual and quad cores are, in essence, like have two or four distinct CPUs in your PC. Older programs will only run on one "core" at a time, so there's little if any improvement. But you do definitely get more performance when running multiple programs, etc - but not 2x or 4x.

 

[jann1033]

at one point my DWs computer said she did not have permission to access her "My Documents" folder.... whaaaaaaaah!?
you can still get XP if you order instead of buying off the shelf, last time I checked.

Mikeee

i get that all the time with xp and one profile..i set it up, am the admin for the computer but am not allowed to use it(?) also sounds like our phone company, i pay the bill for it, set it up but can't change anything on it...so not a vista problem more like a global attitude problem:Lao:

duey doo dah but in the above ,how practical is it to use 12 letters to describe the lack of "practical use" when "utilized" can be used to show such usage with 8..plus the 90+ i used to explain why i used it

 

[orchjoe]

I didn't realize that you were looking for a laptop either. Anyways here is a link for some dell laptops with XP.