It's the same thing they did from 98/ME to XP...Phasing out the production and sales of XP. It's not going to stop cold next year. You will be able to get OEM and retail packages for quite awhile, you just wont be able to get a pre-built system from a major manufacturer with XP pre-installed.

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Currently playing Everquest 2 (heard it's become a really good game...we'll see)

That doesn't mean they will stop selling it, period. It's just not going to be pre-loaded on PC's.

You will still be able to buy XP for a long time to come.

They will stop selling it to system builders and I don't see Microsoft ramping up production of it in retail to cope with demand if they do indeed keep it as a retail product. As such it will effectively, or officially, stop being available early next year. I personally think it is too soon but Vista was delayed significantly and really put a spanner in Microsoft's plans - Microsoft is trying to force a migration to Vista, where it will then move to a 3yr release cycle that will probably offer some leeway when it comes to "upgrading".

Still, support will continue until the end of the decade even if it isn't being sold so it's not really anything radical. SP1 will improve performance and hardware improvements will mean that the slowdown experienced now will not exist or if it does it will be less noticeable. Unfortunately there is little we can do until a company like Apple steps into the PC OS market.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

Starting next year you won't be able to buy a new PC loaded with Windows XP...

...Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP to PC makers such as Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard

That doesn't mean they will stop selling it, period. It's just not going to be pre-loaded on PC's.

You will still be able to buy XP for a long time to come.


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Currently playing Everquest 2 (heard it's become a really good game...we'll see)

Haven't heard that before...linkage to official announcement?

They announced that months ago...
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6175735-7.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130710-c,xp/article.html




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Bioshock: "You're soon beset by deranged flappers and dandies, like Jay Gatsby's party guests gone feral."

However, XP will stop being sold in January of next year so Vista will be the only Microsoft consumer OS

Haven't heard that before...linkage to official announcement?

I had heard on the news that XP sales actually increased this year over previous years and they expected them to do so next year as well. If they were "expecting" sales to increase next year...kinda not possible if they are going to no longer sell it.

I think what they have said was that they would stop producing new retail boxes of XP next year...but they will certainly continue to sell it for quite awhile.


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Currently playing Everquest 2 (heard it's become a really good game...we'll see)
This comment was edited on Aug 31, 03:06.

XP won't be sold next starting next year? I predict an increase in piracy in that case.

What's next? a hidden DE-activation code if you go to Windows Update and you're still using XP?

what I don't get is that there are already rumors about yet another new Windows OS for 2009.

Actually, Windows 7 isn't due until 2010 (because Microsoft it now aiming for a new OS every three years). However, XP will stop being sold in January of next year so Vista will be the only Microsoft consumer OS. Vista should never have taken so long and it should have been a lot better and more featured than it is. I'm back to using it at the moment (because my XP partition fried) and it's decent enough... just it's a bit slow for gaming. The recently released updates have improved disk performance, meaning file transfers are now back to a usable speed - the search and driver features are also very useful and a considerable improvement. So it's a decent enough OS - I just hope SP1 delivers some serious performance improvement.

It's complete and absolute lunacy that MS needs to slam their own product and force obsolescence on it in order to entice you to buy their next product.

I agree completely. Each new OS should be sold on its merits, not forced upon people because it is newer. I prefer the Apple approach to releasing a new version every 18 months to 2yrs... if you want to you can skip a release and still be fine and compatability between releases is very good.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

I'm thinking WaltC is a M$ employee. He see's Dx10.1 as a good thing? *boggles mind*

Or even worse, Ballmer himself.

what I don't get is that there are already rumors about yet another new Windows OS for 2009. So assuming that's even remotely true, Vista sounds like the OS that everyone can just skip. Why waste your money when another one is just around the corner and XP isn't "broke"

some of the things that Vista has for businesses sure sounds great and all, but it just doesn't make any business sense to buy Vista now, only to have a new OS in '09 and MS starts their campaign to forcibly make Vista obsolete in order to get you to buy the next one. It's complete and absolute lunacy that MS needs to slam their own product and force obsolescence on it in order to entice you to buy their next product.

Go install procexp. Then have a look

Anyway, I don't get that cruft...I just look after my pc, and disable services I don't need using services.msc and delete stuff from msconfig. The only extra stuff I have running on my OS is stuff I want, like firewall, ultramon and bluetooth.

Huh? You are making logical phalacies left and right! It's quite amazing how screwed your logic is, making hypotheses and then positing entirely irrelevant antitheses to rebut them. Look here:

You posit: that DX10 is not linked to MS trying to push Vista by including DX10.

To support that you state:
ad 1: that DX10 hardware is not out in significant numbers, thus MS is not using DX10 to push Vista. WTF? Scarcity of DX10 HW is not relevant to what the inclusion of DX10 software means. In this, the software is the means to the end...the supporting hardware has nothing to do with that. The reason dx10 HW is scarce is...BECAUSE IT IS NEW TECH. Furthermore, one could point out that hw devs could only include/make Vista drivers (because if you buy dx10 hw, you buy it for dx10 software, and only Vista can run that, whilst XP can't at the moment), further pushing Vista.

ad 2: what does Vista backwards compatibility have to do with anything? That only makes the case FOR MS pushing Vista DX10. This point is so non sequitur it's incredible. Not having BC would impoverish Vista even more...

ad 3: Like what? What is in Vista which is no-where else, apprt from DX10, that you NEED? Had WinFS made it in, or any of the other features MS scrapped, then you might have a point, but as it stands Vista has nothing you need which you can't find elsewere (like in XP, for example).

To only include DX10 in Vista is NOT a technical decision; Carmack, Gabe and any other bare-metal programmer will tell you this. DX10 CAN be ported to XP, that's just a technical fact, despite MS handwaving, distraction and shouts of "driver model! DRIVER MODE".

So, if not a technical decision...then what? My guess is marketing; dx10 is shiny, shiny sells.

You don't program, or if you do it's not close-to-the-metal programming.

The Vista driver model can be ported to XP. DX10 can be ported to XP. And I can get into the fact that you don't believe me, an internet stranger, but at least believe Carmack and Gabe, who are definitely in a possition to know if such a thing can be done. They say it is, you say it can't.

Yeah, I'll believe the people who have some actual programming experience over your claims, too.

As for Gabe's comments on DX not supporting extra ccontroler mecvhanisms...that's true, but nothing is stopping him from installing the C libraries for the Wiimote on a windows or linux machine...with that, who cares about DXInput?

XP might lose market share, but not at the cost of Vista. Vista will gain as many users as WinME.

So, if Microsoft was relying on this "tactic" to stimulate sales of Vista then it would have been a vast failure

Taadddaaaaaa! Have you seen the sales figures of Vista lately? Have you heard Balmer whining?

Oh wait, I forget, that's all the pirates' fault.

Creston

Sounds like benchmark junk to me. Nothing I can notice in the real world

Performance benchmarks aren't put together by figuring "Can MattyC see a difference in the Real World?"

They are put together by measuring this funky thing called frames per second. So when a game gives 50fps on XP, and 40fps on Vista, it's still 20% slower on Vista. Whether or not you can actually tell the difference is irrelevant. Because that 20% difference is also going to be there when the game dips down into < 20fps.

Anyways, MS will never release DX10 for XP. They've been bleating about how that's impossible, because DX10 was "built from the ground up" to run on all these "unique Vista features" and all that shit, for them to turn around and make it available on XP would mean they'd have to admit they were just lying out of their fucking ass.

Which, ofcourse, is nothing new for Balmer. Remember his "An app may crash on Windows XP, but it will NEVER take down the operating system?"

I can get Bioshock to completely hard lock my XP system in approximately 10 seconds after load.

Creston

This comment was edited on Aug 29, 19:28.

Halo 2 can stay "Vista-only" forever for all I care. Halo 2's single player story was embarrassingly incoherent from the middle point onwards. Why is the Covenent suddenly in a civil war and what _exactly_ is each side of the civil war fighting for? Bungie was hoping we wouldnt ask.

Thats exactly why Halo 3 is gonna suck. Bungie doesn't care so much about the quality of the story or anything, cause no matter what it's gonna sell millions. And M$ has already been milking the thing for all it's worth. Selling overly-expensive 'custom Xbox's for it and $140 editions of the game, it's bullcrap.

Some will say 'yea but the multiplayer will be awesome.'

Maybe for a console game. But I'll be playing TF2 and QW:ET around the same time, and they will both BLOW IT AWAY.

For instance I know, because I've done it, if I install windows 98 on my current PC and run a game I will get better fps than I would on my current pc with windows xp installed. I'm assuming this due to the fact that xp has a bigger footprint on my RAM.

Maybe.

It could just also be that you had a fresh install only used for gaming. Where as the XP you are using you have been for a while, and as a result you probably have 50 extra services running and 80 extra processes running from annoying stupid ass programs.

Go to run and type in "msconfig".
Then click the start-up tab, how many things do you have there? How many do you need?
Click the services tab and hide all microsoft. How many things do you have there? How many do you need?


A typical fresh XP pro install when have about ~20 processes running. After installing all your required applications and such, things just needed for web-browsing, basic word processing, etc etc. You will probably have around 50 processes running.


I f'in hate that shit more then DX10 Vista only.


Alternating Logo (GreaseMonkey script):
http://www.ualr.edu/szsullivan/scripts_/BluesNewslogo.user.js

Halo 2 can stay "Vista-only" forever for all I care. Halo 2's single player story was embarrassingly incoherent from the middle point onwards. Why is the Covenent suddenly in a civil war and what _exactly_ is each side of the civil war fighting for? Bungie was hoping we wouldnt ask.

Try Windows LIVE integration...

Exactly... bizarre.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

Actually Halo 2 only uses DX9 - it was just Microsoft decided to restrict it to Vista for some bizarre reason.

Try Windows LIVE integration...