When will stores start selling new PC's with Vista? Jan. 30th???

[bjackson445]

I've called around to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and none of the
clerks can answer a simple question:
When will your stores be selling new PC's & notebooks with Windows
Vista already installed on them?

The standard answer is, "We don't know at this time, but you can buy a
new computer today and you'll be eligible for a free Vista upgrade".
Of course, I understand they are trying to get rid of their current
inventory of XP computers (who could blame them).

Does anyone out there know if retailers will begin selling new PC's (w/
Vista pre-installed) on Jan. 30th?

Thanks.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I've called around to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and none of the
clerks can answer a simple question:
When will your stores be selling new PC's & notebooks with Windows
Vista already installed on them?

The standard answer is, "We don't know at this time, but you can
buy a new computer today and you'll be eligible for a free Vista
upgrade". Of course, I understand they are trying to get rid of
their current inventory of XP computers (who could blame them).

Does anyone out there know if retailers will begin selling new PC's
(w/ Vista pre-installed) on Jan. 30th?

You would like individuals here to guess for every vendor out there when
they will start offering computers with Windows Vista?

As you already know, Microsoft claims Vista will be broadly available on
January 30, 2007.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

Beyond that, despite any conspiracy theories out there - most companies
choose when they will offer the product for sale. If I had to guess - any
company selling computers would start selling them with Vista on the first
day it is available (see above.)

Why?

Well - if their competitor decided to sell it and they don't, they could
lose thousands of sales. So I would expect that if you wait until January
30, 2007 - there will be computers for sale with Vista pre-installed. Will
there be some available before then? quite possibly - although I would not
expect it to be more than 7 days before - if that many.

I am unsure why there would be that much concern. When it comes out, it
comes out. They'll be thousands of new posters on the newsgroups asking
hundreds of questions over and over about problems they are having or things
they just could not figure out. There will be the people complaining about
the activation and the various licensing checks, about how there isn't
drivers for their (insert printer, scanner, video, network, sound, blah blah
blah here...) and how their favorite (insert various applications here...)
It will be like any other major over-hyped release of an operating system
where people scramble because they have to have the latest and greatest.

But that is just how I see it going down - time will tell.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've called around to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and none of the
clerks can answer a simple question:
When will your stores be selling new PC's & notebooks with Windows
Vista already installed on them?

The standard answer is, "We don't know at this time, but you can buy a
new computer today and you'll be eligible for a free Vista upgrade".
Of course, I understand they are trying to get rid of their current
inventory of XP computers (who could blame them).

Does anyone out there know if retailers will begin selling new PC's
(w/ Vista pre-installed) on Jan. 30th?

I have no knowledge as to what any stores may or may not do, so treat the
following as nothing but a guess: Yes, my very strong guess is that most of
the big stores like Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. (which are probably the
worst places to buy computers, in my view) will begin selling computers with
Windows Vista installed on January 30.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Anyone think this "Vista" will work or will it be another XP?,

I'm running it now. It works just fine.

I
haven't looked into this, but I'll bet that the "new" Vista os will
be XP, with SPs/updates installed, maybe throw in Powertoys and
change the aesthetics of the UI. Either way, I think I'll wait for a
while before upgrading,

Your choice, of course.

you know how reliable new microsoft products
are ;-)

I've been running the released version since just a few days after it came
out, for over a month and a half now. It's been completely reliable, and I'm
happy with it. Your mileage may vary.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[Zilbandy]

I'm running it now. It works just fine.

I'm quite happy with the current version of XP. What does Vista offer
to entice me to go through all the trouble of getting all my apps to
run with a new OS? I'll just wait a year or two before I even consider
Vista... if I live that long.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm quite happy with the current version of XP. What does Vista offer
to entice me to go through all the trouble of getting all my apps to
run with a new OS? I'll just wait a year or two before I even consider
Vista... if I live that long.

Your choice, of course. I'm not trying to convince anyone to change. In
fact, I almost always think that the average person should always be
reluctant to upgrade to the mewest operating system.

But, in passing, let me mention that *none* of my apps failed to work with
Visata, nor did I have to do anything special to make them work. A few
utilties failed to work (and I'm waiting for new versions) but that's all.

 

[Zilbandy]

Your choice, of course. I'm not trying to convince anyone to change. In
fact, I almost always think that the average person should always be
reluctant to upgrade to the mewest operating system.

But, in passing, let me mention that *none* of my apps failed to work with
Visata, nor did I have to do anything special to make them work. A few
utilties failed to work (and I'm waiting for new versions) but that's all.

Do you have any thoughts or comments about Windows Vista "Content
Protection?" I refer to the following article by Peter Gutmann:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

 

[bjackson445]

But, in passing, let me mention that *none* of my apps failed to work with

Vista, nor did I have to do anything special to make them work. A few
utilties failed to work (and I'm waiting for new versions) but that's all.

Have you tried any legacy (specifically 16 bit) Windows apps under
Vista?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Have you tried any legacy (specifically 16 bit) Windows apps under
Vista?

I don't *think* I have any, so the answer is probably no, but I'm not
absolutely sure.