XP Death Watch

[Rex Ballard]

They're tied to the hardware. If you upgrade the machine the
license remains valid. Upgrade is undefined.

Actually, even that's subjective. With Windows XP, you have to call
Microsoft (not a toll free call), tell them exactly what you did, and
let them decide whether or not you should pay extra for a license.
Generally, if you do that, even if they decide that it's too much of
an upgrade, the fee for the new license will be much less than if you
had to go out and buy a new one.

You will have to call Microsoft for increases in memory crossing any
256 megabyte boundry, installing a larger disk drive, or installing a
faster CPU. Some things like motherboard replacement are sure-fire
triggers for a credit card payment.

Remember that with Vista, Microsoft has the right to completely
disable your computer, and demand full payment for a retail license if
they don't like your upgrades or configurations. In addition, certain
upgrades can void your warranty.

 

[Hadron]

Actually, even that's subjective. With Windows XP, you have to call
Microsoft (not a toll free call), tell them exactly what you did, and
let them decide whether or not you should pay extra for a license.
Generally, if you do that, even if they decide that it's too much of
an upgrade, the fee for the new license will be much less than if you
had to go out and buy a new one.

You will have to call Microsoft for increases in memory crossing any
256 megabyte boundry, installing a larger disk drive, or installing a
faster CPU. Some things like motherboard replacement are sure-fire
triggers for a credit card payment.

Remember that with Vista, Microsoft has the right to completely
disable your computer, and demand full payment for a retail license if
they don't like your upgrades or configurations. In addition, certain
upgrades can void your warranty.

Well Rexx, I hope you make that clear to all the people you are selling
closed source solutions to. I doubt it. But as you, and I know, nearly
everything you say is mere rattling of the COLA cage.

 

[Rex Ballard]

More importantly, as a percentage of the total market, Vista is even a
bigger "bomb" than Windows NT 3.x launched in 1994. Remember that
that release was so bad that Microsoft announced "Chicago" (later
known as Windows 95) almost immediately, largely to keep OEMs and
Corporate customers from opting for OS/2, UnixWare, or Linux.

After 18 months, Vista is still having trouble keeping up with Mac and
Linux, who combined, have captured more market than Vista. In fact,
if Microsoft had to report the number of "Vista Business Edition"
licenses that were actually shipped as XP Professional "downgrades" -
as the actual XP licenses, it would show that XP is the majority of
the market.

Which means that 3 out of 4 PCs sold are being sold as "XP
Professional" and being reported by Microsoft in their SEC filings as
"Vista Business Edition".

Meanwhile, people are paying premium prices for Macs, while Vista
desktop machines have fallen below the $200 "floor" - many OEMs are
loosing a fortune on the unpopularity of Vista. Retailers have pretty
much thrown in the towel. CompUSA closed all of it's retail stores in
the northeast, along with most of their retail stores in the rest of
the country because the Vista market was such a loser market.

People were going into the showroom, looking at vista, low resolution
wide screen displays, and insufficient memory - then ordering the
computers online, with higher resolution screens, extra memory, 7200
RPM drives, and XP instead of Vista as the operating system.

Microsoft might have been able to pull this off if they had a really
hot product that everybody was crazy about. Windows 95 and Windows 98
were that kind of product. Microsoft attempted to "Force Feed" XP to
the market, and many companies seriously considered pulling the plug
on Microsoft altogether.

Corporate executives, especially the CEO, COO, and CFO have seen this
coming for almost 2 years now, and any CIO who thinks that they will
be able to go to the board and demand huge sums of money for Vista
upgrades will probably find himself unemployed very quickly.

Other companies have announced official "sunset" policies, pushing the
transition from Microsoft proprietary products and formats to Open
Document Format, Open Source Software, Platform Independent
applications, and Linux ready computers. As a result, they are
prepared to make the transition to Linux or Mac.

Microsoft is very likely overplaying a weak hand, and they have bet
the farm on a huge bluff that too many corporate customers are
prepared to call.

Remember that many corporations have already purchased enough XP
licenses for every employee, up to the maximum number of employees
they've ever employed from 1999 to 2008, and these licenses ARE
transferrable. Furthermore, because Microsoft got greedy and sold
these companies licenses instead of upgrades, these licenses can be
installed on machines sold with Linux, as VM appliances.

Microsoft's greed and arrogance has finally put them in the position
for a really big problem. If they actually hold to their "death
watch" date, it could be that Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer, the top 5
OEMs, will be putting Linux boxes on the retail shelves, complete with
fully configured Linux, and a nice collection of hundreds of
applications that would have to be purchased separately for Vista
machines.

If Microsoft attempts to strong-arm them again, there is a good chance
that the OEMs will be dragging Microsoft through the federal courts,
and pushing for further extensions to the DOJ remedy oversight.

The one thing that is crystal clear is that if Microsoft tries to
force the Industry to transition to Vista, the industry is very likely
to cut Microsoft out of it's future migration plans.

Great. Let them shoot themselves in the foot.

Seems to be the attitude of lots of people these days. Microsoft has
lost most of the "good will" equity they have held for years. More
and more companies and end-users are installing open source
technologies including FireFox, OpenOffice, and multiplatform Java
applications. Many have rolled out desktop virtualization as well.
And if Microsoft tries to kill XP in hopes of forcing them to Vista,
it's highly likely that a substantial portion - perhaps 1/2 or even
3/4 of those XP desktop users will be switched over to Linux or Mac.

Worse, corporate customers may put a moratorium on new PCs until they
can make the full transition, or they will require any employee who
wants to purchase a Vista machine to purchase it with their own funds,
or will be deducted from their bonuses, while those who are willing to
accept Linux machines will have their new machines fully funded by the
company.

Vista is a crippled, DRM-infested piece of crap that makes a dual-core
AMD64 machine perform like a Pentium II.

It's ironic that all of the "Linux hostile" tactics and "features"
that were intended to "lock in" the market may be the very features
that have resulted in the most aggressive rejection of Microsoft since
1994.

In 1994, Linux was very young. Red Hat was willing to offer Linux to
OEMs for $2/copy on a nonexclusive basis (the OEMs could install BOTH
Linux and Windows). It was Microsoft who decided to play "hardball",
reformatting hard drives before installing Windows 95, mandating to
OEMs and IHVs that Microsoft assign the PCI vendor and device code and
that the codes be kept seccret. Few people knew about Linux, and it's
likely that if they had seen Linux on PCs displayed on Retail Shelves,
that Linux would have blown Windows NT 3.1 AND Windows 3.1 completely
out of the water in 1994-5, it might have even blown away Windows 95
in 1995-1997.

Microsoft did everything they could to keep Linux off the retail
shelves, but the genie is out of the bottle. About 4 blocks from Wall
Street, J&R has ASUS EEE machines on display, running Linux, and it's
clear that Linux can do the most popular functions of a PC on a
machine that is 1/2 the memory, disk, and CPU speed of an XP system
and about 1/4 the hardware of a Vista machine.

Users see that Linux can boot up and be fully functional in less time
than it takes for XP or Vista to just get to the "splash screen".

Several Motherboard manufacturers are now including Linux core
functionality in their motherboards, meaning that even if Microsoft
wanted to they couldn't lock Linux out of the machine since the core
OS calls are actually being carried out by Linux.

OEMs are becoming more and more aware that desktop virtualization is
the "next big thing" and Vista is too much of a resource pig to be the
primary operating system. Furthermore, if users see that applications
launched by Linux are faster than the ones launched in the Vista
Virtual machine, then it's likely that Vista will be launched only
when absolutely necessary rather than as the "preferred" operating
system.

If MSFT seriously thinks that
it's somehow advantageous to push this sorry excuse for an OS onto the
general public, they deserve to go out of business.

Microsoft won't be going out of business any time soon, but revenues
from Vista and Microsoft Office will make up a smaller and smaller
portion of their revenue as they look elsewhere for revenue sources.

Microsoft has been able to gradually reduce their dependence on
Windows license revenue, windows support revenue, and even office
revenue. They have moved more aggressively into the game market with
Xbox, they have expanded their services offerings and are gaining more
revenue from web sites. They also hold substantial interest in 3rd
party sites, which pay them royalties equivalent to as much as 1/2
their commissions or profits.

Windows XP isn't the only option if you're trying to avoid Vista. There
are Linux, BSD, OS X, and Solaris...all of which have been gaining
serious application support in the form of native 3rd-party apps and
compatibility libraries such as WINE.

For the last 10 years, there has been a very agressive move away from
the "Microsoft-only" development languages and libraries, and a more
aggressive move toward the "Multiplatform" tools, libraries, and
APIs. Even before the Clinton Administration pressed the Antitrust
case, Microsoft's attempt to subvert Netscape from the market became a
clear warning to software vendors that nothing was sacred, and that
they needed to be prepared to support multiple markets. Microsoft
could easily "lock them out" of the Windows market with shovelware
from a third-rate competitor making a knock-off, but by supporting
multiplatform, they could still maintain a sizable chunk of revenue
selling support and services, especially to corporate customers, by
supporting Linux and Unix as well as Windows.

Throughout most of the industry, the revenue model for software has
shifted from the "license and royalties" paradigm to the "consulting
and support" model. Ironically, Microsoft tried this model, but never
really figured it out. The result has been that huge companies like
IBM, Accenture, and CSC have been able to provide outstanding support
for OSS and UNIX software while the support for Windows software has
been gradually degrading into the "5 Rs" (restart, reboot, reinstall
app, reinstall windows, rebuild everything), with very little ability
to reliably recover from virus attacks, or even misguided patches that
trashed 3rd party software.

P.S. You're doing a great job of posting Nick, keep up the good work.
(Nick is my son).

Rex Ballard

 

[the wharf rat]

Actually, even that's subjective. With Windows XP, you have to call
Microsoft (not a toll free call), tell them exactly what you did, and

That hasn't been my experience at all. 80% of the time even a major
upgrade seems to cause no problems. Every other time all I've ever had
to do is call MS and talk to the robot. I think exactly ONCE I had to
talk to a person. That's once in, what, 7 years?

You will have to call Microsoft for increases in memory crossing any
256 megabyte boundry, installing a larger disk drive, or installing a
faster CPU. Some things like motherboard replacement are sure-fire
triggers for a credit card payment.

Again, that hasn't been my experience. I've done hundreds if not
thousands of XP upgrades and never once been asked to pay a fee. And
seldom been denied an activation. It seems to me based on the work I've
done with XP that you practically need to install the license on a completely
new system (say, moving the disc drive to a new motherboard and case) to
trigger an activation denial. I have test systems that I move parts around
on several times in a day, do reinstalls, and even then only sometimes have
to call to activate. And when I do I only need the robot.

Just last month I did this: Receive old AMD 2000+ system
"running slow". Replace CPU with AMD 2400, replace old 20MB with new 100MB,
reinstall XP. Measure perfomance, not much of a change. Replace crappy
old VIA KT266 motherboard with not quite as crappy KT800, AMD 2800, and
333 memory. Reinstall. Still no problems. Next day receive Nvidia 3
motherboard, AMD 3000/64, and PC3200 RAM as pull. Swap in for KT800 setup.
Reinstall. Activation fails, type long magic number to robot, type long
magic number from robot, congratulations you've activated windows (again).

Remember that with Vista, Microsoft has the right to completely
disable your computer, and demand full payment for a retail license if

Didn't they remove that in SP1?

upgrades can void your warranty.

Warranty? All it says is "we make no guarantees and take no
responsibility" anyway.

 

[the wharf rat]

known as Windows 95) almost immediately, largely to keep OEMs and
Corporate customers from opting for OS/2, UnixWare, or Linux.

Linux? In 1994? Please.

In 1994, Linux was very young. Red Hat was willing to offer Linux to

Redhat didn't begin commercial distribution until 1996.

Linux and Windows). It was Microsoft who decided to play "hardball",
reformatting hard drives before installing Windows 95, mandating to
OEMs and IHVs that Microsoft assign the PCI vendor and device code and

I don't understand this.

Several Motherboard manufacturers are now including Linux core
functionality in their motherboards, meaning that even if Microsoft
wanted to they couldn't lock Linux out of the machine since the core
OS calls are actually being carried out by Linux.

I don't understand this, either.

 

[Alias]

Actually, even that's subjective. With Windows XP, you have to call
Microsoft (not a toll free call), tell them exactly what you did,

FALSE! All you need to tell them is this:

Mandatory Product Activation Data
The Installation ID is unique to each product and comprises two components:
The country in which the product is being installed (for Office XP and
Office XP family products only)

Anything else is NONE of the activation desk person's business!

See:

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/mpa.aspx

Alias
and

 

[Charlie Tame]

Apples & oranges. Windows Life Cycle policy (for WinXP) hasn't changed,
Charlie: WinXP SP3 will have Extended Support until 08 April 2014.
Support for WinXP SP2 ends 13 July 1010. More:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/donna/archive/2008/06/14/end-of-support-xp-service-pack-2.aspx

My point is that the pressure to extend was there but not clearly
visible at first. Obviously MS did listen, but made insufficient effort
to clarify the situation.

Also, the removal of XP from retail stores raises another question. Many
machines out there cannot run Vista. Many of the original CDs, OEM or
otherwise are lost. What happens to those machines in the event of a
hard drive failure or some virus damage? This has not been too
reassuring for customers.

 

[Linonut]

* Rex Ballard peremptorily fired off this memo:

People were going into the showroom, looking at vista, low resolution
wide screen displays, and insufficient memory - then ordering the
computers online, with higher resolution screens, extra memory, 7200
RPM drives, and XP instead of Vista as the operating system.

Indeed, the prices at Office Depot look good at first, what with $100
and $200 rebates, some of which is "instant". But then you get the
equivalent of 1024x768? Crap.

Even funnier is the memory profile of some of the machines.

3 Gb? Sounds to me like somebody's sticking their leftover 1 Gb sticks
into those boxes.

I just saw a 4 Gb 64-bit Windows machine advertised today in an Office
Depot brochure. Cool. But what software are you going to run on it?

All these machines in a glossy brochure. Stamped with the word

CLEARANCE!

CLEARANCE! CLEARANCE! CLEARANCE! CLEARANCE! CLEARANCE!

And Staples? Offering Windows Vista Ultimate for $70 "with the purchase
of a new machine".

Microsoft is very likely overplaying a weak hand, and they have bet
the farm on a huge bluff that too many corporate customers are
prepared to call.

I don't know about that; the corporate pretty shackled to the crapware.

But it does seem to me that the computer market is pretty sick on the
desktop.

It's ironic that all of the "Linux hostile" tactics and "features"
that were intended to "lock in" the market may be the very features
that have resulted in the most aggressive rejection of Microsoft since
1994.

While some of what you have said so far is bullshit, Rex, I do think the
above statement is true, although the "rejection" is still pretty mild,
at least where I live.

Users see that Linux can boot up and be fully functional in less time
than it takes for XP or Vista to just get to the "splash screen".

Several Motherboard manufacturers are now including Linux core
functionality in their motherboards, meaning that even if Microsoft
wanted to they couldn't lock Linux out of the machine since the core
OS calls are actually being carried out by Linux.

...

For the last 10 years, there has been a very agressive move away from
the "Microsoft-only" development languages and libraries, and a more
aggressive move toward the "Multiplatform" tools, libraries, and
APIs.

I hate to say this, while crossposting to Microsoft-friendly newsgroups,
but the evidence is quite clear that Microsoft is a cancer.

See the apt sig. Ballmer's leading us back into technological chaos.

--
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead
all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that
it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the
first place.
-- Douglas Adams

 

[Canuck57]

Too late: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/future.mspx

What a line of feltercarb.

MS wants people to repurchase an OS ever three years or so. It helps
revenue to make the next billions for Bill, Steve and crew. It does not
have to be good, even if you don't need it; because we are good.

See, I summarized pages of hard sell and filler into three sentences.

 

[Canuck57]

I disagree a bit with that, the crucial factor was always extending
support. Another 6 years is a pretty good achievement in terms of getting
a big corporation to listen to customers. So instead of too late maybe
"Just in time" would be the key. Poor Vista sales are not just the result
of complaints, there is a small but noticeable financial crisis in the US
right now, we are both in the middle of it. Forecast of $5 a gallon gas, a
billion dollar loss of crops which will inflate food prices, layoffs all
around and no end in sight in Iraq means that if the Government will not
tighten their belts the public will do it for them. MS will be smart to
recognize this. People are not going to invest $1000+ in a new computer
unless they really can be confident it's "Disposable" income.

Offset by more people working at home, choosing XP and not Vista.

Know one person buying a PC, getting in under the wire but getting it with
XP and not Vista. Theirs broke and their work does not support Vista yet.

 

[Canuck57]

I sell Vista to many businesses.

They don't reject it at all. Just stop using min speced hardware, or
hardware under min spec. That's the reason it runs so slow. My customers
want a good 64bit system. 64bit Vista is a lot better than 64bit XP.

Do some homework, half of you sound like you haven't got a clue.

- Hayden

I loaded 64 bit Ubuntu on it. Works great.

 

[Canuck57]

Possibly because that is what he recommends to them.

For instance, SolidWorks resellers recommend a 64 bit system to their
users strictly based on being able to use more than 3+ gigs of RAM for
the application.

Good choice. Each version of MS-Windows is bigger, and there are those that
consider 3GB a minimum for Vista. Win7? No one knows, but 3GB might be the
minimum.

 

[Canuck57]

He (Hayden Kirk) is stupid....

I could recommend a hummer jeep for everyone, but the extra cost makes no
sense for people in the city...
Sure it could travel any terrain but at what cost?

Having a super duper 64 bit 4 core 8 gb system just so vista can work is
crazy.. Most of that power goes to the OS itself anyway..

I have a super dupper 4 core 8GB system, and my 7 year old laptop running
either Linux or XP copies faster over the network or disk to disk. Big
a$$ed systems help a lot, but their is a lot of waste of processing going
in. Vista is not very efficient inside. While grandma reading email may
not notice, performance users do.

Vista is poorly designed and that's why its hated worldwide by billions.

the world it turning to more efficient, greener, less power hungry,
faster, better designed OS's and computers

Vista is the last of its kind... a freak of nature... a dinosaur that will
be exhibited in a museum as the biggest mistake MS ever made.

Yep, the next generation of economical systems like EeePC have no room for
Vista requirements nor its pricing. That is why Microsoft had to selectively
allow resale of XP to EeePCs. There marketing and engineering blew the mark
on what users want and had to backpeddle on a total XP retirement plan.

But still, EeePC continues to do quite well on the Linux version sales, the
cat is out of the bag. While Dell touted Linux support, it has half a$$ed
and business only. Asus and others, different story.

 

[Canuck57]

Don't count on it.


Microsoft may be slitting their own throat. The OEMs are still
negotiating with Microsoft and it's possible that if Microsoft refuses
to deal, or attempts to force the shift to Vista too aggressively,
that the OEMs will respond much the same way that Windows NT server
customers responded when Microsoft tried to force them into switching
to Windows 2003. Instead of being a massive migration worth
$billions, many corporations realized that they were being herded into
yet a another slaughterhouse, and opted to switch as many servers as
they possibly could to Linux, or Unix, including AIX, Solaris, and
HP_UX.

Except this time they did it to the consumer market too. One that will hurt
even more.

Businesses will buy whatever the user skills coming into work have. The
CEO/CFO/shareholders do not care which OS it is, which one can they use and
how much does it cost. On both fronts, Microsoft generated a long term
rethinking of what makes a good desktop OS. Many are switching. If
Microsoft does not stem the trend, give it 5 years and it will not be pretty
for them.

Mind you, I don't think there is much they can do. PCs are becoming
appliances with appliance pricing. Microsoft pricing isn't going to keep
it's "monopoly" much longer. As a good chuck of this is about the pricing.
Even if Vista ran on a EeePC, why would I pay more for the OS than the PC?

Vista is Microsoft's first big step to the road to hell.

 

[Canuck57]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

____/ Rex Ballard on Saturday 14 June 2008 08:07 : \____


They enable upgrades to XP now, provided that you 'upgrade' your Vista
(edition-wise). Another fine example of double-dipping to game sales
statistics and milk innocent users, who can -- and probably will -- pay
extra
for XP.

Think, they are working on the triple/quad dip. Get Win7 out. Some users
will invariable do:

1) Buy a system with Basic/Premium Vista sub version
2) Upgrade to Ultimate, still does not work right
3) Buy a XP and install it, happy until SP4 quirks it
4) Win 7 comes, need to have a Win7 only app, buy Win7

While not every user will follow above, each of above represents a purchase
or upgrade. The above could occur in 3 short years or less.

 

[Hadron]

I have a super dupper 4 core 8GB system, and my 7 year old laptop running
either Linux or XP copies faster over the network or disk to disk. Big
a$$ed systems help a lot, but their is a lot of waste of processing
going ^^^^^
in. Vista is not very efficient inside. While grandma reading email may
not notice, performance users do.

Seriously, are you trying to sound so stupid on purpose in order to hide
your other nym?

Yep, the next generation of economical systems like EeePC have no room for
Vista requirements nor its pricing. That is why Microsoft had to selectively
allow resale of XP to EeePCs. There marketing and engineering blew
the mark ^^^^^
on what users want and had to backpeddle on a total XP retirement
plan.

You're the only person in the history of usenet who managed to mix up
"there" and "their" to be wrong twice in the same post.

But still, EeePC continues to do quite well on the Linux version sales, the
cat is out of the bag. While Dell touted Linux support, it has half a$$ed
and business only. Asus and others, different story.

You have these figures?

 

[Canuck57]

You have these figures?

Read and weep.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143402-pg,1/article.html

Asus initially release the Eee PC line with Linux only. So, the market
share in this segment was 100%. Which is why MS had to get an OS fast, and
Vista, well, super fat and too big.

So, take a current view of a ratio of 6:4, that is a 40% market share for
Linux. A tad bit higher than MS-fanboys would like to admit. Expecting to
sell 2 million Linux ones this year alone, not including last years sales.

OLPC is 100% Linux. I don't believe this has changed.

Amazon seems to have trouble keeping the Eee PC Linux ones in stock, maybe
Asus underestimated Linux? At least in that venue Linux makes it top list
more than XP for the Eee PC, go figure.

Can't see the writing? Big, fat, expensive bloated low compatibility
operating systems are generally on the way out. Except for high end Apple
Macs, which too record increased sales.

You know Microsoft isn't going to want to have Asus publish it's real sales
numbers of Linux versus XP. Linux growth will astound many.

 

[Charlie Tame]

Offset by more people working at home, choosing XP and not Vista.

Know one person buying a PC, getting in under the wire but getting it with
XP and not Vista. Theirs broke and their work does not support Vista yet.

Well I don't know how many corporations are going back to the dumb
terminal and mainframe idea but essentially that is what we have done
using W2003 Server and Wyse thing clients. There are a few XP machines
around, and I have 2 or 3 running Linux (Debian and Ubuntu). n fact
though for most of the work all could be replaced by thin clients except
for the 3 I use because they have to be able to "Run" things
independently. This seems to make it a lot easier for our IT people to
keep things in order remotely. This must represent a loss of potential
business, and also gets people used to the idea that not "Everything"
has to be Windows. It also means that any old machine capable of running
XP can be used (Even older with Debian) so there is no real incentive to
upgrade anything at all, hardware or software. If retail XP continued to
be available then most would probably prefer to replace faulty machines
with XP, but if one of these suffers a drive failure and I can't get XP
then on goes Linux. Sure you can get machines cheap these days, but most
come with "Home" versions if you buy from a big box store and that is
often no use for work, As I said above, continued support was crucial
but not that well stated, but pulling the product off the shelf with so
much hardware that the new OS cannot use out there is disconcerting.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
Too late:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/future.mspx

I disagree a bit with that, the crucial factor was always extending
support. Another 6 years is a pretty good achievement in terms of
getting a big corporation to listen to customers. So instead of too late
maybe "Just in time" would be the key.

Apples & oranges. Windows Life Cycle policy (for WinXP) hasn't changed,
Charlie: WinXP SP3 will have Extended Support until 08 April 2014.
Support for WinXP SP2 ends 13 July 1010. More:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/donna/archive/2008/06/14/end-of-support-xp-service-pack-2.aspx

My point is that the pressure to extend was there but not clearly
visible at first. Obviously MS did listen, but made insufficient effort
to clarify the situation.

Extend what? MS hasn't extended or changed anything as far as support for
WinXP is concerned.

Also, the removal of XP from retail stores raises another question. Many
machines out there cannot run Vista. Many of the original CDs, OEM or
otherwise are lost. What happens to those machines in the event of a
hard drive failure or some virus damage? This has not been too
reassuring for customers.

If you've got an OEM install of WinXP, MS wouldn't help you anyway.

If you've lost your Retail WinXP CD, MS *may* be able to replace it for you,
they're just not selling new ones or allowing OEMs to manufacturer new
machines with WinXP presinstalled after 30 Jun-08.

If you lose, e.g., your Owners Manual for your 1990 Chevy, chances are GM's
not going to replace it.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

What a line of feltercarb.

MS wants people to repurchase an OS ever three years or so. It helps
revenue to make the next billions for Bill, Steve and crew. It does not
have to be good, even if you don't need it; because we are good.

See, I summarized pages of hard sell and filler into three sentences.

Last time I checked, MS was a corporation based in a capitalist nation &
world.