Vista Update: Still Floundering
Frequent readers will know that I have reversed all the new Vista machines in our household back to XP and I have banned Vista from any computers purchased in the company (Dell is quite happy to sell XP rather than Vista). Here is a how-to on how to downgrade to XP.
Now, PC World has voted Vista as the technology failure of the year (I would also vote the box as the packaging failure of the decade, and the new user interface in MS Office as the hose-your-installed-base gaffe of the year).
I thought this was an interesting fact, from PC World several months ago:
Certainly sales of Vista aren't blowing away XP in stores. Chris
Swenson, director of software industry analysis for the NPD Group, says
that, from January through July of this year, XP sales accounted for a
healthy 42.3 percent of online and brick-and-mortar retail OS sales. By
contrast, from January through July of 2002, after XP's launch in
October the year prior, Windows 98 accounted for just 23.1 percent of
retail sales.
I made a similar observation using Amazon sales rankings of XP vs. Vista here. Finally, just for the heck of it, I checked the OS's of users coming to Coyote Blog. In the past, our users have demonstrated themselves to be ahead of the technology curve (Firefox eclipsed Explorer as the #1 Coyote Blog brower long ago). As you can see, Vista barely has 4% share, in a near tie with Windows 2000 and Windows NT and barely edging Linux:
CTD:
Wow. Linux and Windows freakin' 2000 are as popular as Vista among your readers.
Re: your own computers, ditch Microsoft now and switch to an easy Linux distro like Ubuntu. It's not just for geeks anymore.
December 18, 2007, 6:28 pmelambend:
How do you know the operating systems of the visitors?
December 18, 2007, 6:42 pmMesa Econoguy:
How’s the sound? King Crimson-esque?
Here’s why:
"Robert Fripp worked at Microsoft's studios to record new sounds and atmospheres for Windows Vista."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp
December 18, 2007, 6:58 pmCraig:
Stat counters can detect what OS visitors can use, as well as which browser.
December 18, 2007, 8:21 pmJosh:
elambend, I was going to show you a link to a page that repeats back what your browser is saying about you. But typepad's overzealous spam filter wouldn't allow it. Do a google search for "your browser tells" and click the first link.
To make a long story short, your browser sends the information with every request for a web page.
December 18, 2007, 11:12 pmComputerSnob:
Ok, who is the guy using OS/2? Seriously, change is usually a good thing.
December 18, 2007, 11:51 pmChris:
For the record - the new Office interface is amazing. It takes a little time to get used to, but well worth the effort.
I've been using Vista for awhile, and if it wasn't on a Tablet I would switch back to XP.
December 22, 2007, 8:38 amAndy:
Just goes to show that Coyote readers are "smarter than the average bear".
Chris, what is it about Vista Tablet that you can't switch to XP Tablet?
December 26, 2007, 9:54 pm