Windows XP: Prices, And One Reaction 598
Jim42688 writes: "Looks like the prices Amazon was reporting for Windows XP a while back were right. On the back of today's ad for CompUSA, it lists the prices to preorder. Home Full, 199.99, Home Upgrade, 99.99. Professional full, 299.99, Professional upgrade, 199.99." Perfect timing -- Fwis writes: "Use your power as a consumer to Boycott XP.
The site is now functioning smoothly, and we invite you to log in and
participate in discussions, polls, and news stories related to Microsoft's release
of the XP line of products." There are some interesting links on this page if you (or someone with purchasing power at your company) is considering XP.
WinXP to the consumer is just another release... (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, if support for windows 9x dropped to a certain level, I'd just stop using windows altogether. To be perfectly honest, as soon as I can play the majority of my windows games using linux and my savage4 accellerator on another, non MS OS, I'll drop windows altogether. I'm just sick and tired of seeing microsoft pushing it's competitors out the window by including it's own version of an existing utility.
I own original copies of OS/2, Beos, Caldera Opendos, and Linux Redhat. I also downloaded Xgui, Gimi, and a host of other shells. My opinion? I don't have enough choice still. I could run Xdos on my 8088 and still run dos apps. Why is it so hard for the US DOJ to crack this obviously abused (on a regular baisis) monopoly?
Oh yes, and look at every windows release -- you'll see a huge group trying to fool themselves that 'THIS one will be good!'. They existed in winME, why not this one?
Re:Windows Xp May Be Ok (Score:3, Insightful)
If people no longer need to get third-party software to burn cds, for example.... there is no longer a market for cd-software. Eventually, MS dictates the hardware interface to the manufacturers, seeing as how they are the only ones producing software, and pretty soon... you get the picture.
Why should an MS user Upgrade ? (Score:4, Insightful)
MS-Win95b is acceptably stable given enough RAM, HD and maintenance. The only thing that has caused me to upgrade a few to Win98 is USB cameras not installing on 95.
MS-WinNT may be more stable, but some hardware and software still refuses to run under it. I believe XP is an NT descendant, so I'd worry about this.
Upgrading is fine for journalists who have stories to write, and for other software reviewers. I just don't know why the rest of us should upgrade. To get a bunch of bugfixes & security patches? Feh! If I need'em, I'll get them separately.
a boycott makes us no better than M$ (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux does this too (Score:0, Insightful)
XP Home is CRIPPLED. (Score:2, Insightful)
For instance, with my W98SE box, I can login to my Windows 2000 Server box and join the domain I set up there. It's not the same support as my W2K Pro box, but the differences are technical minutiae.
You won't be able to do that with XP Home. The only networking XP Home will be able to do is peer-to-peer, NetBEUI over TCP/IP. XP Home will NOT be able to join a domain, period. They're doing this to force companies with 2K domains to buy Pro rather than Home.
One good thing: W2K Pro CDs will drop down in price at the computer fairs when XP arrives. It's faster and better than XP and it makes 9x feel like the toy OS it is. So far, no BSODs here at Catseye Labs with W2K.
One day, we will be able to stand back and see that 2K was the high-water mark for M$ operating systems. With all the unnecessary crap that M$ is loading into XP, the ugly interface, Product Activation, phoning home, etc. etc. etc, M$ is basically doing to itself what the DOJ couldn't do. Now is the time for Linux to get its act together and make a desktop experience that is easier, better and faster than XP. Shouldn't take much. Mandrake with KDE is almost there, IMHO.
Re:a boycott makes us no better than M$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite all the marketing information and even a few screen shots I looked at online, I had no idea what the XP overall "feel" would be until I installed a release-candidate 30-day trial for myself. The average user doesn't wipe their hard drive and install 30-day trials of operating systems, just to decide if they should buy it or not.
(For the record, I wiped XP off my drive after giving it about 5 days. My wife refused to use it, saying it looked too "cartoon-like" and was noticeably slower launching several programs she commonly uses. I could deal with the new appearance of things, but I really disliked all the attempts to coerce me into using MS products for everything. It installed MSN messenger by default, and each "mouse-over" to the shortcut in the system tray reminded me to click to sign up and activate it. Then, they kept bugging me to go to their web site and sign up for a Passport account, to use their
Re:I'd love to see (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Microsoft is not happy, which is why you haven't and you never will see such a version of Windows. They aren't happy for (at least) two reasons:
- You're going to buy Windows anyway... why should they sell you what you want for $30 when they can sell you that + a bunch of crap you don't want for $200?
- Why should they give away a chance to get their software on your PC? Every PC that ships with media player is another PC they can claim is part of their "installed base". This they can then use to get companies to stream in their format, as opposed to Real Audio/Video.
So keep dreaming... such a thing will never happen.And so it begins.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As one
XP is the product of the two biggest sins a corporation can commit: arrogance and contempt. It's arrogant in that it's overpriced, offers NOTHING new over WIndows 2000, and in fact, takes away from it.
The "Home" version strips you of network capability, unlike 98/95/ME/2000, it CANNOT be used as a client on anything but a peer-to-peer network. It won't allow you to log into a NT domain. I haven't tested it to see if Novell Client 32 will allow logins to a Netware server, but I'd suspect that it's broken as well. It has no support for SMP at all (though 9X didn't either), to get SMP requires the $200 "Professional" version upgrade. None of this is because XP can't do SMP or serve as a network client, it's because MS chose to deliberately CRIPPLE it, and yet sell it for a radically increased price over ME/98.
The Home version upgrade is 100% more expensive than ME! (ME could be had for $50 to upgrade from 98). For what benefit? None that I can tell. Sure, you are likely to gain some of 2000's stability, but you will surely lose game compatibility (which is why the deplorable Win `9X is still the gamers OS). Is that worth $100? Not to me. And I'd bet not to many joe blows.
MS comits the sin of contempt with Product Activation, and it's spyware nature. XP "decides" how far to let you upgrade your hardware before requiring reactication. Which can lose you your data if there is but the SLIGHTEST glitch in this process. MS is better known for creating "unintended consequences" in it's "features" than it is in writing bug-free code. XP constantly monitors your hardware configuration,assigning it a "checksum" number via some formula, and if it gets too far from the "checksum" number originally generated when you installed it, it will CEASE to function.
I hope they have those support lines well staffed.
That's right, now on a XP system, the system owner does NOT have root access to the machine! This is something no MS OS has attempted to do before.
Even if XP didn't have the fatal flaws of arrogance and contempt, the fact that it's a 100%-200% increase in price over 9X alone would be enough to doom it. In this time of economic crisis, particularly in the tech sector, a 100+% increase in the "MS Tax" will do nothing but slow sales, ESPECIALLY when you expect MS to make licenses of ME, 98, and 2000 scarce quickly.
The "window" of opportunity for Linux is open.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way it will get on the desktop is a better interface - just as good is not enough for people to go through the hassle of learning.
I use Win2K. I haver played with Linux, but all my clients use win32, so that's what I develop to. I wish I could move enough to Linux to move to an alternative (and the authorization thing in winXP makes me run it down every chance I get). However, they won't, and if I don't supply win32 apps to them, I don't eat.
Some of you developers out there that are better than me (and there are lots, and many, many more worse than me), build the desktop that will bring them in. Not just a pretty desktop, but you need *compelling* money saving (making?) features that will make businesses move. Instant messaging - awesome business tool. Some kind of video conferencing - awesome tool. Icons that pop out (a la osX) - eye candy but useless. Bunches of rabid supporters that cannot conceive of somebody using an alternative without launching a personal attack - worse than useless. All the linux users out there have to remember that *they* are the alternative users.
Last bit is a rant - I have been flamed mightly for using Windows. But it is my fucking job, and I hate when people think I should give up work, let my family starve, etc, so I can go to the One True Operating System. (Hey, let's rename Linux OT/OS - heh)
DB
Linux isn't the alternative, it's the standard (Score:2, Insightful)
IBM, Compaq, and HP have reasons to dislike Microsoft, they make up probably nearly half of the manufactured computers, throw in companies like gateway, who would do it just to make an extra $100 (windows is expencive), and you leave people having to get a specialist to install windows for them, or have one custom built! Linux could work on the desktop through that route, or by apealing to the gamers (convince id software to no longer support windows). Of course other game companies would follow.
Why would that help? think about windows 3.1 vs dos... 3.1 had better office stuff, better internet capability, and it was easier to use. Yet, Dos was still the major setup, until windows 95 came along, and supported games, well. Which is still the only thing that windows9x/me does better than anyone else.
Re:I'd love to see (Score:2, Insightful)
Even though you are right, I have to say that even though WMP8 is an ugly piece of shit, RealPlayer is much, much uglier, more unstable, and it installs spyware and other crap to boot. I would prefer Quicktime to WMP and WMP to Real, however what I would really like to see is a single player for all formats that's small and fast, like Winamp... of course that will never happen since all those video formats are proprietary.
I won't be watching the Win XP release (Score:2, Insightful)
What I'll be watching though, is the X-Box release. I'll be HELPING it become madly successful, and I hope all of you do the same. Go out, help out microsoft and BUY AN X-BOX! Why help the Other Side(tm)? Because if X-Box becomes the gaming platform of choice, above Windows, then there IS NO REASON TO USE WINDOWS ANYMORE. Yes, you've heard me right, why do any of us keep a spare windows partition? Yep, games. Windows XP won't affect me, weather I upgrade or not, but if X-Box becomes successful and everyone makes games for it, then i can finally fdisk my windows partition to hell, and so can the rest of you. I can finally convince all my friends to switch over to linux because they'll all be happily playing games on the X-Box.
So Windows XP? What the hell, the masses like it or don't like it I don't give a crap, but with X-Box, you betcherass that I'll be watching closely and helping the MS X-Box movement along ^_^
why boycott??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
I see this same statement all the time, and while I generally agree with it, just yesterday it finally occured to me why I find it so bothersome. That reason is simply:
They can't really use Microsoft Windows either.
These masses of "average joe" users who will never be able to use linux really don't know how to use windows either. Almost everything about the computer is "too hard" for them... except playing a couple simple games, reading email and surfing the web, and sometimes struggling through a word processor.
In all of these cases where the "can" use windows, they are blissfully unaware of 95% of the features that the software offers them. They save their files whereever the "save as" dialog defaults, and later if someone asks them to copy the file onto a floppy, they have no idea how to do it or even where they put the file on their drive. These are the masses that constantly need someone to "fix the computer". I could go on and on (but not today).
The point is that saying "linux is too hard" is usually meant to imply that "but windows is easy". The sad truth is that the vast majority of the population can't really use ANY operating system, linux, windows, macos, Be, whatever. Of course, the vast majority of the driving population can't change their car's oil or probably even a tire, and they can't program their on-screen controls VCR, etc, etc.
Sure, windows is probably overall a bit easier, largely because of automated install programs and more commercial software (that has a lot of work put into reducing costly tech support queried).
For these mainstream novice users, the system they've invested hundreds of hours not really using in any signifcant way, but stumbling and strugging through to get the minimal "productivity" they manage is going to be easier than anything that is a change, not matter how much a change for the better it may happen to be.
Well, that's enough ranting for now. There's already hundreds of messages, so it's highly unlikely many people will read this... but I feel a bit better finally coming to terms why "people can't use linux" bothers me, when I generally agree with the statement.
Why Boycott XP? Time for silly consumerism to end (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey I'm all for technology, being sort of a geek and all, but it's time for this fascination with truly mediocre and overpriced software to end
http://www.shift.com/mag/9.3mag_toc.asp
The stupendous waste of money and capital that was poured into IT/dot.com and that could have gone into more thoroughly revolutionary technology is staggering when you stop to think of it. In reading the Shift piece about Silcon Valley's "non-revolutionary" landscape (traffic jams, malls, SUV's, etc), Ivan Illich's "Ideology of the automobile" and "Tools for conviviality" come to mind: at least there's a place to start grounding technology in human needs
In that context Microsoft is not an innovator - it's been proven over and over again; and that just in the area of the IT industry alone. In fact a huge chunk of the IT industry *itself* is more hype than anything else so this makes it even more compelling to avoid spending even more on MS products. Taking into account the fact that, for what we *do* need computers for the free OSes are now more than "good enough" for anything and everything the utter irrelevance of MS as a "technology leader" is clearer than ever.
What Microsoft **is** significant for is its vast pool of capital - which is most likely going to be **horribly wasted** reinventing the wheel, slowly, in a way that benefits shareholders. They are like a huge bank that doesn't have enough loans in play
All the other reasons for "boycotting" MS can be found detailed here http://www.vcnet.com/bms/ - yup, all the bad stuff MS did and then denied while what it really should have been doing was truly innovating. Sorry,.NET and C# are too little too late. It has been proven MS can't play nice and it seems high time to me for them to go sit in the corner for a really long long time.
Meanwhile perhaps someone could buy their cash pool in a breakup firesale and put it to use
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
You spent years getting familiar with Windows. You can't expect to pick up Linux in a day. This says nothing about the relative quality or utility of the different OSes.
In fact, learning Linux probably is initially harder than learning Windows. On the other hand, learning Linux is probably a more valuable skill: you learn to use software that doesn't change every year. And once you understand the command line tools and scripting, you can do really amazing things very quickly.
The biggest problem I had was KDE or Gnome? But then I started using it...
I think the answer is: it doesn't matter. Learn to use LaTeX, Emacs, xterm, and the standard POSIX tools. Learn Python or Perl. And if you are an "economist in training", learn R (for data analysis).
Congratulations! (Score:3, Insightful)
Are there open source alternatives? You bet. No, not quite the same bundle of functionality, but overall better: Maxima (symbolic math+functional programming), OCAML and Haskell (functional programming), R (graphics, interactive numerical programming), Python (graphics, 3D visualization, interactive numerical programming), and many others.
Re:price (Score:2, Insightful)
Few quick facts/replies to your comment:
Linux' cost consists not only of the frequent updates, which require
new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet
connection.
what's your definition of 'frequent'? just because there is a newer minor/major number of your distro, it does not mean you must upgrade to it. i do not count security patching, which is a normal required thing for any os, including your beloved freebsd. besides, it's easy to update a lot of distros via slow link.
linux administrators pricing? you're nuts? linux admins are the CHEAPEST on the market now, because of their abundance. try finding an admin for what you call 'mature' unix, such as solaris, aix, bsdi, blah, blah for the same price you could get a linux admin. no way.
breaking down? i guess you do not use linux often, if it breaks for you. i've been running linux on my personal box, as a os of choice [i do not count the linux servers at work, etc], and i never had such problems. hardware problems with hard drives will cause most os'es to respond weird.
ext2? ext2 is not the only choice. you got reiserfs, jfs, xfs, etc, etc.
i think i will go finish my book, because i know it's pointless. ohh, you mentioned 'silly messages' that linux kernel spits out? can you give me some examples? i'd like to say two things here: first, linux is a kernel only. rest are gnu tools and other things. second and most important, have you looked at the history of UNIX at all?
unix has a history of pranks, word puns, silly messages, and such. i hope i don't have to point them out here, you should know some of them already.