Microsoft grants Windows XP a reprieve
Updated at 1:10 p.m. PT with Microsoft comment.
Some PC makers now have an extra four months to sell Windows XP.
The BBC reported Monday that Microsoft has extended the deadline for smaller PC builders and resellers to obtain licenses for the discontinued operating system from the previous deadline of January 31, 2009 to May 30, 2009.
"Microsoft is making accommodation through a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders by January 31, 2009; and take delivery against those orders through May 30, 2009," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mailed statement. "This is not an extension of sales."
Even after May 30, however, it's still not the end of XP. The operating system will be available on ultra-low-cost PCs until June 30, 2010, and the low-end Windows XP Starter Edition will continue to be available in emerging markets until the same date.
Plus, big PC makers plan to offer PCs with Vista Ultimate and Vista Business that have been factory downgraded at customers' request until July 30 next year.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica.
No, what I'm saying is Vista was/is a disaster. As a software engineer for 25 years, I'm well qualified to give my professional opinion. As someone that develops 'mission critical' apps for hospitals and government clients, including the US Treasury, I can tell you that Vista is not being deployed in our environment.
Let me clue you two in on a little secret. If I were a "professional IT guy", then I would not sleep well at night if I was deploying Vista. But, that's the beauty of ignorant bliss I guess.
Let me clue you two in on a little secret. If I were a "professional IT guy", then I would not sleep well at night if I was deploying Vista. But, that's the beauty of ignorant bliss I guess.
Making claims on anonymous forum are meaningless. I can make the claim that I am the King of England and it will have the same weight as yours. If you're going to make statements like this, it's best to give examples of the information that you use to formulate that opinion. Personally, I do use both Vista and home and at work, and I, for one, am quite happy with the operating system.
One thing you aren't mentioning is that neither was XP when it came out. Until recently I still saw a lot of businesses still using Win2K and from time to time I still see Win2K. Businesses by their very nature are conservative when it comes to new software particularly operating systems. They don't move to new versions unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Anybody who considers this news, clearly has been in this business as long as you claim. Vista could have been the most stable version of Windows ever and there still would be a lot of businesses that wouldn't upgrade until they were completely sure that it didn't have issues with any of their software. Performance and stability are important, but usually take the back seat to compatibility particularly in the business world as the primary factor in whether an organization upgrades. Vista could have ran twice as fast and have the best stability, but if it broke compatibility a lot of organizations still wouldn't be buying it.
If there was a magic wand that created a patch for Vista that resolved compatibility issues with every piece of software you would see a lot of the criticism in the enterprise world go away. You would still see some performance criticisms, but even those criticisms are fading as hardware prices fall. The lack of Vista support for often expensive software is a big factor holding many organizations back. Sure there is a version of our $1000+ application that runs on Vista, but there aren't enough improvements other from supporting Vista in the new version to justify upgrading.
Disagree. Windows XP was based on NT, well known to be much more stable than the Win 9X lineage that Microsoft abandoned. So, XP came out of the MS gate with a huge stability boost over previous versions. XP is the reason for Microsoft's success. And with the current dual-core processors and memory, these systems finally have decent performance........and Microsoft is trying their best to kill their own success, and succeeding quite nicely. Is Vista being deployed? Sure. Lots of people don't know any better. I cringe at 99% of the systems I see.
Microsoft has been trying to remedy this with their "limited account" in XP, but their methods of moving in and out of the administrator account for specific tasks is clumsy and time consuming, let alone all the bugs that go along with running a program under a limited account. In Vista they introduced User Account Control (UAC) which is annoying as all hell with its constant bombardment of popup dialogs. You see, Microsoft has yet to develop a system that's secure, stable AND easy to use at the SAME TIME.
Absolutely agree! The problem with Unix &Linux is that it's way too complicated for average users. The problem with Windows is average users can claim to be IT professionals. :-)
Before the Vista fanboys jump in. I use Vista, I like Vista, it just doesn't work as well as XP for getting a system going from scratch. My 1 successful install with no problems was using Bootcamp on Mac. Where Vista was native it's easier. Where Vista was "supported by the hardware" or Vista Capable blah blah blah. Nowhere near the success. Vista still falls short in key areas. Enough to where MicroSoft shold fix it, before releasing something else built on the same base that already doens't work as well.
You are correct that XP was more stable than Windows 9X, BUT most businesses at least the ones that knew what they were doing weren't on the Win 9X lineage so that point was largely irrelevant since many business users in 2001 were already using either Windows 2000 or NT4!
Windows XP was way more stable than Windows 9X, but that wasn't a selling point to businesses that already had an NT based version of Windows, particularly those running Win2K. A lot of businesses kept deploying Windows 2000 for years after XP came out because for a long time there were virtually NO compelling advantages to XP. Virtually all hardware that ran on XP also supported Windows 2000, but Win2K typically performed better because there was less overhead than XP. Ditto with software. Until recently there wasn't much software that worked on XP that didn't on Win2K. If you seriously don't remember the resistance to XP due to it being perceived as little more than a more bloated version of Win2K then you either haven't followed the business as long as you claim or you have forgotten how much negative criticism that XP received.
A lot of businesses that I have worked for or with in the first half of this decade held onto to Win2K until it became clear that MS was cutting back on the updates on Windows 2000. Once MS started only patching bugs they labeled critical most of holdouts started moving to XP because by that time the hardware to run XP well became cheap enough and their current machines old enough that most businesses could rationalize buying new hardware. I knew a few companies that were still using Win2K well into '06 and '07 simply because it supported everything they needed, but ran slightly faster than XP on the same hardware.
Even consumers who were largely using Windows 9X had a negative opinion about XP when it came out, but their criticisms largely lied with you guessed it...compatibility. While XP was better than Win2K about compatibility with programs designed for Windows 9X there was still a lot of programs that didn't run. Compatibility more than anything really plagued Vista. Sure, there are new version of expensive applications like AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc. that work with Vista, but many customers who due to the high price will skip a couple versions before they upgrade aren't going to upgrade until they are ready just to run the program on Vista.
If you think about it for a little while and poke around at old articles from 2001-2003 you will find that XP wasn't considered the greatest OS MS ever made back then. It has only been in the last 2 years that I have heard people anointing XP as the best thing MS ever made. A lot of people with better memories still realize that they didn't call XP Windows 5.1 for nothing. While Vista did get a bit of a bad rap ironically from a lot of people who never used it, the biggest issues stopping Vista adoption in the enterprise space besides the fact that most businesses have policies to wait a minimum amount of time or service packs before upgrading to a new version of Windows is **compatibility**. For many organizations the biggest cost barrier is replacing software. Hardware loses value every year it is used so at some point every piece of hardware is going to be replaced eventually, but software depending upon your needs may not lose any value to you. Unless there is a new feature that is compelling a new version of software other than running Vista most people would be better off staying with their current version particularly if the piece of software in question is >>$100/license.
It never ceases to amuse me when slack jawed yokels dub Vista a failure when it's adoption rate is actually pretty similar to XP at this stage in its life cycle. As for Macs and Linux being a success, sure, if you think pushing up global market share by a princely 2% despite a prolonged advertising campaign in the case of Apple and Linux maybe going from 1% to 1.5% counts then knock yourself out.
12 - 21% penetration of Vistink depending on which numbers you look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems
Hmm, Im trying to remember back in the day when major OEMs were selling XP with "downgrade rights" (or ME or 98 for that matter)
Does someone else know?
http://www.hp.com/workstations/white_papers/docs/windows2k_support_sept2004_v4.pdf
Like I said, slack jawed yokels without a clue. :)
That said, XP adoption by 2003 (2 years after release) was far, far (did I mention far?) more widespread, and far more widely widely accepted by both consumer and enterprise. Today, we have a majority of OEMs, enterprises, and consumers all scrambling to ditch Vista in favor of keeping XP at all costs. No major vendor, partner, or Fortune 500 corp had ever come out and said point-blank that they're skipping XP in favor of its successor when XP came out (mostly, they said at most that they would take their time incorporating it). Meanwhile, Intel heads a rather long list of enterprises that have specifically and publicly said "no" to Vista.
Secondly, XP actually had features and advantages (both internal and external-facing) above Windows 2000 that justified the pricetag. Vista has none of this over XP. DX10 is artificially held back from XP, and Vista's internal 'improvements' are hindering more than helping.
Thirdly, XP and Windows 2000 were about equal in performance, with a slight edge going to XP (which ran on some surprisingly old equipment for that time). Vista is actually slower than XP performance-wise unless you bump the RAM/CPU horsepower, and/or strip Vista down as far as you can. XP demanded no such requirement.
Finally, XP never had such a parade of show-stopping bugs (you know, like copying files...) or such dramatic incompatibilities (with hardware and software). Vista has them in buckets (though to their credit, SP1 finally did knock out enough of them to make the thing halfway usable).
So to the Vista defense brigade, hey - drink the kool-aid all you want and proclaim Vista to be your lord and master... no skin offa mine. Just realize that the rest of the planet has justifiably turned it down. Try not to take that too personally, eh?
/P
Silly troll is silly.
"Today, we have a majority of OEMs, enterprises, and consumers all scrambling to ditch Vista in favor of keeping XP at all costs."
Going to back that one up then Penguin? Because that should be really funny. I might grant you that most corporations still run XP - as, indeed, they ran NT and 2000 for about three or four years before XP had approaching 50% market penetration - but OEMs and consumers on current purchases?
Go on, prove it or, alternatively, just run away as usual when you get your arse handed to you.
Now I appreciate that some of you special people have a particular fondness for minor operating systems like Linux and OS X but, bluntly, hardly anyone really cares. Sure, you can post multiple times in a topic with your 'M$' and 'Fista' comments but all that does is give me a vivid image of a bunch of monkey hammering away at a keyboard whilst drooling away and involuntary soiling themselves. Mind you, I'm probably being a bit unfair on the monkeys here by comparing them to you guys.
In the meantime the reality is that despite MS making a complete bodge of Vista's launch it's selling rather well and the OS usage stats (and I appreciate one must take those with a pinch of salt) show it growing at a pretty decent rate - certainly far, far, faster than OS X or (giggle) Linux.
I'm sure at this point someone will mention Apple's stellar growth rate so I'll point out that despite MS's balls up, a massive adverting campaign and latterly their amusing smear tactics (rather than, say, mention anything positive about their own product) Apple managed to grow their global market share by, wait for it!... about 2%. Like, that's just awesome, dude! Sure they did a bit better in the US but since that's the third biggest market who really cares especially as growth appears to be stagnating now? Then again, Linux users probably wishes they even had 2% which is kind of sad considering it's free. MS are, of course, at liberty to make money from stupid people which - small businesses aside - this extension caters for so that's fine. There's one born every minute apparently.
So carry on posting in tech blogs where the writers are smart enough - or is it desperate enough? - to throw the usual chum in the water secure in the knowledge that you guys will take the bait. Feel free to spout your idiocies and outdated mantras. The rest of us will carry on using tools that run every bit of software we need.
Life's good without walls. :)
By the way.
Updated your Cert's lately? Probabally have no idea what I'm talking about.....
Go push your Mac propaganda somewhere else, we're all stocked up on BS here at CNet already.
You must give Microsoft credit for boosting the Mac's sales. By trying to kill off XP and forcing users to Vista, Microsoft caused many users to explore alternatives that would have otherwise just bought a new system with XP.
@ Orion Blastar even those whi buy the Mac Koolaid still by XP ( or Vista) to run real applications.
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Only lazy developers and prostitutes develop applications to run in winblows only. REAL applications are cross platform. Period. I don't care what "examples" you care to regurgitate, they are examples of lazy useless programmers who are nothing more than shills for the Bill. Otherwise they'd port their applications to an OS that isn't hackable by any 12 year old script kiddy.
OS X is a great OS, and yes you can get it working just fine on a PC. Google it, do some digging around and you'll find it. Granted that not every hardware works on it, that sucks but still. It also sucks that very few games natively support OS X. That is mainly due to M$ dominance on DirectX and game companies trying to save money by not allowing the support of OpenGL. Sometimes I think its sad that 3dFX lost the battle and Glide went away because in the old days it forced companies to compete by video card standards, and not by what M$ said. But I digress...
XP is still a great OS. I perosnally use XP and XP x64 on two of my computers and won't switch to Vista anytime soon. But M$ just wants to push their software onto people and have them conform to what their interpritation of reality is as opposed to what the market demands. Because of M$'s inability to provide quality software is the reason why OS X and Linux is in existance. And those who don't think Linux is in competition haven't used Ubuntu with Wine to run all of their Windows software (ok, most of it).
So stuff it. Anything you can do on your PCs we can do better on a Mac.
There, now I can be called a "troll" too, yes?
One more thing... I think it's MS passing out the koolaid when you can get millions of people to use a substandard product simply because it's "there" when you buy the computer. At least with Apple, you get a choice as to whether you want to run Windows or Mac OS.
The game system would probably be a PC, because breakdowns and viruses wouldn't matter in that environment. But for work it will always be Mac and OS X. Stability = Uninterrupted Production = Profit
Dalkorian, the script kiddies had their chance at the last "pawn to own" competition. The only computer left standing was running vista, so take your BS elsewhere.
I guess this little word: "RECOVERY DISK" is Micro$ofts justification for still charging money for Vista. Bye bye, Micro$oft!
Re: "[...Joachim: Mensys got in touch with Serenity Systems as soon as they (SSI) got the IBM OEM contract for OS/2. We were actively involved with OS/2 so we knew what was going on in the ?OS/2 world?. eComStation is the name that was given to the OEM version of OS/2, as part of the deal with IBM was that the product was not allowed to be called ?OS/2?....]"
http://www.themadfatter.com/2008/12/17/an-interview-with-mensys-about-ecomstation/
Linux is about to get OSFree:
http://www.osfree.org/
An Open source version of OS/2 for Linux. It should beat eComStation 2.0 as it has more driver support.
Combine that with the Linux Unified Kernel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Kernel
Then you have a Linux system that runs Windows XP, OS/2, and Linux applications in one OS.
Soon It Is Going To Be Rocking New Year's Eve 2009, And, It Will Be That Time Again To Party Like It Is 1998!
Cheers!
"That presumes that you can find drivers for your hardware."
I would challenge that statement. Simply run Windows Update and it will find far more devices than XP would out of the box.Driver installation is smoother and easier to keep updated.
Even on older hardware, this isn't really a challenge. Perhaps when Vista first came out it had these issues, but those claims simply aren't valid anymore.
Now that's not to say that you will have success working with 10 year old systems, but that is something you'll run into on any obsolete equipment.
"I would challenge that statement. Simply run Windows Update and it will find far more devices than XP would out of the box.Driver installation is smoother and easier to keep updated.
Even on older hardware, this isn't really a challenge. Perhaps when Vista first came out it had these issues, but those claims simply aren't valid anymore. "
I am NOT referring to finding drivers for Vista! If you read the post I was referencing (yes, I know stupidity is the norm on cnet) you would realize that I was referring to finding drivers to get XP to run on a modern laptop. The original post talked about how he hated vista on his new laptop and I was noting that on laptops getting the drivers isn't as trivial as finding the proper drivers on a desktop.
You are absolutely right that Windows Update on Vista does a great job at finding drivers for the hardware, but that has nothing to do with what I was saying. Try reading the context of the post before you reply to a response to another post next time because sometimes context is important.
Give Ubuntu a try. No really, go to their site and download a CD image. Burn this to disk and load it. You can try it out without even installing it. If you like it, you can partition an unused part of your drive and install it there. That way you have a "dual-boot" machine, meaning you can still boot fista when you're feeling dirty.
If you don't like it, wipe it out. Fista is still there to torture you whenever you want. More than likely though you'll discover your laptop is a screaming machine without all the DRM crapware that fista comes with.
So, what happens when Windows 7 comes out, if folks decide that it's a dog as well? Here's hoping MSFT doesn't find itself in that position, because if it does, then all hell will break loose in the marketplaces...
Vista's 'crap image' unfortunately was caused largely by people that do not use it or feel threatened by it.. It's a problem any product faces. There are those who never use or will use a product who spend their every waking moment trying to trash it for whatever secret agenda they may have. They may simply be looking to jump onto athe bandwagon in some attempt to be popular or 'cool'. Sometimes they are simply mindless sheep following a lleader who tells them how to think and that all is evil that is not their chosen OS/product. Nobody really understands this need to demean a competing product. Is it a threat to their ego? Are they not confident enough in their own sense of security that they fear change and the possibility that others may not think the way they do? Are there really people so bigoted as to post complete and utter gibberish with the intent to spread misinformation and deceive others?
Then you posted and all that confusion was cleared up. Perfect!
re: "Vista's 'crap image' unfortunately was caused largely by people that do not use it or feel threatened by it."
No, the reason it bombed was that when it was first released, it required massive hardware upgrades just to operate, had a lot of broken drivers, and broken compatibility with a lot of legacy apps. To top all that off, XP beat it solid in benchmarking by a factor of 150-200%. Couple all of that with a complete lack of compelling features that would justify it over XP, then an Enterprise market that turned its collective nose up at the thing, and it wound up with a crap image that it simply could not shake.
Now to its credit: Moore's Law did catch up, so Vista isn't as crippled in the performance department as it once was. SP1 did fix a lot of compatibility issues.
That said, by the time they did this, it was too late: Vista had a rotten reputation by then, albeit one that was earned.
When you claim that "Is it a threat to their ego?" and such, you assume (wrongly) that a small group of individual users have some magical disproportionate power over world opinion. Sorry to break it to you, but that's not how it works.
Finally, one would hope that, as an employee of Microsoft, you would try to avoid ad hominem arguments... all of us are your actual or potential customer base, after all. ;)
/P
@Vegaman_Dan
I think Vista crap immage is caused largely by people who had problems with it that MicroSoft didn't address as they should, when they should. At best MicroSoft didn't support their OS as they should At worst they abandoned it and theri custoemrs with the promise of 7.
Oh and I use Vista. I've installed it on about as many machines as XP and it's been a PITA. Love the interface, hate the PITA factor. I can run two identical installs and get different problems. Even if all the drivers work, sometimes I'll get a radom problem with a Vista component that decides it's time for a random error. Amazing. XP at least works. It now feels kludgy but the PITA factor is much, much less.
Oh, and I also got OS X. Thus far it's not the Godsend that Mac Fanboys claim it is. It's just another OS that does things differently and which you ahve to work around to get done what you are really trying to do. My wife is ready to chuck it through the wall. So much for the "like a fish to water" theory for non power users. I wish people would base their opinions on real experience instead of fairy tail land. Then we can do something with it.
by Penguinisto December 9, 2008 2:44 PM PST
Jon? Dude... the "security through obscurity" argument (and its corollary, "marketshare") will more often than not get you laughed out of any gathering of CISSPs or GSEC holders.
Seriously - when any 13-year-old in Eastern Europe can write a script or rig a webpage to pop a Windows box, but has to really work at it (or pray for unpatched PHP installations) to compromise any other OS installation?....
Let me put your silly bluster to rest:
"When are you finally going to produce "any 13-year-old in Eastern Europe can write a script" to pop a windows box, when they couldn't do it at the last pawn to own competition?"
Take a trip through http://secunia.com/binary_analysis/ - then come back and tell us how uncrackable Windows is, mm'kay?
Merry Christmas,
/P
LOL!
If not ReactOS will pick up the slack:
http://www.reactos.org/
XP much like Windows 98 before it will take a long time to die, but given enough time it will fade away till just a few hobbyists still use it.
In the old Days Windows did build an OS and Pc's got build around it, that has changed.
Quote "Windows is a Monkey now, Mac on one side Linux on the other". People like Options.
There are many People who buy Cell Phones "smart" (don't need to say which one) that has not Win operating system on it. Win has to catch up now on all front lines. That is good for the Costumer.
Question, on big Laptops, why some Manufacturer build into those Linux for Internet, e-mail, chatting, listening to music without firing up Vista? Vista just got to a Sumo ringer, not more flexible enough!
Choices, I like to have.
And to make the Win community mad again (me included) ;-) To sit in Starbucks and nip on a Mocha and go into the Net Vista is not always needed, more fashion is a Mac you get more Girls :-) Or an other non so Main stream OS. haaaaaa
I sleep quite well at night knowing my Vista machines are more secure than the XP machines.
XP = More stability in all areas that matter.
Each windows OS was more stable than the last until Vista. I never used ME so I can't speak to that.
@hleotan, I wish it were XP with a better interface. It would work better, install better, and run faster.
At least Microsoft is being practical though. REGARDLESS of how MUCH demand there is, that's not important, since there still IS demand for XP why not take advantage of that?
I have never met anyone who considered Windows 2000 a f'up. It wasn't perfect, but the business community loved it and there are still a few that are still using it today. I will agree with you that Windows 7 seems similar in nature to XP insofar as Windows 7 is supposed to be a minor release that mostly polishes some of the issues of Vista as opposed to a dramatic revision like Windows 2000 or Vista.
I won't be surprised to see the deadline getting pushed back until MS can come up with a legitimate replacement for XP. Of course by then, they will likely be a small time player.
drummer
I wish they would be included in 7. The big resource users are the background programs that only a geek or hacker or programmer would know about. Something an average user may never discover let alone figure out what they actually do like the graphics system the background defragmentor or background indexer or prefetcher or any network services or any of the thousands of things that go on in the background when a computer is running. Many of those background services have to be there to make Windows work and many of them run all the time. They won't be taken out of Windows 7 because Windows wouldn't work if they did.
The master has tightened his reigns on you. Some people like that.
Were that the case you would not be here.
I find new program name is CachemanXP will speed your Windows XP up become into super effect speed can blast Vista or 7 off when you enable 2 processors or more are on. Means that your XP will be more lighting fastest than Vista and possible Windows 7. CachemanXP not support Vista.
Visit CachemanXP on website - http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7 .
If you like it then buy it! This really helpful to me! This software boost up about 5 to 25 times faster than old setting that what we are use on XP. Forget Vista and save your a lot of headache!!!
If people are complaint on Microsoft maybe not help. I suggest people need go to judge or court in Washington to fill against Microsoft to keep Windows XP stock up or keep longer until year 2020 or more!! That is easy what people can do it! Microsoft need grow up!
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by iamstubb
December 23, 2008 2:14 AM PST
- I've recently started moving to Vista in a small laboratory setting, about 20 machines and a single file/Sharepoint server, within a University Active Directory network. I was worried a first due to compatibility issues with software at first, but most vendors have addressd that. I have to say I've been very pleased. It did take some getting used to the new interface. I have found that everyday things are just much easier with Vista. I really like XP, but I think Vista is as refreshing to XP as XP was to 98 or even 2000. I still have an old 2000 box running a specific piece of equipment, and a couple XP boxes for the same reason, and they look and feel just downright cartoonish and clunky compared to Vista. Granted I was moving from AthlonXP-based sytems, I don't have cutting edge hardware now either-running low-middle range AMD64X2 based boxes-but they have been rock solid and maintenance free since installing them. I read a lot of gripes, but I haven't seen any specifics about what is so bad about Vista security-wise or performance wise, or in a networked environment. What is so bad about it specifically? Not to troll, but I do hear the Apple users grumbling a lot more about software, printers, network access, wireless access, internet sites etc. than I do PC users. That may be becauseof the AD domain.
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by Imalittleteapot
December 23, 2008 4:30 AM PST
- Well things are different now that the service pack and the hotfixes have been released and more powerful hardware has come down the pipe. Many things have been fixed. You really had to try it at release to see how bad it was. I disagree however though that Vista is as refreshing as XP was to 98.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (106 Comments)Anyway, probably the number one reason people are trying to keep XP around is businesses that have an all NT network with software or hardware or something that hasn't been updated for Vista. Sure they could switch over to Vista, but many companies just want to get a box and slip it into their existing setup without any fuss. Time is money you know. Also, even though Vista may have some cool features many businesses care more about the software anyway. They could care less about the OS. All they care about is what features their software provides and it doesn't really matter what OS it runs on, and if it hasn't been updated to Vista yet then obviously you're not going to want Vista and if you need a new computer and you can't get XP then you might just be up a creek without a paddle. So, people still want XP.
Then you have power users at home that also use all assortments of random stuff and they really just want to get a new box up and running too. Also, Vista does use more resources. Take even a few CPU cycles away from some professionals or geeks and they're going to have a real bad day.
Then you got normal people that just learned XP and really don't like the constant upgrade cycle. Yes Vista does have some cool new stuff, but they aren't likely features a person that just checks their email would really care about or even know about. It does things you don't even really need it to do.
Security wise Vista is supposed to be better on security. It is, but not really as much as MS would tell you. Many of the latest security vulnerabilities found in XP affect Vista just the same. However, some of them do not to be honest. It is a little more secure, but again it's nothing to write home about. It's not enough that it would actually stop a dedicated hacker or anything.
Also it's some of these new security protections that cause a lot of old programs to break. Old programs assume they can do certain things like write to a random folder or registry key or something that you can no longer do in Vista so they just crash with errors or do something even weirder. This also causes problems with installing these old programs that just assume they can install themselves however they feel like it. That's just not the case with Vista. So these security features actually end up being a double edged sword. They're not free and they cost you in time and frustration.
Yeah it's the fault of the application designer, but so what? You still need your software to work. Yeah it's true that the most popular software has been updated by now, even when there's an upgrade it's not always an easy fix. Sometimes software upgrades cost money too and then it's just more money and more time to get the same work done. XP has been around a long time. Some people are running very old software that just will never work on Vista, but you know they still get their work done everyday with it. Why upgrade?
I mean many people already get their work done just fine. Vista may have new features, but if you're already getting your work done then really how many of those new features do you really need? Well, the answer is obviously none because you're already getting your work done right? Operating systems already do so much you know. Really how much more can an OS do? So why waste all the time and money? That's how many see it anyway and with no killer app for Vista I can't say I really blame them.