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Support Windows XP By Posting Drivers for PCs with Vista

240 points posted to Operating Systems - Multiboot by gear Apr 15

Now that the decision has been made by Microsoft to keep XP Home and other editions on the market at least until 2010, it is time to do more to add value to Dell's product and take advantage of your build to order model.

Recently, it is noted that:

a) the Inspiron 1520 has been brought back with XP for the home market.

This need to be greatly expanded with XP available pre-installed on every PC sold by Dell. The build to order model is indifferent to it.

b) Retail machines sold at Best Buy, etc. need to come with XP and not just Vista.

Want to be real brilliant? Find a way with Microsoft so that customer can choose whether they want Vista or XP installed when they first boot up a new machine. Make the choice revocable so that a customer can always change their mind later if they made the wrong decision.

c) Dell need to support their customers who had the misfortune to have bought Vista based machines before the full extent of the Vista disaster (few drivers that work properly, etc.) were known.

There are many people out there who have machines that were bought that cannot do what it was intended to do because of the failings of Vista.

Specifically, Dell need to make available "unofficially" or officially, XP drivers for all machines that are shipped with Vista to date.

While Dell can elect not to support these machine's software if they are reinstalled with Windows XP, providing the drivers is a must.

What Dell can do is to make clear what devices will work, what wouldn't work if XP were installed on it, and how much functionality a user converting a Vista machine to XP can expect.

If Dell is real clever, they would offer to these loyal customers the option of either downloading the drivers from the website, or alternatively, having the drivers / application programs disks mailed to them for a nominal cost.

Want to be real smart? Sell a retrofit kit including a copy of Windows XP (Upgrade edition) so users can easily upgrade their Vista machines to Windows XP.

-------------------

FYI, I bought an Inspiron 1525 at retail and converted it to XP myself.

The problem was difficult if you wanted to use AHCI rather than ATA compatibility mode. (Had to create my own boot disk from the XP disks).

I got it working, but had to hunt for drivers from the Inspiron 1520 (not all of them work properly), the Latitute D820 (some work), and then, some of the Inspiron 1525 drivers work with both Vista and XP.

As it stands, your competitors Fujitsu and Sony are both shipping XP installation disks and drivers with every Vista Business machine shipped.

Give customers a reason to choose build to order by offering something that is simply not available from your competitors HP, etc.

okroger104
Apr 16		 It's extension to 2010 is only for ultra-low-cost PCs, or ULCPCs or the UMPC computer. It would be nice if Dell and other manufacturers could get around this, but it would only be for a very small minority of their customers as Vista now works just fine on new hardware. What peripheral manufacturers of old hardware need to do is to create Vista drivers for their legacy equipment.

This summer, 1st tier computer manufacturers will be offering 64bit Vista by default. HP already took the lead.

It's time to move on. Especially to 64 bit.
gear
Apr 16		 The Microsoft propaganda line is that there will be no extension of XP past 2008 in other markets. If you believe that.... I got a bridge to sell you.

The bottom line is Vista drivers are NOT going to be written for the legacy hardware because it is simply not worth it when perfectly good XP machines are available and XP upgrade rights remain integral to the Vista Business license.

Moving to 64 bit offers very few benefits for most users as virtually no applications need more than 3gb of memory in the next 5 years (as far as I can see out) unless it is a server or a work station. For those, there is XP 64 that works fine.

What is under attack is the Microsoft insistence on tight control over drivers (via its compulsory driver certification program) for Vista, and to a lesser extent, for XP 64. The bottom line is there are just far too many peripherals and devices out there that is coded for XP that will not participate in the program because their volumes are too small, they don't want to give Microsoft the right to revoke drivers, etc.

Finally, there is the market....

On the laptop side, the overall market is moving fast to smaller, lighter, more nimbler devices even if it means a steep hit in absolute performance.

The reality is, no matter how you cut it, Vista, even in its Basic version, is simply too big, too bulky, and does too many useless things for things that users care not-a-thing about like content protection.

If a user want to buy a $50 DVD player - which is the ultimate cost of Blu-Ray players, fine. They can do that without messing up their PC.

At current trends, it will be no more than 5 years before the optical disk become obsoleted by the growth of cheap capacity with hard drives and flash. Bluray double layer only gives you 25gb --- tiny compared to a modestly good external drive and slow if the drive is using eSATA.

That is why I believe that making a PC a platform for playing copy protected video content is a dead end for Microsoft Vista, and also for the hardware manufacturers.

It is time to move on alright, from Vista to Windows XP.
winoffice
Apr 16		 No way I disagree, time to move on from Windows XP to Vista.
okroger104
Apr 16		 Gear, I don't know ,but here's some news. Montevina and Puma support up to 8GB ram. The next generations after that will support 16GB and up. And that's by late 2009. That's why the 1st tier manufacturers are migrating to 64bit OS.

Next, Vista's driver signing is not a conspiracy but an effort to increase the reliability of the OS. Poorly written drivers are a major cause of OS problems and crashes. With 64bit Vista and beyond, if a driver is not signed, it cannot be installed.

Next, Vista offers tablet functionality that XP just doesn't have. And there is a move to integrate tablet features into notebooks and media center PCs.

Next, the small form factor PC is NOT going to take over the market. Neither will the low cost PC take over the market. It will make up a respectable segment of the market for which CURRENTLY a ligther OS would be suited to it. By the middle of next year, that low cost PC will have a sizable gain in computing power for which Vista will be well suited.

Then in 2010, Windows 7 will appear.

Time to move on. Adapt or go extinct.

Oh, and there's always Linux.
gear
Apr 17		 The move to 64 bit is a separate issue from the move to Vista. As it stands, Vista's primary change for most users is not significantly better security --- it is based on Windows Server 2003 code and a well patched Windows XP SP3 is equal to or better. If users want a real secure machine, get Linux.

The real rationale for Vista is Microsoft's creation of a hardware / software based content protection system that they control, with the aim of marketing content to their installed base of PC users.

Well, I for one, don't give an Inspiron about content protection. I do not use my PC for that purpose. I use it for work and do not need the has sle, downgrade cost, getting new hardware so Microsoft MIGHT be able to sell me some Videos or Music.

As for tablet functionality.... that is a vertical market that I don't care ab out. If I want it, sure... but I don't. Sure, as UMPCs grow in power, it will eventually be able to run Vista well. But precisely the same argument can be made that the same resources are better used to make UMPCs even smaller, lighter, and run with either the same size or smaller code blocks.

The more PC code resembles a Swiss army knife and tries to do everything and anything, the more prone to bloat and compromises.

PC code need to become modular, with the basic kernel as small, compact, and fool proof as possible so that modules can be built atop of it that services the needs of different markets.

As it stands, the Vista kernel is so wrapped up around content protection that there is no way to bypass it, short of going back to XP.

The issue of bad drivers, sure, I can see that, but the reason for demanding certification is not for stability. It was because it enabled Microsoft to totally control the drivers and have the veto of remote revocation of drivers.

That is a great idea if you are building a disposable consumer toy for playing movies.

But I need my computers to work, and if I build an application, I need some assurance that some idiot somewhere along the line is not going to revoke my drivers (and offer no alternative) 10 years down the line that will force me to rewrite the software from scratch.

I do agree that it is time to move on from Vista.

My interim solution (3 years) is I bought a stockpile of retail XP licenses that are transportable to new hardware.

Hopefully, in 5 years, the solution of migrating away to a real clone of XP (command structure, etc.) based on Linux will be available.

At that point, I know it will be the last migration that needs to be done because I know the code can be supported independently of Microsoft's whims indefinitely.

BTW, the "inevitability" of Vista is sounding suspiciously like the "inevitability" of OS/2.

Heard that story before, and don't need to see a rerun.
jdelidc
Apr 18		 dupe.... see ideas in action
gear
Apr 18		 There is a bit of a duplication --- the Ideas in Action post is about Linux and XP drivers.

This is about XP only.

While there is vociferous support for Linux, the XP people are not as vocal. But there are a lot more people who want XP than there are people who want Linux.

IMHO, if Dell is to prioritize, they have to support XP before Linux.
veer01_42
Apr 21		 XP is gonna die ppl. Vista is way more secure and has way more functionality,

However ppl still use old hardware that have no vista drivers. Either because the makers see no cost benefit or they just drag their feet updating drivers(cough...dell)

The point is, some ppl have to use windows xp to keep using their existing hardware (such as printers and scanners including some industrial printers working) and have their own personal copies of xp and all they need are the drivers for the new laptops/desktops so XP works. All we ask is that working XP drivers are made availabe in case the need arises to downgrade to XP.
winoffice
Apr 21		 "Want to be real smart? Sell a retrofit kit including a copy of Windows XP (Upgrade edition) so users can easily upgrade their Vista machines to Windows XP."

That is impossible. First, Vista to XP is a downgrade, not an upgrade (as Vista was made after XP). Second, as Vista is the newer OS, no "upgrade edition" will work.
jdelidc
Apr 22		 @ veer01: i built a computer for a friend of mine with brand new everything. (he bought the parts and i put it together). if he wanted to take advantage of his video cards AT ALL, he had to go with xp since there are no drivers for the cards. don't remember which brand it is. but it's 512m ram a piece with a huge gpu on them, i think 500 mhz. and there's 2 so it uses either crossfire or something like it. but that would be a huge waste of money to buy brand new cards like that and not be able to use them

@winoffice: it's the perception. i'm also looking at fedora 9 as a downgrade from fedora 8
gear
Apr 23		 "Vista is way more secure and has way more functionality"

Isn't it fun that Microsoft Propaganda takes the time to comment on obscure little posts here.

The only way Vista is "more secure" is in the way it handles Copy protection via DRM. However, that is more secure for fat slobs at RIAA and Hollywood, who I do not care to subsidize when I buy a computer.

There has not been a single major incident where an up-to-date XP has proven to be less secure than Vista if you don't count the annoying popup that blocks you from doing anything in Vista.

As for "way more functionality", that is got to be the biggest joke --- it has a pretty interface which could just as easily be implemented in XP. The Aero interface and the ribbon I do not use and do not intend to use. So that functionality is worthless to me.

The gadgets --- worthless to me.

So after that, beside DRM, precisely what functionality does Vista offer over XP?

Driver revocation? The right of Microsoft to turn off your drivers when they feel like?

Ask the people who bought MSN Music downloads who is about to have their music authorization server turned off on them --- leading to content that cannot be used if authentication is ever required.

If these are the new "features and functionality" I get, I am going to go back to Windows 2000.
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