Dell, HP keeping Windows XP alive

Taking advantage of the "downgrade rights" offered as part of the Windows Vista license agreement, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell have both planned to offer machines loaded with XP well beyond June.

The plan is that technically the computers will be Vista Business or Vista Ultimate machines that have been factory "downgraded" to XP at the customer's request. More-or-less they are XP machines that come with an already paid-for upgrade to Vista when and if the customer chooses to do so.

HP said that it plans to continue selling the "pre-downgraded" desktops, notebooks, and workstations to its business customers at-least until July 30, 2009. Dell has already announced the same option on its web site and has promised that the models will stick around long after it stops taking standard XP orders on June 18. Other computer makers are still exploring their course-of-action but also want to sell XP beyond June 30.

However, there are certain limits to the approach being taken by HP and Dell. Only the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista come with downgrade rights which imply that regular consumer machines can't be sold in a similar fashion.

While companies can offer pre-downgraded machines via their web sites, buying a PC at retail stores would become rather complicated. It may be possible for customers to buy such a machine but how stores can offer such an option is not clear. The point to be noted is that in order to stay within Microsoft's terms, the customer has to somehow "request" the XP downgrade.

Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows unit, said that the downgrade-rights option meets customer needs.

"While (computer makers) continue to see large numbers of customers making the transition to Windows Vista, there are some pockets, like small business, that need a little more time. And from what we've heard from our partners, the downgrade rights option fulfills that need," Kutz said in a statement.

"XP will hit an end-of-life," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in Belgium recently. "We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments."

And yet all of this prompts to the real question - why Microsoft will not just extend the deadline- The company's basis that customers and computer makers are not demanding a longer life for XP seems to be increasingly questionable.

The latest twist of HP and Dell deciding to sell machines that have Vista rights but contain XP pre-installed beyond June 30 in a way reflects what the consumer is actually demanding.

The pre-downgraded PC option is just the latest way that PC makers have responded to stronger-than-expected demand. After shifting largely to Vista after its January 2007 mainstream launch, Dell and others quickly began adding more XP options in response to customer requests.

For some time now, computer makers have been selling machines with an XP recovery disc as a downgrade option like Lenovo which plans to keep offering an XP recovery disc with some Vista models through January 2009.

A spokeswoman from Waggener Edstrom said Microsoft is aware that some customers are pushing for an extension to the deadline.

XP is being phased out in favor of Windows Vista which has, so far, got a lukewarm welcome from many firms.

The owner of a PC support center questioned which users Microsoft had been gathering feedback from.

"I'd love to know exactly what and how many 'customers' Microsoft claims to be getting this feedback from," David Bookbinder, owner of Total PC Support said. "My guess, and it's an educated one, is that it's more likely stockholder feedback." Total PC Support provides service to home and small-business users in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.

"I service over 600 clients and have yet to find ONE speak highly of Vista, or wish XP to end. And that goes from the biggest novice on up," he affirmed.

Microsoft itself reported that its third quarter results were down by 11 percent largely due to a fall in sales in its Windows software division. Still Microsoft maintains that its sales of Vista licenses stood at 140 million, a figure that is in line with its predictions over-ruling the fact that a major chunk comprises of the "downgraded" PCs since even a XP downgraded computer with Vista as core OS is logged as a Vista sale.

The argument remains - why is Microsoft phasing something which people 'want' and giving them what they are facing issues with-

If Microsoft is looking for feedback then why are they ignoring the 1,80,000 plus signatures collected by InfoWorld magazine for their "Save XP" campaign- Consumers have voiced their "disappointment" with Vista citing varied reasons and some have now started discussing and putting up blog-posts to support XP.

As one computer user stated, "I like XP simply because it is faster than Vista. I recently bought a new computer with Vista as OS. Sadly, it is very slow. My other computer which has the "primitive" XP is so still so much faster."

A technical analyst said, "XP is one of the best operating systems out there. It has proven to be very stable. Why does not Microsoft just add to it rather than erasing a perfectly fine system- I have personally used it from day one and it has never let me down."

Another supporter said, "I won't be likely to buy a Vista machine until it is stabilized with SP2."

Nick Stahls another XP supporter, said that he started using Vista in March 2008 with his Dell XPS H2C on which he had this to say, "This is the most unreliable operating system ever and I've been using a variety of OS' since 1977. It is just not reliable. The system has just stopped with nothing to do with the hardware. The system fails and does a crash dump EVERY time it either cold or warm boots.Games fail on a regular basis."

"When an OS crashes in order to protect itself from some application attempting to access its memory space then that's a poorly constructed OS," he concluded.

But there are others who are satisfied with Vista or want to give it time to develop fully.

"XP was not great when it came out. Vista will get there," a student using Vista said.

Those who want to remain up-to-date with the technical advances say that keeping XP is "going backwards," as a technical advisor with a magazine said, "The existing Vista issues should be addressed and rectified and we should head forward."

One will have to wait and watch for Microsoft's take on all of this and pursue towards the right direction based upon popular verdict.