

Two years after Vista launch, 71% of business PCs still running XP - crocus
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1870

======
halo
I believe this is a case of self-confirmation bias.

Checking for similar articles from 2003, around 2 years after the launch of
XP, I found this gem: "Windows XP, the most current version of Windows, was
found on just 6.6 percent of the [business] machines"
([http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39161686,0...](http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39161686,00.htm)).

~~~
netcan
Exactly.

To be relevant, you'd need to consider this against XP's adoption taking into
account rate of machine turnover.

Few people actually upgrade OS.

Yes, this means there hasn't been a compelling reason to upgrade OS. But that
doesn't mean that much. There hasn't been a very compelling reason to upgrade
machines in general.

It might signal that MS were solving problems with Vista (security mostly)
that didn't really exist.

------
quoderat
As I'm probably overly fond of pointing out, Vista is what caused me to switch
to Linux.

I know the businesses I work with have no interest in Vista, and probably
won't switch to Windows 7, either -- at least not anytime soon.

I'm advising all those who can to go to thin clients. That is actually about
90% of the business users who can easily use thin clients. They're often just
as fast, far more secure, and so much easier to administer.

~~~
revorad
What distro do you use? What apps and desktop?

~~~
quoderat
I use Ubuntu right now. It has the best support forums and frequent updates,
and is the best distro I've used over the years despite some glaring bugs.

The most common apps I use are Firefox, gedit, Audacious, the shell, Brasero,
VMWare (for testing Exchange setups in Windows), AbiWord, GIMP, Asunder, VLC
and Pidgin.

I started out on Red Hat 5.0 (not RHEL) in the late 90s. Used it full-time for
about a year, then switched to BeOS and dual-booting that with Windows. Over
the years, I've also used Caldera, Corel Linux, Mandrake (before it was
Mandriva), SUSE and some others I am sure I'm forgetting.

My desktop is Gnome, though it's not nearly as customizable as I'd like (used
to be, though, before the developers removed it all). I don't care for KDE
that much, though.

I'm going to try Fedora Core 11 when it comes out, but will probably stick
with Ubuntu, I'm guessing.

~~~
revorad
Thanks. I've switched plenty of distros (like most Linux users I guess). For
now, I'm sticking with Debian. I find it quite fast and lean with xfce.

One thing that's frustrated me in the past is that after having been a Windows
users for years, I suddenly tried completely switching to Linux without
knowing much about the commands and file structure.

I still struggle with app updates and dependencies but I'm trying to switch
slowly, one task at a time from XP to Debian.

Do you recommend any books or good manuals? I know I can find loads if I just
google it, but that's also been my problem. There's way too much info and it's
too annoying to look for one tiny thing in that mass of text.

Thanks for your help.

~~~
quoderat
Yeah, I think every Linux user switches distros over the years to find one
that suits them best. It's always interesting (to me) to hear what path others
have trod along the way.

I was lucky in that my girlfriend was much more deeply into Linux than I was
when I decided to get rid of Windows altogether almost two years ago now. She
was a big help. If I didn't know something, I'd just ask her. Unfortunately, I
can't offer my girlfriend as a resource. ;-)

Even though I consider myself a geek (and you sound like you are as well),
this book, _Ubuntu for Non-Geeks_ , helped me out:

[http://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-Linux-Non-Geeks-Project-
Based-G...](http://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-Linux-Non-Geeks-Project-Based-Get-
Things-Done/dp/1593271182)

Since you're using Debian, a lot of that will apply, too.

I also just read a whole lot of man pages and used the great Ubuntu Guide
site:

<http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Intrepid>

And I used the Linux command reference PDF here:

<http://fosswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fwunixref.pdf>

And of course a lot of Googling.

It does bother me that Ubuntu is coming to mean "Linux" to a lot of people,
but it is a good distro.

What do you like about xfce? Never tried it myself.

~~~
revorad
Thanks, those links look great.

You're lucky with the gf mate. Mine just keeps asking me, "What are these
secret clever things you keep doing with the computer?"

The reason I want to move away from Windows is to learn more about how Linux
works and use it to do more fun things. I've used Ubuntu a few times and I
liked it. But I find because it's deliberately aimed at non-geeks, it has too
much fluff.

And that's why I like xfce. It's a really minimal, simple desktop - less
distraction for me. You should try it.

~~~
joeyo
And "minimal" here doesn't mean something necessarily aimed at power users
like fluxbox, ratpoison or awesome.

I've always thought of xfce as a sort of gnome-lite-- it looks just as pretty
and has all the gui toolbars and widgets that you would expect, but uses a
tiny fraction of the resources. It's a great desktop environment for laptops
and older computers.

------
cadalac
Windows XP is actually a very good product so why switch?

~~~
iigs
In Redmond, Windows Current has generally been regarded as the biggest
competitor to Windows Next, and there comes a point where people won't pay
$hundreds for another dialog box prepended on the workflow for changing your
IP address.

You'd think that Embrace, Extend, Sell would be a better mantra than Embrace,
Extend, Extinguish, but I guess that's why I'm not a Windows product manager.

~~~
mzexfswlkrji
Thats why you can't buy WindowsCurrent-1 Business would be perfectly happy
sticking with W2k or NT4, there haven't been many breakthroughs in the
technology needed to type a memo or update a sales spreadsheet.

The only way the money keeps flowing to Redmond is that new machines only come
with WindowsNew and eventually everything else has to update because it's a
pain managing a mixed environment.

~~~
iigs
Indeed. Really all most companies want is continued support (patches). This
model is crying for a subscription arrangement and MS was tripping over
themselves trying to figure out how to make Windows a subscription business.
It seems like it should be possible...

~~~
jwilliams
Microsoft tried the subscription model and it failed miserably.

They eventually gave up and switched all the subscription licenses to
perpetual one... A savvy colleague of mine immediately went to the store and
bought all the subscription licenses on the shelf (they were considerably
cheaper than a full license).

------
iuguy
We went to 'anything but Vista'. Which mostly meant a mix of XP and Xubuntu.
We've probably saved between £1-2,000 per host that would've otherwise been
upgraded and extended the refresh cycle by a year to accomodate Windows 7 and
Core i7 when it comes out and becomes cheap enough later this year.

------
rokhayakebe
The lack of change does not have much to do with Vista. The main reason is
that businesses are slow to make changes. Once they are comfortable they will
not want to touch anything, specially if that means coming out of pocket. Now
that being said, yes, Vista sucks.

~~~
latortuga
I wish I could vote you down because this just isn't true, Vista does not
suck. This statement is so very tired that I sometimes wonder why I still hear
it. What is it that makes Vista suck to you? I've used Vista for 6+ months now
for work and I can't name anything particularly sucky about it. Conversely,
just the other day I discovered DEP which actually seems like a feature that
they should have touted more in the marketing.

Why is there still mindless hatred of Vista? I'm actually kind of excited
about Windows 7 which I can't say I've ever been able to claim about any
release of Windows.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Sorry if I offended you in any ways. I used Vista for one year before my
laptop died. Although the graphics were nice, I found the entire experience
less rewarding then using XP.

------
briansmith
I wish I had 71% of businesses running any versions of my software.

------
critic
2 years?! feels like just a few months ago.

------
weegee
Vista Fail. I've been using XP since Jan 2004 with no issues, no re-install,
still works fine. Why the hell would I upgrade to downgrade my performance.
Who needs a bloated candy-colored version of Windows? A new OS should be
faster, not slower. Try again, Microsoft. Until then I'll stick with XP and
OSX on my Mac.

------
dotcoma
I can't believe there are companies that are such suckers that they'd be
willing to pay a Vista license and then an upgrade to Windows 7. But if there
are companies like that, MSFT is right to treat them as bad as they do. They
fully deserve it.

