Since most businesses don't jump on the bandwagon right away when new versions of OSes come out, Microsoft's money-in-the-bank solution for getting Vista out there is with the consumer market since the consumer brands don't want to support both versions and will roll out Vista systems on launch day. Of course Microsoft still makes money on the XP OS sold on the Dells so it doesn't feel much pain yet.

It will be interesting PC companies that sell in retail stores like HP, Gateway, Packard Bell or FSC will follow suit. In that case MS is going to have to spend even zillions more to convince people Vista is worth a shit.

Poor Microsoft.

I've been pushing people to buy Dell's "business" offering rather than home, just so they would have XP as an option. Most want XP. I've been running Vista since release, and, well, meh.
One client of mine bought a Gateway laptop with Vista Home Premium on it. I called Gateway to get a sideways-transfer to Vista Business Edition. They wouldn't do it, the only available option was Vista Ultimate. They said if I were to install Business Edition anyway, it would void the warranty. I asked for an XP fulfillment. They wouldn't do that either, it would also void the warranty.
I had the customer return the machine for his money back.
(also - Dell. Linux. Available now!)

Oddly enough the new machine I got at work was shipped with no OS and is now dual booting between vista and XP.

We have some computers on Vista- nothing but a PITA.

Now with both Linux and XP options, I don't think Michael Dell is Bill Gates' favorite person these days.

I'm not touching Vista with a ten foot pole. I'm not even sure if I can stay in the Windows support realm if I have to support Vista. Thankfully so far it seems like people aren't really stampeding to upgrade to Vista, and it looks like XP will be around for a while longer in the corporate realm.

I'll personally be sticking with 2000/XP until I have a computer fast enough to make use of Gentoo and/or Beryl with WINE (or dualboot to 2000/XP for Windows only apps/hardware). The Beryl interface makes both Vista and OS X look like freeze-dried poop. By the time that 2k/XP become really and truly obsolete, Linux will have matured that much more and have even more annoyances worked out and be that much more useful.

I generally follow the 3 - 5 years rule with new Windows operating systems, that's how long I'll wait till i consider upgrading. Most bugs are worked out by then. We'll see if Vista ever survives.

Frightening to see how OEMs are pushing it, given:

1) how long XP has had to get entrenched
2) no one asked for any of the shit in Vista
3) no one seems to like Vista

I'm just waiting for the first high-profile security hole. Maybe it's already happened and I missed it. I'm sure the tech beat reporters are waiting for it as well.

According to EULA for Windows XP that I ended up with (OEM bundle, not retail), it said I was entitled to use the license for XP or any prior version of Windows except for some server editions.

If you get stuck with a Vista load, you might read the fine print and see if it has the escape to prior edition clause.

Under the hood, Vista has some compelling advantages over XP, not the least being things like ReadyBoost which can be useful for even older machines. But for new machines with hardware that can take full advantage of the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM), I think you will see fewer video related problems, and significantly improved screen operations, as mainstream applications will have access to the powerful GPU hardware of new video cards, in new ways that the XP driver model never supported. This capability is going to take time to mature in the market, as application vendors won't release software with these features until there is significant Vista presence in the market, but once it gets going, I think demand for Vista will sharply escalate.

And ultimately, these kinds of under the hood breaks with older technology still drive the Wintel ecosphere, and thus indirectly benefit the Linux/BSD worlds as well. As an example, without Microsoft support of new GPU capabilities, no hardware vendor is going to push out new video cards with those capabilities, on the hope the Linux world will get excited by them, and provide driver support for the features, and then build applications over those drivers. It still takes Microsoft to legitimize these shifts, and push vendors to push the user base to upgrade.

And do we Windows 3.0 fans get any respect whatsoever? We. Do. Not.

ReadyBoost is a pile of fermented shit. If Microsoft were capable of writing an OS that managed its memory correctly, or didn't allow for hideous memory leaks from various known programs, they wouldn't NEED to write a utility that used a freakin' slow-ass thumbdrive as a pagefile cache.

Jesus H. Christ on a Chicken In a Biscuit! Talk about the mother of all band-aid solutions! "Yeah, uh, our OS swaps too much, handles memory like it was a 5 dollar Vegas hooker and leaks like a White House Rep on a free booze junket. The obvious solution is obviously to add an entirely new memory management pathway so that Windows can expand to fill the volume of that container as well. Make it so."

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" my fat fucking ass.

Granted, flash-based cache is cool. Many different software and hardware makers are planning to implement it. However, Microsoft's motivations (and established history) are about as pure as Bob Flanagan's steamy underpants. They'll implement it wrong, it'll be supported wrong, I'll end up having to support that shit in the field and then I'll have even more headaches when clients/students/cow-orkers accidently pull/crash/mangle their thumbdrives, and we'll soon see Vista-running zombies everywhere with thumbdrives sticking precariously out of their laptops because - as is the Windows way - it will soon become established "best practice" and we'll be relying on it and thinking it's all normal and GOOD GOD PEOPLE CAN'T YOU SEE THE INSUFFERABLE MADNESS THEY'VE WROUGHT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGHG AAHHGHH *runs away shrieking and yanking out fistfuls of hair*

I upgraded to XP and then went back to win2K. I use linux for business. win2K is looking like my last MS OS.

If I still want windows for games and shit I will most likely run it as a virtual machine.

Mochicrunk: OEM bundles aren't downlevel compatible with Vista. There is no fulfillment with WinXP if you elect to remove Vista. And the EULA now says that if you replace the OS with another, non-sanctioned one, you void the warranty on the HARDWARE. This is true of Gateway and HP, I haven't looked at Dell. That's total, utter bullshit.

You don't need 5 separate goddamn versions of an OS. You just don't. I mean, come on.

There is one, and only one, real advantage to Vista: Search. They did a GREAT job with search. It's so good you don't care where your files are anymore. Search by tag, search by TAG, for god sakes.

The rest of the underhood shit is just fixes from bad designs. I'm with loq - readyboost is a hack. Marc Russonivich (from Sysinternals) has gone into great detail on Vista's new features on Technet and elsewhere. I don't see anything, at all, that makes me want to run out and buy it. The only reason I'm dual-booting it is because I got it free.

/rant

Okay, not that it's essential to reiterate, that's total ass. MS earned a tiny bit of goodwill with me because of the downrev clause in XP that allowed me to escape the "phone home" proclivities of XP. Now with WGA being shoved in my face even for my lone Win2K install (and just to download a new copy of the formerly non WGA'ed Windows 2000 Resource kit), there's really nothing compelling about hanging out in the back of the revision classroom hurling spitballs at the new kid with the latest DirectX.

And with regards to Vista, I already have a platform that shovels nothing but advertising at me. It's called a telly and it's been unplugged for several years now.

(also - Dell. Linux. Available now!)
This is contrary to what I was told when purchasing a new notebook for someone the other day - I didn't really want to support Vista on the machine and wasn't keen on paying for XP when I have a perfectly good copy of XP I can install on it. Dell advised me that they no longer sell any machine without an MS operating system on it. Maybe this is Dell Australia only? Either way, I will soon be setting-up and supporting at least one Vista-based machine when I was seriously considering jumping to *nix and finally getting off the MS tit once and for all. Not happy, Jan.