RB--
"if you install Vista your XP installation will be useless and will
require a full re-format / re-install to get XP back. Leave Vista
alone."
I'm not sure I understand why Mr. Jonah tells you to "leave Vista alone"
when MSFT has positioned it to be released to the public as a software
aphrodisiac. I see a lot that needs to be fixed in Vista, but it doesn't
seem to be particularly that complicated to use as a production machine.
What bothers me the most, is that MSFT doesn't want criticism or feedback
despite their posturing that they do and isn't fixing a lot of major bugs or
acting on the criticism. The recent Changewave survey which included TAP
testers and Beta testers and major decision makers of companies who could
deploy Vista reflects this:
Does Vista Live Up to Hype? Changewave Alliance Survey
http://www.changewave.com/freeconte...reecontent/2006/05/alliance-vista-051506.html
What will cause MSFT to change is simply lack of sales if that happens a
correlation between broken software and lack of sales takes a good while to
happen.
I suppose Mr. Jonah means if you were to upgrade Vista from XP which is
purportedly a "supported" scenario whatever supported by MSFT possibly could
mean in reality--if someone finds out let me know--because upgrades from XP
to Vista B2 are working for most people with some features not functioning
well--it varies.
You can dual boot or put Vista somewhere else besides the space you have XP
in. Do this and you can enjoy using Vista and learning its features and its
shortcomings and perhaps provide some feedback to the quintissential tin
ears--the MSFT PMs who say they want the feedback but refuse to listen to
it --or implement it in significant amounts.
I'm not sure I understand what Jonah means in response RB. I read the
response a few times but it doesn't seem to go to what you want to do. As
Colin said, your recovery partition won't be impacted., You should be aware
that 99% of the time neither recovery media or the recovery partitions
so-called by OEM will work in large series of no boot XP where they are
tested.
Vendors don't want to talk about why they want to sell you hundreds or
thousands worth of machine, but can't just strike a deal with MSFT for
competent media which would be a retail copy of the media--either XP CD from
MSFT in the case of XP or in the future a Vista DVD in the case of a Vista
pre-loaded OEM. It's a subject MSFT never wants to discuss because it
screws about 500 million of their OEM XP customers and future OEM Vista
customers who don't have the guts to insist that OEM furnish them a retail
XP or Vista media. They can do it and may do it if you tell them you won't
spend thousands of bucks with them. I always make them. They don't want to
lose the sales, and according to yesterday's story on Dell above the fold in
the Business Section of the NY Times-- they don't want to lose that sale
more than ever right now--so your leverage is much, much better than when I
last insisted if Dell wanted the sale they were buying me a retail MSFT XP
Pro CD.
"Falling Short of A+ Dell is Trying to Bounce Back from a Bad Year"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/technology/15dell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I loved the part of this article that said--with an almost clone like
parallel to their platinum partner MSFT:
"One problem was of Dell's own making: the deterioration of its customer
service. It has thrown a lot of money at that problem very quickly, more
than $100 million in the last few months, to answer consumers' questions
quickly." I hope crappy customer support begins to impact these companies
with a licesnse to print money. Dell's revenue last year was $55.9 billion.
From a memo by Eric Rudder MSFT Sr. VP for Tech Stragegy to Warren Buffett
asking for investments in MSFT on a rather large scale that Bill Gates'
sometimes bridg partner provides, Mr. Rudder, after allowing he was worth
several hundreds of millions, said that MSFT made $140 per preinstalled
Windows:
"A PC is just a razor that needs blades and we measure our revenue on the
basis of $ per PC," Raikes wrote. "In FY96, nearly 50 million PCs were
purchased and Microsoft averaged about $140 in software revenue per PC or
$7bn" wrote Mr. Rudder to Mr. Buffett. This was in 1996 and ten years
later the cost of Windows is higher and they make more.
Have you ever tried to see if that restore partition worked RB--because you
have less than a 1% chance it will recover you from a no boot windows vs. a
genuine retail XP CD with a repair install or a genuine retail Vista DVD
with a Win RE repair in the future?
Why don't you either dual boot Vista or put Vista in some locationbesides
your XP drive? BTW if you do use a dual boot, your Vista restore points if
you are one of the few people who sees them being made at the default times
inteneded, won't be preserved if you go to your XP boot. You should also be
aware of Win RE as a repair modality when you can't boot to Vista which
contains the option to System Restore.
Win RE in Vista has these options: Startup Repair, System Restore, Complete
PC Restore, Win Mem Diagnostic Tool, Cmd Prompt, Fabricam Recovery Utility.
Vista also has a decent Windows Backup utility to media or a HD on your PC
or another PC or a server as opposed to the ridiculous NT backup that was
provided in Win XP.
Where is this all discussed and explained? That's a great question. I
haven't seen anyone put a link in here or on any other Vista group sponsered
by MSFT for that matter to date. Don't expect to see the answer anytime
soon. Try a book in a bookstore during the next week on Vista because
MSFT hasn't gotten off their butts to do it and doesn't seem inclined to
anytime soon.
CH
