mr kila,
first of all. when you are ordering a laptop and want a deal, you dont go to the manufacturers website. you go to newegg or some other place. either that or you go to a local retailer because you want the product now and you are either ignorant of options or short on time. now.. i bought a TOSHIBA product. would we not class that company as one of the big boys? now, even if they do still offer xp installs.. why when i go to their support website do i see no other operating system supported but vista? i did the same search for my clients HP notebook with the same result.
if i cannot go to a companys SUPPORT site and get SUPPORT for any other OS but VISTA... how is that not forcing me to stay with that os? how many ppl are gonna have the time and knowledge to go trawling the internet piecing together drivers to make their computer work? we are not a world of techies out there.
you admit that vista cant WORK for you. pure and simple. now, the definition of a computer in my mind is a device that lets you WORK smarter, not harder. Vista is not that... not even close. Vista comes closer to my definition of BETA. if it blows up in your face, ooops... yu salt.
i am sorry, you need to work within the reality that we are facing here. the manufacturers in question are many.. the only one i know that provides off the bat XP support without a question is DELL. i dont like DELL, but i find myself recommending DELL to my customers simply because they provide that one service easily. you say it would be foolish for them to discontinue the drivers. my yute, if you ever know the work and war that went into making my machine XP instead of VISTA you would understand. and what does it say that i would find it easier to go thru the war and work and frustration rather than reload the vista partition that is still on my notebook's harddrive? yes, i left myself an out, but would rather format twice than use it. i would rather war than try to work with vista.. why?forcing you?? which manufacture that? just dont deal with that manufacture then cause to my knowledge the big boys like DELL, IBM, HP still offer winxp installs. And even the computers that come with vista all have winxp drivers, it would be foolish on the manufactures part to discontinue drivers for windows xp. even today i still see hardware shipped with win98 drivers adn instructions.
caw VISTA doesnt deliver.
another sad story, one of my friends bought himself a new phone, the HTC Touch. a very nice phone. he switched to windows vista ultimate on his pc and decided to upgrade his phones firmware online. in the middle of that operation, when the instructions WARNED him that discontinuing in the middle of upgrading firmware could render the phone unuseable... VISTA gave him a blue screen. a $600us phone. blue screen. in the middle of a vital operation.
not saying that XP doesnt blue screen... but i havent seen one on my installs in a LONG LONG time. neither had he until he switched to VISTA.. Vista Ultimate mind you.
as far as getting a legal copy...
so am i to assume that brand spanking New HP, Acer, Compaq and Toshiba (the laptops i have seen under Vista myself) are all running pirate copies of Vista? microsoft tech support is rude, but then i guess if you cant change anything from where you are, a sense of humour is the next best thing.
steep learning curve? boss... the ting dont work. thats like saying there is a steep learning curve to use a spoon to cut your lawn... if it is not the right tool for the job, what learning curve have to do with it? if the ting just doesnt deliver.. then i guess what i have learned is to stick to an OS that does what i want until they fix this new one. what steep learning curve? so they switch a few things around.. annoying maybe, but not deal breaking. i cant connect when i am on the road for no good reason but it's a pretty OS? sorry, deal breaker.
i would say, selling ppl a beta copy of windows is criminal. i would further say, that having a set of windows vista updates greater than 1gb is proof of how flawed and incomplete this thing really is. and then i would say that if i did have a choice ( and i do, DELL) then i readily and eagerly send my customers to XP and the laptop that does the WORK they need to do in the easiest circumstances. i will continue flogging DELL products and XP until i see a notable ease of use in VISTA. until then, well bwoy, i dont know how you can defend them when you admit they dont WORK for you... but we shall see what may come. as i said, i am sure VISTA will be convenient one day, but today aint the day.
i could get into other stuff re XP being harder to get a hold of and consistent talk of dropping xp support coming from the makers of vista... but i dont want to stray off topic. later ppl