So far I've got no issues with Vista on my MIL's laptop. I'm starting to think the Vista bashing is perhaps a bit over done...? It's a resource hog for sure but after uninstalling all the usual crap software and dropping in Firefox, OpenOffice, and AVG I seriously can't complain.

I'm typing this on a very old G4 Powermac running OS-X 10.3. So far it's a nice OS but in reality is no more impressive than my nicely setup XP machine or the previously mentioned Vista laptop. Sure it's a slug but the hardware is ancient so I cut slack for that.

Only way MS will change is for a major efflux of paying customers. In this case, a large chunk of folks will have to switch to Linux or Mac. May just happen.

Got copies of both. In the Middle East now and not back home for another 4-5 weeks so PM or email me then. These are from a company I used to work for who went out of business so no problem sharing them.

Why would I need to sign the petition? Vista has been running fine on my computer for over a year now.

MS stopped supporting my version of XP pro over a year ago when they started their authenticity certification checks.
Seems the version I bought (on e-bay) was either a copy or previously licensed. Now MS won't support it at all, no upgrades, no service packs, nothing. It still works just fine.
I un-installed the authenticity check but can't install any upgrades unless that authenticity check thing is installed and running.

They offered to sell me a new copy for some unreasonably high price, I said no thank you I already bought and paid for a copy.
Besides, all they were going to do was to sell me a license, not a copy.
Now if someone wanted to sell something that would bypass that authenticity check .... ;) j/k

There are ways to beat it. Google is your friend. That's all I'm sayin' about it.

Tanks ;)

Vista just crashed from all the details you posted

Thats why I have XP on my machines!

MS sends out an OS that has not been de-bugged and lets the public and businesses de-bug it for them.

So does just about everyone else, SLES 10 was a mess, VIO for AIX was torture.

I see threads with Mac guys trying to get pc apps to run on the Mac but I wonder why I don't see threads with pc guys trying to get mac apps to run on pc's?

can't think of any mac only application that i would so desperately need...

I won't ever need to worry about the next, greatest OS (shyte) from MS. When I'm no longer happy with our WinXP PC's here at home, they will be donated and I'll replace them with the latest offerings from Apple.

Here is a quote that I agree with 100% in regards to Vista:

It's about time Microsoft made it hard for software companies to create buggy software on its OS. It shouldn't reintroduce the security holes that have made it easy for my industry to get away with selling defective products. (Yes, I'm a software developer.)
It's not Microsoft's problem that software companies don't work harder to make their products better. Instead of bashing Microsoft for trying to fix the problems with its product, get on the phone to your application suppliers and demand that they fix their own software.
It's amusing that Apple was applauded for switching from the incredibly insecure and buggy Mac OS 6/7 to the much more reliable and secure Unix-based Mac OS X. Yet when Microsoft tries to make it's product more reliable and secure, it's bashed.
-- Jay Rodgers

From Information Week Dec. 17/24, 2007

Even a lot of MS stuff didn't run without triggering UAC when Vista was first released (such as admin tools, etc.) but they've been updating them over time to where they are all signed properly, etc. and work flawlessly. The other vendors just need to do the same.

Same goes for hardware vendors. Apples don't have driver issues because they have closed hardware which makes it much more expensive. A video card for a Mac is 1.5-2x the price as compared to the PC version of the exact same card typically.

It's not MS's problem that hardware vendors are writing bad drivers, and that's 90+% of all crashes on Vista as well as XP (the first 12-18 months of XP were *horrid* for drivers, but most people don't recall that.)

I would have been perfectly fine with it if they had even broken twice as many apps as they did in the name of progress and run a Virtual PC with XP to run the old stuff. Just like OS X did with running OS 9 apps virtualized.

You get the gold star Stijn. I doesn't matter how good Macs are, pc's have the apps! That is why Macs have a 6% market share!

Am I the only one who read this wrong and thought that someone else was trying to save a Win XP partition?

I have a 2000 machine still running. Will it stop if it finds out it's no longer supported?