But doesn't rumor hold that there will be no upgrade path directly from XP to Windows 7? This would mean that current XP users could not upgrade, but would have to purchase the full install sku. I have one Vista machine and that is why all the rest of mine are still XP. According to pricing that I saw, it would require an expenditure of $2250 (assuming that I could upgrade my Vista for 1/2 price) to upgrade my 8 functioning computers. Yes, some "shopping" would probably uncover a few dollars discount from this price, but I don't see much discount on current, and even older MS software. I expected to see mail order prices for XP drop substantially after Vista went mainstream.............didn't happen.
VM's, like Linux, have a LOT of simplification to do before they are ready for the masses..........or me. I have tried VMWare Player with several Linux "breeds" (Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, etc.) and have not found any of them to run smooth and without complications. I have found that a dedicated computer with a KVM switch works best for me. I am currently experimenting with Windows 7 on my Linux box.
It's not a rumor, Windows 7 isn't compatible with XP, simple as that, MIcrosoft has stated it plenty of times, which is why the talk of the new compatability mode is to install it in a virtual machine.
I'm on the boat with the smart vista users, face facts, it is not up to the OS to provide the drivers, it's up to the manufacturers, I for one know for a fact that Creative didn't even make beta drivers for Vista, and they waited until after release to start, this made me get rid of that creative, and buy an actually pretty good soundcard from Best buy. A peice of crap that's branded by them, and has a much better sound chip IMO, I installed it, and out of the box, no issues, nothing.
DJ, you said the reason vista failed was because of drivers, however, that isn't vistas fault, that's your audio card manufacturers fault, for waiting too long to start making drivers, every beta release of Vista I tested had new Nvidia drivers, never had an issue, and ding ding ding, on release, those drivers were running fine.
Windows 7 is now having a quite strict program requirement, where the programs MUST work on 64 bit editions, they don't have to be 64-bit, but they damn sure have to work. As has been stated, it's the developers problem to follow this guide, I don't know about you, but I have yet to play a GAMES FOR WINDOWS title that hasn't worked great out of the box. Microsoft releases great Operating sytems, I knew straight off the bat Vista would do bad on preinstalled machines, and while I was working at circuit city during it's launch, I knew it would fail because of that, however... That again, has nothing to do with the operating system, the fault lies in companies like Dell, and HP, that just want to make more money, so they toss on a nextgen OS on a peice of shit that can't run anything.
Superfetch? Best thing ever created, I can't remember a time when Call of duty or Photoshop opened so fast, and gee, what a surprise, it's because I had enough foresight to get vista, and to get more than 1GB of ram.
What I find funny of course, is that the people complaining about the issues, are usually the ones that have the money to upgrade, but are too damn cheap, 4GB of ram Costs next to nothing these days, I think I payed $80 total for mine, and it's pretty high end. I actually read through all the posts here, and it sickens me how many people so quickly bash a company, you say microsoft is charging too much, and the MAC os is cheaper, did you forget? You can't really customize a mac much, other than over pay up to 5X for a PC with a special locker chip designed to FORCE YOU to use their OS, not only that, their OS barely has different specs, so theres nothing to make there, it's glorified linux. I'd like to see anyone make a program that can work on millions of different hardware configurations and make it cost effective, it's impossible.
But still the bashing, and after all this, microsoft has actually listened to the whiners, they've made a shit version of windows 7, that runs on next to nothing, they've allowed us to completely remove things like internet explorer, and windows media player(IE sucks, but WMP is one of the best out there if you know how to use it). ON TOP OF THAT there are even talks of allowing you to get a free copy of an older OS when you buy Windows 7, but still, people talk shit, and most of it has no actual basis. We are in 2009, about halfway through, the people that have the issue here, are the ones that can't see that technology keeps going forward.
Microsoft won't stop upgrading, and in the world of PC gaming, imaging, audio, modeling, we can't stop upgrading. I know I sound like a fanboy, but I've suffered through ME, I've gone through some of the hardships you guys have, with the drivers, it sucks, but it's not the OS's fault, it never has been, fact is, you install Vista, and you rarely even think of a driver having to install, because it's already there. You install 7, and I don't know about you, but I literally have to install 1 driver, and that's for my LCD screen on my keyboard, nothing else, everything is recognized, from my second monitor, to my cheap Kodak printer.
That's my rant, the TLDR version, It's not microsofts fault, it's not vistas fault, it's the greedy manufacture and OEM companies faults.
-- the music is usually UNLISTENABLE to. However played with those nasty little white bud earphones using an Ipod in a noisy place like a plane / train etc the sound can be "almost" passable -- however nobody these days ever talks about the quality of typical MP3 compression -- regarded as a great product even though technically its mainly JUNK)
