I guess I wasn't the only one screaming about being forced to choose vista when ordering a new home pc from dell. I realize there is a cd you can use to re-partion etc.. but seriously, when you get a brand new dell pc, who wants to spend time "fixing" it?

Windows XP Redux: Dell Revives Predecessor To Vista -- Windows XP -- InformationWeek

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That's why I built my own PC. And on that note, when I bought Vista, I made sure my hardware worked with the OS. So far, my Vista experience has been a blessing. I admit, sometimes I like to look at Macs (what PC guru doesn't?), but if you build your PC right, your user experience is a good one.

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I've built all my own computers with the exception of my first (TI-99 4/A) one, and I agree...I've rarely had a bad experience...But I needed a laptop, and you can't really build them for a reasonable price, so I went and bought one.

Hooooboy, all the bundled stuff they cram on them will have you pulling your hair out and getting all stabby for hours trying to clean it off. Ever tried removing Norton? It's worse than any virus or spyware I've ever had to remove.

I can build a PC from scratch, install an OS, and have it running like a champ in under 3 hours if I'm taking my time, drinking beer, eating chips and salsa, and watching a Beavis and Butthead moronathon. I go purchase a laptop, and I spend an entire weekend cleaning it off and wanting to throw it through a wall and not finding Cornholio funny through any of it.

/off rant

ugh. After having to uninstall Vista & re-install XP just a few weeks ago... I can see why they would do that. What a pain. I always have perfect timing lol.

Every try calling tech support the last few months?

Every recording says .. ' due to the latest Vista issues, hold time will be longer than normal.. or something like that. I hate new OS debuts.

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My brother-in-law recently went through that trouble Karried. He bougt two laptops that he ordered with XP, but with Vista. He complained enough to Dell that they sent him XP licenses, but like ibda12u says, who wants to "fix" something you just bought?

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That is why the last laptop I purchased, I wipe the drive squeeky clean and do a clean install of the OS. Eliminates days of torture.

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YOUR MACHINE, YOUR WAY


As an IT professional, it is easy for me to chuckle inside while standing near a young determined salesperson on the floor of a Best Buy as he/she throws their pitch to sell the next hot HP workstation or media center. They talk about the basics... just enough to wow the customer into grabbing their card. And most salespeople actually do a good job of talking to the buyer about the hardware. Yet, even the best salesperson, even the manager himself, cannot get past the good ol' agreement made by Microsoft, the manufacturer and your third party neighbors. It goes to ridiculous lengths. I was convinced that PC vendors would for once refrain from slapping a laundry list of useless thrid party trials that do nothing more than confuse the buyer and slow down initial performance. I had a relative who had this very experience with her new notebook PC. Windows Vista Home Basic was pre-installed, and more than a dozen unnecessary trial applications- even freeware- was installed and hampereing boot times. To make matters worse, half of these apps were scheduled to start in the background on boot up. I spent an hour cleaning out her system to improve boot times.

Mac Gets It Right

The Mac, before Apple dove into portable devices, was the company's baby. Their unpopular model of a closed platform has kept Mac OS X bound with Apple hardware, which actually makes the Mac more of an appliance than a PC. Ever since Apple switched from Logic boards and the PowerPC processor to what is now essentially PC hardware, the company makes sure that its Mac computers are a gleaming experience from the get-go. At an Apple store, browse any Mac on display. No such trial applications or ads of any kind come on a Mac. There IS additional software already installed, but they are applications built by Apple for Mac OS X. You don't see the 60 day trial AOL offer, or Vonage ad or any other dinky annoying application that makes your initial experience sour.

Why PC Enthusiasts Hate Retail PCs

PC enthusiasts like myself hate retail computers. Even Dell slaps extra garbage on a Windows PC in the name of the extra buck. PC enthusiasts follow the same beliefs as actually... Mac enthusiasts. That the platform should be pure form the start. No pop-ups or gimmicks. However, enthusiasts are still a different animal because we come equipped with technical knowledge. We know the cream of the crop in hardware, how Windows should be installed and what to do to make our PCs run faster. We like it our way, and we don't have time to wait for companies like HP to get it right. We tweak, hack, mod, beg and borrow to create our dream machine. Plain and simple.

Why We Like It Our Way

A colleague of mine is an AMD fan, as well as I, which reminds me of why I stay committed to the PC platform. AMD has always built quality processors, and never charged an arm and a leg. Intel has always made it so that the best cores were hard to get, and the cheaper cores performed poorly. PC enthusiasts never have to deal with what processor to choose. We can pick Intel Core Dou (if our pocket books are that deep), AMD 64 X2, SPARC or Power PC. We know our stuff and we know how we want it to work. None of the decisions are made for us. And it's that very community that keeps individual vendors going.

-April Edition of okcpulse.com

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Where I work, all laptops are issued by the employer. A new directive from on high (due to lost laptops with critical data - and embarrassing headlines) requires that our laptops have full-drive encryption. Well, lo and behold, the IT department tested a few laptops with the encryption software we use and it didn't work with Vista. So, XP it is - probably for a long while to come.

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Folks, keep in mind that Vista is very different from XP. In Vista, all apps must work only in on the user level. They cannot touch the kernel level. And since XP applications love to tangle witht he kernel, then they won't like Vista. User Account Control will prevent some of the application's features from working, thus crashing the application itself.

Software vendors need to share in the blame for all of this happening. Somewhere, somehow, everyone got off on the notion that Vista was just an upgrade from XP. It isn't, both UI and architecturally.

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I looked on dell's website and I didn't find anything about dell bringing back XP. There laptops still boast being loaded with the all great Vista. I want a laptop, but not with vista, I have a XP disc somewhere think still packed up, guess I could wipe out vista and start over, but rather have it installed already, plus don't know how to do a wipe and reload, though my desktop wouldn't hurt to do a wipe and reload, once get external hard drive to save all my files I have loaded on it.

I bought a closeout from SAM's with XP to avoid Vista but still get a new computer with a warranty.

Dirtrider,
Maybe you weren't looking at the right ones. It looks like they are limiting the offer to certain models.
Dell gives in to demand for XP | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Personal Technology

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The company said it would immediately offer XP again as an option for four models of its Inspiron notebooks and two models of its Dimension desktop PCs.

So does this mean all laptops will have the XP for a limited time? From what I could tell there are only 4 models of laptops. GUess give it 6 months to a year before all the bugs are worked out, and vista is updated before buying a PC with on it, or wipe vista out and reload with XP.

writerranger, sounds to me like you work for a company that sounds an awfully lot like mine....

Does the "Employee Fun Wall" mean anything to you??

As far as Dell restoring XP as an offering to its lineup, that has to be a smack in the face to Microsoft. Everything I've read in the trade rags indicates that MS has told their OEM's to stop offering XP, and if that's true, Dell is telling MS to go jump in the lake. Very tricky waters Dell is treading here.

I've played with Vista, and understand some of its architectural differences (many of which are good, particularly in the area of Unix-style symbolic file links), but realize it immediately orphans several pieces of perfectly good, functioning hardware I have; hardware for which I have no reason to expect Vista drivers anytime soon. For me, putting Vista on anything beyond a virtual machine is pretty pointless right now...

-soonerdave

One of my Mac friends said that Macs still don't have any kind of "system restore" that XP (and I'm assuming Vista) have. He said Macs are great and don't have problems as often as PCs, but when they do, you can't just push a button and get it working like it was again.