Comments on: Buying XP laptops shouldn’t be this tough

By: strom

strom — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:39:24 +0000

Ed Borden, the Director of Business Development at Puget Systems, a high-end custom systems builder, thinks that you have more time before you have to panic, in his blog entry here:

http://www.edbordenblog.com/2008/04/debunking-windows-xp-availability.html

But then, he talks about running XP as “ride a sinking ship down to the last minute” so consider that.

By: Tom Martin

Tom Martin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:55:59 +0000

I ran into this several years ago when I did not want to use XP SP1
(pre-Vista), and we had a home building app that was still a legacy DOS base
with a Windows front end. It caused nasty issues on XP systems.

I have a System Integrator who did a lot of our configuring for us, and he
told me that when you buy any version of MS OS, you have a liscense for any
of the previous OS as well. So, buy XP, and you have lisc for everything
back to Win 3.0.

We had him reformat the drive, and then install a fresh copy of Win 2000 on
all of the new Dell Systems that we purchased. This was from 2002 to 2007.
They ran great. Since XP SP2 came out, we have gradually moved to XP. The
system that I am typing this on is still a WIN2000, but it’s going to get
upgraded this weekend (along with some yard work)to XP. A number of the
Windows aps we also use are no longer being supported in WIN2000.

By: Seth@PCConnection.com

Seth@PCConnection.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:00:38 +0000

Strom,

Thanks for your post. I think many of us share some of these frustrations when doing online research prior to making an in-store purchase.

Next time I’d like to suggest trying PCConnection.com. We carry over 100,000 products and offer some extended search capabilities, enabling you to browse based on multiple configurations including OS. We’re also currently running a free shipping promotion on all purchases over $99 through 4/30/08.

I did a search earlier today and found over 600 results for Windows XP Pro notebooks, many of which are in stock. Using our search filtering, you can also refine your results by additional criteria such as Manufacturer, List Price, and Display size to get closer to the machine you’re looking for.

Here’s a link to our search, which I hope you find helpful in the future. Best of luck to your friend with your new machine…it sounds like she was very lucky she had you around to do the research that you did!

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Search.htm?CatId=204071&id=+2147483116&Sort=Most+Popular&DefSort=Y&Term=

Regards,

Seth Brady
PCConnection.com

By: Ed Borden

Ed Borden — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:57:42 +0000

I got pointed to this post from Michael Horowitz’s blog, who also wrote about this subject today. He asked for some input from system builders in regards to who would be able to continue getting XP licenses, so I figured I’d post my response him here as well.

HP and Dell, being OEM’s, have what I can only describe as “custom” relationships with Microsoft. However they have themselves tangled up dictates that they have to move their systems to Vista. And honestly, that’s probably fine for the majority of the mainstream/consumer market that those companies are dealing with. In the Channel, XP will continue to be available into 2009, so what I think that means is that there still will be some pretty easy ways for the layman to get their hands on copies of XP. When product moves through the Channel, that means it’s basically freely available to anyone. Yes, it’s supposed to be sold to system builders, but it doesn’t typically happen that way. Even now Microsoft has no problems with retail shops selling OEM copies of either OS to the general public. I think those same copies will continue to be sold — they’ll just be discontinuing RETAIL BOXES – which were frankly overpriced anyhow — and making agreements with their OEM’s to stop integrating XP.

By: strom

strom — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:57:33 +0000

Bill Frezza says:
I bought Jacky a Vista laptop last year, which she uses occasionally.
This weekend I turned it on after perhaps two weeks of non-use and it
took TWO HOURS to boot up. I had no control over the machine whatever as
Microsoft spent the whole time doing updates, some of which failed and
had to be re-tried, with the machine demanding that I do multiple
reboots.

The truth is, you cannot buy a Vista machine of your own. You can only
time-share it with Microsoft.

When I buy software I want to buy software, not sign up for a
lifetime relationship. I am sick and tired of competing with dozens of
vendors clamoring to demand primary access to my PC every time I boot up
so they can fix their buggy products or upsell me additional items I do
not want and did not ask for.

Bah.