If You Love iTunes, Wait on Vista
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Apple tells iPod and iTunes users to hold off upgrading their computers to Windows Vista, citing compatibility issues. By the Associated Press.
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The clock is ticking: Microsoft will end OEM and shrink-wrapped sales of Windows XP on June 30, 2008, forcing users to shift to Vista. (System builders, meaning those who do white-box PCs, can sell XP through December 31.) Don't let that happen!                                                      Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don't see a need to change to Vista. It's like having a comfortable apartment that you've enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice. The thought of moving to a new place -- even with the stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and maple cabinets (or is cherry in this year?) -- just doesn't sit right. Maybe it'll be more modern, but it will also cost more and likely not be as good a fit. And you don't have any other reason to move. That's exactly the conclusion people have come to with Vista. For most of us, there's really no reason to move to it -- yet we don't have a choice. When that strong desire to stick with XP became obvious in spring 2007, major computer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard quietly reintroduced new XP-based systems (but just to business customers, so as not to offend Microsoft).But come June 30, even that option goes away. (See InfoWorld's live XP countdown clock. To use this clock on your own Web site, please e-mail Executive Editor Galen Gruman for the code snippet.)So what to do? Let Microsoft decide where your personal and enterprise software "lives"? Or send a loud and clear message that you don't want to move?We're going for the loud-and-clear option. Join us, and tell Microsoft that you want to keep XP available indefinitely. Not for another six months or a year, but indefinitely. Sign InfoWorld's petition today. And consider submitting a "Save XP" video to our site to help spread the word.And ask your friends and colleagues to join in, too. Just point them to SaveXP.com.Don't think Microsoft will listen? Consider this: Although Microsoft denies that anything is wrong with Vista or that most people don't want it, the company has already postponed XP's demise by six months. That's a start, but it's not good enough.Microsoft doesn't have to admit failure; it can just say it will keep XP available indefinitely due to customer demand. It can take that opportunity to try again with a better Vista, or just move on to the next version that maybe this time we'll all actually want.There is a precedent for that, too: In many respects, Vista is like the Windows Millennium Edition that was meant to replace Windows 98 in 2000 but caused more trouble than it was worth. At that time, Windows 2000 was promising but didn't support a lot of hardware, so users were stuck between two bad choices. Without admitting Millennium's failure, Microsoft quietly put Windows 98 back on the market until the fixed version of Windows 2000 (SP1) was available. Microsoft needs to do something like that again today.Make your voice heard to Microsoft. Sign our petition to save XP today. We will present it to Microsoft.For more on why Vista isn't the right replacement for XP, check out InfoWorld's analyses: The (post-SP1) Vista verdict: Wait for Windows 7 Randall Kennedy's assessment is that for the vast majority of enterprise IT shops, Vista is not -- and likely never will be -- the right choice for their immediate desktop computing needs.Service pack vs. service pack: XP SP3 beats Vista SP1 According to tests by Devil Mountain Software comparing the release candidates for the last Windows XP service pack and the first Vista service pack, XP SP3 performs twice as fast as Vista SP1 on the same machine -- and slower than the initial release of the Vista OS as well.Businesses having second thoughts about Vista Fewer businesses are now planning to move to Windows Vista than seven months ago, according to a survey by patch management vendor PatchLink.Forrester: Businesses still saying no to Vista An anticipated rush by businesses to adopt Windows Vista hasn't materialized as IT managers stick with familiar systems and wait for the release of Vista Service Pack 1.Microsoft: Vista follow-up likely in 2009 With Vista just out the door, Microsoft is now drawing up plans to deliver its follow-up client operating system by the end of 2009.Farewell Vista, hello XP From PCWorld.com: How to make the switch back and deal with the gnarly problem of transferring your Vista e-mail, contacts, and user data back to the old standby operating system.HP CEO: Vista never had its moment in 2007 From CIO.com: Wondering what's happened to momentum for Microsoft's Vista operating system in corporate America? Fact is, enterprise IT has continued to decline the Vista plate like it's an undercooked holiday casserole. Listen to what Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd said: HP never saw a "Vista moment at any time over the past year."UK government report: Don?t upgrade to Vista Report warns British schools not to upgrade to Microsoft's Vista OS and Office 2007 suite, and to avoid Microsoft's OOXML document format because of compatibility concerns.
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If you just can't wait to get your hands on Windows Vista, this story is for you. We'll help you decide which upgrade path to take and walk you through multiple methods of installation.
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iPod corruption glitch unfixed Apple has updated its iTunes jukebox software, but Windows Vista users hoping the new release provides the promised support for Microsoft's latest operating system will be disappointed: Apple is still listing the app as an XP-only affair.â¦
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Will it work with my app? The imminent arrival of Windows Vista is a mixed blessing for developers. The good bit is lots of new features to play with, along with better security and an updated user interface. The downside is compatibility problems, and with the challenge of meeting expectations for well-behaved, good-looking Vista applications. There is going to be some pain.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - As Microsoftâs five-year-long development effort slouches toward completion, details began to emerge last week that showed the company is (finally) gearing up to release Windows Vista after the new year, as promised. Pricing information popped up on a Canadian Web site, and Amazon.com told visitors that the new OS would be going out on Jan. 30, only to replace that date with a squishier âEarly 2007.â Finally, by the time you read this, Microsoft has promised to release the penultimate test version of its Vista operating system, dubbed âRelease Candidate 1â to an army of testers around the world. Are anticipatory chills running down your spine? They shouldnât be. Because a Release Candidate must be stable enough to allow corporate buyers to evaluate the product for deployment, Microsoft will have done quite a bit of work to RC1 over Vistaâs previous beta incarnations; so get set for a number of improvements. On the other hand, because of this concentration on stability, donât look for any noteworthy new features. Hereâs what Vista RC1 will likely have to offer: Installation: A late beta release dubbed âPre RC1â received kudos from more than one online reviewer for the improvements in this area, and rumors out of Microsoft say RC1 is the first version of Vista (or any Windows version) that has seamlessly installed on a variety of new notebooks and desktops â no muss, no fuss, and with full detection of PC Card and USB peripherals. Graphical interface: Aero has reportedly given Microsoft quite a few Advil moments, and even Beta 2 users were reporting intermittent difficulties. Look for this to be smoothed out in anything that receives RC status. That doesnât mean, however, that you should try to run it on your anemic graphics subsystem from 2003. Microsoft recommends at least 32-bit-per-pixel graphics capability. To you and me that means that for really smooth Aero-nautics, you should have a DirectX 9-capable 3-D accelerator card with 128MB of dedicated video RAM. If your test box lacks this video muscle, RC1 will support a non-Aero interface for weaker or older PCs. Audio: Microsoft has been having trouble with audio in even its most recent Vista Beta release. Toolsmixer controls are intermittently absent, and audio playback is often interrupted or missing. This should be solved in an RC1 release. If youâre a systems or network administrator, RC1 wonât be much different from Beta 2. The new release will ship with Internet Explorer RC1 installed, but even that has few differences from IE7 Beta 2. There will be a new, easier-to-use integrated backup tool, but itâs of little interest to corporate users whoâll most likely be using a centralized third-party app or Windows Shadow Copy. The pricing and availability info â coupled with the OSâs slow march toward âgold,â aka a finished version of Windows Vista ready for manufacturing â shows that Microsoft is serious about meeting its ship date. However, the key criterion for Vista RC1 will be stability. If it installs smoothly, runs smoothly, and gives us the full Vista experience that Microsoftâs been promising, consider it a success. If not, itâs back to the drawing board.
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(InfoWorld) - Critics who blasted Microsoft three months ago for failing to deliver Windows Vista add-ons have again called the company on the carpet, this time for missing its self-imposed deadline to provide promised extras. In late June, bloggers and users were already panning Vista Ultimate Extras as a bust. Extras, available only to customers running the top-end Vista edition, was one of the features cited by Microsoft to distinguish the $399 operating system from its $239 cousin, Home Premium. Microsoft's online marketing, for instance, touted Extras as "cutting-edge programs, innovative services, and unique publications" that would be regularly offered to Ultimate users. But by June, Microsoft had not released any new Extras since it issued a beta of DreamScene, a video screensaver, in February. That infuriated some users; several days later, Microsoft tried to defuse the situation by promising to wrap up DreamScene and 20 unfinished language packs. "We apologize for taking so long to provide a status update to customers," said Barry Goffe, the director of Vista Ultimate, in a posting to a Microsoft blog on July 2. "We intend to ship Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs by the end of the summer." But summer has come and gone, and users now say there has been nothing new from Extras. "Even if the Windows Ultimate team has fled to the International Date Line, summer is officially over," said Windows enthusiast Long Zheng, who blogs at iStartedSomething. Zheng was one of those who turned up the heat on Microsoft earlier in the summer with several postings about the Extras' no-show. "Normally I wouldn't care what season it is in the northern hemisphere, but today it proves this team is incapable [of] delivering anything and should never be trusted again. "The truth is, customers are getting near to nothing [from Extras]," Zheng said Sunday. Most users who left comments on Zheng's blog said they too felt bamboozled. "While I didn't only purchase Ultimate so that I could get the extras, it certainly was a deciding factor," said a user identified as T-Man. "The thought of getting something more was certainly appealing. Especially given the price premium for Ultimate, this is certainly a very hard pill to swallow." A minority, however, was more forgiving about the failure to make the deadline. "Ultimate Extras are just that ... extras," said Brandon Live, a Microsoft employee who works in its search group, in a comment to Zheng's blog. "While I am disappointed with how they've been handled, I never considered them to be the reason anyone would buy Ultimate." "I'm pleased with Vista Ultimate as it is. Just relax, and they will deliver on their own time, not yours," added someone identified as Lipo Network. A few users had fun at Microsoft's expense on the company's own support newsgroups. "Did they mention what year the end of summer release was going to be in?" asked a user identified as "theclyde" on the Vista General Discussion newsgroup. Another user on the newsgroup, Andrew McLaren, said he was Australian, and wondered if Vista team had its hemispheres confused. "Hmmm, maybe the Ultimate Extras guys were thinking of the *Southern* summer? Maybe we'll see those updates by February 08?" Microsoft's Goffe did give Extras an out in his July 2 post, the most recent blog update. "We will not ship the last two Extras showcased in January (Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs) until they meet the high quality bar required by our enthusiastic customers," he said. "We believe that we can achieve that bar by the end of this summer." "That's a catch-all phrase," noted a user named Robert Firth on the Vista newsgroup. "Doesn't matter if it is the end of summer, they said if it isn't ready, it isn't ready. So they could still be telling the truth." That's not good enough, said some. "The only 'ultimate' thing about my copy of Vista is that it is the last copy I will buy of a Microsoft OS," said Bayleaf in a comment on Zheng's blog. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Watching "premium content" in Windows Vista requires users to play nice with Microsoft's built-in digital rights controls. In Monkey Bites.
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Apple is recommending that iTunes users stick with Windows XP for now. The iPod-maker is warning that its music store software might not be compatible with Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system.
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Apple Inc. is urging some iPod and iTunes users to hold off on upgrading computers to Windows Vista, warning that the iTunes music software may not work well with the new operating system from rival Microsoft Corp.
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But look to lawsuit stick rather than iTunes carrot for the cause
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If you have an iPod, and plan to install Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, Apple has one word of advice for you: don't. Issues with iTunes 7.0.2 and the next-generation operating system are creating havoc for some users.
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Get a closer look at some of the programs you can use to get Vista's features in XP -- and to keep XP operating smoothly for a long, long time.
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Q My new computer runs Windows Vista, but a lot of my older programs don't work right or don't run at all in Vista. Can I put Windows XP on this machine also?
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Reviewing Windows Vista for St. Paul Pioneer Press, Julio Ojeda-Zapata concludes, âGet a Mac with [Mac] OS X unless your home-computer needs are Windows-specific, or if the fine Media Center is a must for you. You likely wonât regret a Vista-PC purchase, but Iâm betting youâll enjoy a Mac much more.â
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Why it might be a better idea to wait until you need a new PC to get the latest version of Windows.
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Microsoft confirmed Thursday that its invite-only group of about 15,000 testers has had the final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the past two weeks.Other Vista users, however, will have to wait until March to obtain a legal copy of the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Vista SP1, the company reiterated.According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, the build designated Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2, which was seeded to testers on Jan. 24, is identical to&#160;the code that company developers shipped&#160;out the door on Monday as RTM.&quot;In final stages of a product, Microsoft likes to get as much validation as possible before releasing,&quot; the spokeswoman said in an e-mail. &quot;The release candidate ended up being a high enough quality to be approved to release to manufacturing.&quot;The shift in nomenclature, but not bits, is common. Eventually, a vendor must approve a build as &quot;gold code,&quot; at which point that edition becomes the shipping version. Last November, for example, Apple Inc. issued a test build of Mac OS X 10.5.1 to developers one day, then called it good to go and posted it for download the next.However, users who weren&#39;t part of the SP1 testing group must wait until March to get their hands on the update, the spokeswoman repeated today. In five to six weeks -- mid-March according to Microsoft -- the service pack will be offered via Windows Update as a 65MB optional update and posted to Download Center as a 450MB stand-alone installer that supports five languages. A month later, in mid-April, Windows Update will automatically download and install SP1 on Vista-equipped PCs whose users have set Automatic Updates to do hands-off updating.Subscribers to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet will get a slight jump on the general public. &quot;In early March, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to get the &#39;Windows Vista with SP1&#39; full DVD,&quot; the same spokeswoman said in another e-mail. The updated operating system will be offered to MSDN and TechNet subscribers through their respective download centers.Microsoft is holding SP1 so that it can identify device drivers that won&#39;t reinstall -- as they must -- during the service pack update process. On Monday morning, Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, said that while SP1 had met the RTM criteria, it would not be available for several weeks because of the&#160;driver problems.That generated a firestorm of criticism from users, who vented by posting over 200 comments to Nash&#39;s announcement, calling the decision &quot;stupid&quot; and &quot;one of the all-time worst moves&quot; by Microsoft.Judging by the tone of nearly 120 comments left on Microsoft&#39;s official TechNet blog, IT professionals and developers are even angrier. The subscribers called the withholding of SP1 &quot;boneheaded&quot; and a &quot;slap in the face,&quot; or dubbed it &quot;the Vista SP1 RTM Debacle.&quot; Others questioned the value of their TechNet subscriptions, admitted that they had had to download a pirated copy using BitTorrent so that they could start testing, and said they would postpone Vista deployments for months because of the delay.Several wondered why reviewers in the press had the finished bits before they did.But a commenter identified only as Joe put it most succinctly: &quot;This is the lamest decision since Microsoft Bob. I get this the same time as my mom?&quot;The backlash may have gotten through to Microsoft. On Monday night, Kathy Dixon, the TechNet Plus team member who normally writes the blog, said that she was looking into the possibility of moving up the availability date of SP1. But as of Thursday night, she had no solution for users. &quot;I have escalated this and am continuing to push internally for a solution ASAP,&quot; Dixon wrote around 8 p.m. EST. &quot;Please hang in there, I should have something more specific soon.&quot;Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.