Vista wars: Report from the field:

...what is truly impressive is the hatred for Vista out there on the net, and the lengths that it inspires people to go to to get rid of it and, in the spirit of the net, help others get rid of it.  Googling for info about getting XP up and running on this particular machine [Toshiba Satellite A200 laptop] yielded pages and pages of helpful information about exactly what must be done to round up the necessary drivers (many from the OEMs who supplied the various components of the machine)...

The other really startling thing was how many non-expert users were doing this...

I had the same experience installing XP on my Dell XPS 1530 (great computer, once you disinfect it) - there is basically a community dedicated to purging it of Vista...

When you are inspiring legions of both expert users and ordinary non-techy people to go through the pain of installing an operating system using an ad hoc collection of unsupported drivers, something is badly, badly awry.  I am critical not of MS so much as Toshiba, Dell and co - they are the ones who have made the key decision to support nothing but Vista.  I wonder if they realise the lengths their users are going to to get around this choice?

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 16:12:26 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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