Vista’s still the weird new Stepbrother of the Windows Family: Downgrade to XP unil July 31, 2009

Windows Vista was released 2 years ago in November. Yes. You read that right. TWO YEARS AGO. I’m sure a good 80% of Windows users reading TNMS are probably doing so on XP, and I’m guessing the other 20% are using Vista solely because they bought a computer and weren’t able, didn’t want to pay to, or didn’t realize the could downgrade to XP for a fee.

Well now everyone planing on buying a new PC has some breaking news to consider: Microsoft is pushing back the Windows XP downgrade deadline until July 31, 2009.

As reported on Engadget, this information was apparently sent via e-mail to InformationWeek from a Microsoft Spokesperson just this week. Apparently their reasoning is to allow a smoother and less “painless” upgrade to Vista from XP, but I don’t think Engadget and I are the only ones that think this is Horse Malarkey.

For those of you that haven’t upgraded to Vista, it wasn’t until last February’s release of Service Pack 1 that Vista really started to shine, or at least reflect a smudge-filled face. Vista still requires more memory than Most old PC’s have, running quite sluggish on anything under 1 GB of ram (although SP1 did improve the ReadyBoost capability with a highspeed Flash Drive, which is pretty neat I must say).

For those of you that have moved, I’m sure you would be the first to comment on how User-Friendly they made the Interface, including how you have an all-or-nothing approach to Much of the Warnings and “are you sure” windows. If you don’t turn it off, you can get one of these by simply renaming a Folder. If you do turn it off, Vista is sure to tell you it’s off… every time you boot up.

Needless to say, most companies (I know mine in particular) have NO plans to move to Vista at all, let alone anytime soon. Engadget also reported back in August of a study that shows 35% enterprise-class users downgrade to XP. Just like many companies and home users bypassed Windows 2000 between 98 and XP, people got used to 98, and on an even larger scale, people have gotten used to Windows XP.

So don’t worry to much about the move to Vista if you haven’t. If it comes with your new PC, and you don’t want to pay to downgrade, then go for it. It’s not as bad as people (even I) have made it out to be, but it will be a learning experience. But don’t be surprised if right around the XP deadline, Microsoft releases their next operating system.

Thanks Engadget.