skip to nav

Microsoft’s troublesome child

XP is making its little brother Vista look bad, says linton chiswick

.

As if further evidence were needed of the failure of Microsoft's Vista operating system to fill the PC-user's world with delight, InfoWorld - an influential online magazine for the IT industry - has started a campaign to save Vista's predecessor, Windows XP, from extinction.

Vista was pale and uninteresting at launch: pasty from staying indoors during an overlong development period, confusing and expensive in its many variations and too demanding for all but the most modern computers. It wasn't

 

long before Dell, responding to demand, announced the reintroduction of XP as an option on some of its machines, and Microsoft extended the availability of XP well into 2008 (18 months after Vista's birth). Progress normally involves forward motion. PC users were

Motorstorm image

rolling back. Microsoft was having trouble making this look good.

At least - or so it seemed - Vista would be rid of its irksomely popular older sibling by June 30, the date Microsoft intends to stop sales of XP. Not if the 41,185 people (and counting) who have so far

 

ADVERTISEMENT