tedster - 3:37 am on Jul 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

I'm happy to see that Microsoft is big enough to acknowledge the realities of the marketplace. We can all hope that Windows 7 will be a better executed product. I'm all for added security, but I really appreciate usability a whole lot too.

I recently spent just over an hour in the tech support area of a major retailer of home and business computers. In that short time I over heard four different customers complaining to Tech Support about their Vista woes. And I am talking about new, maxed out hardware here, too.

Out on the sales floor, there was a lot of chatter among the customers about why to avoid Vista, and urging each other to grab XP while it was still on the market. I stocked up on a few extra XP licenses, because I'm pretty sure that over the next few years I'll need them!

I've never used an open source operating system. I'm a business man and have only minimal time to learn and tweak my tools. So I'd appreciate it greatly if Microsoft would get it right the next time. Win2K and XP were pretty solid.

My most recent laptop purchase came with Vista. After a few weeks I gave up on it and installed XP - all that new hardware just ROARS with XP in there. Vista was probably just too forward looking and essentially premature for the market. You can't always force feed a new product, no matter how much of the market you appear to own.

So all praise to Microsoft for acknowledging what much of the marketplace already knows. If 2010 brings a better OS, then 2014 for end of XP support sounds about right.