Vista downgrade stats

[Tempered81]

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml

"More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. "The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base," Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. "People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights." Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. "Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.""

sounds kinda biased. heheh.

 

[Scotteq]

If you read the original article (a stunning display of impartial journalism...), you'll see the survey was of Enterprise peeps. Now... Corporate standards being what they are, I'm surprised to see that only 30% are getting the downgrade. That means, of course, that nearly 70% AREN'T!

It's also interesting that the two articles refer to each other...

 

[n7]

LOL.

That's one FUDtastic article.

From where i work where we likely sell at least 10 PCs/notebooks per day (way more now due to back-to-school), i'd estimate maybe 1 of 300 PCs/notebooks we sell are being downgraded.

And far less if i was estimating based on what we do ourselves for the customer.
We maybe do 1 of every 500 in store, & i know very few are being done by the customers on their own.

 

[tcsenter]

Ah yes, the Devil Mountain folks at it again. Could be worse, their testing could be as utterly laughable as that one group who conducted a UI test pitting Vista against XP. e.g.

'Windows Vista was 0.1 seconds slower than XP in three-level menu cascade scenario #2. If you add that up over five thousand menu cascade incidents, it would result in 8.33 minutes of lost productivity due to increased menu cascade completion times. Multiplied by 1000 users over five years, the costs to an employer in lost productivity would be substantial.'

I half-expected the UI test to quantify decreased productivity resulting from users being impressed by Aero's much nicer visual effects. e.g.

'There was an average of 1.37 user 'oogling' incidents per day for Vista compared with zero user 'oogling' incidents per day for Windows XP, with each 'oogling' incident lasting an average of .62 seconds. Multipled by 1,000,000 users over a period of 145 years, the costs in lost productivity could reach into the millions of dollars.'

:roll:

 

[ielmox]

I am involved in 6 or 7 fairly mature tech companies, the largest of which is a 300+ person, 10 year old web developer and service provider. I can tell you that Vista opinions throughout the companies are pretty negative, I don't think you could pay our IT managers to upgrade to Vista for free. We looked into upgrading from XP, set up a few machines, had people play around with Vista on them. Furthermore most senior management tried Vista as well on their home PCs, either in order to familiarize themselves with it, for gaming purposes, or both (two of the companies in our group develop games).

Broadly speaking we do design work on Macs and XP both, most development work on Linux, and all corporate management (HR, marketing, Finance, etc.) on XP. So we had an interest in Vista as the OS for the near future.

Very basically:

- Vista was rejected for two main reasons 1) Not only is the upgrade cost significant when you consider a few hundred licenses, but the massive real (not marketed) hardware requirements for Vista would mean we would have to scrap solid PCs that work very well at present. 2) It's too slow, too sluggish, and too busy all the time.

- Most people had few positive things to say about the Vista "experience". Yes, it looks nice, and it's obviously more secure and even more robust, but in terms of design and UI it is several steps backwards and that proved a dealbreaker for many. Also the OS just feels slower than XP and that caused a fair bit of aggravation.

- We have a couple of enthusiastic Vista cheerleaders but even they admit it makes no sense whatsoever to invest in an upgrade when the costs are high and the benefits are truly minimal.

From a corporate point of view I can believe Vista has a downgrade rate of 30% or even more. For many people, stepping down from Vista to XP actually provides an upgrade in terms of speed and responsiveness. If your corporate laptop or desktop runs Vista so-so, then you know that downgrading to XP will give you a substantial performance boost. Anyone know the story behind the asinine "Vista Certified" campaign? How did Microsoft actually produce those laughable Vista requirements specs?

Computers for personal use are a different case, the upgrade cost does not need to be justified quite so rigorously. Even though the performance isn't the best I keep a new PC running Vista Ultimate for gaming (to take advantage of the latest developments), and do my work and browsing on a rather battered XP box, which, though it is entire hardware generations behind the Vista box, still gives me a faster and more streamlined experience.

 

[13Gigatons]

Operating Systems should get faster not slower especially when they offer so few reasons to upgrade. I'd imagine that Windows XP will be around for years to come much to Microsoft's dislike.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
Operating Systems should get faster not slower especially when they offer so few reasons to upgrade. I'd imagine that Windows XP will be around for years to come much to Microsoft's dislike.

Operating systems will never get faster*, they'll keep getting slower as they add on features to better take advantage of new idioms and new hardware. It's not like there's some super optimization that Microsoft/Linus/Apple are holding out on that would make the operating system faster.

* Mac OS X is the exception, this is mostly because it was incredibly slow at launch

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: ielmox
I am involved in 6 or 7 fairly mature tech companies, the largest of which is a 300+ person, 10 year old web developer and service provider. I can tell you that Vista opinions throughout the companies are pretty negative, I don't think you could pay our IT managers to upgrade to Vista for free. We looked into upgrading from XP, set up a few machines, had people play around with Vista on them. Furthermore most senior management tried Vista as well on their home PCs, either in order to familiarize themselves with it, for gaming purposes, or both (two of the companies in our group develop games).

Broadly speaking we do design work on Macs and XP both, most development work on Linux, and all corporate management (HR, marketing, Finance, etc.) on XP. So we had an interest in Vista as the OS for the near future.

Very basically:

- Vista was rejected for two main reasons 1) Not only is the upgrade cost significant when you consider a few hundred licenses, but the massive real (not marketed) hardware requirements for Vista would mean we would have to scrap solid PCs that work very well at present. 2) It's too slow, too sluggish, and too busy all the time.

- Most people had few positive things to say about the Vista "experience". Yes, it looks nice, and it's obviously more secure and even more robust, but in terms of design and UI it is several steps backwards and that proved a dealbreaker for many. Also the OS just feels slower than XP and that caused a fair bit of aggravation.

- We have a couple of enthusiastic Vista cheerleaders but even they admit it makes no sense whatsoever to invest in an upgrade when the costs are high and the benefits are truly minimal.

From a corporate point of view I can believe Vista has a downgrade rate of 30% or even more. For many people, stepping down from Vista to XP actually provides an upgrade in terms of speed and responsiveness. If your corporate laptop or desktop runs Vista so-so, then you know that downgrading to XP will give you a substantial performance boost. Anyone know the story behind the asinine "Vista Certified" campaign? How did Microsoft actually produce those laughable Vista requirements specs?

Computers for personal use are a different case, the upgrade cost does not need to be justified quite so rigorously. Even though the performance isn't the best I keep a new PC running Vista Ultimate for gaming (to take advantage of the latest developments), and do my work and browsing on a rather battered XP box, which, though it is entire hardware generations behind the Vista box, still gives me a faster and more streamlined experience.

So you're downgrading all your newly purchased PCs?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
* Mac OS X is the exception, this is mostly because it was incredibly slow at launch

That, and what the Apple fanboys count as a "new" OS, Microsoft calls a Service Pack or Service Release in the same vein as Windows 98 > 98 Second Edition or XP RTM > SP1 > SP2 > SP3. Its the same damned OS just receiving bug fixes, general stability/reliability/compatibility improvements, and some enhancements tossed in.

Not to mention that Microsoft gets sued for adding 'features' or 'enhancements' that Apple adds to each OS X release; media center applications, browsers, CD/DVD burning applications, backup and restore utilities, audio recording/editing apps, so on and so forth.

When Microsoft does it, its called "anticompetitive bundling". When Apple does it, everyone goes "Ooo, Apple is giving us new features."

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml

"More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. "The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base," Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. "People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights." Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. "Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.""

sounds kinda biased. heheh.

The article really needs to be taken with a planet sized grain of salt. One of the principals of the study is Devil Mountain Software. The clowns that claimed XP SP3 was 3x faster than Vista SP1.

Now, as to Enterprise adoption, I don't think anyone can be surprised that it takes longer for businesses to adopt. I know the Financial Company I worked for only upgraded desktops from Windows 98 and Win2K to XP in 2005. It's not uncommon.

Business adoption rates have been pretty similar to XP for the same time frame.

 

[F1shF4t]

Not a suprise at all. At my work they just rolled out service pack 2 last week, it will probably take em another 3 years to realise there's service pack 3. The brand new laptop they gave me also has xp installed, it originally came with vista.

 

[ielmox]

Originally posted by: Smilin
So you're downgrading all your newly purchased PCs?

We've kept a couple Vista installs for general purpose, but everyone is back to using XP and the machines we installed Vista on have been downgraded (we didn't buy new Vista PCs, we tested the OS ourselves on the PCs we build on a regular basis). It doesn't look like we'll be buying Vista en masse in the next 8-12 months. Longer term we'll see, maybe hardware will be powerful and cheap enough by then to mitigate some of the current Vista shortcomings.

On a personal level, I tried Vista at home and stuck with it, mainly because I need it for gaming (DX10 looks truly superior on titles that support it). I definitely find my XP machine to be more efficient for my normal work.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: ielmox

Originally posted by: Smilin
So you're downgrading all your newly purchased PCs?

We've kept a couple Vista installs for general purpose, but everyone is back to using XP and the machines we installed Vista on have been downgraded (we didn't buy new Vista PCs, we tested the OS ourselves on the PCs we build on a regular basis). It doesn't look like we'll be buying Vista en masse in the next 8-12 months. Longer term we'll see, maybe hardware will be powerful and cheap enough by then to mitigate some of the current Vista shortcomings.

On a personal level, I tried Vista at home and stuck with it, mainly because I need it for gaming (DX10 looks truly superior on titles that support it). I definitely find my XP machine to be more efficient for my normal work.

Putting Vista on old hardware is definately setting yourself up for disappointment. It's been out almost two years now so todays hardware handles it easily. If you are having trouble on modern hardware I would suggest troubleshooting it down to root cause. There is likely some hardware or software component or software that is dogging things.

Most of the problems left today are with compatibility with those crusty old apps that many business still run. (I had to help someone fix a Paradox DB issue on Vista..yuck). This often causes the first round of brand new Vista boxes to get the downgrade. Once IT testing is done though anything new rolling in the door should stay Vista. Doing otherwise just puts your PCs behind the upgrade curve and shifts todays work to tomorrow.

On the hardware I run at home and work Vista is faster than XP. I've got this old XP era tablet PC that gets its ass kicked by Vista though. I had to switch it back to XP.

I kinda see Vista as a new set of fat racing tires. It will make your racecar go faster but if you try to mount them on a '76 VW Beetle the engine isn't even going to have enough power to spin the tires let alone move the car. Vista runs faster than XP on Vista ready hardware. XP will smoke Vista on that old XP era hardware though.

 

[ielmox]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Putting Vista on old hardware is definately setting yourself up for disappointment.

Obviously, but why are you bringing that up? We would never put Vista on hardware that does not significantly exceed the recommended (not minimum) system requirements. As I said, we put Vista on new boxes that we build on a regular basis. It's not old hardware, it's current. It's not enthusiast gear, but these are multi-core systems with at minimum 2 GB RAM.

Most of the problems left today are with compatibility with those crusty old apps that many business still run. (I had to help someone fix a Paradox DB issue on Vista..yuck). This often causes the first round of brand new Vista boxes to get the downgrade. Once IT testing is done though anything new rolling in the door should stay Vista. Doing otherwise just puts your PCs behind the upgrade curve and shifts todays work to tomorrow.

That is not what happened. The install consisted of Vista itself, some MS apps, the standard stuff (FireFox, etc.) and in some cases a few games. NO funky apps or databases. Yet there still appear to be numerous issues, even at this rather late date after launch with numerous patches and a service pack. Vista is slow for one, and for two it's been designed in a manner (seemingly) to slow down the user, not help him complete tasks more quickly.

I kinda see Vista as a new set of fat racing tires. It will make your racecar go faster but if you try to mount them on a '76 VW Beetle the engine isn't even going to have enough power to spin the tires let alone move the car. Vista runs faster than XP on Vista ready hardware. XP will smoke Vista on that old XP era hardware though.

This is not what we experienced AT ALL. Sounds like you are talking about very high end hardware plus a thorough knowledge of Vista tweaking and optimization, which should not be required to run a 2 year old OS, particularly with the incredibly bad joke that was the "Vista ready" nonsense. I don't see Vista as racing tires, I see it as a stopgap OS that will be dropped very rapidly when MS releases the next version of Windows - assuming they do not repeat the mistakes they made with Vista of course. People are hanging on to XP now for a reason: XP is solid, even though it lacks several features and the potential of Vista. When Vista's successor hits, unless it is a real disaster, I don't think people and businesses will be hanging on to Vista quite so tenaciously as they hung on to XP.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: ielmox

Most of the problems left today are with compatibility with those crusty old apps that many business still run. (I had to help someone fix a Paradox DB issue on Vista..yuck). This often causes the first round of brand new Vista boxes to get the downgrade. Once IT testing is done though anything new rolling in the door should stay Vista. Doing otherwise just puts your PCs behind the upgrade curve and shifts todays work to tomorrow.

That is not what happened. The install consisted of Vista itself, some MS apps, the standard stuff (FireFox, etc.) and in some cases a few games. NO funky apps or databases. Yet there still appear to be numerous issues, even at this rather late date after launch with numerous patches and a service pack. Vista is slow for one, and for two it's been designed in a manner (seemingly) to slow down the user, not help him complete tasks more quickly.

I'm curious, other then being slow(which might not be a software problem) and having a new UI what other problems did you run into? Vista is always going to be slow after a fresh install as the indexing and superfetch are getting up to speed. Once that settles down Vista should be very fast.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: ielmox

Originally posted by: Smilin
Putting Vista on old hardware is definately setting yourself up for disappointment.

Obviously, but why are you bringing that up? We would never put Vista on hardware that does not significantly exceed the recommended (not minimum) system requirements. As I said, we put Vista on new boxes that we build on a regular basis. It's not old hardware, it's current. It's not enthusiast gear, but these are multi-core systems with at minimum 2 GB RAM.

Most of the problems left today are with compatibility with those crusty old apps that many business still run. (I had to help someone fix a Paradox DB issue on Vista..yuck). This often causes the first round of brand new Vista boxes to get the downgrade. Once IT testing is done though anything new rolling in the door should stay Vista. Doing otherwise just puts your PCs behind the upgrade curve and shifts todays work to tomorrow.

That is not what happened. The install consisted of Vista itself, some MS apps, the standard stuff (FireFox, etc.) and in some cases a few games. NO funky apps or databases. Yet there still appear to be numerous issues, even at this rather late date after launch with numerous patches and a service pack. Vista is slow for one, and for two it's been designed in a manner (seemingly) to slow down the user, not help him complete tasks more quickly.

I kinda see Vista as a new set of fat racing tires. It will make your racecar go faster but if you try to mount them on a '76 VW Beetle the engine isn't even going to have enough power to spin the tires let alone move the car. Vista runs faster than XP on Vista ready hardware. XP will smoke Vista on that old XP era hardware though.

This is not what we experienced AT ALL. Sounds like you are talking about very high end hardware plus a thorough knowledge of Vista tweaking and optimization, which should not be required to run a 2 year old OS, particularly with the incredibly bad joke that was the "Vista ready" nonsense. I don't see Vista as racing tires, I see it as a stopgap OS that will be dropped very rapidly when MS releases the next version of Windows - assuming they do not repeat the mistakes they made with Vista of course. People are hanging on to XP now for a reason: XP is solid, even though it lacks several features and the potential of Vista. When Vista's successor hits, unless it is a real disaster, I don't think people and businesses will be hanging on to Vista quite so tenaciously as they hung on to XP.

I'm going to suggest that you follow my earlier advice then:

Originally posted by: SmilinIf you are having trouble on modern hardware I would suggest troubleshooting it down to root cause.

Fact is that Vista runs just fine on modern hardware all over the world with no tweaking at all. If you are not getting this experience you need to find out why. If you really think it's a problem with Vista then open an Paid MS Professional support case. The perf guys *will* troubleshoot it down to root cause for you. If it turns out to be a bug in Vista your support case gets refunded (per policy).

 

[Modelworks]

It is like anything you approach a business with.
You have to show them how it is going to make them money , not cost them money.
Vista doesn't do that.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
It is like anything you approach a business with.
You have to show them how it is going to make them money , not cost them money.
Vista doesn't do that.

There isn't much in the way of cost at all vs XP. Going back and upgrading existing systems to Vista may add cost but rolling things as they come in or doing an initial downgrade followed by a mass upgrade won't cost anything besides man hours. Which leads to..

The deployment options alone cover the cost of admission in reduced IT man hours. Most admins in medium to small busineses never bother to learn them. They'll spend more time griping than actually learning the new product they are supporting. Few even know what a WIM is. It's their budget. If they don't want to reduce it that's their prerogative. /shrug.

Same thing happened in XP. Everyone used ghost and sysprep (few even used ghost the way it was meant .. multicast and whatnot) and nobody bothered with RIS and published apps. Here at MS for example we don't really have much in the way of desktop support. Someone gives you a machine (sans OS) and a network cable. Everything you need is a click away and all updates and security, ipsec, certs etc are automated from the back office. We're pretty much using off the shelf software that everyone else gets for free. The cost savings in our IT compared to every other place I've worked is insane.

Take the case above posts as an example. That IT shop is basically placing itself 5+ years behind the curve on purpose instead or working out whatever issue they are having. This isn't a cost savings. It's just deferring cost to the future as well as adding cost becuase the eventual rollout to Vista / Windows 7 / non-MS isn't being done in the most efficient way...basically each desktop is being touched twice, and if not, each desktop is going to be running an 8 year old OS before you know it.

As I said earlier though, there are indeed legacy apps, odd driver issues and all sorts of nickle and dime things that you're going to see with any upgrade rollout. Plan, Plan, Test, Plan, Test, Plan and things go smoothly. My company is a biiig one. We did our rollout before anyone and it was very successful. We don't have some voodoo magic that isn't available to others.