Windows XP Users Petition Microsoft

Microsoft plans to stop selling its XP Operating System in June and users are up in arms. It seems that quite a few who have upgraded to Windows' latest OS, Vista, have been so unhappy with Vista's performance that they have "downgraded" by returning to XP for a better computing experience. And of course, everyone knows that when Microsoft stops selling XP, it will also do away with any support for that OS leaving users with no choice but to move to Vista at some point. As a result, XP users are petitioning Microsoft not to discontinue offering XP to Windows users.

I bought my Toshiba laptop just before Vista debuted, so I had the opportunity to "upgrade" from XP to vista when it came out, but I passed on that offer. That's because, historically, Microsoft releases an OS that is buggy and unreliable and then attempts to fix it with patches and "Service Packs." Since XP was working fine for me I saw no need to introduce additional stress into my computing life by switching to Vista. My thought was, if they stabilized it in later releases I would think about upgrading at that time. But hearing and reading about users' difficulties kept me from ever even wanting to change to Vista

Cindy bought her Toshiba after Vista was out (but before its first Service Pack came out) so it was already on her laptop and she had a lot of problems with it recognizing our printer and other hardware, plus a lot of buggy issues that popped up several times a week. So much for the argument that a factory-installed Vista would perform better. As I recall, when she installed Service Pack 1, it introduced a whole new set of problems and issues.

My friend Denise e-mailed me the other day about how she had to suddenly install a generic driver on her laptop to get the video card to work. Every time she installed the driver identified by Microsoft as the appropriate one to use, her screen went blank. She could plug the laptop into her desktop monitor and see everything fine, but trying to view it on the laptop screen was fruitless until she installed a generic driver. The most likely culprit; a conflicting piece of software or hardware that Windows won't play nice with.

All of which has further solidified in my mind the determination that my next laptop will be an Apple MacBook Pro. Things work without being babied. Things work right out of the box. Things work together. And the Apple software package centers on the things that a creative person like myself finds useful; writing, photography, music and video creation.

Maybe Cindy will get one for me for Christmas...

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