It’s churlish of me to chortle, so I’ll begin by saying that all Power PC (i.e, not Intel-based) Macintoshes running all versions of OSX through Tiger have the ability to launch OS9 in an emulator, running any OS9 compatible software side-by-side with OSX. I have a ton of software that I wrote for the Mac in the 1990s that I have never ported to OSX, so I run it from time to time in the OS9 “blue box.”
Now: On to the chortling: From CNET News.com:
While Microsoft is still pushing Vista hard, the company is quietly allowing PC makers to offer a “downgrade” option to buyers that get machines with the new operating system but want to switch to Windows XP.
The program applies only to Windows Vista Business and Ultimate versions, and it is up to PC makers to decide how, if at all, they want to make XP available. Fujitsu has been among the most aggressive, starting last month to include an XP disc in the box with its laptops and tablets.
“That’s going to help out small- and medium-size businesses,” Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told CNET News.com.
Hewlett-Packard also started a program in August for many of its business models. “For business desktops, workstations and select business notebooks and tablet PCs, customers can configure their systems to include the XP Pro restore disc for little or no charge,” HP spokeswoman Tiffany Smith said in an e-mail. She said it was too soon to gauge how high customer interest has been. “Since we’ve only been offering (it) for about a month, we don’t really have anything to share on demand.”
A Microsoft representative confirmed there were changes made over the summer to make it easier for customers to downgrade to XP. Under Microsoft’s licensing terms for Vista, buyers of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate Edition have always had the right to downgrade to XP, but in practice this could be challenging. In June, Microsoft changed its practices to allow computer makers that sell pre-activated Vista machines to order Windows XP discs that could be included inside the box with PCs, or shipped to customers without requiring additional activation. Microsoft noted in a statement that neither it nor the PC makers are “obligated to supply earlier versions to end users under the end user licensing terms.”
While there is always resistance by some to move to a new operating system, there appears to be particularly strong demand, especially from businesses, to stick with XP.
Michael Wurzer of FBS Blog has an hilarious take on this “upgrade.”
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Chuchundra says:
I’m not sure what your point is here.
Windows doesn’t have a compatibility mode because it doesn’t need one. Every version of Windows I’ve ever owned will happily run just about any program written for earlier versions Windows or DOS without much issue.
Up until this year we we running a maintenance tracking database program that I wrote years and years ago using an ancient DOS database program called Alpha IV. It ran fine on just about every Windows 2000 or XP machine that I tried it on.
I do have some sympathy for Michael Wurzer’s plight with Vista, but anyone who’s been doing this sort of thing for a while knows you don’t buy any new version of Windows until SP1. MS has always tried to force their OEMs to switch to the new version of windows before their customers want. In the end, they always relent and let the computer manufacturers sell the previous version for a year or two until all the bugs are out.
September 23, 2007 — 7:27 am
chango says:
Um… no. I can tell that you haven’t installed Vista yet, Chuchundra. A lot of very common applications — AVG virus scanner and iTunes, for example — have big problems running under Vista.
And maybe you’ve just forgotten, but every version of windows has had big problems with backwards compatibility. Esp with the switch from 3.1 to 95, and from ME to XP.
September 28, 2007 — 7:59 am