One Third of New PCs Downgraded To XP?

Passion 08-21-2008

More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to the older Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, a performance and metrics researcher said today.

According to Devil Mountain Software Inc., which operates a community-based testing network, nearly 35% of the 3,000-plus PCs it examined had been downgraded from Vista to XP.

"Either these machines were downgraded by [sellers like] Dell or HP, or they were downgraded by the user after they got the machine," said Craig Barth, chief technology officer at Devil Mountain. "In any case, these machines are no longer running Vista."

Barth used data provided by users to Devil Mountain's Exo.performance.network — which it kicked off last year and has expanded by partnering with InfoWorld, a Computerworld sister publication — to come up with his numbers. Infoworld first reported the data earlier today. By collating such things as the vendor and system model number with manufacturers' catalogs, Barth was able to identify machines that were probably shipped within the past six months, a period when virtually every new PC was offered with Vista preinstalled.

"The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base," Barth said. "People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights."

Under the terms of Microsoft's end-user licensing agreement, Vista Business and Vista Ultimate can be "downgraded" to XP Professional; businesses that purchase Vista Enterprise can also downgrade to XP.

Although Microsoft retired Windows XP from mainstream availability at the end of June — it stopped shipping the seven-year-old operating system to retail and large computer makers — some OEMs have continued to offer new PCs with XP preinstalled by doing the downgrade at the factory. Hewlett-Packard Co., for example, has promised that it will offer the downgrade option on its business-class desktops, notebooks and workstations through July 2009.

"Vista's installed base certainly doesn't equal the number of Vista licenses [that Microsoft has] sold," Barth said, citing the Exo.performance.network data as proof. "We're seeing this a lot in the financial sector."

Devil Mountain's primary product, the DMS Clarity Studio performance-analyzing software, is installed in large numbers at several major financial firms. "One client is not doing Vista at all, but they're refreshing their entire platform this year," Barth said. The company, a nationally known securities firm, is instead downgrading to the 64-bit version of Windows XP, he said.

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," he noted.

Even when stripping Vista down to core components to make it as close in functionality to XP as possible, Vista was 40% slower, Barth claimed, citing recent tests Devil Mountain has performed. "Vista's performance had been an ongoing problem, and the only thing that's saving Microsoft's bacon is the faster processors and more RAM on today's PCs," he said. "Moore's Law is always on their side."

Nina

And that will proably be the first thing I do with the new computers and download to xp. Either that or just playing around with it for a while.

hugo281

well that's what I do, I tried Vista on my laptop once and that OS was so slow and kept on freezing on me that I just went back to XP, I've had a 4GB RAM chip, 500GB memory, intel dual core processor I mean state of the art HP laptop and still, that thing was running so slow with Vista so I don't know I think Microsoft still needs to work out those kinks on Vista

Hsoolien

I'm finding the only time Vista is really an option is if you have a 64 bit chip with more then 4GB RAM, since XP 64 has horrible driver support and XP 32 will not access more then 4 GB

Dream

Now I heard since SP3 XP will detect 4GB but still can't use 4GB. Can anyone confirm this 1 way or another?

Raven

It's also the fact saying that you increasure your computer performance by switching to XP which looks and feels exactly like XP but only better and have beeter compatability. Yeah I would do it too.

hugo281

Well yeah its sort of true I went to the Microsoft website to check out if its true, it is but the only catch is that when you install the SP3 for XP, it says that the 4GB will be detected but there was a comment that even if 4GB of RAM is in use you won't see much of a difference, but that was one of the specs I'm still looking for a good confirmation

Dream

Ok that's what I heard so that clarrified it. It will detect it but can't use it. But If we leave vista on it we would have to have 4gb just to try amd make it equal to what we already have.

hugo281

yeah just leave Vista on your new computers, because the 4GB does make the difference just be careful though cause the other day my computer froze when I upgrade to Vista from XP, and I started having lots of problems but that was just me , I haven't seen that on the new desktops or laptops that have Vista already installed on them, so its all good Dream

Dream

I know Sinny and Nina will switch to XP, so most likely I will too, even since it will make the notebook faster I definitely will. Just have to make sure I have all the drivers first.

hugo281

yeah I was just about to say that too, Good luck though and are you still going to test out the notebook after you switch to XP and install the SP3 to see if the 4GB is kicking in or not? cause even though its detected I'm not sure if it will kick in or not

Hsoolien

XP will recognize 4GB of RAM, and SP3 makes it use the 4GB even better however much like how 98 would recognize more then 512MB of RAM and use it (up to 2GB) any access to RAM over it's intended maximum (2GB for XP32, 512 for 98) is actually performance decreasing, and can cause odd memory issues (in 98 you would get out of memory errors), so if you have more then 2GB of RAM either XP 64 (of you can get the drivers) or Vista will make good use of it.

orange

every time i've been Vista load on my friends laptops and computers and they've been tellin me "its really good and its actually fast" i wait... TWENTY MINUTES till its ready to use, usually because of the side bar, and in the case of laptops, the pre-loaded software that the laptop manufacturer provided (toshiba now have the faster version, and its still a 15 min wait)...

the part that surprises me in this article tho, is that its only 30% have been downgraded. i honestly would have expected more (40-45% maybe)

i guess its just easier to leave it (slow), than wait a short while for a downgrade (so it [the computer] might run faster)

Hsoolien

I know a of XP installs that take 20minutes to be ready to use, mostly because people load them down with so many mini-app crap

Chello

I used to be like that until Sin came into my life. Once he showed me the difference and I could see why it was so bad I stopped doing it. Just toolbars along can really slow a system down.