Windows Vista hit the shelves on January 30, 2007. Almost a year and a half later, on June 30, 2008, Microsoft ordered a hit on Vista’s older (and arguably wiser) brother, Windows XP – announcing that Microsoft would no longer provide XP to retailers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for use on standard PCs and laptops, although XP will continue to thrive on Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC). This final ax fell a mere three days after Bill Gates stepped down from his role as executive chairman at Microsoft.

It must have felt like Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse vanished all at once.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, not many consumers have been eager to embrace Windows Vista, even while most tech-related retailers have been happy to tow the line. Last year around Thanksgiving, an associate at Best Buy guaranteed one of my family members that XP was no longer available, and that the only choice for his new laptop was Vista. This wasn’t true then and still isn’t today.

Here’s the ugly truth: Windows XP is alive and kicking. Retailers who prioritize their clients’ needs are fighting to keep XP a viable option for consumers, even on new systems, well into the foreseeable future.

For area residents, Computer Parts USA (CPU), currently in their tenth year of business, is one of those retailers. Brandon Denney, General Manager at CPU and a member of their staff for over eight years, spoke to me about the lackluster response to Vista in our area and CPU’s plan to continue providing Windows XP.

Of all the systems CPU has sold since Vista launched, Denney estimates that, “Maybe two percent” of them went out the door with Windows Vista. “When Vista first came out we saw an initial surge where the early adopters came in and bought it – and I’m not even saying ‘en masse.’ That was our biggest surge of Vista sales. They weren’t lined up outside.”

Local sentiment has never improved. For CPU’s clients, Denney says, “They want XP. We try to cater to that opinion as far as carrying laptops that still have XP and loading XP on our pre-built systems. We offer Vista solutions, but for the most part, it’s all XP.”

Some customers simply think that newer is better and don’t know the difference. For them, Denney says, “We really try to talk to them and make sure that’s exactly what they want, so that before they are saddled with Vista, they know what they’re getting into.”

What’s all the fuss about? Why aren’t people adopting Windows Vista? “The complaints are mainly how it tries to protect you from yourself,” says Denney. “Constant security alerts. You want to get to the properties on your computer and it makes sure you want to do that. You have to go through three steps where, in XP, it just took one step.”

Vista also hits you in the pocketbook before you even walk out the door with your new PC. Denney confirms: “It’s very resource-intensive, so you have to spend more on a machine to get it to run like you would an XP machine on similar or less hardware.”

Even then, there are limitations. Any memory much beyond “3 gigs and some change,” according to Denney, is more than the standard 32-bit versions of either XP or Vista can utilize anyway. This is simply a limitation of a 32-bit operating system.

If your computer’s processor supports it, running the 64-bit versions of both XP and Vista give you the opportunity to utilize more memory. Often, however, the trade off has been the loss of certain software packages that are not made to run under these 64-bit versions – applications like Palm synchronization software and iTunes to name a few.

Is there ever a time when Vista out-performs XP? “It depends on what you’re doing,” says Denney. Again, the trade off: Vista may offer some improvements when multi-tasking several applications, but it’s initial footprint on your system resources is huge. Vista uses a staggering 480MB of your precious memory (almost half a gig) just to load itself and start its basic services. That doesn’t leave as much room for applications to run, and its difficult to multi-task between applications if you don’t have enough memory left to run them in the first place.

Even though the larger retailers have dropped XP altogether, area residents continue to demand it. At CPU, Denney has noticed that, “People go over to the Best Buys and the Office Depots and they buy a new laptop, and then bring it over here and say ‘Put Windows XP on it’.”

How is this possible? If Microsoft doomed XP to extinction last month, consumers no longer have a choice, do we? It turns out there is no mandate to prohibit a retailer from selling Windows XP, as long as they’ve got officially-licensed copies in stock.

“Microsoft stopped producing CDs and giving them to distribution,” Denney explains. “Distribution and stores like us saw this coming, so we stocked up.” Denney suspects CPU will have plenty of genuine Windows XP CDs, “at least the next couple of months, through August, maybe into September. Then you’re going to start seeing the distribution dry up.”

Then what? How will you satiate your hunger for XP? As odd as it may sound, the answer lies within the license agreement for Windows Vista itself.

If you purchase a copy of Windows Vista Business – the Vista counterpart to Windows XP Professional – you are allowed to “downgrade” and install XP Professional instead. You never even have to install Vista.

“What you can do is buy a Vista Business key, and then load XP. When you get up to the registration point, you have to call Microsoft and tell them, ‘this is what I’m doing, I’ve got a Vista key, I’m installing XP, I need a key.’ Over the phone they’ll give you a key to install XP.”

Part of the trick is to have a copy of the OEM-version of the Windows XP Professional installation CD. If you’ve ever purchased an PC with XP preloaded from a retailer, you probably have one. This snag is due to the way Microsoft generates license keys for XP. Long story short: License keys from the retail “boxed” versions of XP don’t work with the OEM installer CD, and vice-versa. When you call Microsoft for your “downgrade” XP key, they issue a key that works with the OEM installer CD. If you’re using a “retail CD,” the key simply won’t work.

Microsoft may not have made the process easy, but CPU will. Once their XP stocks run dry, you’ll be able to purchase a PC with a Windows Vista Business license and let CPU pre-install XP Professional for you instead. “We can do all the calling to Microsoft,” Denney promises.

You might think you’ll have to pay a premium for this option, but in reality, today’s cost for Windows XP Professional at CPU is $159. A
license for Windows Vista Business is $156, currently $3 less than XP Professional alone. If you initiate your “downgrade” rights with Vista Business, you’ll have a legal license for both Vista Business and XP Professional.

Don’t be fooled. Microsoft benefits from this downgrade option as well. “They book a sale for Vista,” Denney explains, “but really people are just installing XP.” Thus, by invoking this licensing option you may be sparing yourself the pain of using Vista when you don’t want to, but you’re still artificially inflating Vista’s sales number.

Hey, you win some, you lose some.

Links:

• Computer Parts USA on the web: http://www.cpu.com

Kevin McDonald: Writer and professional computer/network administrator. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and children, and owns and operates Definition Computers. E-mail Kevin at askthegeek@definitioncomputers.com with questions you’d like to see answered in this column.(This article was originally published in the Amarillo Independent newspaper.)

* This week’s column was a little different. After writing it and submitting it to the Amarillo Independent, the publisher decided it should be run on the front page. However, I didn’t write it in “front page news” format, so the newspaper retrofitted the article for that particular style. Also, since this was my first “interview/report” since high school, it would be fair to say that I didn’t stick with current conventions, mostly because I wasn’t sure what they were.

I didn’t think it would be fair to post the highly-edited version on my own site, since it’s not 100% “my voice.” Instead, the above article is the one I sent to the Indy, and here is a link to their published version of the article, under a different title: “CPU caters to users who aren’t looking for new VISTAS“