Yeah. It’s a normal reaction. At that time, XP driver support & compatibilities is low. But after 2 years (maybe 3)…people start to appreciate XP especially their built-in USB support. Then drivers & compatibilities issues are solved…then well…we have a mature & stable environment which we all are comfortable with.

Vista is suffering from the same cycle. The only different is Vista have a slower adoption rate compared to XP against Win9x. Why ? Well, it’s in the hardware requirement. Vista needs a significantly higher hardware requirement than XP compare to XP against Win9x.

Of course, the argument of hardware upgrade surface. But do bear in mind that we are looking at a massive hardware upgrade for companies with many PC’s…budget might forbid them in the 1st. place. Generally,: -

Hardware for Win9x uses XP – slower
Hardware for XP uses Vista – much slower

The fact remain that Vista have a significantly higher overhead than XP. Only a faster machine compensates these overheads.

Slower adoption rate causes support service like drivers, compatibilities, cross-platform environment & etc to come slower than expected from respective vendor. That’s why companies still stuck with XP & Microsoft acknowledged it & continue to sell XP to certain parties.

I think these are some point to ponder in selecting an OS for your current system. I’ll seriously stick to XP for now as the support for it is very matured. I’m not saying Vista is not matured…it’s just that Vista have not reach the height of maturity of XP.

I reckon XP will last long enough for the release of Window 7.

I post this on another thread...just to share my thought again.