Nominally, Windows 7 is an upgrade to Windows Vista. But what everyone wants to know is whether it’s better than Windows XP
THE VAST MAJORITY of PC users never adopted Vista. Eight years after its release, and months after Microsoft officially discontinued it, Windows XP is still beloved. Will Windows 7 convince XP loyalists to switch? In August, we conducted an online survey of more than 8000 people who told us that XP was their primary OS.
The top three reasons they haven’t upgraded to Vista: satisfaction with XP, lack of desirable Vista-only features, and concern over driver and compatibility issues. Vistaphobia ran high among respondents who had tried Vista or who merely knew of it (62 percent and 81 percent, respectively, said their opinion of the OS was somewhat or very negative). Most of our respondents said that they had an open mind about Windows 7.
Of the 26 percent of respondents who said they had already used Windows 7, 73 percent had a somewhat or very positive opinion of Win 7, while 11 percent viewed it very or somewhat negatively. Also, 56 percent said they intended to move to Windows 7 immediately or eventually. Among respondents who had read about Windows 7 but hadn’t used it, 56 percent said their opinion of the OS was somewhat or very positive; only 12 percent said it was somewhat or very negative. Still, 40 percent said that they intended to stick with XP indefi nitely. But when will it become impractical to keep using XP? Microsoft formally discontinued Windows XP on June 30, 2008, and it ended mainstream support on April 14, 2009. But the company will permit PC builders to ship Windows 7 machines with XP downgrades for 18 months after Win 7’s release or until it ships the first Service Pack for the new OS—whichever comes first. But as of April 8, 2014, Microsoft has announced, it will no longer take support calls and issue security fixes for Windows XP. And from that point on, XP holdouts, you’ll be on your own.
Source of Information : PC World November 2009
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