Saving the most popular OS in the world…

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should undoubtedly go and boil your head. Windows is dying…

This death, is, in fact, the result of a one-two punch. Both, unfortunately, by Microsoft itself.

Gits.

Firstly, Microsoft released Vista. Actually, that wasn’t the mistake. The mistake was not making it a worth successor to Windows XP. Actually, that still isn’t the mistake. Vista can be corrected the way XP was, through Service Packs. Windows XP Service Pack 2 is essentially, a complete revision of many features of XP. The worst part is, Vista, as Steve Ballmer put it, is a work in progress. If that isn’t reason enough not to postpone switching over to Vista completely.

Unfortunately, the icing on this deathday cake is the fact that XP is going away. Bye bye, ol’ pal. It’s been a pleasure. But HEY, HANG ON! When XP came out, 98 didn’t stop selling did it? So why should XP stop? A good OS should continue till a worthy successor is found.

Vista is not yet ready to replace XP.

I’m forced to recount the reasons for this being so. Many applications are incompatible with Vista, and on top of this, many Vista-ready PCs are simply not powerful enough to handle Vista, which is…well…BIG!!! Too big. A resource hungry monster. I’m not saying that Vista is a completely useless OS, but upgrading to Vista, for many people, invariable involves a PC overhaul!

It is not yet time for XP to go. It’s a great OS. I’m not, of course, comparing it to Linux, or anything, but over its 6 year lifespan, it has been refined quite a lot. And frankly, a fresh PC with XP pre-loaded is a pleasure. Plus, with Service Pack 3 for XP coming out on Tuesday, 29th April, I still feel that it isn’t time to remove this OS. As many people have put it, XP should continue till the next version of WIndows is released, or till Vista becomes a proper competitor to XP, whichever comes first. Agreed, that XP SP3 is not a complete overhaul of the OS, but I’m sure that the life cycle of this OS has room for a couple of more service packs. Keep fighting, XP.

Microsoft needs to clean up its act and fast. Another reason for this is that Mac and Linux are slowly but surely eating into its market share. With so many people not being satisfied with Vista, Macs and MacBooks are being seen as worthy alternatives. Also, Ubuntu 8.04 has been released. This is a LTS or Long Term Support version of the Linux distro, and Canonical, which develops the OS, intends this not only to appeal to Linux enthusiasts, but also to businesses.