Despite not being a full time Windows user anymore myself, I happen to agree with ASUS offering XP as an alternative to the Linux distro known as Xandros currently offered on these machines. With SP2 in place, the Eee could actually do just fine with XP. But I see another problem here, just as I would seeing XP on the notebooks offered with the OLPC project – it sorts of defeats the need for lower end versions of Vista.

Today, as I watched a few minutes of Cranky Geeks in my Miro player, I happened upon the episode discussing XP, Vista and why some people are happy about upgrading while others have opted not to. The episode was 95 and it is a bit dated, as I have been extremely busy lately, unable to watch more video of this sort. But I must say, it was rather balanced in the presentation. One person who could careless about one OS vs another, a Mac users and two Windows users. Each had some strong points as to why some people have really railed against Vista (like me) while others have simply found it to be the best thing since sliced bread.

What I appreciated most about the segment, was the fact that they closely examined those people who have no ill feelings once way or the other, even to the degree of advocating that we are approaching a time where any Windows upgrade (not update) is more for the benefit of the seller than the end user. Granted, Vista’s UAC among other back-end security improvements are very helpful. However the problem is many users simply have not found a matching set of reasons to bother upgrading themselves.

Another item of interest was the talk about users who asked for their new PCs to be provided with XP after trying Vista due to familiarity with its layout, instead of believing it to be a poor release. Weird as this may sound, if I was to go exclusively Windows again, I would take Win XP Pro SP2 without a second thought. Once you get a handle on basic security, you can remain fairly rock solid on that release of the OS.

Speaking for myself, I literally only need turn around and I have immediate access to my other “Windows” PC (running Vista and XP). It is simply at my other desk. But the interesting thing is for most of my Windows related work, I find myself using XP as it is just less time consuming and I will be honest, easier to navigate I think. Speed aside, I simply feel that XP is a stronger release and that many of Vista’s features might as well been part of some service pack. To be fair, I am speaking of the lower end releases, not Ultimate, which is the release I have with Vista. But I choose not to boot into it as it is simply not my cup of tea. I am generally happy with Ubuntu, until their devs do something boneheaded – like when they hosed half a dozen things in Feisty. Sad as this may seem, no OS is free of boneheaded moves, not Linux, Windows or even OS X. “Oops” is truly a cross platform kind of thing.