Today I received a Dell catalog in the mail and was astounded to see that their ultra high-performance desktop gaming PCs do NOT use Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium nor any other version of Vista for that matter as an OS.  These beasts in the Dell XPS 710 series - whether fitted with the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6300 or the Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core QX6700 - use Genuine Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 instead :o

EP :'(

Some games don't run on Vista yet, and neither do some video cards.  Add that to the fact that Vista gobbles up a healthy 1GB of Ram, and WindowsXP starts looking really attractive for your gaming.  The situation was the same for a while when XP first came out, with the hard-core gamers swearing by Windows98 until WindowsXP had some time to mature.

I didn't look at the ads you specifically mentioned, but most of the computers that Dell is selling right now come with a certificate for a free upgrade to Vista.

I saw this in the Dell Newsgroup.


Quote:

They may have waited until after March 15th to [re]make the Vista/XP choice available, since before March 15th, if you got XP preloaded, you were then also eligible for a free upgrade to Vista.

MrMagoo wrote on Mar 19^th, 2007 at 8:32pm:

"... Some games don't run on Vista yet, and neither do some video cards.  Add that to the fact that Vista gobbles up a healthy 1GB of Ram, and WindowsXP starts looking really attractive for your gaming.  The situation was the same for a while when XP first came out, with the hard-core gamers swearing by Windows98 until WindowsXP had some time to mature..."

Granted - and a very sharp assessment it is - but if such is indeed the case, then why was Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 chosen instead of Windows XP Professional?

EP :'(

That I can't answer.  I can only guess it has something to do with how Microsoft asks distributors to market the different versions.  Microsoft seems to have a lot of say in what versions are sold where.

Additionally, note that Windows Media Center is included in both the Home Premium and the Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

See:  Choose an Edition

Slightly off topic (?), but it reminds of my experiences with Symantec.

One day Costco had plenty of the XP software for sale.

After Vista came out, I went to Costco and all the XP software was suddenly GONE!

The ONLY place I've seen XP is on the internet, mostly "used".

Seems like a marketing ploy to me.

Back to my Symantec NAV problem. A while back I installed NSW 2004 Pro over NAV 2004 (preinstalled OEM, no CD key) on my old PC.  I purchased NSW 2004 Pro ($74.99) just to get Ghost (it has ver 2003).

When I wanted to move NSW to my new PC, I could not activate it. Exeeded number of allowed activations. It seems Symantec doesn't show me as having both products, only 1. NSW.

I contacted Symantec, and told them my problem. I have no CD key, no CD, and guess what they told me: Talk to emachines! Emachines told me it was Symantec's problem!

I talked to Symantec again. They said , "Buy the new version"!

My PC (emachines) came with Ghost CD's of the factory install, no installation disks. If I restore from those cd's, no problem.

I was able to extract the NIS install from the Ghost image (the sourse they used to install NAV on my PC).

If I install from the NIS/NAV  .MSI files in the Ghost image, I have the activation problem.
There is no entry in the Windows registry showing a key.

Maybe someday I'll figure it out. For now I run AVG on my new PC.