The Microsoft Downgrade

 
Enough folks are sufficiently troubled by Microsoft Vista that manufacturers have begun quietly offering another option. You can downgrade your Vista machine to XP:

While Microsoft is still pushing Vista hard, the company is quietly allowing PC makers to offer a "downgrade" option to buyers that get machines with the new operating system but want to switch to Windows XP... "That's going to help out small- and medium-size businesses," Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told CNET News.com. ...While there is always resistance by some to move to a new operating system, there appears to be particularly strong demand, especially from businesses, to stick with XP... One of the challenges, for both businesses and consumers are Vista's hefty graphics and memory needs.

Some of Bruce Schneier's comments from February figure prominently into the equation.

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry... And you don't get to refuse them.

Of course, users could always choose to downgrade from Vista to Ubuntu.