So I’m going to take the plunge and switch to WinXP, as soon as I have enough cash to replace my current measly 40GB hard drive with something bigger (and when I get the time needed to install everything). If I’m going to carry on with web design and development, I have to have IE7 at the very least.
But I’m not paying for it. Even just the upgrade costs at least £70 – which is slightly less than this month’s coal bill. I can’t afford to pay for both and I ain’t going to freeze! I had thought that the introduction of Vista would mean a big price reduction for XP – but no such luck.
On the good side, a new, bigger HD means I can run Linux as well – I’m looking forward to playing with that!
It has occurred to me that M$ could very well afford to subsidise barebones no-frills versions of their OSs for home users – selling them as part of Tesco’s range of £19.99 software perhaps – and continuing to make their money from business and corporate users. What a nice fantasy!