Affinity Law Office Technology Blog

Windows XP Not Quite Dead Yet

Laptop Magazine has posted an informative FAQ on the official demise of the Windows XP operating system. 

Among the useful nuggets of info in the FAQ is a summary of "downgrade" options.  If you order an new PC with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, the computer maker is permitted by Microsoft to offer you the option of downgrading to Windows XP Professional:

OEM versions of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate provide the end user with downgrade rights. What that means is that under the license terms (i.e. the EULA), users have the right to downgrade from Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate Edition to one of the following: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Professional x64 Edition, and Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP MCE both come to an end of life on June 30, 2008.

Although neither the OEM nor Microsoft is obligated to supply earlier versions to end users under the end user licensing terms, Microsoft is enabling OEMs who manufacture OEM Activation-enabled Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate systems to order Windows XP media so they can include the disks in-box.

How will computer giants Dell and HP implement the downgrade option?  The FAQ states:

Even before June 30, Dell ceased selling laptops and desktops with Windows XP installed as the primary and only OS (without getting it via a downgrade right program). The absolute deadline for all system builders manufactures to stop selling systems with Windows  XP as their primary OS is June 30.

However, Dell will still offer Windows XP Professional by purchasing a PC with “Windows Vista Business BONUS” or “Windows Vista Ultimate BONUS”, which allows Dell to exercise "Windows Vista downgrade rights" by preinstalling Windows XP Professional and providing the installation disc for either Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate.  This is so users can transition to Vista when they are ready.

HP tells us that they will continue to offer the downgrade to XP Professional option on its business systems through at least July 30, 2009. These systems are pre-installed with XP Pro, and the customer receives a Vista license so that they can upgrade to the new OS when they are ready. The HP systems come with restore discs for both operating systems.

This is good news, sort of, for those who remain Vista skeptics and are trying to get by until the release of Windows 7.

Free antivirus program gets better

For years, Grisoft's AVG antivirus program has been the most popular free protection for use on personal (as opposed to business) computers.  But there are other alternatives, including Avast! Antivirus, which I have been using on my home desktop PC for two years.  Avast! has released its new version 4.8 Home Edition, which remains free for personal use.  It now has spyware and malware protection in addition to blocking viruses.  A recent PC Magazine review gave it a rating of 4 out of 5, which is very good for a free program.  Business users can opt for the professional version for $39.95 after a 60-day free trial.  There are discounts for multiple licenses.

Use Free Gmail Account to Convert PDF to Editable Text

Let's say you are on the road away from your speedy scanner and OCR software, but you need to incorporate the text of a PDF document in to a Word file.  Simply email the PDF as an attachment to your free Gmail account.  Browse to the message in Gmail's Web interface, then choose the option to view the attachment as HTML.  You can then copy and paste the text, including formatting, into a Word  document.      

Web 2.0 Photo Editing Comes of Age

We've written before about the trend toward web-based applications.  Now there is a viable photo editing app that runs in your browser.  It is from Adobe called (what else!) Photoshop Express.  Once you create a free Photoshop Express account, you can either directly upload your images for editing, or better yet, link to the photos stored in your (also free) Photobucket repository.  Because it is from Adobe, it is no surprise that this is a Flash-based application.  It even runs in the Firefox browser on the Linux-based Asus Eee mini-laptop once you upgrade to the latest version of the Flash plug-in for Firefox.  Given the limited storage space on the Eee, web-based applications are an ideal solution. 

Photoshop Express doesn't offer all of the editing features of the full (and expensive) version of Photoshop CS3, but it will do much of what its consumer-oriented traditional software cousin, Photoshop Elements, can do.   

Buy Vista, Get XP?

Dell seems to be of two minds about the June 30 deadline for sales of new PC's with the Windows XP operating system.  Recent Dell Business brochures indicate that orders for computers with XP should be made by June 18, twelve days before the official deadline.

However, a report from PC World states that Dell will let you have XP on a new computer ordered after June, but only if you order it with Vista Business or Ultimate.  In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim (somewhat dishonestly) a Vista sale.  Dell will preinstall XP Professional as a "downgrade" on a variety of desktop PCs and laptops, a spokesperson said, saving users the hassle of doing it themselves. The computers available with the XP option will include the Windows Vista installation DVD in the box so users can later install Vista over XP under the same license if they wish.

One downside is that some Dell computers have optional components for which there are no XP drivers. For example, PC World reports that a Vostro 200 desktop today available with a choice of Windows XP and Windows Vista has an option for a wireless card that will not work under XP. 

Save Office 2007 Files in PDF Format - For Free

You don't need the full version of Adobe Acrobat to convert your MS Office 2007 files to PDF format.  Of course, there are many good reasons to have Acrobat on at least one of your PC's.  But if all you need to do is convert MS Office 2007 files to PDF for emailing, consider downloading the free Microsoft add-in that does the conversion for you.

Once installed, this add-in gives you a new Save As option to save your document, presentation, or spreadsheet in PDF or XPS format.   

Vista SP1 faster, but not as fast as XP

Those stuck with...er, using Windows Vista have anxiously awaited the speed-up promised by the release of Vista's Service Pack 1.  While preliminary reports suggest measurable speed increases over the original release of Vista, recent benchmarking of Vista SP1 against Windows XP SP2 shows that XP performs better. 

As concluded by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes in his blog on ZDNet after running a series of benchmark tests on the two operating systems:

Looking at the data there’s only one conclusion that can be drawn - Windows XP SP2 is faster than Windows Vista SP1.  End of story.  Out of the fifteen tests carried out, XP SP2 beat Vista SP1 in eleven, Vista SP1 beat XP SP2 in two of the tests, and two of the tests resulted in a draw.

The best result for Vista SP1 was in the single file drive-to-drive copy, while the best result for XP SP2 was extracting multiple files from a compressed folder.  Given these results and taking into account the improvements that SP1 bought to Vista, if I was to go back and compare XP SP2 with Vista RTM, XP would have hammered Vista even harder.

Kingsley-Hughes promised to continue benchmarking Vista and XP to uncover the reasons behind this performance difference. 

In the meantime, a movement of sorts has sprung up to persuade Microsoft not to kill new sales of Windows XP as scheduled on June 30, 2008.  There is an on-line petition where XP users can voice their opinion that XP be kept alive for purchase. 

Google Calendar now syncs with Outlook

The very nifty web-based Google Calendar just got niftier.  It now syncs with the Microsoft Outlook Calendar on your desktop or notebook PC.  The sync process can be unidirectional (Google to Outlook or Outlook to Google) or bi-directional (changes made to either calendar will be transferred to the other).  In order to enable the sync process, you must download and install Google's sync utility.  Details are available here.  You can also view your Google Calendar and add or modify events from a web-enabled cell phone.   

Bypass Vista and Wait for Windows 7?

Rumors are all of the Internet that Microsoft has placed its next operating system, Windows 7, on a fast-track for release during the second half of next year (2009).  This may be based on the perception that Vista is, if not a failure, at least not a huge improvement over XP.  There seems to be a consensus that it runs perhaps 10% slower than XP on the same hardware, even with the advanced graphical features disabled.  That could change when Vista's Service Pack 1 is released in the very near future.

There is also evidence, at least based on Dell's production, that small business customers continue to choose XP over Vista by a better than 2 to 1 margin.  My own new notebook PC came with XP Pro, not Vista, so I clearly fall into that small-business majority.  However, the vast majority of consumer-grade machines (such as my son's new desktop PC) are being purchased with Vista.  Microsoft is allowing computer manufacturers to continue offering XP as an option on new computers through June 30, 2008.

If Microsoft's next operating system is less than two years away, and with no compelling reason for small business users such as law firms to leave XP, is Vista merely a stop-gap OS like the much-maligned Windows ME?   

Solution to Vista speed problem on horizon?

Microsoft has released a public preview of Service Pack 1 for the Windows Vista operating system.  Because it is only a Release Candidate (RC), not a finished product, it should be approached with caution as it may not perform as expected on all systems.  But those who have installed it find that Vista is noticeably zippier.  The officially named Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Refresh is available here.