Anywhere To Buy Windows XP Laptop?

[simmonsmike7]

Is it still possible to buy a Windows XP laptop?

If so, where...

I checked all major companies.. Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, etc

I doubt it, but it's worth a shot asking here.

[tim254]

Yes, you can buy one at Dell, but you'll have to look at the Latitude line.

[rhelaine]

most of them still offer the option to downgrade for an additional fee.

You can also check ebay they usually have refurbs with XP

[runfast]

Checkout CDW.com

[Alexa Smith]

I don't know about buying direct from a manufacturer, but any PC store will on request supply a laptop with XP installed, I think (even if they charge something extra for it)?

[John Rogers]

Laptops with XP Pro
Laptops & Notebooks Guided Search at TigerDirect.com

Laptops with XP Home
Laptops & Notebooks Guided Search at TigerDirect.com

John

[JoMo]

Yes, dell does offer a downgrade option that will come with XP installed and then you can upgrade to Vista when you want to.

[bgmacaw]

Almost all of the netbooks run on XP.

As John mentioned, Tiger Direct is a good source for refurbs and closeouts that are sometimes available with XP. And you can always get a downgrade.

Is there any particular reason you're needing XP or are you just avoiding Vista on general principles?

[John Rogers]

You could also buy one with no OS and buy XP on eBay.

John

[ideasuniversity]

May be you can buy mine.

[melanied]

A lot of my custom software won't work gracefully on Vista, that's why I stick with XP. Other people may have different reasons.

[simmonsmike7]

I just prefer XP over Vista - XP was perfect, there was no reason to upgrade to Vista in the first place...

Thanks for the links everyone.

[Sarah Russell]

The Dell outlet still stocks some XP laptops and I've had pretty good luck with them. Another thought - Windows 7 is about to come out (10/22) and it's supposed to be fantastic, but upgrading from XP is going to be a lot more complicated than upgrading from Vista. It might be worth sucking it up for a few months if you're thinking about going that route.

[Nightengale]

I've also been researching laptops with XP and Toshiba DOES sell some of their laptops with XP.

Go to ToshibaDirect.com and you should see a section or banner to click on which will take you to their laptops with XP.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

[seasoned]

M/S painted themselves into a corner! I used to wonder what a person could do with 1GB of ram. WOW, I was limited to only 48K That is less than 5%!!!!!!!!! So we have over 20 TIMES as much memory, and do SO little with it. 1GB is a LOT!

Well, M/S keeps figuring people can JUST GET MORE! So Vista needs like 2GB or more. ONE PROBLEM! 2GB costs more than 1GB, and 1GB is a LOT, so many netbooks have only 1GB and many can't even be expanded to 2GB! ALSO, the CPU runs at 1/4 to 1/2 the speed, and vista is a REAL hog! So most netbooks that run windows run XP!!!!!

Steve

[Mike Hill]

I know there are still Acer laptops that have XP on them... I know what you mean with Vista... The compatibility issues are horrible with existing software and when you get past that hurdle you'll find that Vista will do some funky things sometimes....

I think XP was by far their best OS ... they should have left it alone!

Mike Hill

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Mike Hill

I know what you mean with Vista... The compatibility issues are horrible with existing software

Existing software that has a problem with Vista is either outdated or written poorly, typically designed for unsupported, old, hardware or insist on running in an entirely unsecured administrative environment.

Programming specs for Vista compatibility were released in 2002 as suggestions for writing good, sustainable, code for XP and future operating systems. Unfortunately, many programmers continue to code like they are writing for Windows 98.

Originally Posted by Mike Hill

I think XP was by far their best OS ... they should have left it alone!

Good thing they didn't. XP was riddled with security holes that they're still patching. Also, when XP was first released people who were used to Windows 98 or Windows 2000 didn't like it that much either.

[MarkJ]

You might check into the Asus netbook Eee PC 1000 instead of a laptop. It runs XP, weighs 3.2 pounds, 160 GB HD, 1GB RAM. Easy upgrade to 320 GB HD, 2G RAM. I just picked one up from Buy.com

[Kay King]

I'd check the Dell outlet - there were some there last I looked.

[Sleaklight]

notebookshop.com : Windows XP Installed Notebooks : Notebookshop.com | Worth Tapping Into - Fujitsu, Sony, Toshiba, Laptop Computers, PC Components, Jeff Levy, Adam Carolla

[MemberWing]

I was shopping for laptop last 2 days with exact same aim - get decent XP based laptop.
Most laptops looks like are made from cheap overweight plastic - I'd be shy to open any of these in a coffee shop with all cool kids staring at their shiny Macs
Vista is out of question, so i thought I'd get something and try run Linux with virtualized XP.
Then guy suggested to get Macbook and run XP natively there - which makes perfect sense. Microsoft forced vendors to not be compatible with XP which gave Apple another huge advantage.

Yeah, by the time Ballmer will make his first (and buggy) release of Windows 7 I'll be off to Macbook camp. Vista fiasco was a golden opportunity to Apple and they didn't blink.

Macbooks just looks, feels and runs so nice and sweet compare to all Vista-polluted plastic junkyard!

Gleb

[seasoned]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Existing software that has a problem with Vista is either outdated or written poorly, typically designed for unsupported, old, hardware or insist on running in an entirely unsecured administrative environment.

Programming specs for Vista compatibility were released in 2002 as suggestions for writing good, sustainable, code for XP and future operating systems. Unfortunately, many programmers continue to code like they are writing for Windows 98.



Good thing they didn't. XP was riddled with security holes that they're still patching. Also, when XP was first released people who were used to Windows 98 or Windows 2000 didn't like it that much either.

Well, M/S has NO right to dictate "suggestions for writing good, sustainable, code for XP and future operating systems.", or anything of the like for that matter! K&R stated in their FIRST C book( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_P...Language_(book) ) that is considered the BIBLE of C programming and predates anything M/S ever came out with along those lines... that memory allocation that fail should be treated as if the memory doesn't exist(BECAUSE IT *****DOESN'T*****)! The function should be GRACEFULLY degraded, with appropriate errors! M/S says that the memory should be allocated and an assert should be issued to CRASH the program. That right there shows that M/S shouldn't be listened to and that their O/S shouldn't be used for mission critical operations. They have given the ENTIRE microcomputer industry a bad name. And they do that THEMSELVES as well as tell others to do it.

HECK, Windows uses handles ALL OVER, and has a set limit, so the GUI can fail by being out of memory when you still should have memory. There should also be some memory set aside for SOME control. That is kind of ironic.

Steve

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by seasoned

Well, M/S has NO right to dictate "suggestions for writing good, sustainable, code for XP and future operating systems."

But they do. Windows is their operating system and their programming team knew the direction they were heading in. Primarily they were telling programmers to stop putting crap in the registry and to write data files to the application data folder structure and not to the program files area, the Windows directory, the root directory and other such locations that needed to be locked down to properly secure a system.

As for memory management, sure, in hindsight, they could have done a better job. Now, they have to keep the same structure. Look at what happened when they made improvements to the security model in Vista, everyone has a conniption. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had improved the memory management model too?