Windows XP A Disaster! Back To Windows 98.

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Microsoft today slammed OEM's after the problems some users have had with Windows XP SP3. The issue has to do with the intelppm.sys driver which is attempting to load when the OS boots. While this is essential on Intel based machines it should not happen on an AMD based machine. They should attempt to load the amd8k.sys driver. The problem has been caused by OEM vendors loading Windows XP Intel generated images onto AMD machines. The Register quotes Microsoft as saying:

“Microsoft is aware of a reboot issue experienced by some users who
have attempted to install Windows XP SP3,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “While the root cause of this issue is complex, it results from OEMs improperly placing a Windows XP image created for an Intel-based computer onto machines with non-Intel chipsets. Microsoft issued guidance to OEMs advising them to only load Windows XP images onto like hardware in 2004.”

While this is a perfectly acceptable and correct explanation for what has happened I've decided to turn this into the reaction Vista would get if SP1 had caused problems like this. Therefore I'm now calling for support for Windows 98 to be brought back and I want Microsoft to provide information on how I can downgrade my machine from Vista back to 98 and I want all the software I use to work perfectly with no issues. If there are any problems with 98 I'm fully prepared to go all the way back to 95 and beyond....I will use DOS if I have to!

You might think I'm being stupid but bare in mind that's pretty much exactly what people are asking for at the moment when they demand for downgrades to XP and once again the source of the issue isn't actually Microsoft, it's third-party problems, but I damn sure am going to blame them for it.

Microsoft No. 1 Tech Company

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Fortune has published a list of the 20 most profitable tech companies and Microsoft is at no. 1 again with $14.1 billion in earnings last year. The top 5 in the list are:

1. Microsoft


2. IBM - $10.4 billion


3. Cisco - $7.3 billion


4. HP - $7.3 billion


5. Intel - $7 billion





Google and Apple came in 7th and 8th with $4.2 billion and $3.5 billion respectively. For a company that certain people are claiming is collapsing and who are supposed to have released an OS that is alledgedly massive failure, personally I have no problems with it but that's another post, they've still made some pretty good money this year. They really would be unstoppable in a few years if the Yahoo merger goes through and turns out to be a success, however, expect Microsoft to slip down the list next year if the Yahoo takeover goes through because $44billion to purchase Yahoo, let alone the cost of actually bringing the companies together, is a lot of money even for the Seattle Giant.

Nvidia causing majority of Vista crashes.

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The Register's Tony Smith has posted an interesting piece, here, regarding the causes of Vista crashes in 2007. According to Microsoft internal mail Nvidia drivers were to blame for 28.8% of the reported Vista crashes in 2007 with Microsoft's own software accounting for 17.9% of the crashes.

Vista Crashes by Organisation, 2007

Source: Microsoft

This is actually quite interesting to me because since I started using Vista over a year ago I've had two crashes. Both of these, one only a few days ago, were down to Nvidia drivers. It's nice to see I'm not exactly alone in this one.