Oh man, not two minutes after a positive Microsoft story (which was, in fairness, preceded by a negative one) there’s this. Word on the street is that Microsoft is seeking to prevent the sale of the MSI Wind U115. Why’s that? Apparently Microsoft has no time for a netbook—“a race to the bottom,” claimsCrunchGear’s John Biggs—running Windows XP Home that has a so-called hybrid storage system. That is, one with both a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) as well as a solid state drive (SDD).
The Wind U115 keeps Windows XP Home on the SSD to increase system responsiveness, while keeping data files—MP3s, application data, etc.—on the HDD. For whatever reason, Microsoft doesn’t like that very much.
It stinks, I think you’ll agree.
Never mind that you can still find the device for sale on MSI’s Web site!
Fuck Microsoft. What a total bunch of truly unbelieveable bullshit.
Its really unfortunate that they don’t have more serious competition, or you know, any at all. Apple needs to stop being dick wads and start putting their OS onto machines outside of their own product lines. That or Google needs to make Android a serious competitor and not some other flavor of Linux. If Ubuntu can’t take off when its being used by Dell, Android doesn’t have a freaking chance.
Hybrid Storage is one of my favorite Misfits songs.
C’mon Micro$oft, make us hate you more… I dare you!
Maybe they realize it will help their OS perform better. Sometimes I think that Microsoft has an extent to how well they want their OS’s to perform.
I might be wrong. I mean I’m not a devoutly Microsoft hating tech blogger or anything, but the article seems to say not that Microsoft has banned the MSI notebook in question (something that Microsoft couldn’t really do even if they wanted to) but rather refuses to license XP Home for use on hybrid storage solutions. This would lead me to believe that rather than wanting to keep companies from selling notebooks with hybrid storage solutions, what they want is for them to use some other OS, like XP Pro, XP Media Center or more likely the upcoming Windows 7.
Lee’s right. It’s just a matter of licensing. And, yes, it’s probably to force you to wait for Windows 7. They are trying to phase out XP, after all.