Signs of the Agpocalypse...

Dell Computer - who sold me my latest model - actually paid attention to some of us Vista guinea pigs and decided enough blood had been shed.

Dell's plan to reintroduce Windows XP as an option on its consumer and home-office PCs, as reported midday Friday on our site by Paul McDougall, adds a powerful counterbalance to the tale of unimpeded Vista uptake.

It's pretty hard to read all the tea leaves, and it may seem counterintuitive (given that Dell is talking home systems here), but what I believe will happen near term is that Vista will surge on consumer desktops, while Windows XP will remain entrenched on client-side systems in the enterprise. [More]

I have finally corrected the worst of my issues and Microsoft has promulgated enough updates to handle some more, but I am still convinced it was a mistake to buy Vista this early. "Carlos" - my Indian (I think) tech support guy, agreed that Vista had been berra, berra good for business.

Maybe next year. (New drivers for legacy hardware are arriving daily, which really helps.)

Or maybe Linux.

Or (gasp!) - a Mac.