I'm happy to report that, as of last week, InfoWorld's Save Windows XP petition passed the 100,000 mark. This campaign has been a wild ride. Thousands of users not only signed the petition but also commented about their own reasons... I’m happy to report that, as of last week, InfoWorld’s Save Windows XP petition passed the 100,000 mark. This campaign has been a wild ride. Thousands of users not only signed the petition but also commented about their own reasons for wanting XP to survive, about their personal experiences with Vista, and so on. A much smaller number accused us of garden-variety Microsoft bashing or standing in the way of progress. Together these comments make fascinating reading, which is why InfoWorld Executive Editor Galen Gruman — who conceived of the Save XP campaign — decided to offer his personal analysis of all that reader feedback. As Galen notes, the most persuasive argument from readers is that it’s all about control. After June 30, new PCs must run Vista, so like it or not, businesses must soon support both operating systems or make a forced march to Vista all at once. Either way, businesses must invest time and money in a new OS that most believe offers little added benefit and a whole lot of hassle. In a world where so many other, worthier IT projects can’t seem to obtain funding, curtailing choice with a compulsory upgrade incurs real pain. The recent release of internal Microsoft e-mails predicting compatibility problems prior to Vita’s launch adds insult to injury. So what about just sticking with XP and waiting for Windows 7? That’s a real possibility even for enterprises that need to buy PCs after the deadline, thanks to certain licensing loopholes. And after all, Microsoft has said it will support XP until 2014. InfoWorld’s Enterprise Desktop blogger, Randy Kennedy, lends credence to the idea of keeping XP running with this week’s Deathmatch: Windows Vista versus XP. The genesis of this article was Randy’s suite of comparative performance tests, which deliver some mighty interesting results. But performance isn’t the only factor enterprises will weigh when considering a leap from XP to Vista, so Randy provides a complete, point-by-point comparison of the dueling OSes on security, manageability, usability, reliability, and other key criteria. Randy also takes us a step further into an alternative he calls the “Weird, wild, wonderful Windows ‘Workstation’ 2008.” Faithful readers of Randy’s blog will note that, picking up on an idea introduced by a Microsoft engineer, he has been exploring the use of Windows Server 2008 as a workstation platform — one that kicks Vista’s butt in performance. Funny, we had Server 2008 pegged as the best Windows Server product Microsoft has ever released. But we didn’t imagine it might be Redmond’s best client OS, too. Technology Industry