Ignore Vista Until 2008

Blakey Rat writes "According to Gartner in a research note entitled 'Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista', businesses should wait until 2008 before installing Windows Vista, or 'pursue a strategy of managed diversity' by only bringing in new machines with Windows Vista and not upgrading existing computers. Although acknowledging the security benefits of upgrading, they explain in the report that most of the security-related benefits that come with Vista are available today through third-party software products."

Comments

The reason not to upgrade is...

[Sinryc]

if its not broke, don't fix it.

Re:The reason not to upgrade is...

[.darkaiyen.]

if its not broke, don't fix it.

wait, this IS windows we're talking about, isn't it?

Re:The reason not to upgrade is...

[cshark]

God willing, I will be ignoring windows vista for much longer than that.

Re:The reason not to upgrade is...

[MoogMan]

(Unfortunately) this is also the same reasoning for not transitioning over to Linux

Re:The reason not to upgrade is...

[FidelCatsro]

Some great movies have been made using windows : Crash , Unstable , Dos Boot , Virus,The spy(ware) Who shagged me , Homers The Iliad (Think troy) and Dawn of the dead.

Re:The reason not to upgrade is...

[birge]

I see your point, but I think it's really more of a polite way of saying "Well, they didn't fix the shit that's REALLY wrong with Windows so why bother." In the case of Vista, maybe they actually will improve security and reliability, but heaven knows the pretty GUI isn't exactly what Windows has been most sorely missing all these years.

What's wrong with Windows may very well be something that doesn't exist at Microsoft: elegance, simplicity and modularity of design. They are trying for that lately, at least they say they are, but it's going to be hard to change the mindset of everybody at Microsoft. They've always had very clever people but not very smart people, as exemplefied by Bill Gates himself. He's a man who is as shrewd as any suit in the room, but he has no sense of elegance. He's like that guy everybody knows who can do any math problem you give him, but who has the creativity of a field mouse. Elegance goes a long way in design, and a good OS is equal parts design and science, I think. You can have the tightest kernel in the world, but when some dipshit comes up with an idea like the Registry, it's all over.

Amazing

[shmlco]

Amazing how many things stay the same. I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

Though this article is pretty lame. First time I've read, "Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista client," in a summary and the linked article doesn't even bother to list them.

This is news?

Re:Amazing

[smartin]

Exactly, I wish I had mod points to mod you up. Each new generation of Microsoft operating system is suppose to fix the problems of the past, but each new generation continues to have them. The reason of course is that they simply can't throw the old crap away because they want backwards compatibility. M$ should really take a lesson from Apple when they switched to OS X. Toss the old code base and start new with a tried and true Unix kernel. Provide an emulation environment if you have to but toss it all out and go with what is known to work.

Re:Amazing

[cens0r]

Any old movies will not look perceptably better in HD

WTF? If they do another scan of the film at a higher resolution before compressing it into and HD stream anything that was shot on film will look better in HD. In fact most films are scanned in in resolutions beyond what is needed for HD already, simply because they know HD is coming and it's cheaper to just scan the film stock once.

Now certain movies and TV shows were shot on video and not film, and these will show no improvement. But they are the exception and not the rule.

Re:Amazing

[JPriest]

That is quite possibly the most impressive /. UID I have ever seen, can I touch it?

Re:Amazing

[ximenes]

Touch it!

Summary: Too Little, Too Late

[rsborg]

Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately.

The majority of improvements in Vista will be security-related and most of this functionality "is available via third-party products today"

Ouch.

"Search is slow in Windows XP and files, email and calendar objects cannot be found with a single search." While Microsoft has tried to remedy this in Vista, "competent third-party desktop tools are already available" from companies like Google, Gartner pointed out.

I'd hate to be furniture in Ballmer's office.

My main problem with the article was the lack of options specified:

The analysts acknowledged that companies who use IE7 and Vista will have fewer points of weakness.

Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.

Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late

[dslauson]

"Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately."

Keep in mind that he's still recommending Windows. He's not so soft on it that he's tell you to install Linux or BSD.

To me, it sounds like the guy's not really trying to rip on Windows, so much as he's offering sound business advice. Right? I mean, what's the benefit of rushing out and buying the latest version when the current one coupled with the third party software that you probably already have installed, is perfectly adequate?

Re:Perhaps we should wait until 2008

[JoeShmoe950]

I wish there was an "EgoManiac" mod.

Ten reasons??

[d3ac0n]

Heck. I can give you ONE reason not to move to Vista, and it's all you need.

Trusted Computing.

'nuff said.

By that time...

[Spy der Mann]

...I'll already have ReactOS installed in my PC. Oh, btw, this week ReactOS reached version 0.2.8.

Of course, ReactOS will be installed in a dual-boot with the latest Linux, which I hope, will be user-and-hardware friendly by then.

Isn't this Already the "Word on the Street"?

[eno2001]

Where I work we still have more Win2K than XP Pro because the move from NT4 to AD was a long and involved process for 3000+ machines and a team of 3 people to do it. When we got to Win2K AD (we STILL have NT4 domains because of crap legacy software we HAVE to have!) the move to XP was not relished. We've been doing it a building at a time now (60 buildings) and it's going. But this is 2005 going on 2006 and XP came out in 2002. So, you could say we are doing "managed diversity" in a big way. I don't see how this approach to Vista is any different than the way most wise insitutions proceed.

This is the LAST Windows you'll ever buy!!

[malraid]

That's right, every version afterwards will most likely be rented. Vista is just to get everybody slowly by slowly dependant on DRM for day-to-day activities.

You need 10 reasons?

[vertinox]

I only need 4 reasons not to upgrade.

1. OS X
2. Ubuntu
3. Win2000
4. $250

Ignore Vista Until 2008

[oztiks]

Only until 2008? I was hoping to ignore it for much longer then that :)

Re:Have you tried it?

[ichigo 2.0]

What did you expect, it's a beta version aimed at hardware manufacturers and software developers! I tried it too, and agree that it's buggy as hell (browsing folders locked up my computer), but I'm still going to try the final version.

Re:"Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista

[Whatchamacallit]

Big companies have corporate site licenses for Windows without Product Activation, etc. We install WinXP or Win2k from the network. We boot a new machine out of the box with a networkable boot cd and kick off a ghost image onto the hardware. The only people actually installing Windows onto hardware the manual way are engineers putting together a new ghost image. The boxes coming from HP, IBM, etc. are never even booted into the OS that comes with them before they are wiped out. The engineers will probably play around with Vista but it is unlikely they will approve it for rollout to 12,000+ PC's until at least the first service pack.

Re:So how about...Macs

[DECS]

Choosing not to buy something that's available and updated regularly is not the same as having no upgrade path available.

And of course you're just wrong too: Mac users have not had to wait more than three months for a update over the last five years. And Apple delivered a whole new version every 12 months for the last 4 years. Based on the upgrade statistics, not may Mac users have been waiting to upgrade.

Preferably, the feature updates come out fast and furious, but remain compatible enough, so that you don't have to upgrade until you chose to do so. So, you can live without Tiger unless you want a some of the latest wizzy apps and features.

Microsoft has given its users no major upgrades since XP in 2001. "XP Server" slipped to 2003. Longhorn/Vista was promised and delayed in 2004, 2005, and 2006. What does ship will be XP with some Tiger features.

In the same timeframe, Apple has shipped four major OS upgrades and over 15 free "service pack" style upgrades that involve significant OS retooling, much faster performance on the same hardware, and lots of significant UI and API improvements. Including, of course, much of what Microsoft had promised in Vista.

During that time, Microsoft has continuously redefined its planned feature set in Longhorn, lopping off promised features and extending the delivery date over half a decade.