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Corporate America Not Ready For Vista
thefickler writes to point out a TechBlorge article about a study indicating how few corporate computers now deployed are capable of running Windows Vista. The article says that the study, by Softchoice, will be released next week. The study found that 50% of the PCs inventoried (from a sample of 112,000 from 472 organizations) are below Vista's basic system requirements. Roughly half of those PCs will need to be replaced outright to run Vista. 94% of corporate PCs are not ready for Vista Premium Edition. The article notes that the need to upgrade hardware "could... mean that organizations will hold off upgrading to Windows Vista until their next hardware refresh," as some analysts have been saying for a while now.
"That's all well and good, but what features exactly were taken away in Vista that were found in XP?"
It won't work on computers already in place in businesses, so that's a heck of a feature retraction. I consider backward hardware compatibility an important feature.
"How is playback of encrypted content a bad thing? Is there some magic mechanism which disables your ability to play unencrypted content?"
It's called DRM. Protected Video Path will one day require users to have a certain new monitor to play their store bought movies and video content. When Microsoft and software vendors decide what you get to play unencrypted on your computer, it's not even your own computer anymore.
Oh You POS
Our company isn't in any hurry to upgrade, nor are a lot of companies I talk to. Most like ours, have spent a lot of capital in the last 24 months upgrading from NT4 to XP, from Office 2000 to Office 2003. We have XP tweaked out, locked down, patched up and running perfectly, sort of the way we had NT4/Office2000 tweaked. If we were to upgrade to Vista, to get the same performance, we would have to dump an extra 512 meg of ram into every box, since we have them running 512meg now. XP for our purposes runs pretty well with 512 meg of ram, but on a couple of test boxes, 512 meg with Vista is like running XP on 256. Yeah it runs, but you do a lot of swapping. For now, we are holding off on Vista/Office07, until at the earliest Q2 of 07. Any NEW computers bought/built, will be built with an OS update in mind, but will come configured with XP, NOT Vista.
3) I'm not seeing what Vista will actually *do* for me over XP.
Bitlocker for laptops
Better power management via group policy for desktops, just to name two biggies
5) I'm unwilling to perform the carnal acts necessary to get that extra funding.
Unless you need hardware upgrades there likely won't be a funding need since the upgrade is likely covered under your SA agreement.
6) I'm not deploying another MS OS before the first service pack.
This one if completely legit =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
94% of corporate PCs are not ready for Vista Premium Edition
1. There is no such thing as a "Vista Premium Edition".
2. If they mean the closest -- "Vista Home Premium Edition", that's not supposed to be a common Vista edition for corporations.
3. Are these talking about meeting recommendations or requirements? I see few corporations being willing to run Aero Glass, and without that, you can easily get by with 512 MB or 1 GB RAM and no special graphics card to speak of (assuming it meets XP requirements).
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Let's start with some facts:
t ml= /library/en-us/wmpsdk11/mmp_sdk/glossary.asp Search the term "component enforces those rights." on the page.
Vista's *six* SKU's are sold in various states of disabledness. For example, if you want to use a DVD burner, you must upgrade. Hmmm,.no matter the version of XP you could use a DVD burner... That's just one of many restrictions.
Let's move to your clearly uninformed question: "Is there some magic mechanism which disables your ability to play unencrypted content?"
Why, yes there is! The latest WMP phones home to MS when you play a song and catalogs your content. When the inevitable OS reinstall happens and you attempt to play the same songs you get some bad news. It seems it's okay to play the music on that "other" OS install, but not this one. You agree to this when you click-through licenses. Here's a link to a guy that experienced it. http://www.bandddesigns.com/blogger/arch/002942.h
Here's Microsoft's SDK http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
Now, Microsoft and their media friends are taking away your right to first sale as secretly as possible. Vista will help them meet that end very nicely. Set top boxes and a variety of media subscription models will help greatly as well. Add in dragging some children into court and consider it done.
I assure you, this is only the beginning. Please consider using another OS that ensures your current freedoms. Many Linux distros are good,
I'm sure the above-average PHB senses this anyway. Which is part of the reason the Vista uptake will be so slow.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
did you hapen to know that bitlocker is basically volume level DRM? so that means if any of the following happens
1 you lose the password to the account and your "root" admin gets run over by a bus
2 some random Zero day borks the account
3 a DDOS on the authentication server burns your block of COA serials
4 Microsoft just one day "decides" that your system is unauthorized (maybe you are in Their way)
You are shall we say "traversing the proverbial polluted tributary without visible means of propulsion" or "afixed via a rotated metal rod with a spiral fin"
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061111-819
The state of internet journalism is truly pathetic.
That's an interesting view of reality you have there. You believe Microsoft invented the hardware restrictions that the MPAA and RIAA are trying to force down our throats?
Hmm. Palladium. Product activation. Windows Genuine Advantage. Plays for Sure. Microsoft has been pushing DRM (weren't they the ones who came up with the term?) with or without the backing of the AA's for years.
Backwards compatibility is not a feature, if you're going to complain about it then let's have a discussion about computers unable to run SUSE 10.1. Why can't I run it on my 386? or my 486?
Because that's a dumb comparison. No one wants to run a new operating system on a 20 year old processor. However, plenty of people will want to be able to run new operating systems on three to four year old hardware - hardware that was new during Longhorn's/Vista's development. What's so unreasonable about that?