90% of IT Professionals Don't Want Vista

A survey by King Research has found that Ninety percent of IT professionals have concerns using Vista, with compatibility, stability and cost being their key reasons. Interestingly, forty four percent of companies surveyed are considering switching to non-Windows operating systems, and nine percent of those have already started moving to their selected alternative. "The concerns about Vista specified by participants were overwhelmingly related to stability. Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista," said Diane Hagglund of King Research.

Comments

Well there you have it

[drspliff]

Conclusive proof that Vista has flopped :) Unless the survey was rigged, but CmdrTaco wouldn't be that naive would he?...

Re:Well there you have it

[abigsmurf]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?

One thing that always bothers me with surveys like this is the "have you considered moving to linux/apple" type questions. That's an extremely vague question that can get a 'yes' that can have any meaning for "I've heard a few people talk about linux, I should see what it is" to "we have drawn up a feasibilty report and are waiting for a decision from upper management".

Re:Well there you have it

[purpledinoz]

I'm no IT expert, but this is my impression of Vista.
Vista Pros: DX10 gaming. More secure?
Vista Cons: Slower, expensive, driver problems, compatibility issues.
I don't see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, unless you play games at work. Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista?

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference is.... retailers back then didn't had to give a downgrade to xp option (forced in this case) as Vista now. Give me one example where retailers had to give w2k or w98 licenses to people who had computers bought with XP licenses.

You can stick your head in the sand and refuse to see... but that wont make an ostrich out of you.... just dumber then usual.

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

I have been having this very discussion with trifish as a part of another story.

Trifish would argue that the security benefits alone are sufficient to justify businesses to upgrade. Personally I would say that Vista may be attractive to new businesses* but not ones with an existing investment in XP or 2000, not because the security is lacking, it is an improvement over XP (especially on x64 hardware) but with all the other issues its just not justifiable.

Vista may become viable as hardware becomes cheaper or if there is a sufficiently large threat to XP that is left unpatched but does not affect Vista.

* (but they should be looking at the alternatives regardless, see what my company tries to do..)

Re:Well there you have it

[nschubach]

Vista Pros: DX10 gaming

If the latest Crysis Demo has anything to say about it, there goes one of your "Pros."

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2209704,00.asp

Re:Well there you have it

[Barny]

Cons: memory usage...

As another news site points out and microsoft themselves agree, Vista, on a per box basis, uses more memory to boot than a supercomputer...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ccs/sysreqs.mspx

Oh and don't look at the disk space requirements, they are truly frightening :)

Re:Well there you have it

[SatanicPuppy]

The problem is, we've all spent too much time securing our Windows networks already...I don't remember the last time I had a virus take down more than a couple of machines, and the last time we had one at all was more than a year ago. Everything is isolated, anti-virused, monitored...All our email is filtered through a third party that strips out anything that looks weird.

If you're not having security problems, then saying, "This is more secure" doesn't cut any slack, and it sure as hell doesn't make it worth it to switch to a completely new system.

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol - Taco is more naive than a day old baby.

But hey, I can go out and take a survey that shows that 90% of it professionals have problems with moving their operations to Linux...and it would be just as valid.

I use Vista in my office. I haven't had any compatibility problems except with a piece of shit piece of software that was written using the Access 95 engine. Everything else works fine.

Re:Well there you have it

[betterunixthanunix]

XP was not very successful, and in fact, there were still millions of Windows 2000 systems in active use when Microsoft put the squeeze on the cut support for it. The moral here is simple: If a platform works, it is difficult to convince a company to roll out an expensive upgrade. There are still places running RHEL 3, for comparison, even though it is several years out of date. My university is still running Solaris 9, even though the upgrade to 10 would have 0 acquisition cost.

As for the "Linux/Apple" question, that is a poorly phrased question in a lot of ways. Not only could a single conversation about it be "consideration," but there are plenty of places running Linux servers, or in the process of switching from some old NT servers to a Linux system, or whatever. Does it count if a bunch of Windows machines are being used to connect to a Linux or Apple server for some web app, or some other functionality? What if it is a heterogeneous server environment, with a Linux server running JEE, a Windows server handling domain logins, and 4 Apple servers running as a render farm? Those types of questions are poorly worded, and make too many assumptions about what an IT staff might be running or planning to run.

Re:Well there you have it

[cronot]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?

Except XP WAS supposed to be a major change, as there was major architectural changes between XP and Windows 98, the OS that XP was supposed to replace, and they were certainly for the better, even if at the time the hardware requirements shied away some people, and there was compatibility problems, though they were admittedly few.

How many people you know that complained about XP when it came out? I can tell I didn't. I found it cool, I just didn't really needed it back when it was released, since back then (and arguably, to this day) XP was nothing but a nice-looking Win2k. With time it got a few compelling features, and the fact that it was then better supported than Win2k made an upgrade more worthwhile.

But with Vista, what did Microsoft do? They took something that was working fine, bloated it with DRM, messed with the infrastructure of stuff that at best needed just fixing instead of a rewrite, slapped an artificial access control system (users are still administrators by default, they just get reminded of it now), prettyfied it even more, and sold it as a new OS. With the move from Windows 98 to Win2k/XP, at least there was the excuse of better stability, but with Vista, what there is to gain from an upgrade? Please, tell me.

Re:Well there you have it

[uncoveror]

I had my Lenovo 3000 N100 which came preloaded with Vista about a week, and it crashed hard. It could not boot up. I thought it would be no big deal. I removed my hard drive, backed it up and reloaded. It was a big deal. Thanks to user account control. I was locked out of all the data I had hoped to save, including my outlook mail and contacts therein. Permanently gone and unrecoverable. The next problem was slowness. This laptop replaced an old HP with an Athlon XP 1500+ with 768MB of SDRAM. In spite of having a Dual core CPU and 1GB of DDR2, the new one was slower than the old one, and using an SD card for Windows Ready Boost made no difference. I had to upgrade to 2GB just to make it usable. It is still too damn slow. If I did not need to provide support to poor suckers who had Vista foisted on them, I would upgrade to XP and not look back. Vist should have been scrapped. It is worse than ME.

Re:Well there you have it

[Nullav]

Except that XP runs pretty well on old systems once you take out the useless services (Who uses NetBIOS now, let alone people on small home networks?) and toss out Luna. I'm sure the same could be said of Vista, but why should we keep bending over because some corporation thinks we need glass borders and more attempts at idiotproofing...after six years of development? (Oh, hey! I can use a flash drive as a swap partition. Don't make me need to.)
Anyone subjected to an unsatisfactory product should use an alternative if available and try to warn others. We're talking about dropping around $200 on a disc that we may or may not want to keep(, but have no say in the matter after purchasing, as no sane retailer would accept a return on software).

Re:Well there you have it

[icepick72]

I'm an IT expert, this is my impression of Vista.
DX10 gaming (very nice).
More secure (great)
Slower (just like the previous operating system was to the one before it)
expensive (not free?)
driver problems (but linux has many more driver problems)
compatibility issues (but is still way more compatible than most other OS).
I see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, especially if you play games at work. Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user not to switch to Vista?

Re:Well there you have it

[poetmatt]

The only reason Microsoft has DX10 for vista and why DX10 adds almost nothing (few shader effects and as you note its not groundbreaking like DX8-> DX9. or DX7->DX8) is because it enables graphics memory virtualization which is a hotbed of patent issues right now (see: novel microsoft patent issues).

I personally feel that People use XP because its easily pirated and not a complete memory hog (and almost no games run on Linux well as of yet still) and only UT and quake are the only "masses" games that run natively & well. People with an intermediate computer knowledge typically have been asking me how to convert to linux, thinking it will be more complicated, and are usually set at ease with the simple installation/wealth of software available. Overall if Linux worked for gaming, I don't think windows would be used at all as there would be heavy consumer pressure away from it.

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista Pros: DX10 gaming

If the latest Crysis Demo has anything to say about it, there goes one of your "Pros."

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2209704,00.asp Yeah, because, after all, 15 frames per second should be enough for anyone.

Re:Well there you have it

[tallguywithglasseson]

Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista?

If (if) the improved security claims pan out, the amount of money you'd save on repairing infected clients would be a benefit.
The new version of SMB could* mean better performance for your clients' shared drives - if you have file servers running an updated Windows Server 2003 (*I have not tested this).

That's about all I can think of.
You can put me squarely in the 90%.
All our applications tested fine in Vista, but that's not a benefit, that's just the absence of a big problem. If we do move to Vista, it would be an incremental thing - newly purchased PCs and laptops only. That's a pain because now you've got to support 2 different client OSes - this was much less an issue when moving from Windows 2000 to XP because they were so similar.
I can't imagine trying an actual migration of all existing XP (and in our case, some old straggling Windows 2000) clients to Vista - both for post-implementation performance issues and the pain of doing the actual migration. Not to mention I'm sure we've got a few clients that wouldn't meet even the Vista minimum requirements.

Re:Well there you have it

[LingNoi]

DX10 gaming (very nice).

Based on what? Your experience programming in it? Using the new shader techniques?

Or is it just looking at a new games graphics and saying "Oh wow that's all because of DX10"

The rest of the points pose similar questions, especially the one about Linux drivers... ATI or Nvidia? Which Distro? Which Driver version? I've never had any issues with the Nvidia driver myself so your comment seems very incorrect to me.

I see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, especially if you play games at work.

Because playing games at work is top priority for most companies...

Re:Well there you have it

[beh]

Errhhhh...

You put 'more secure' under Vista Pros, AND you are wondering why a business would want to switch to Vista? If Vista should offer security enhancements, that alone should make businesses think about upgrading to Vista.
As for you Vista Cons:

    'slower' - do you see that as much of an impact for the average business user using Word/Excel/Powerpoint? I can't quite see a business user going 'those slides take an extra millisecond to render - it's totally unusable. If anyone is after the last bit of performance, it's more likely the gamers...

    'expensive' - small point... but doesn't hurt businesses too much -> cost will likely be deducted from tax...

    'driver problems' - small point; but I'd guess that the average business user has pretty much run-of-the-mill absolutely-MASS-produced kind of hardware, which is more likely than not supported (as Microsoft will also know that they NEED to support it FOR the businesses).

    'compatibility issues' - average business user uses very little software - Office (which will work), and maybe 2-4 other business applications - a good number of which will probably be ported quickly. The ones with tons of programs on their machine are probably more likely home-users installing every other little extra toy that comes along... Sure, there is a chance that some business critical application will not (yet) run on Vista - in which case, there won't even be a discussion about an upgrade UNTIL compatibility is restored.

It's kind of 'interesting' this has been modded to 'interesting' - I don't see the original poster actually pointing to major issues that will keep most BUSINESSES off Vista. If anything, with the potential additional security mentioned as a 'pro', he's making a case FOR the upgrade, not against.

That said, I'm happy with my Mac and my Linux boxes (including the yet to be improved Leopard; but as long as I'm behind a firewall in the broadband modem, I feel safe enough). My only Windows installation is Windows XP (in VMware Fusion), and I have no plans to upgrade it - but there is only one app I need on it, which doesn't listen for any network traffic, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem for me)...

Re:Well there you have it

[Firethorn]

Actually, some did have to give licenses to 2k over XP, at least until service pack 1 or so.

Vista is having some of the pains, looks worse right now, but we'll have to wait and see I think to see if Vista turnes into a ME or not.

Re:Well there you have it

[jeffeb3]

Exactly! How does "I have concerns" turn into "I do not like" I have concerns about my video game habits. That does _not_ mean that I don't like my video game habits.

Re:Well there you have it

[dhavleak]

Thanks to user account control. I was locked out of all the data I had hoped to save, including my outlook mail and contacts therein. Permanently gone and unrecoverable. Doesn't add up. UAC is just a mechanism by which your user processes (assuming you are an admin on the machine) lack an admin token until you explicity grant them that token (by clickng yes on the UAC prompt). How does this prevent you from doing a backup/restore (or even a copy operation, which is what it sounds like you did)? Depending on the ACLs on source/destination folders you may or may not have to evelate the process that is copying files across. If UAC is genuinely preventing you from recovering your files (which I seriously doubt) turn it off, complete backup, turn it back on. Not sure how to? Google it. The SD card not speeding up your machine sounds correct. SD cards generally have crappy data transfer rates, and shouldn't be accepted by Vista for ReadyBoost (depending on specs of individual SD card). Even if your card has a fast enough transfer rate, what's it's capacity? And lastly, knowing how caches work, you shouldn't expect magic from readyboost -- even when it works, the difference should be intangible for the most part. Just like a Core 2 Duo with a 2MB cache is slower than a Core 2 Duo with a 4MB cache, assuming the same clock and FSB - and yet when you actually use them, for the most part the difference will be intangible.

Re:Well there you have it

[gmack]

I personally feel that People use XP because its easily pirated and not a complete memory hog

I wouldn't say that. I got enough calls from (business and personal) clients complaining because their XP doesn't work anymore that I had to make it standard policy to ask them to show me the original media first thing as soon as I get there.

Sad thing is some of these businesses have lost more money in the time it took them to buy the media and have me come in and install a properly licenced version then it would have cost them to by a legit copy in the first place.

Re:Well there you have it

[burnin1965]

That's an extremely vague question that can get a 'yes' that can have any meaning for "I've heard a few people talk about linux, I should see what it is" to "we have drawn up a feasibilty report and are waiting for a decision from upper management".

True, but it appears from the article that they answered that concern in the survey by digging further into the 44% that answered yes. From the article: "Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year,"

So of that 44% that answered yes to the vague question 1/3 of those respondents are either in the process of switching or have some plan in place. Of the remaining 2/3 you will have some who misunderstood the question as "have you ever heard of linux" to those who do not have plans but may be running the numbers or experimenting to determine if its worthwhile or even feasible.

Re:Well there you have it

[crunch_ca]

Well, there you have it, 90% of IT professionals prefer Linux. Ok, maybe 50%, with 40% preferring OSX :-)

Re:Well there you have it

[udippel]

I'm an IT expert,

Aren't we all ?

this is my impression of Vista.

Haven't we all one ?

I see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, especially if you play games at work

Oh well, you are an IT expert, by all means.

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

100% correct (take a look at this thread.).

For the home user Vista has many potential attractions, not least of which is that it will likely arrive on a new PC bought, not because vista is available but because a new computer is required. For business the thought of having to replace a huge number of machines, make changes to various other IT systems, solve any incompatibilities, deal with driver issues, retrain staff and then end up with an IT system that may or may not be more secure than the current one (as you said measures have already been taken) and one that will in all honestly probably deliver little or no productivity benefits, is simply repugnant. This is even more so the case since there are other OS's with similar or better levels of security that run very well on older hardware and are considerably cheaper to acquire and potentially cheaper to maintain, sure they have similar issues with regard to training and compatibility, but if you are throwing out everything else anyway, why not go in favour of something that will at least save you money in terms of licensing and hardware requirements (obviously this aproach is not suitable for all, but then those that is is not suitable for Vista as also not suitable.

Re:Well there you have it

[secPM_MS]

The primary advantage of Vista in an enterprise setting is one I never see discussed: It is far easier to configure and manage Vista clients with users running as normal users, not as administrators. This is a major security advance for Microsoft. No *nix distro enterprise admin would have users running as root. Many organizations have users running as Windows admin and then wonder why they have trouble keeping the systems to standard. You can lock XP clients down, but doing so makes it far harder to manage them. This works much better on Vista.

If you care about security, you can easily configure Vista to be very good. It doesn't even have to be a processor hog. I leave the search indexer going because for my usage I find the gain in my productivity to justify the indexing load, but I optimized my system for performance (under the system: advanced properties tab) and do not have any of the eye-candy running. It runs well on my notebook in maximal battery savings mode.

Re:Well there you have it

[poetmatt]

It'd be a lot easier for most that don't use video/graphical related items to use linux anyway, although I do understand.

Re:Well there you have it

[ILongForDarkness]

I'm interviewing for EA right now. They say they don't use, and have no intentions in the near term to migrate to Vista. Heck DX10 couldn't even sell Vista to a game company.

Re:Well there you have it

[calebt3]

Smooth sailing for you doesn't guarantee it for everybody else.

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Ability to do Switch User when connected to a Domain.

Re:Well there you have it

[burnin1965]

>> More secure (great)
This alone may be a good reason for businesses to switch to Vista, but it would require a good analysis of the current risks versus the reduced risk in Vista, the cost of migration, and other business issues. As dependant as companies are on their IT systems these days to do their business a security failure can result in huge losses. I've seen Windows viruses propogate through a facility and result in losses in the millions of US dollars due to lost productivity. If you can't make your product to sell because of a security breach in your IT infrastructure then it doesn't really matter much if it saved you an expense to stay on a less secure platform.

>> expensive (not free?)
Funny. But I'm sure the bean counters and department managers will want something with a bit more substance. There are many factors which affect the cost of a platform and based on what I've read on the net about Vista licensing and hardware requirements it will be an expensive upgrade compared to open source (which isn't free either) or remaining on an existing XP platform.

>> driver problems (but linux has many more driver problems)
I'm not sure how this is quantified and I have no clue what the issues are with Vista as I don't use it. But then I don't use Windows period. Not for my servers, not for my workstations, not for my laptop. And at this point I have no driver issues with any of the motherboard chipsets, video chipsets, printers, scanners, etc. etc. I'm sure I'll get a nice list of all the problems other people have encountered, but they'll be missing the point. Linux is a viable alternative to Windows in many applications and anyone who is using "but linux has many more driver problems" as an excuse to not delve into a feasibility study deserves the monsterous expense of supporting Microsofts 80%+ profit margins.

Re:Well there you have it

[siyavash]

dude... you are full of crap. so many lies, wonder how you sleep at night.

Re:Well there you have it

[epe]

RHEL 3 is still supported by RedHat, and will continue until Oct 31, 2007, check here: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ Of course, maybe those places/people running rhel3 has chosen not to update it and it is not updated but my opinion is that RHEL3 is not out of date yet.

Re:Well there you have it

[Deanalator]

bitlocker
gadgets
a properly hardware accelerated desktop environment
a sane security model

As a security professional (not that I am more qualified, but just to give some perspective), I recommend vista to anyone who can afford it, and ubuntu to anyone who can't. XP is a joke, a cesspool of extensible APIs and network vulnerabilities. Microsoft still isn't 100% there, but I think Microsoft takes security far more seriously than Ubuntu.

Many security flaws are only there for backward compatibility, and I think Microsoft made the right choice to prioritize security over functionality.

Re:Well there you have it

[aragszxki]

(...) if there is a sufficiently large threat to XP that is left unpatched but does not affect Vista. careful there, you'll give them ideas.

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

>> If you're not having security problems, then saying, "This is more secure" doesn't cut any slack, and it sure as hell doesn't make it worth it to switch to a completely new system.

This, incidentally applies also to all of these :

- Linux is more secure (who cares on an home desktop ? only people who already have a secure windows)
- Linux is more stable (who cares on a desktop if it stays up 832days without reboot against the 412 of XP ?)
- MacOS/X is more user friendly (does it matter among those who already know how to work around in Win ?)

Reality :

1) Inertia is king.
2) XP is not best in any field, probably, but is smooth enough. Probably, probably not, the best package around overall, for sure not the best in any single category except app compatibility. For sure good enough.
3) 1+2 = even Microsoft has trouble beating XP because, really, finding something which *is worth* to be improved on any 1st class OS is hard.

Re:Well there you have it

[hey!]

True, but that's a case of a the frog sitting in the pot with the water just under boiling. It cost a lot of money, effort and focus to get there.

The real problem is that the entire Windows infrastructure is not really what IT departments want or need. The whole PC revolution caused them to take a right turn away from centralized computing resources towards managing an ocean of general purpose computers. The failure of Unix vendors to standardize, and the lack of a decent low cost graphical terminal, caused us to wind up with a less than optimal solution, although we optimized each marginal purchase.

Of course, laptops are the fly in the ointment here. Users love them, but they're a PITA.

Re:Well there you have it

[bl8n8r]

> I don't remember the last time I had a virus take down more than a couple of machines

Do you mean the last one you caught was a year ago, or that your metrics date back a year and show remediation and assesment has been effective?

A lot of the windows exploits have moved* beyond the brain-dead slammer worm that let you know something was hosed. From my experience, many IT shops haven't got the resources, software or experience to stay ahead of the technical level of the malware that is coming down the pike. It seems to me that the malware authors have been going to school while the IT industry has been playing hookey. I'm not picking on Windows even though it makes a great target; Linux, Mac and the other alternatives need to be thinking about how userland can be exploited by the same means - otherwise, we've merely traded one sinking ship for another.

[*]
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2205606,00.asp
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Eighty-percent-of-new-malware-defeats-antivirus/0,130061744,139263949,00.htm

Re:Well there you have it

[Bryansix]

Plus, why can't DX10 be released for XP? 98? 95? Come on people. This whole exclusive DirectX 10 on Vista crap is a scam!

Re:Well there you have it

[Stamen]

...but if you are throwing out everything else anyway, why not go in favour of something that will at least save you money in terms of licensing and hardware requirements... This is very true, and what I believe will be the long term result of Vista. It's not that it's horrible, it's merely ok, and it causes enterprises to change a lot of their infrastructure. Once you have accepted that your infrastructure will be changing, the cost of switching to an alternative is much easier to swallow. It's a catch 22 for Microsoft, they have to make changes to their OS to compete, but it gives people an excuse to switch. The answer, of course, it to make your new OS so great that when compared to the alternatives, there is no question which one to go with. Vista is only OK, and that isn't good enough.

As a developer I went through the same thing years ago. I specialized in COM (ActiveX), COM+, and the rest of their DNA stuff (which they had just rolled out); I mainly used Visual C++ and some Visual Basic. Then Microsoft announced .net, and everything that came before was going away; all the stuff, a year ago they were saying was the future. The point of this long story is, I was going to have to relearn everything, and because of that the price to switch platforms was equal to staying with Microsoft. At that time I switched to Java completely. That switch to Java gave me opportunity to switch to unix, which I did. Now I only use Windows when I have to.

This kind of think, IMHO, is going to happen to the IT people, like it did to so many of us developers back then.

Re:Well there you have it

[nine-times]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?

Really? I remember upgrading from 2000->XP, and it seemed pretty... uneventful. My impression at the time was, "Well this is exactly like 2000 but reskinned." Maybe people upgrading from Windows 98 had more problems, but a lot of business users were already on Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000.

Re:Well there you have it

[macdaddy357]

How do stupid cancel or allow dialogs that people will soon ignore, and always click allow improve security? They don't.

Re:Well there you have it

[Stamen]

It is far easier to configure and manage Vista clients with users running as normal users, not as administrators. This will be true in the future, but not now, because so many applications just won't work with this setup (some of Microsoft's too, amazingly). Apps written for XP assume that the user is an admin, which of course isn't good development practices, but it's a reality. Vista's new security policies really fraks with an applications auto-update feature too, I've dealt with this myself with legacy custom applications, basically forced me to move applications out of Program Files, thus bypassing elevation issues. Of course the right thing to do is rewrite the way these legacy applications work, but that isn't going to get a high priority anytime soon.

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

You'd be right if anyone touted a single benefit as a reason to migrate, Security has been hailed as a major benefit of Linux, BSD, MacOS etc.. and quite rightly so, many of the benefits you see with Vita are already present in those systems. Now in addition to the security element, there are also benefits in terms of cost, hardware requirements, stability & reliability and a raft of others that depend on the organisation making the decision. Sure there are issues with retraining and compatibility, but they don't need to come with added expense in terms of hardware and licensing. In short moving from Windows to a Non-Windows environment has short term and long term benefits in more areas than simply upgrading to Vista at this time, keeping XP is probably an even better option if that's what's already present, as long as updates are not halted and as long as software continues to work with XP.

Re:Well there you have it

[secPM_MS]

The autoupdate problem is an issue. If the developers use signed packages under MSI 3, and the developer root is in the trusted roots store, it will still work without difficulty.

In many respects, Microsoft is trying to move third parties to a more rational and appropriate model, rather than the bad approaches that they started with in the 9X OS family and continued through XP. Indeed, the model MS is using is the traditional model that the *nix community traditionally used.

The entire issue of trust and update is not localized to MS. It occurs on all platforms. Should you allow an App to update / modify the OS? I don't think so, others have different opinions.

Re:Well there you have it

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, unless you play games at work. Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista?

I do see more reasons than you list. While I don't recommend businesses to upgrade until the driver and software compatibility issues are hashed out (and probably then only if there is a hardware upgrade cycle) I think you are under representing some of the benefits of Vista. In addition to security improvements, I'd include:

• Indexed searching - I never thought I'd use this when Apple introduced it in 10.4, but it now is vital to my workflows
• Improved included applications - gee you can finally burn a presentation to DVD without third party software
• Improved handling of wireless networks and mobile locations
• Improved backup of selected files - for when users are on the road or cannot access the corporate backup servers

It isn't enough, but there are real benefits to them.

Re:Well there you have it

[nuzak]

Sandboxed IE is pretty good. Yeah, there's other browsers, but realistically that's not the deal. I work for a GigantoCorp and we do officially support Firefox, but we do still have some IE-only apps, and most people still use the browser installed by default.

The indexing/search is much better than the one in XP.

It's got much better centrally adminable security policies that can apparently be on a per-network basis.

I'm not sure it's worth the cost in computing resources though (the cost of the OS is irrelevant, it's just a choice of which new one to install).

Re:Well there you have it

[MikShapi]

Smack on.

Discrete security vulnerabilities of each system aside, Vista has one major security advantage - it implements a work-as-user-with-sudo model rather than work-as-root for standalone installations.
Read: major money-saving seat-belt for home user, and a "nothing to see here, move along" for anyone who is already working using restricted policies using XP, or prior same. It's not that XP etc couldn't do this, it's that it wasn't convenient enough to throw into the face of a person who does not have an IT department to manage stuff for him. Now it is.

So, big business is skipping Vista. No big surprise there - no benefit.
Home users will be getting it.

That said, I wouldn't be holding out for Windows 7.0 to be either slimmer, leaner and meaner than Vista, or more compatible. I'll put money it will be more of the same. They won't build it from the groud (err... from the XP) up. They'll continue going from where they are with Vista.

Like XP, it will become mature with time, and businesses who need new rollouts, can stomach 512MB RAM per box more than an XP box would demand and are not directly affected by the ever-decreasing set of Vista's maturity issues, will use Vista rather than XP for deployments.

Re:Well there you have it

[UnknowingFool]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?

That is one complaint. Stability is, however, the major complaint. Second is backwards compatibility. Businesses had choices with XP; some businesses use XP Pro but they had Win2K (released 1 year earlier) as an option. With Vista, there is no other choice but going back to XP (released 5 years earlier) if you want to stay with Windows. You have different versions but they all suffer from the same issues.

As for benefits, XP did bring major upgrades to DOS based Win9X especially from a business standpoint. There was no such thing a group policy with Win9X, for example. The problem with Vista for businesses is that XP SP2 is good enough. Businesses unlike gamers need to really justify a new OS. Stability coupled with backwards compatibility are major deal breakers. Maybe that will change with Vista SP1.

Re:Well there you have it

[Steauengeglase]

Is DX 10 really a pro? With all of the hardware issues and lack of support, so far it has been my reason for avoiding it (along with the feeling that MS wants to steer gamers away from playing games on their PCs in favor on the 360). Outside of better XNGA support what do I get out of it?

I'll just wait for Windows 7.

Re:Well there you have it

[DeepZenPill]

What I don't get is how incompatibility with Vista is going to make people/companies switch to an alternative operating system. Is Linux, OS X, or any other alternative really going to support more critical applications than Vista? Why not just stick with XP if it's still working?

Re:Well there you have it

[ColdWetDog]

Oh and don't look at the disk space requirements, they are truly frightening :)

Boo.

But who really cares? Size is relative. Lots of memory and disk space is cheap. New computers use less power / waste less heat than before. From a business point of view, with the "Vista" computer being a black box, it makes no difference that it needs some gargantuan amount of computing resources, so long as it doesn't cost much.

My watch has vastly more computing resources than my first four computers. It runs for a year on a battery, tells time, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature and tells me which end is up. And costs $100. No, it doesn't run Linux, nor Vista. But it works and that's pretty much all I ask of it.

Re:Well there you have it

[actualpirate]

90% of IT Professionals agree, this is just more Fanboy Flaming... The votes are in, it's conclusive!

Re:Well there you have it

[Shinmizu]

Wait, I thought we were supposed to expect 640K fps? 15 is a lot less...

Re:Well there you have it

[Calyth]

"Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?"

Application compatibility get fixed, and legacy DOS program can be run on legacy OS. Which is why eventually WinXP was somewhat more accepted. Also I found out the hard way that Win2k doesn't offer remoe desktop, which can be convenient, and reason enough why I nuke Win2k boxes for WinXP.

Windows Vista, however, wouldn't even run ok on a laptop with 1GB of RAM. One of the big shots at work got a neat little Sony Vaio and it was loaded with Vista Business something, with 1GB of RAM, and I've never seen the hard drive light turn off.
As soon as we found that Sony offered WinXP drivers, and I wiped the box to WinXP, the thing is instantly speedier.

I might buy new boxes loaded with min 2GB for WinXP, but that's mostly because 2GB of RAM is in the sweet spot. WinXP can work with 512MB quite handily.

How did Vista chews up so much resources is beyond me, and most IT professional, when confronted with a case of Vista in person, would conclude that they want none of it. We still have P3 beige boxes and P4 2GHz with 512MB of RAM at best, and we have 0 intention to move to Vista.

Re:Well there you have it

[Torvaun]

I'm a technical consultant. I need to be familiar with whatever OS is being used by my clients, otherwise I will not get the contract. Given that I like money, it's in my best interest to be familiar with Vista. For me, this won't be a switch, per se, more of an addition.

Re:Well there you have it

[johannesg]

Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user not to switch to Vista?

They won't have to pay for buying, rolling out, and troubleshooting Vista, nor for retraining users? They won't run the risk of having compatibility problems with their current software?

Re:Well there you have it

[BVis]

They do improve security, just not on that computer. They provide job security for MCSEs and their fellow vermin. It also provides plausible deniability for MS; when grilled about a security problem, they can say "Hey, we gave people more security features, it's not our fault if people disregard them."

Re:Well there you have it

[Gilmoure]

Heh. My company just slashed IT spending by 25%. So far, haven't even got a Vista install to play with at desktop support yet. If a user insists on having a Vista machine (or OS X 10.5), they're on the unsupported list and can't hook up to the network. I like telling my users 'No!'

Re:Well there you have it

[reaktor]

Trifish would argue that the security benefits alone are sufficient to justify businesses to upgrade. Personally I would say that Vista may be attractive to new businesses* but not ones with an existing investment in XP or 2000, not because the security is lacking, it is an improvement over XP (especially on x64 hardware) but with all the other issues its just not justifiable.

RE: Security improvements in Vista
Someone correct me with the details, but I've read in places that XP SP3 will include much of the Vista security features for XP users. I'm not 100% certain on this though. (?)

Re:Well there you have it

[aceAzza]

I've made the switch to Ubuntu. I tried Vista for about 10 min and found that a lot of my software would have required me to purchase upgrades and it was hogging my resources. I'm a consultant and I use Ubuntu almost exclusively at work now. Since my clients all use Windows, I do need to run it for a few things. I just installed VirtualBox and am planning to axe my Windows partition and only run Windows in Virtual Machines.

Re:Well there you have it

[samwichse]

I ran the game with everything high at 1680x1050 and it looks awesome, very playable, no lag. C2D E6750 Gigabyte P35 DS4 2GB OCZ Platinum 800MHz Nvidia GF 8800GTX All at stock

The 15 FPS was on "an nVidia 8600 card." I am quite sure the same is true in Vista (where DX10 features incur a huge performance penalty).

Sam

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista?

There are actually many, many good reasons to switch to Vista. The problem is, most IT types are fairly clueless computer wannabes who aren't even all that good at basic computer troubleshooting. They read very superficial Vista bashing articles in lite publications like Information Week and then feel like they are experts on the Vista state of affairs and fully qualified to comment and make decisions. Sorry for the stereotype, but in my experience that's generally the level of competence and knowledge I've found in most self described "IT" people in places I've worked. (Side note: Even though I am a software developer working in the Information Systems division of a large, Fortune 500 multinational firm, I choose never to describe myself as being in "IT" for exactly these reasons).

So let me get on to the point of the my post. There are actually a good many reasons to switch to Vista. I'll list a couple, but this first reason alone is enough.

1. If you want to use Windows and upgrade your hardware (and be able to use its full potential) any time in the next four years, you need to use Windows Vista. Why? Because Windows Vista is a 64 bit operating system, almost all new chips are 64 bit, and you will never unlock their full potential using a 32 bit version of Windows like Windows XP. Windows XP 64 bit edition has less drivers and far less 3rd party support than Vista, so that isn't really a viable alternative. These new chips will run 32 bit apps of course, but if you want to get the best performance out of new applications that are 64 bit, then you need to have Vista. Period.
2. There are numerous developments in Vista that allow software developers to make better applications. If you want to run those applications, you really need to have Vista. Some of the new developments I'm talking about are WPF, WCF, and WF. WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) allows developers to make far more beautiful applications that we used to be able to do in XP with Windows Forms development, WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) gives developers networking facilities (especially peer to peer support) that was unheard of when developing on XP the last few years, and WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) is ESPECIALLY useful for business because it allows you to combine your code with a business workflow, making it easy to show it to nontechnical business users and help them understand what you are building for them and what is going on. Admittedly, these features are actually .Net 3.0 features, so if you had a .Net 3.0 version for Windows XP your application could still use these features and work there, BUT with Vista these things will still work better. First, because .Net 3.0 is guaranteed to be installed on every version of Vista. Second, because .Net is integrated deeply into the OS, allowing developers to have much more control and power when they build applications. Third, because Vista demands and expects strong graphics hardware, you can be pretty sure that your fancy WPF applications are actually going to work on the target machine. With XP, the machine isn't guaranteed to have the hardware to run the next generation of applications that are coming.

I wish I had more time to go into more reasons why Vista is good, more reasons why WF, WCF, and WPF (especailly WPF, because a lot of people wonder why graphics are so important) are so important and more about what they do, but there just isn't space here. Suffice it to say, those new technologies are HUGE for anyone who develops applications for windows on a daily basis as I do (and that includes developing web applications that interact with windows or use it as teh backend platform). They will also be huge to those who use Windows on a daily basis and start seeing these new kinds of programs show up on Vista boxes, because they will enable functionality in

Re:Well there you have it

[jp10558]

I haven't used Vista much at all, so I may be very wrong. But in all the Vista Pros, what I see is the following, both as a home user and at work in the IT department:

1. Vista has Direct X 10, which I can't get easily in XP.
2. Everything else offered in Vista can be done for free or cheaper than an Vista License (well, retail vista, volumne license vista business is about equal cost) in XP.
3. Many Many 3rd party tools still don't work in Vista, and this is even products that have had several releases trying to be more Vista compatible. Directory Opus, Opera, others...

It seems like some things you could do in XP, you *can't* do in Vista due to the new archetecture (may be a good thing for some reasons, but still to a user, it's a loss of functionality). Examples being some of the explorer replacement by Directory Opus, some of the gina hooks like with pGina...

To reply directly to the configuration for Vista clients - I think this was addressed before, but if Vista came out when XP came out, being easier to configure for normal users would be a boon. But it isn't. Everyone knows how to configure XP now, has software, scripts and what have you to make it easy. And besides, it never was *XP* that had problems with running as a limited user, it's the programs. And programs that work well on Vista as limited users pretty much work the same on XP. Finally, my understanding is in Vista, you still have to configure it to run a user as a limited user, the default is *still* admin...

Re:Well there you have it

[davidsyes]

"Vista may become viable as hardware becomes cheaper or if there is a sufficiently large threat to XP that is left unpatched but does not affect Vista."

But, surely you are aware that prices HAVE come down. They always DO. But, the problem is that although market forces drive DOWN the price of hardware as economies of scale factor in through greater consumer uptake, mshaft and various players in the market conspire to consume or eviscerate MOST of the technical gains, just enough to drive constant upgrade treadmill newbie users or those who crave cutting edge performance.

I wish programmers would program more responsibly, return to using their OWN drivers so as to make things independent of the OS. Ahh, but then that would negate the reason for the Registry, which I think came to be not for driver consolidation, but for attempting to:

1. lock users into windows upgrades by depriving them from simply grafting the applications from C:\program-name to new OS version c:\program-name

2. lock users into vendor apps (and reinforcing #1 above) to guarantee developers stay in ms' fold

3. lock users OUT of doing # 1 to quickly copy (illegally or just for use on more than one of ones own, controlled computers at home and at work) apps and saving themselves money

Prices will keep coming down, or be relatively cheap. It almost assured that ms will keep chewing those gains to ensure space and place for whatever next OS they claim will be better.

I remember back around 1995 or 1996 when ms said they were going to modularize windows so that people only paid for what they needed and could upgrade modules as needed and pay then.

Still waiting. No, CE, scrillenium, didn't do it for me.

Re:Well there you have it

[das7282]

1) Windows Vista sold more copies in it's first 3 months on the market than the entire install base of Apple Mac's. If you consider that a "flop", then anyone invested in Apple better start selling now. Sure, most of those "sales" were pre-installs, but "all" Mac's come pre-installed with OSX too.

2) I'm the IT person for a small office (around 15 users depending on who the boss has hired or fired this month) and so far I've upgraded 4 desktop workstations to Vista Business and haven't had a problem yet. In fact, the employees who I've upgraded say they like Vista and have no complaints and I have more copies of Vista Business, ready to upgrade other workstations as soon as I get around to it. Personally, the only compatibility issues I have with Vista has to do with iTunes and nvidia's nvraid drivers. Every time I play a video (podcast) in iTunes, I get and nvraid error (although it doesn't seem to be causing any real issues) and I don't know how to fix it (suggestions would be helpful if anyone has heard of this).

3) I also agree with the other guy... I remember all these arguments when Windows XP was released... all the nay sayers came crawling out of the wood work and told everyone Windows XP will cause your sky to come crashing down if you upgrade to it! Keep in mind, most problems ended up being profoundly over exaggerated. I also remember most businesses taking over a year (sometimes two or three years) before they upgraded to Windows XP. My friend is the IT manager at a local high school and they didn't upgrade to Windows XP until mid-2004 and that was only because they bought new Dells to replace all their old PII, Windows 98 machines.

Re:Well there you have it

[secPM_MS]

Actually, a number of badly behaved programs on XP will run properly on Vista. The reason for this is the use of deflection directories and registry hives so that attempts by the application running under the user's account are writen to per-user storage rather than to system file locations or the Local Machine registry hive.

The first user installed is by default the administrator. This is appropriate. But you can add user accounts as standard users, and I think the default for them is a normal user. I create an administrator account and then create my and other user accounts.

I believe that DirectX 10 still has back compat to v9. I am not a gamer, so I have never pushed this area.

I don't know of any difficulties running Opera under Vista or Windows Server 2008. I have succesfully used it.

Re:Well there you have it

[Cancel-Or-Allow]

I think he is referring to when you take a crashed vista HDD and connect it to another PC to copy off your data.
I've tried this with no success. You cannot gain access to the users folder, even when taking ownership. Access Denied.

Re:Well there you have it

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, of course, it's extremely difficult to say with regards to some machines, and I'm not in charge of administering the Windows junk, so I'm not personally dealing with it at all.

From my perspective though, we seem okay. I monitor the network usage down to individual packets, and it's all heavily audited...our firewalls are the really intrusive kind, that only allow things in and out on a very restricted set of ports, and half of those are proxied through local servers that again, do a lot of monitoring. We have big sexy corporate anti-virus stuff, which is (of course) a weak link in and of itself, but does do a good job of filtering out the lesser stuff. We force out patches as they're released, at least to userland.

Usually when we have any sort of problem, it shows up pretty clearly against our regular traffic, especially in certain departments. Our corporate security requirements are pretty brutal.

Re:Well there you have it

[jp10558]

Ummm, CompuSec free
Any of about a hundered widget engines
Why do I want my desktop environment hardware accelerated?
How is Vista's security model more sane than XPs? As far as I can tell, it consists of asking "Allow or Deny" often enough that the Apple commercial meme won't die.

If Ubuntu isn't focused on security, why not recommend an alternative that is? I don't believe Microsoft is the only OS developer focused on Security...

Re:Well there you have it

[QRDeNameland]

RHEL 3 is still supported by RedHat, and will continue until Oct 31, 2007...

Have you looked at a calendar recently?

Re:Well there you have it

[jp10558]

However, your benefits assume that coporations haven't solved these issues (assuming they are even an issue) on XP or whatever platform they use.

Indexed Searching: Free on XP, you've got Copernic desktop search, Windows desktop search, Google Desktop whatever, or do what I do and use Locate32...

Improved Included Applications? That doesn't sell linux distros. People buy products (or use free ones) that do a good job. They can already burn DVDs on XP if they want to, and while it is a third party app, it's free or featureful enough they bought it. (Mind you, I don't think you *can* buy a DVD Burner witout OEM burning software).

Improved Handling of Wireless networks: Hard for me to speak to this, but most laptops come with thier own wireless management, though the built in XPSP2 version worked better most of the time. I just don't see a failure in the XP version.

Improved backup? I don't know of any coporation that uses NTBackup. As I understand it the replacement is actually more gimped, not less. Doesn't everyone use dedicated backup software to their SAN or tape drives?

The only one that even gets a possible where I work is the wireless network handling, and we don't have a problem currently.

Re:Well there you have it

[jp10558]

I think this is sort of missing the point. As I understand it the thought process is this:
Vista is not compatible with my software.
Vista is going to require lots of user retraining.

So, is XPSP2 doing what I need? Yes? Don't change. No?

If I have to rewrite/find different vendor/virtualize XP to run software anyway, will I save money with Vista or alternative?
With Vista I have to pay $LicenseFee. I have to buy new hardware.

With Alternative I have to pay $ALicenseFee. I have to buy new hardware(maybe). If $ALicenseFee is less than $LicenseFee and the new hardware cost is less or even the same, you might save money by switching. This is where people start saying, "Hey, it looks like I might be spending a LOT for Vista. It may be worthwhile to see if I'll spend less on something else." It's not assumed they will, but the amount for Vista is *high enough* to make it worthwhile to check out the competitiors.

Re:Well there you have it

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

However, your benefits assume that coporations haven't solved these issues...

Almost any problem can be solved using thrid party tools, if the problem is recognized and considered important, but usually they are not, and often such solutions cannot work as well as one integrated into the OS.

Indexed Searching: Free on XP, you've got Copernic desktop search, Windows desktop search, Google Desktop whatever, or do what I do and use Locate32...

I don't know a lot of corporations that use any of those solutions, because the value is not always obvious to those making the decisions. Also, they only partially solve the problem, allowing global searching from within that app, but not providing the same searching on behalf of individual apps and within that app's UI. On the other hand, some of those solutions offer wider indexing support by file type.

Improved Handling of Wireless networks: Hard for me to speak to this, but most laptops come with thier own wireless management, though the built in XPSP2 version worked better most of the time. I just don't see a failure in the XP version.

Vista fixes a lot of issues with wireless, providing better options for which networks to join and assigning other OS settings, by location. This has been a continuing headache for at least one company I've done business with.

Improved backup? I don't know of any coporation that uses NTBackup. As I understand it the replacement is actually more gimped, not less. Doesn't everyone use dedicated backup software to their SAN or tape drives?

As I specified, this is for backup while mobiles are on the road or at the user's home and SAN is not available. This is for backup of specific, important files, not the entire machine. To clarify, backup is improved for the corporate versions of Vista, it is worse in the home editions.

...we don't have a problem currently.

Obviously the above won't all be an issue for every company, and maybe none of them are important to most companies. I'm just saying, security improvements are not the only benefit, even if they may be the only one you care about.

Re:Well there you have it

[Tyr_7BE]

Indeed. My girlfriend just got a new computer and had to upgrade the RAM to 4 gigs just to meet the recommended requirements. And then, get this, Vista contains a bug that only recognizes and uses 3 gigs of it. So there goes a small chunk of cash out the window.

The RAM thing is the least of her problems. Quite frankly I'm blown away that they shipped this thing. After putting on everything I could from Windows Update, we still get random freezes, crashes, and applications hanging. To even make wireless networking work at all took two days of digging into the thing, and even now it's spotty at best. It frequently forgets the credentials to the wireless network and asks us to re-enter them ('frequently' is twice per day). Mean time between reboots is 2 to 4 hours when using computer for tasks such as watching a video, browsing a network share, or surfing the internet.

This is all on Dell hardware. Dell hardware that has supposedly been selected because it plays well with the OS.

Is stability a problem? Yes, yes it is.

Re:Well there you have it

[Monkey]

DX10 gaming (very nice).

Based on what? Your experience programming in it? Using the new shader techniques?
Or is it just looking at a new games graphics and saying "Oh wow that's all because of DX10" Given that he is an IT Expert, it's safe to assume his opinion is based on all of the above.

Re:Well there you have it

[Monkey]

I think you mean Oct 31st, 2010. But yes, in my environment there are several third party vendors that still certify RHEL 3 as the only Linux platform their product will run on (yes, I'm looking at you SAS). RedHat has done a pretty good job of maintaining this release. Just this past weekend I installed it on a new HP Proliant G5 server. I was pretty skeptical that the drivers for the array controllers and NICs were going to work without a lot of dicking around, but RHEL3 Update 9 had everything it needed built in.

Re:Well there you have it

[Chris whatever]

Switching to Vista to play games? It's not a PROs it's in the cons,i mean come on where have you been, it's energy life sucking for games and drivers sucks.

DirectX10 has what 5 or 6 games that needs it, and they all support directX9 except what,, maybe shadowrun or halo3 (which suks anyways) or if you want to absolutely run Crysis in ultra high mode which i think is a scam to lure unsuspecting gamers to Vista.

Unless mcrosoft bribes every game companies out there, i think they will stick with directx 9 support or maybe we'll get some other software that unleashes the full power of games,,,maybe someone is already setting a direct10 clone out there that runs on Windows Xp.

Unless you have a high end rig with dual or quad core overclocked with sata drives or raptor with 2 to 4 gigs sure you will not see (maybe) the performance going down but honestly, i upgrade to run games not the goddamn OS

Re:Well there you have it

[johnw]

and everything that came before was going away; all the stuff, a year ago they were saying was the future. I wonder if it's even possible to count how many times Microsoft have iterated through that cycle. I stopped developing on Microsoft platforms about 9 years ago and this is one of the main reasons.

Re:Well there you have it

[Sinbios]

>> Indeed. My girlfriend just got a new computer and had to upgrade the RAM to 4 gigs just to meet the recommended requirements. And then, get this, Vista contains a bug that only recognizes and uses 3 gigs of it. So there goes a small chunk of cash out the window.

That is... not a Vista bug. 32bit OSes only have 4GB of addressing space (count 'em, 2^32 = 4294967296), and a goodly chunk of that is reserved for other things. Thus you only get 3GB and a bit.

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of IT professionals probably do have reservations about Vista. I use it daily and have reservations about it. There are numerous on going security, compatibility, and performance problems. Stability has never been an issue, not sure where that came from, must be someones FUD. Either way I'd never look back. You'd have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. While it has issues (what software including Linux doesn't) it has a ton of advantages to anyone who bothers to use it for any length of time. I use it daily at both work and home. I regularly reboot, everytime the power goes out or the domain controller crashes (maybe semi-anuually?). My biggest complaint is memory usage, it takes roughly twice the memory for any given application for some reason. From a speed perspective it runs great at work on my 5 year old 2.1Ghz desktop with a POS video card and 30GB hard drive.

Re:Well there you have it

[sjames]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?

There's flopped and FLOPPED. XP flopped in the sense that the adoption rate wasn't as high as MS wanted and expected, but it held in there. Then there's Vista which seems to have FLOPPED

One thing that always bothers me with surveys like this is the "have you considered moving to linux/apple" type questions. That's an extremely vague question that can get a 'yes' that can have any meaning for "I've heard a few people talk about linux, I should see what it is" to "we have drawn up a feasibilty report and are waiting for a decision from upper management".

The 44% who "have considered" doesn't mean much. After all, probably 90% of taxpayers "have considered" just faxing the IRS (or local equivilant) the finger...but then they sent in their return instead.

The 25% who expect to switch within a year means a good bit more. That would tend to be upper management has provisionally agreed or requested detailed analysis at least.

The 9% who are in process means a great deal. Talk is cheap but in process means action.

That's what I meant by FLOPPED. As rough a start as XP had, it didn't cause that many to jump ship.

Re:Well there you have it

[sjames]

I'm in a Linux shop. We've NEVER had a virus take down anything at all in 10 years. That alone may not be enough to justify switching if you haven't had a problem in a year, but if you have other reasons to switch, it sure doesn't argue against it!

For businesses that have recently increased security requirements (or consequences for a breech such as HIPAA) it may be reason enough.

Re:Well there you have it

[Dr_Barnowl]

This must be down to using EFS (Encrypting File System). The master key is derived from your user account and password (which is why a forced password reset by an admin also has the same effect). Unless you designate a recovery agent or backup your certificates.

http://davidbrunelle.com/2007/03/25/how-to-backup-your-efs-recovery-certificates-in-windows-vista/

Re:Well there you have it

[kc2keo]

many of the benefits you see with Vita are already present in those systems.

Is that some kind of male enhancement drug?

Re:Well there you have it

[h3llfish]

You left off one Vista "con" that is the really huge issue for people I know - rearranged interface. Everything has been moved around on Vista, to a far greater degree than was the case in the upgrade from 2k or 98 to XP.

If you stick with XP, users are in a familiar environment. If you go Vista, expect tons of calls from users who can't figure out how to accomplish basic tasks.

Heck, most Linux distros are more familiar to a typical user than Vista, because they usually look just like XP.

Re:Well there you have it

[Nazlfrag]

Shhhh! The quicker game developers move to OpenGL the quicker MS will lose their gaming advantage. So just let DirectX 10 die with Vista, then we can all happily ditch MS and live in a Linuxian computopia!

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

I suppose that could be a side effect of use for some people, didn't work for me tho...

Re:Well there you have it

[WoLpH]

Yes and no... Indeed, 32 bit operating systems can't address more than 2^32 bytes, but 3GiB isn't getting close to that. My workstation is running 32 bit Linux and I get nearly all of my 4GiBs of ram (output from /proc/meminfo: MemTotal: 4144020 kB). So something could have been done better in Windows, not that the difference is important most of the time, but it's the thought that counts.

As for my opinion on Vista, I just got a new laptop this week which was shipped with Vista Ultimate edition, altough I have to say it's been pretty stable and really fast, the interface lacks all forms of logic if you ask me. It took me minutes to find the real status of my network device (ip address and stuff like that, yes I know I can type ipconfig but the graphical one _should_ be easily available). I can't say I find the OS bad in terms of stability (altough Lenovo might have been doing a good job on the T61p) but on usability Vista is horrible if you ask me.
Within a couple of hours I installed Linux on it since it was just driving me crazy, not even mentioning the enormous disk usage (the windows folder alone took 10+ GiB).

My conclusion, as long as I can I'll stay away from Vista. Altough it has some nice new features which I really like (instant searching for example) the pros don't overcome the cons for me.

Re:Well there you have it

[rmerry72]

I'm an IT expert, this is my impression of Vista.

should read:

I'm an IT consultant, this is my impression of Vista.

Now we can put your comments into proper context - and ignore them as banal, marketing drivel.

Re:Well there you have it

[drsmithy]

Vista may become viable as hardware becomes cheaper [...]

Huh ? An entry level <US$400 PC from Dell will run Vista fine. How much cheaper do you think a new PC can get ?

While there are numerous genuine reasons why an upgrade to Vista isn't compelling, there are far more stupid ones - and "expensive hardware" (along with "DRM") would have to be one of the dumbest.

Re:Well there you have it

[cblood]

You forgot to mention all the built in spyware. Using stealth coding techniques to prevent users from hacking the drivers and a remote disable feature? Vista is an example of what a monopoly thinks it can get away with. It is designed for the shareholders, of M$, not the users (And Aero is a joke.)

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

Why would a business want to buy additional hardware for this upgrade? They wouldn't need to if they didn't upgrade.

If a business has thousands of desktops from a few years ago, say 1.8Ghz CPU, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb hard disk etc... a bog standard corporate desktop, its not cheap to replace all that kit in one go with something vista will run on, its much easier (and more cost efficient) to upgrade as stuff breaks and then at some distant point in the future upgrade to vista because all your equipment is capable of running it and it fits in with the other infrastructure life cycles that you are working within.

I wish people would think about the difference between IT in business and at home, I can go and buy a £500 PC get it home and have it work in an hour or so, a business may need to do this for many hundreds of machines at tens of sites without excessive down time for the installation etc.., with relevant training for staff, both technical and end users. Every change has an impact and needs to have a pre-defined benefit, switching from XP to vista isn't going to justify spending a massive amount of money on hardware, training, licenses, down time and all the other bits surrounding a major change without any real benefit.

Re:Well there you have it

[mdwh2]

This looks like they just disabled some high settings under DirectX 9, and this hack reenables them. I don't think that's the same thing as being able to run DirectX 10 applications without Vista?

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

Its people like you who make IT in the workplace such a nightmare for your customers,

I mean granted you probably provide a reliable, secure, stable, scalable, well maintained, fit for purpose, fast, resilient, redundant and nicely cabled IT infrastructure, that meets the businesses needs, is well documented and complies with all policies and any legislation relating to it, but what is that when compared to the ability of your users to use whatever OS they happen top think is shiny?

All that saying no to your customers when they ask for the latest upgrades achieves is an easy life and a well functioning IT department, hardly worth the stigma your customers must suffer from being behind the times in terms of technology.

Damn you sir*,

* and well done if your position is backed by senior management and applied to them as well...

Re:Well there you have it

[mysticgoat]

Just like XP flopped

Actually, more like the way the IBM PS2 flopped in the late 1980s, and IBM went from being the leading competitor in personal computer hardware to a distant also-ran in just a few short months. Now Microsoft is repeating the pattern in operating systems.

The hubris of believing that your company can lead the market anywhere just because its currently the largest vendor is once again causing a major player to stagger over the edge of a cliff... with most of the market sensibly staying back from that awful emptiness of null promises where there is no visible means of support.

If IBM had only had a couple of arrows in its quiver back in 1988, it would now be nothing more than a memory. But IBM had successfully diversified so it was able to weather the losses of the PS2. Microsoft, now... that's another story. They've always just kept shooting the same successful couple of arrows over and over and over... and now they broke one.

Re:Well there you have it

[Kalriath]

Oh bullshit. They provide the same security that "sudo" does on, say, Ubuntu. This is to say, UAC isn't the whole of the security (just as sudo isn't the whole of the security) and still needs to be backed up by users who aren't complete idiots and a decent setup. UAC does a perfectly good job at improving security, and they're already working to reduce the insane number of things that trigger it (which is definitely far too much).

Re:Well there you have it

[dbIII]

If security was really the issue they would be running some kind of *nix with win98 or whatever the apps need as the minimum safely trapped inside a virtual machine. There are plenty of reasons to run a Microsoft OS but this insulting our intelligence by salesfolk yelling "security" at random intervals is just annoying.

Run whatever the applications need - but make sure something else is between you and the outside net to put the hobby OS under adult supervision. I've only seen Vista on machines that do not really have sufficient hardware to run it properly (very stupid policy of selling Vista on low end laptops) so I'm really talking about XP.

Re:Well there you have it

[drsmithy]

Why would a business want to buy additional hardware for this upgrade?

They wouldn't - but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the implication that hardware for Vista is (more) expensive.

They wouldn't need to if they didn't upgrade.

Actually they probably will, once the lease on their existing hardware runs out.

If a business has thousands of desktops from a few years ago, say 1.8Ghz CPU, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb hard disk etc... a bog standard corporate desktop, its not cheap to replace all that kit in one go with something vista will run on, its much easier (and more cost efficient) to upgrade as stuff breaks and then at some distant point in the future upgrade to vista because all your equipment is capable of running it and it fits in with the other infrastructure life cycles that you are working within.

Which is exactly how a migration to Vista will be done, just like it was exactly how the migrations to XP, 2000, NT, etc, etc were handled before that.

Why anyone thinks it odd that businesses aren't migrating to Vista immediately - or tries to imply it has problems because of that - is beyond me. Most companies, running a ~3yr hardware cycle, won't even be _considering_ a Vista rollout until mid 2008 at the earliest. This is completely and utterly independent of any technical issues - real or imagined - that exist.

Microsoft knows this (which is why aberrations are worth talking about). Anyone with any real experience in corporate IT knows this. The only people who seem not to know it are the anti-Microsoft trolls on Slashdot who, for some reason, think because corporate IT departments are following the same rollout methodology they've been using for the last couple of decades, it means Vista has problems.

Re:Well there you have it

[BVis]

This is to say, UAC isn't the whole of the security (just as sudo isn't the whole of the security) and still needs to be backed up by users who aren't complete idiots and a decent setup.

And that is why you fail.

Users must be protected from themselves. Providing "security" that can be ignored with a single click is a waste of effort.

Two words: administrator password. Every time. Can't be disabled. Deal with it. Don't like it? Go get something else.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

Thats not typical though, at least in my experience.

Sure, the poorly managed windows networks get hosed periodically by people serving spam and warez. It gets caught by the network guys, and gets fixed. Repeat.

But the really really nasty stuff seems to come in through the Unix systems. The kind of things where the research group finds out that all user accounts have been compromised for several years, and its been used as a launching point for highly targeted, low-volume (and very successful) bank phishing scams, or as a control node for botnets.

Seems like the noisy amateurs target the windows systems, where there's a high turnover of machines getting compromised and fixed. But there's this self-righteous attitude on the unix folks' side that their stuff is secure and so doesnt have to be monitored or audited, until its too late.

Anyway, just my experience, but I've seen this pattern repeat for years.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

Yes and no... Indeed, 32 bit operating systems can't address more than 2^32 bytes, but 3GiB isn't getting close to that. It's not that simple. Everything that has memory or requires memory addressing must be stuck into that 4GB space.

So if you have a 512MB video card, that eats up half a gig of your available memory space from your theoretical max of 2^32. Then there's all the other components in the system.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

Thanks to user account control. I was locked out of all the data I had hoped to save, including my outlook mail and contacts therein. Permanently gone and unrecoverable. You do realize that what you've described is not possible, right?

The only way what you described could happen is if you encrypted the drive (BitLocker or EFS) or the folders in question.

UAC does not have anything to do with file storage, encryption, or the like.

Now its possible that by default you may not have permissions to access your old user profile files from the new system, but thats just a simple matter of using an admin account to update the acls.

Re:Well there you have it

[Bonobo_Unknown]

"Most companies, running a ~3yr hardware cycle, won't even be _considering_ a Vista rollout until mid 2008 at the earliest. "
What about all the companies that are at that point in the cycle now... ?

Re:Well there you have it

[drsmithy]

What about all the companies that are at that point in the cycle now... ?

That's why I said "most", not "all" (or "none").

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, sure, but you get less on Vista on an otherwise identical computer.

Re:Well there you have it

[Ajehals]

Yes migration of will probably happen over time, but that is why there is no immediate adoption of Vista, there is no killer feature and the hardware requirements are more onerous.

I did some 2000 (and even Win98) to XP upgrades in 2003 where the hardware, though older was still capable of running XP within a corporate environment quite well, this is likely not going to be possible with Vista, because the minimum specs are much higher than what I see on a normal corporate desktop (and I'm not assuming that business users will want Aero, 512Mb RAM seems about the norm at the moment (with 256 still common) and importantly low end and low capacity HDD's and processors (After all its much cheaper to pick up new clients with minimum specs)).

Interestingly, I also doubt that the migration will be piecemeal like it could be from 2000 to XP, an environment where either client could co-exist peacefully and without issue, I have it on moderately decent authority* that dropping a Vista box in as a straight replacement for an XP box and not making any changes in other areas (AD primarily, whether group policy or user profiles and scripts etc..)is not possible, whilst in a 2000 to XP transition it was (XP being fully backward compatible but without too many fundamental changes, you simply didn't get some of XP's other benefits with regard to group policy etc..)

* Corporate IT departments are fairly resistant to change so this may be somewhat related to that rather than the issue at hand

Re:Well there you have it

[drsmithy]

Yes migration of will probably happen over time, but that is why there is no immediate adoption of Vista, there is no killer feature and the hardware requirements are more onerous.

In this it is really no different than 2000/XP and NT4. There was no real "killer feature" there, either, and the hardware requirements were relatively high (from usable on a 32MB, ~100Mhz Pentium to a 64MB (2000) 128MB (XP) ~300Mhz P2). The closest was Active Directory and, in particular, Group Policy - but even with those two enticements people were running NT4 Domains well into the '00s.

Indeed, I expect the migration from NT4 to Windows 2000/XP and the upcoming migration from XP to Vista/Server 2008 have a great deal of similarity, both in concept and magnitude, and I expect it to take a similarly long timeframe to finish.

I did some 2000 (and even Win98) to XP upgrades in 2003 where the hardware, though older was still capable of running XP within a corporate environment quite well, this is likely not going to be possible with Vista, because the minimum specs are much higher than what I see on a normal corporate desktop (and I'm not assuming that business users will want Aero, 512Mb RAM seems about the norm at the moment (with 256 still common) and importantly low end and low capacity HDD's and processors (After all its much cheaper to pick up new clients with minimum specs)).

A significant proportion of PCs bought in the last 12 - 18 months will have shipped with 1G RAM, which is all you need for Vista in a typical business setting. Even 512M is usable, although definitely "slow".

HDD size and processor power are basically irrelevant. Anything from 1GHz (ca. 1999) and up is fine and 20GB+ drives - even on budget machines - have been commonplace for years.

Interestingly, I also doubt that the migration will be piecemeal like it could be from 2000 to XP, an environment where either client could co-exist peacefully and without issue, I have it on moderately decent authority* that dropping a Vista box in as a straight replacement for an XP box and not making any changes in other areas (AD primarily, whether group policy or user profiles and scripts etc..)is not possible, whilst in a 2000 to XP transition it was (XP being fully backward compatible but without too many fundamental changes, you simply didn't get some of XP's other benefits with regard to group policy etc..)

The only really big potential hiccup I've seen in my (admittedly cursory) look into Vista migrations is that it can't use existing roaming profiles. This is certainly not an insignificant problem, but if you're doing things "properly" with Folder Redirection, it's manageable.

However, I just don't expect fast migrations to Vista, and I doubt anyone else whose job isn't in marketing does either. The simple truth is that Windows hit the "good enough" stage in the early 2000s and convincing people there are genuine business improvements to be had from upgrading from there will be difficult. Windows Server 2008 might have some new "Vista-only" features that make the upgrade more compelling, but we'll have to wait and see.

Re:Well there you have it

[Neuticle]

"Unless microsoft bribes every game companies out there, i think they will stick with directx 9 support or maybe we'll get some other software that unleashes the full power of games,,,maybe someone is already setting a direct10 clone out there that runs on Windows Xp."

Once upon a time, a little thing called OpenGLhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL/ was fairly common. It was shiny and pretty and played equally well with Windows, Mac and Linux. Over time, Direct3D lured devs away. Mac and Linux users cried and there was a gnashing of teeth as games never released for their OS. A few stalwart folks like those at Id and Epic stuck with OpenGL and made some of the best looking games around. IIRC, the current version of OpenGL can do everything that DirectX 10 can.

With the Mac and Linux user base growing and with so many people sticking with XP, I can imagine that devs will start looking more seriously at using OpenGL engines like the Unreal Engine 3 and Id Tech for new games. Cake for everyone!

Re:Well there you have it

[Kalriath]

If you can get the user running with a limited user account (i.e. any user NOT a member of administrators) then the UAC prompt WILL demand the administrator password to continue. One could argue (weakly) that UAC is better security than the equivalent on Linux, because even administrative/root users are blocked by it.

Re:Well there you have it

[jo42]

haven't even got a Vista install to play with at desktop support yet "Use The BitTorrent, Luke."

Re:Well there you have it

[Gilmoure]

No, this is at work. It's part of my job ensuring such things don't go on. That and the firewall.

Besides, I really don't want to have to deal with it any sooner that I have to.

Bleah!

Re:Well there you have it

[sjames]

But the really really nasty stuff seems to come in through the Unix systems.

That can happen, but it's hardly common. I have seen someone's Solaris system that was like that, but then it was set up by a Windows guy who figured a server is a server and confused "much more secure" for "needs no precautions whatsoever" and then just left it unwatched and with no updates for several years.

Re:Well there you have it

[jp10558]

As I specified, this is for backup while mobiles are on the road or at the user's home and SAN is not available. This is for backup of specific, important files, not the entire machine. To clarify, backup is improved for the corporate versions of Vista, it is worse in the home editions

I was specifically referring to a client based backup solution that ties into Symantec EZ Backup, and I'd expect was available with other solutions. It backs up specific files on a laptop, and when it can get a connection, uploads the files to your backup server. Until then, it protects against any problem save a hard drive failure...

Re:Well there you have it

[uncoveror]

"Experts" keep telling me that is can't happen. "Experts" also said the Titanic did not break in two because ships don't do that, and eyewitnesses must have imagined it. Even as Administrator, I was locked out of my files. Vista Home Premium doesn't even have bitlocker.

Re:Well there you have it

[Barny]

The real question is why, why does our CPU have to be able to address the entire vid memory as real memory? Why not make a block device of it? Oh wait, its windows....

Re:Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely accurate. Most modern cpus and chipsets support more than 4GB of memory. In these cases the real memory conflicting with the memory mapped devices are, generally (some crappy bioses may not do it because the writers were lazy), remapped above the 4GB barrier where it can then be addressed and used. This means that your 4GB machine will probably end up with an addressable memory address space of something like 4.5GB-5GB; either way your missing memory is now above the 4GB barrier. Two methods exist to address this memory now; you either go:

1. 64-bit - using a 64-bit cpu in 64-bit mode will give you a 64-bit address space that is able to automatically access that missing memory.

or use

2. PAE - this extention has been available since the pentium or pentium pro to allow 32-bit x86 cpus to address more than 4GB of memory by using a combination of 3 levels of page tables and by bringing back into use the old x86 segments.

Microsoft does provide a 64-bit version of both XP and Vista, however there is a low level of support from drivers, etc. PAE is used in windows now for both security (for DEP) and to use more than 4GB memory. However the use of PAE to use more than 4GB of memory is limited to the high end versions of Windows Server. Basically like much of everything else about Microsoft, they want you to pay for the "feature" of being able use more than 4GB of memory on a 32-bit version of their os; even though your hardware natively support it. They even do this in their server versions, with their server standard version (and other low cost server versions like web and storage servers) being limited to 4GB (2GB for web and storage). No you must get that even pricier version of windows such as server enterprise or advanced to use your 4GB even if only you will be using that computer. I don't know what they are going to do in a year or two. 2GB is already pretty much standard and I expect 4GB will be standard in a year or two, especially as updates continue to add to Vista's memory useage (judging by 95, 98, 98se, me, 2000, and xp). 64-bit windows may not be ready for prime time yet, especially since the full support structure such as drivers from all are not all there yet. Meanwhile Microsoft dumbly kept the 4GB limit in 32-bit Vista. Maybe they should check their notes, PAE for very large memory use has been around for over a decade and they should have had that support built into their win32 systems long ago.

          That Linux system mentioned earlier, doesn't have this issue as you are free to configure in support for more than 4GB on a 32-bit x86 system at your desire.

Re:Well there you have it

[afedaken]

I wish programmers would program more responsibly, return to using their OWN drivers so as to make things independent of the OS. Ahh, but then that would negate the reason for the Registry, Oh of course we should all aspire to be driver programmers rather than getting ya know, work done? Cuz you know I really aspire to spend my day tinkering with drivers to write bits straight to my GPU rather than hmm... use GL? Or rewrite a brand new driver every time a new sound device hits the market. Or write a brand new print routine every six months when Lexmark brings out the new consumer printer du_jour.

One of the few good things Windows brought to the table was its driver / device / API set. Standardizing on those (yes, via the registry) added a level of extensibility that we'd never before seen in the PC software world, and opened up a whole world of development that simply wouldn't have been possible prior.

Now you can argue that some of the current drivers out there are poorly written, and I'd be the very first in line to agree with you. But please don't dismiss the rest of us a poor programmers simply because we don't want to have to rewrite code specific to each device.

I shouldn't be forced to write drivers for every damn device that I want to access, any more than I ought to be expected to code my file system from scratch. (Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, and if that's your itch, then please, by all means, write your drivers or FS, and make it good.) To assume that we're inferior programmers because we don't write drivers is uncalled for.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

Dont normally read or respond to ACs, but this was a good one. Just wanted to add a few details.

The 4GB (xp) or 4GB (server) limits are not the same in x64 versions.

Even XP x64 supported up to 128GB of memory, and many engineering shops used it extensively immediately after it came out to support large memory situations for ProE and CAD/CAM/CAE stuff.

Windows 2003 Standard supports a max of 4GB for x86 and 32GB for x64.

Windows 2003 Enterprise supports a max of 64GB for x86 and 2TB for x64.

For Vista, all the 32-bit versions support up to 4GB, even the Home Basic. For Vista x64, it goes from 8GB in Home Basic, up to 128GB in Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Everything you wanted to know about it is here.

XP x64 was very doable in a business environment, where you got a supported build from the manufacturer.

Server 2003 x64 is the standard. I dont think we've built or deployed a 32-bit server in several years, and dont really seem them purchased that way anymore.

Vista x64 is stable, as long as you're working with a quality vendor that supports the drivers and such. I have a new HP Compaq 8710w on the way loaded to the gills, and one of the builds on it will be vista x64.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

who figured a server is a server and confused "much more secure" for "needs no precautions whatsoever" and then just left it unwatched and with no updates for several years. Thats actually been almost precisely my experience with all but the most very paranoid high-end unix guys.

They think that because its unix, its secure, so they dont need to check logs, patch it, or do any maintenance on it. We get comments like, 'we only patch it when something really nasty is going around'.

Now mind you, I think the vast majority of the hacks come through userland (PHP and PHP apps I'm looking at you) with local escalations, or through open SSH ports with some passwords that are easy to guess, plus local escalations.

Anyway, thats been very consistently my experience for the last 5+ years.

Re:Well there you have it

[Allador]

Well, I am sorry that this happened to you, losing files is very painful.

But something else must have happened. UAC has no interaction or ability to modify the file system.

You may not have had bitlocker, but EFS may have been setup or triggered accidentally. Or maybe the drive was corrupted.

In any case, it may have been windows, it may have been corruption, it may have been bad hardware, but it definitely wasnt UAC.

Re:Well there you have it

[ZeroJack]

I've been using Vista (business) for almost a year with no significant problems. I can't think of any conspicuous advantages so I see the clamor over pros and cons as a bit excessive.

It may be that Vista is much more secure than XP. It oughta be, but I don't know for a fact that it is, so I don't count that as a conspicuous benefit. However, if my computer was compromised and I was still running XP, the benefit of risk reduction would suddenly become conspicuous. While this claim is often made by Mac/Linux users, I've been running Windows since it came out and have never been taken out by a virus. I've intercepted a few nasties, but being careful and proactive has been an effective countermeasure for me.

Since the cost/benefit analysis picture changes dramatically with the size and requirements of the organization, I don't think there is much of a case to be made generally for one platform over another. On the contrary, I think there is a case to be made for a "don't care" strategy. Why should anyone invest in anything that is not open source and standards-based? That said, I don't consider buying Vista an "investment" as long as I am not making my data (and business) platform dependent. I'm a user, not a "partner."

Lastly, I've been off the upgrade wagon for many years. Upgrading the OS on a box is often more trouble than it's worth and that has as much to do with the increasing performance-cost ratio and MTBF (mean time between failure) as it has to do with artificial bloat. This is probably affecting upgrade statistics. Why invest in old hardware? I'd rather plan my next migration.

Re:Well there you have it

[sjames]

It's better to consider Unix more securable rather than more secure. IF the admin takes the necessary care, Unix will reward the effort.

It doesn't really call for paranoia, just applying the security updates, avoiding bad passwords and watch the PHP (yeah, unfortuntly PHP makes it easy for people who don't understand the issus to program).

How many IT professionals...

[Winckle]

want windows at all?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[AbRASiON]

Honestly, XP has it's flaws but a fully patched machine is a fairly reliable box overall.
It still has windows general bullshit but considering the age, there's so many great newsgroup / forum and google search* posts for support, most issues are bound t be easy to fix.

* fuck experts exchange, get off the google search results.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

expert sexchange? No thanks!

Re:How many IT professionals...

[CastrTroy]

For expert sexchange, use the cached google page. I haven't found a case yet where the answers weren't shown in the cache.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[sBox]

When you consider the investment corporations have in XP and Windows related applications, XP's stability and patchability, and plethora of decent certified engineers in the marketplace, there is no reason to move to Vista. Why bring on the headaches without any real benefit? Why do we have to re-educate users on a whole new OS and interface? Microsoft should move to a subscription-based support model for XP and begin work on its next OS -- which must include all of the features originally promised to corporate IT in the first place.

Aside: In our company, I and several others are dying to drop-in Ubuntu desktops and/or Citrix terminals, but at the moment we have too many critical applications that won't work without IE or cannot be adapted to a Citrix environment. Until the companies who provide these services to us change their applications, we have to live with it. We're stuck with Windows until they do.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[dave420]

Many, many of them. I'm one. It suits me perfectly.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[AbRASiON]

Yep, I work for an Australian Govt Dept and we migrated to XP about 3 years ago and XP SP2 about 3 months ago.
Things are really quite smooth at work.

We're buying machines under 800$ with monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc and running XP perfectly fine on them.
If we were to consider Vista, the SOE manager wouldn't put Vista on a box with less than dual core and 2gb of ram (and I don't blame him)
XP does all we need it to do right now and it does it well.

Vista would be a support nightmare, I can envision workplaces looking at CTX / Ubuntu setups in the near future definately.
It's possible we would migrate to Vista but I can't imagine it happening for at least 2 or even 3 years, it'll be 4 years old then - terrible.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[smussman]

I find that with NoScript blocking the JavaScript in the page, I can see the answers as well. Probably related to showing up in Google cache.

Re: How many IT professionals...

[Black Parrot]

Honestly, XP has it's flaws but a fully patched machine is a fairly reliable box overall. Yes, I find it a bit more stable than Windows 3.1.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

An It professional has always through history opted for a UNIX flavor or Mac OS(yes i mean System 1 - MacOS 9).

Otherwise he has never been an IT professional. Though he might have been forced to go with DOS or WinDOS.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[plague3106]

When you consider the investment corporations have in XP and Windows related applications, XP's stability and patchability, and plethora of decent certified engineers in the marketplace, there is no reason to move to Vista. Why bring on the headaches without any real benefit? Why do we have to re-educate users on a whole new OS and interface? Microsoft should move to a subscription-based support model for XP and begin work on its next OS -- which must include all of the features originally promised to corporate IT in the first place.

Ok, so what was the reason for anyone to move to XP? People said all the same things when XP launched, so what was the compelling reason that most have upgraded?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

For expert sexchange, use the cached google page. I haven't found a case yet where the answers weren't shown in the cache.

I love you... But also agree with the GP's post.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[rbochan]

...there's so many great newsgroup / forum and google search* posts for support...

Wait.
A bit OT, sure... but hasn't that been a rather large argument against adopting Linux? That you had to go to some newsgroup/forum/etc. to get support?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[tsa]

At the research group where I work we now have an experiment running where a nerdy Ph.D. student who just started gets an Ubuntu box instead of the WinXP boxes we all have. Everything that needs Windows he will do in a virtual machine on his Ubuntu box that is not connected to the internet. In this way we want to get rid of the pesky virus checkers that make even the fastest box we have nearly unusable for half an hour every day.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[KenRH]

I am a computer consultant/developer for hire, an as such I am a whore, what the customer wants the customer gets.

That said, that does not mean I will not try to advice the customer if I think he is headed in the wrong direction.

Personaly I dont like Microsoft much, not so much because of their software, but because of theire buisness practices. If I was running a buisness I would not thrust MS or their OS to be in charge of my IT-infrastructure.

I have to admitt I actually like Visual studio 2005 as an IDE both for C++, C# an asp.net. But I dont se the big ting about .net that I could not acomplish in java an then avoid the vendor lock inn.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I have found is that if you scroll down to the answers section, they are all fuzzied or have a remark that if you subscribe then you can read... but if you scroll down more, pass the adds, then all the comments are there for all to see.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[inKubus]

I have a Vista box at work, which I am using for testing along with Office 2007. One thing that stands out from an IT perspective is the fact that NONE OF THE RESOURCE KIT TOOLS WORK WITH VISTA. Well, most of them don't. A lot the command line tools which you absolutely must have to do any REAL administration work on a Server 2003 domain do not run under Vista. I think this is due to a change in the network driver API and they moved some system libraries around, among other things.

Even with the fix in the above knowledgebase, you have to work around a lot of issues. Now, I have disabled all of the fancy graphics, so it runs pretty good. The major differences are the file browser, they are finally moving away from "Drive Letters"! Also, the "start menu" is improved. Performance-wise, it doesn't seem that much better than XP, because you have a lot of extra stuff running.

Vista is the last 32-bit OS Microsoft will release, as they have said publically. The 64-bit kernel has a lot of new stuff that the 32-bit does not, since they have been concentrating all development on that side of things. Vista is mainly a beta test of the new interface, while they finish the new kernel. If you have messed with the 64 bit versions of Vista, you will see how unstable it is ;) This is mainly due to driver problems. As vendors come on board, 64 bit will be the new wave. In parallel, they are releasing IPv6 on by default, I would bet that IPv4 is mysteriously off by default in a future version of the desktop os ...

Of course, Server 2008 is being released simultaneously with Exchange and probably a new SQL server, and all of these are moving to 64 bit also. Obviously this is necessary as we hit native addressing limits. They need to do this since they are moving to a flash-based system for the OS. Basically, a big flash disk will be addressed like regular memory. The flash disk will hold the OS files, drivers, DLL's, etc. that are rarely written, with magnetic storage for long term data storage. You've heard of "readyboost", well, that's an automatic version of same. They are going to have a new "system score" which will require you to have onboard flash for a disk "cache". Since 64 bit will allow a theoretical maximum of 2 billion+ Gigabytes, we are probably set for 20 years at least.

So, no, do not run Vista at your company, unless you have sales people that want to look flashy. Sure, it's usable, it works ok, but I wouldn't want it as my primary box just yet.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[whatevah]

The moderators are going crazy as I see. If this is not flamebait/troll I don't know what it is.
I 've never used windows at work, actually I 've banned it. But that doesn't mean other IT professionals don't need it.
Please keep your issues at home.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[peipas]

Expert or not, I will not be using Google Sexchange before it's out of beta.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[sBox]

It's all about the drivers. New hardware required new drivers. XP handles driver problems so much better than 2000.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody please tell Google about this so that we can have them blacklisted? I thought Google was supposed to be good at this kind of thing?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

"want windows at all?"

Those of us condemned to cube farms or the deepest bowels of the buildings we work in you insensitive clod!!!

Oh, umm, sorry, misunderstood you there for a moment.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Joe the Lesser]

Actually, just scroll to the very very very bottom and the answers are always there, don't need to click on the cache per se. (least on firefox)

(ps. lol, expert sexchange? talk about a typo)

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

shhhhhh, you'll ruin it

Re:How many IT professionals...

[acidrainx]

No need to use the out-of-date cache. Use the User Agent Switcher extension for Firefox. Simply use Googlebot as your user agent and it'll get you into most of those useless registration sites.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[CastrTroy]

The typo was intentional, just to show how stupid and how not-well-thought-out their name was. Also, thank you for that info. I think it's to do with some bug in their site, as I'm pretty sure that they are supposed to not be shown the answers. Maybe they designed it that way to get around Google, but make most people visiting the site think they had to sign up to see the answers.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[ByOhTek]

Plenty, but XP/2K/2003 work just fine. It's Vista that has no love.

And 90% don't want it? I think they over-esitmated the number of IT people who want Vista by a ten-fold.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[a_nonamiss]

Experts-Exchange went to hell in a handbasket. My company actually paid for a subscription. About a year and a half ago, you could post a question, and very knowledgeable people were climbing all over themselves to answer it. Now, you post something, and a bunch of people with less IT experience than me answer it with things I've already tried. (and stated that I tried in the question.) At one time it was a great resource, but now, not so much.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or simply scroll to the bottom of the page, past the adverts. All the answers and comments are displayed in the clear.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it was that I didn't have to restart my machine to change IP addresses or load most drivers, and I could bridge network devices to share my connection without using ICS. Someone had to show me it was entirely different from ME before I'd touch it though.

I have tried Vista and have found no comparable reason to upgrade. And my clients barely know how to manage their personal firewalls so I don't expect them to know how to maintain Vista's security "features" in any regard.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[BenoitRen]

I'm fine with Windows 95 OSR2. It does what I want, and is mostly crap-free (no IE either!).

I've tried GNU/Linux, but the lack of standards, the confusing directory and the ever-present developer mentality holds me back.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[znerk]

Why do we have to re-educate users on a whole new OS and interface? Perhaps because you refuse to educate yourself?

at the moment we have too many critical applications that won't work without IE or cannot be adapted to a Citrix environment. Adaptation? What adaptation? I find myself repeating, like a broken record...

I installed IE6 on my Ubuntu machine in six clicks... two to bounce down through the applications menu to wine-doors, one to select "Internet Explorer 6", one to click "install", one to click "apply"... and another to watch the progress of the install (I've got this thing for progress bars and messages).

Stop whining about not being able to use Win32 apps on your linux box, and look into this nifty-neato-keen new project, called wine . Oh, wait... it's not new, it has been around for 14 years. Get with the program.

Yes, there are some configuration steps that need taken. Yes, this is all "beta" software. On the other hand, we're not paying for the privilege of testing it, and it's marked as a beta, not being marketed as a finished product. I'd like to add that most GPL'd "betas" I've seen for *nix operating systems work better than a lot of the Win32 programs I've seen touted as finished product... nevermind that wine has been in "beta" for over a decade (see above).

WoW plays nicely, running at approximately 1-2 fps less on my Ubuntu box than the same machine with XP(tm) installed on it. It's installable with wine-doors. No, it's not perfect, but it's completely playable, and all my mods work as well as they do under Windows(tm). This is my answer to those who say "but what about my games?!?"

For those who prefer a more fruity (and expensive) operating system (yes, I'm talking about Apple, here), you should look into Parallels. I hear it's quite good, but have not touched an apple product since the old //e in grade school, so cannot give an unbiased (or even knowledgeable) opinion. This was not due to my personal preference, but more to the availability when/where I grew up. x86 was the architecture of choice, and DOS/Windows was the only game in town. Now I dual-boot Ubuntu, and am thrilled to have an alternative OS I can finally feel comfortable handing to my mother (no, she doesn't live with me).

To summarize, perhaps you should look at some of the accepted alternatives to running "native" software before you decide to follow the herd.

Yeah, I know that statement doesn't really seem to make sense, if you think about it, but hey, this is Slashdot. Gotta give the grammar nazis *something* to feed on...
--
Disclaimer: I am a Windows(tm) technician, and I work in a Microsoft-only shop.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

He is the only person on the internet that hasn't figured out that you read EE in the google cache, and scroll to the bottom. What a dumbass!

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

ah google cache - that or masquerading as googlebot means you get usable results from expert sex change ;)

Re:How many IT professionals...

[AMuse]

I wouldn't automatically assume it's an argument against adopting Linux; There are probably a similar (if not greater, due to numbers) number of Windows "support" forums. Hell, even MSDN has forums where the users will help each other through obscure problems, no?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Darinbob]

Yes, XP seems to fit the "good enough to get real work done" quality to it. All of the flaws are known about and can be researched on the web or worked around. A big improvement of Windows 98 for home use, a tiny improvement over Windows 2000.

What we really needed was a smaller upgrade to XP. SP3 maybe. Halfway between XP and Vista. Vista but without the pile of media and DRM and GUI changes. Fixes for the nits and warts, newer scheduler, support for 4G memory, dump Outlook Express finally, add drive encryption, improved firewall, etc. There's a lot of nice stuff in Vista, but the snag is that you need all the bad stuff in Vista to get them...

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree that experts exchange is crappy 'cuz it is always there with the answer but you gotta pay, However, if you just click view cached on the google results for experts exchange you can generally see the answer that they want you to pay for.

Re:How many IT professionals...

[plague3106]

And you think that as OEMs sell Vista pre-installed to home and business users the same situation won't come up this time around?

Re:How many IT professionals...

[Kattspya]

That's the supposed problem when Joe Public needs help. Slashdoters are not joe public.

In Other News

[RendonWI]

90% of fish like it better in the water than out.

Re:In Other News

[deftones_325]

86% of all statistics are wrong.

Re:In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of fish like it better in the water than out.

Wait! This just in... 91% prefer water... 92%... 93%... And in a stunning turn around, some of the "out of water" pollsters may have claimed they liked it out of water, but now that they're having to make a decision they're staying in the water...

Re:In Other News

[RealGrouchy]

90% of fish like it better in the water than out. Up until now, I didn't realize 10% of fish were in Lake Michigan!

- RG>

Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....

Try running NT 4.0 these days... Won't get you very far. That's the future of Windows XP. They are going to drop it like a hot potato.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Nobody may want Vista but they will eventually get it. Eventually they won't have much of a choice.*

* Unless they opt to defect to a new platform which, let's face it, is nice in theory but far more complicated in practice.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Silver Sloth]

I think you're missing the point.

It may well be wishful thinking amoungst the Linux faithful but there is a growing impatience with the endless Microsoft upgrade cycle. IT professionals are incresingly saying 'Why upgrade? We gain nothing and lose lots.' I have no major issues with XP, it does everything I want it to, but I will have to upgrade because of all the reasons you state.

So, put yourself in the shoes of a CIO faced with replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded to run Vista, and the difficulty of going to the board once again with a request for huge amounts of cash for very little gain, and then maybe Linux starts to look a little better.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released

It did? I still use Windows 2000 every day an the only apps I can't use are mostly those that were specifically designed for XP. Also, the enterprise still makes heavy use of Win2k - and for good reason - it's just as stable as XP and it lacks all the "activation" crap. There are only a few features that XP brought to make the upgrade appealing which is why a huge chunk of the enterprise still use Win2k after all this time.

I (and I'm sure many others) feel that Windows 2000 was the best operating system Microsoft has designed to date. I woudn't go so far as to claim that I like it more than UNIX-like operating systems but I do think it pretty damn impressive coming from Microsoft.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

Oh, I understood that completely....

I have worked for banks (actually, I mostly work for banks), and they are notorious for being slow. So, in late 2004, a grand 3 years after the Windows XP release we were using NT 4.0 SP-5 on the desktop. On new Dell machines, nevertheless. While in a banking setup it wasn't important, there were no drivers for the soundcards and I believe the used a Matrox model they installed themselves that was still supported on NT 4.0 or somesuch thing.

I'm just stating that if you want to stay with Windows, staying with an older version is going to bite you in the ass sooner or later.

On the other hand, I have to admit that the end-users are quite aware about Vista problems. In the last two months, I had calls from three non-computer-savvy ladies who know I give "free" advice. They all needed a new computer and were aware of the problems with Vista. I was surprised about that. I pointed all three to Apple.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

I (and I'm sure many others) feel that Windows 2000 was the best operating system Microsoft has designed to date.

Oh, I'm one of those. Microsoft peaked with Win2k, but are you sure you get all security updates? Is IE7 available for your system. Does Office 2007 work for you?

As you read in my post, I switched to XP very late. Why did I switch? There is exactly one feature that is so useful in a home setting, that I still wonder why it hasn't been backported to Win2k. For me the "killer feature" was "fast user switching".

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....

I think you are right, but I think it'll be about 3-5 years before XP starts to be phased out. I found Win2k was quite adequate up until recently when software companies started releasing software that required at least XP SP2. For example, Adobe Photoshop CS3 (CS2 supported Win2k). I'm sure there were many others earlier that did this, but I didn't really start noticing it until the last year or two.

Then there is Microsoft's own software that requires XP. There is their latest consumer multimedia products, like Windows Media Player and Movie Maker. Then there is .Net 3.0 which requires XP. That is the big nail in the coffin of Windows 2000. The company I work for is stuck on .Net 2.0 due to this requirement because a lot of our customers are still using Windows 2000. Our customers are generally large corporations, so we don't expect them to be upgrading even to XP any time soon.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[gweihir]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only.

Very, very unlikely. The makers of drivers and"important programs" want to sell their stuff. Why on earth should the target a small market instead of a large one? The only Vista-only software I am aware of today is games paid for by MS to be Vista-only.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Mr. Underbridge]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....

But with each of those steps, it's taking longer and longer for MS to displace the incumbent OS. Also, it's important to distinguish between vendor support and MS support. MS has a vested interest in maintaining the upgrade chase; vendors have an interest in selling stuff to people. So as long as an OS has a strong established base, it will get vendor support.

It will take time. I'm guessing it will be about 8 years until it actually becomes difficult to get 3rd-party support for XP.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[LLuthor]

Are/Were you using Win2K on a laptop? How did you overcome the lack of ClearType? In my case, the hardware support and software support was present, and the system did everything I needed to, but the lack of ClearType made it rather unpleasant.

I managed to trim XP down to a reasonable 150MB (on CD) and 350MB (installed - minus the pagefile) using nlite and am back to Win2K levels of performance (higher even! :) and all the features I need are present. (Plus a lot more of my RAM is free for caches or firefox).

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Zeinfeld]

It may well be wishful thinking amoungst the Linux faithful but there is a growing impatience with the endless Microsoft upgrade cycle.

Oh yes, people are equally furious about 1) Microsoft continuously introducing new versions and 2) Microsoft not providing the features they want and need.

And whats more its the same people and they don't use Windows anyway.

Vista runs just fine. I have been running it since May and not had any problems apart from a couple that are pretty squarely third party issues. Vista is fast and slick on my hardware.

Admittedly I would probably not recommend a Vista upgrade but thats mostly because the cost of the Vista upgrade is so close to the cost of a new machine anyway. I have two vista machines and three XP machines in the house. One of those is a three year old Vaio that is dropping to pieces anyway. Another is a Dell box I paid $500 for including the monitor and the other is the machine I use for surfing while I am working out on the treadmill.

Why pay $160 to upgrade when the machines are 2 years old and I can have a whole new machine thats much faster for $500? I certainly would not consider buying a new XP machine though.

The industry does not want Vista whine is wishful thinking. Many companies took two years or more to roll out XP. If you have a hundred or so users you would be a fool not to adopt a wait and see approach. But that does not say anything about the quality of the product.

Vista has higher hardware requirements than past versions. That does not make them unreasonable requirements. But most IT depts want to support a single version of the O/S so that means that they can't do the upgrade till they can afford to end-of-life the legacy machines that don't support the new version.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[plague3106]

There is exactly one feature that is so useful in a home setting, that I still wonder why it hasn't been backported to Win2k.

They are out to make money, not give you reasons to keep on your current version of Windows.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[SatanicPuppy]

No CIO will ever think that Linux looks like a good idea just because the latest Windows is still in the "unrunnable crap" phase. They don't get where they are by taking big risks, and jumping from windows to linux is enough to make anyone who has any experience break out in a cold sweat.

A migration from XP to Vista will bring with it a myriad of problems, hosts of issues, hours and hours of work...And that is the tip of the iceberg of what it would take to migrate their userbase from XP to Linux.

I've been involved in a good half-dozen attempts to move an all windows shop to an all Linux environment, and it always comes down to the same stuff. You may pry them off windows, but you won't pry them off their windows software, so either you have to put your trust in WINE (pause for laughter) or you have to invest heavily in windows terminal services so that you can run all the windows apps they need in a terminal session on their linux machines. Doing that will cause whole new levels of stress on your network, and it also throws up some new point of failure issues.

On top of all the technical crap, you're going to have massive training issues, and a lot of user resistance from people who want to be able to install stupid little desktop apps. Most of the IT staff won't be happy with you, because generally most of the staff won't be linux guys.

Even if you get it all running (and every time I've ever done one of these, we got it running, and well), you're still going to get resistance. It stays ugly for long periods of time...I've seen people roll back after two years, writing off a quarter million dollar system as a bad deal.

Until we get native software, it's going to be the deal-breaker. Selling the terminal services stuff to people doesn't fly all that well.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit.

I still have win 98 boxes that work just fine. And am still putting NT server on some home servers. Nobody needs all this new dual core hardware to run their old os. Computers will last a lot longer than the two or three year upgrade cycle some companies would like you to be on. This whole "support mentailty" is more bullshit. Who cares if Microsoft supports the os? I have NEVER had to phone them for an OS related problem. Any geek that does should turn in their geek badge.

The other point is, how wasteful do we need to be? Why should I throw out perfectly good computers just to run the latest eye candy? I find that totally irresponsible and the computer companies should have to have a part in recyling all the shit they've put on the planet.. and NO that doesn't mean shipping containers of 386's to China.

/rant

/I also hate microsoft. The software is ok, but the company is a bunch of assholes.

Already modded so can't post non a/c

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

[..] but are you sure you get all security updates? Is IE7 available for your system. Does Office 2007 work for you?

That I don't know, I still get updates but do they issue patches for holes applicable for both XP and 2k? I don't have a clue, only Microsoft can answer that. I never use IE, period. Not even when IE7 is available to me on XP machines, but maybe that's just me (Microsoft never released IE7 for Win2k but I don't see it as a loss because I simply can't stand the new interface). For as long as I can remember I've been using something else. I started using Netscape, then switched to Mozilla and now I use Opera (and Firefox, occasionally). Office 2000 is what I still use after all this time and just a year or two ago I noticed that they use it in classes teaching word processing and Access. So it seems that not only does Windows 2000 refuse to die, but Office 2000 is just as stubborn. I hope to eventually dump Office 2000 for OpenOffice, but I'm in no hurry to do so.. yet.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[tepples]

I managed to trim XP down to a reasonable 150MB (on CD) and 350MB (installed - minus the pagefile) using nlite Does that 350 MB figure include Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, which nlite requires?

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

As you read in my post, I switched to XP very late. Why did I switch? There is exactly one feature that is so useful in a home setting, that I still wonder why it hasn't been backported to Win2k. For me the "killer feature" was "fast user switching".

For me the "killer feature" in a software development work environment is Remote Desktop. Granted, I could do without it and use something like VNC, but I use the hell out of Remote Desktop for work and it works perfectly.

I also a Linux and OS X user. NoMachine NX (for Linux) is good, but I am disappointed by the lack of a good fast remote desktop product for OS X.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

Another problem with Win2k: Wireless... You're dependent on the drivers/interface the manufacturer delivers and those are very very sucky.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

It's already happening with laptops that came preinstalled with Vista. It's very hard or impossible to find drivers to make a working XP install on those.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[tepples]

The makers of drivers and"important programs" want to sell their stuff. Why on earth should the target a small market instead of a large one? Because they predict that after several years, the Windows XP market will have become "a small market". As of November 2007, does a market of commercially significant size still run Windows 98? And given that mainstream support for Windows XP ends in April 2009, how many people will still be running Windows XP in 2012?

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[achurch]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista,

This doesn't mean much as long as you don't upgrade your hardware, which is of course most of the business world. What company wants to waste cash on replacing computers that work just fine?

important programs that are Vista-only.

Like Office 97? Somehow I doubt that Microsoft is going to retroactively make that Vista-only, or (equivalently) disable it--though it would be fun to watch the fireworks if they did. (FWIW, I do my finances in Excel 95 under VMware, and not only does it work just fine, it's snappier than anything modern I've come across.)

Security updates not being made available for XP anymore.

This, if anything, will push people; but it could well push them to Macs or Linux instead. Why do you think Microsoft extended the XP support cutoff? (I doubt it was because they want to support two operating systems at once . . .)

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[trifish]

replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded

The only thing you need to do is ADD more memory. You don't need to replace anything (let alone PCs).

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Lonewolf666]

I've been involved in a good half-dozen attempts to move an all windows shop to an all Linux environment, and it always comes down to the same stuff. You may pry them off windows, but you won't pry them off their windows software, so either you have to put your trust in WINE (pause for laughter) or you have to invest heavily in windows terminal services so that you can run all the windows apps they need in a terminal session on their linux machines.

I agree that the applications might cause the bigger resistance, and I'd try changing those first. As in
Winword => Open Office
IE => Firebird
and so on...

If that fails:
tough luck but you still have those Word licenses...reinstall those

if it is accepted:
Fine, you have moved your users to applications that are also available under Linux. The next step (Windows => Linux) should be easier.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[igb]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only.

I'm not so sure. XP has such inertia behind it (>90% of the home install base) that a company that launches Vista-only hardware or software has no market. Because XP coincided with a huge increase in the number of PCs in use in non-technical environments in a largely benign economy, there's a lot of kit out there that will be run until it falls apart. Why would people (ordinary people, not geeks, not teenagers using their parents' money) buy a new computer when they have a 1GHz 1GB 200GB humming away quite nicely? Yes, Ford released a new Mondeo, but my old one's fine.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[domatic]

It may well be wishful thinking amoungst the Linux faithful but there is a growing impatience with the endless Microsoft upgrade cycle.

This is a real effect but the magnitude of it is vastly overstated by wishful thinkers. The costs and problems of Vista will drive a few people and organizations to Linux or OS X but only a very few. Most will suck it up and wait for the MS to patch away the worst of the problems and start rolling it out on the next upgrade cycle. The more conservative ones will just stay with XP as long as possible.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[MooseTick]

"So, put yourself in the shoes of a CIO faced with replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded to run Vista"

You say that like new computers are never bought due to old ones being end of lifed. I suspect Vista migration will happen just like XP. It won't cost any more because as old desktops/laptops are phased out the new ones will have XP. Some here may argue that if it weren't for the constat new OS releases by MS, that replacing old computers wouldn't be necessary. Well, I think the productivity gains by getting a new PC every 3-4 years outstrips the cost. Plus, a new laptop/desktop costs less than $1000 now. If you get one every 4 years, that is only $250/year in cost. That is negligible even compared to a receptionist's salary.

I know you aren't saying it, but it is often implied if a company went to Linux and dropped MS that they would never to buy new computers again?

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[SatanicPuppy]

The one time I tried a full Open Office migration...Well, it cured me of ever trying it again...I was confident it could do everything MS Office could, and it took the old ladies who used office most about a week to prove me utterly wrong. I'm hoping Symphony will prove to be a better Office replacement, until then, I'll run MS Office in a terminal and save myself a world of pain.

The problem with Firebird/Firefox/Opera/whatever is the ie only websites. Half the time it'll be a bank or a payroll company or the IRS or something that they absolutely have to be able to get to. Where I am right now, I use Firefox and Opera for everything...except submitting my time/vacation/expenses. Have to have IE for that.

In the end it comes down to you vs the customer, and you can't tell them they're idiots for wanting to use Photoshop instead of GIMP, because Photoshop has more features.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[ToasterMonkey]

For Windows 2000 Server, go to Add/Remove programs, select Terminal Services, pick remote administration, reboot. If you need to remote into a W2K Pro machine, you'd have to resort to something like VNC. I've never thought of remoting into other workstations being a big need for software development. Isn't that what VMs are for? ;) It was big for our IT support helpdesks though, I forgot that W2K workstations didn't have it built in. Now that I think of it, I remember using SMS for remote access for a lot of NT/2000 stuff... *shudder*

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

I've never called Microsoft either, and I could install an NT 4.0 these days. However, what you describe is installations in a very controlled environment. Probably not desktops. You, see, if you've got a network of NT 4.0 machines that is completely isolated from the Internet, you could even run them as desktop machines provided you find the graphics drivers. (Unlikely for machines built in the last 3 years)

I was talking from the desktop perspective, in a more or less regulated network. Personally, I run OpenBSD on an old P-III 80MHz. Works perfectly fine. Support? I can support myself, thank you very much. However, I'm not a decision maker. That's what one needs to keep in mind.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[u-235-sentinel]

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....

Try running NT 4.0 these days... Won't get you very far. That's the future of Windows XP. They are going to drop it like a hot potato.


I'm already making plans to drop Windows completely from my home computers. The only thing I do on Windows these days is gaming. Everything else is running Linux from firewall to my MythTV box.

I'll probably go to a PS3 for gaming or Wii. I figure I can purchase several for the price of a single Wintendo PC and network them.

My biggest beef with Microsoft has been their DRM and other Gestapo controls placed into Vista. I will not support them and encourage everyone else to look for alternatives.

I've been using Linux on my work Desktop / Laptop since 1999 so I'm very familiar with what my OS / Software needs are.

While I liked using Windows apps since 3.0 came out, I think I'm finished with them unless they pull a 180.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Jack Sombra]

So, put yourself in the shoes of a CIO faced with replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded to run Vista, and the difficulty of going to the board once again with a request for huge amounts of cash for very little gain, and then maybe Linux starts to look a little better.

Maybe, until the CIO really starts thinking about it and realises the following

*To switch over to Non MS OS the entire user base would have to go to days worth of retraining (with lost productivity on top of the training costs) as non of them would never have seen a Non MS machine and it's related software before

*To switch over to Non MS OS nearly the entire IT department would have to be retrained/replaced

*To switch over to Non MS OS loads of in house software would have scraped or altered

*To switch over to Non MS OS loads of off the shelf software would have to be sourced

*To switch over to Non MS OS the CIO will spend the next year or two being enemy number of everyone in the organisation and would likely not be there to see the end of the project because he was fired

You will then hear the CIO saying "F*ck that, I want to keep my job, it might suck but we are staying with MS"

Unless you are a relatively new or small organisation changing over from MS to something non MS is not for the faint hearted and any CIO contemplating it better that the FULL backing of the board, skin like steel and a dozen blank checks to cover all the unforeseen's

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Silver Sloth]

You say that like new computers are never bought due to old ones being end of lifed. In a part of our network which is suitably tied down we're using 10 year old PCs with Win95. They do everything the users require of them. Ok, so they don't have much in the way of apps, but these users don't get much.

On the other hand PCs that are on the main network must have a supported version of Windows so that they can be suitably patched. I remember well the Win2k to WinXP rollout, done almost entirely because of support issues, where we all got new PCs whether we needed them of not, because the OS needed them. And then, when WinXP went SP2 my laptop suddenly stopped working and I had to have a new one (along with hundreds of other people within the multinational I work for).

I can't say for sure, I'm on the Unix team, but, from where I sit, it looks like most of the times I've got a new PC the driving factor has been the need for a new OS.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Still using win2k and more than happy with it. If it wasn't for a few mission critical apps (AutoCAD being one) I would be using Ubuntu without hesitation. If you look hard enough, you can find drivers for most current hardware, and sometimes a bit of tweaking of the XP driver will work anyway. I use Ubuntu at home with a vmware image of an XP system runiing the windows apps I'm still saddled with (a bit slow, but workable). I wouldn't dream of subjecting the office to this, and besides M$ is still providing security updates to 2K so I wont upgrade until I have a compelling reason to.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

Why would people (ordinary people, not geeks, not teenagers using their parents' money) buy a new computer when they have a 1GHz 1GB 200GB humming away quite nicely? Yes, Ford released a new Mondeo, but my old one's fine.

I do agree... However, that won't help Linux or OS X, because those people will stick with what they have. My wifes machine is from 2003, it's a P-IV 2.6GHz Hyperthreading with 2Gig RAM (used to be 512Meg, I upgraded it when I found RAM on sale), a 80Gig harddisk and a NVidia FX5500 (it used to be a ATI, but I had the FX5500 lying around and I just replaced it). Apart from the harddisk, that is getting a bit cramped, the machine runs just fine on WinXP.

I've been running a P-III 600MHz/512Meg RAM laptop until begin this year. XP ran great on it. I only replaced because it started to physically fall apart. My dad runs to this day his P-III 733MHz/512Meg RAM with XP.

I do understand the sentiment, but someday those machines will have a component failure. There is a good chance that I won't be able to find a component to make the machine work again.... What then? A new machine and that means.... Vista.

My own car is 8 years old. At least I'm pretty much guaranteed to have parts for the next 12 years (at least....) The timelines are very different.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[nine-times]

Did you ever think that the "inevitability" of upgrading even when people don't want it is a problem? Maybe it's exactly the problem that makes people want to avoid Vista, and that has some of these people fed up with Microsoft?

This is the problem with monopolies, ladies and gentlemen. They don't allow an open market, which means market forces aren't at play in those cases, which means you don't get the benefits of capitalism. What you're saying, essentially, is that we'll all be using Vista in 3 years because Microsoft has the ability to cram it down our throats, whether we like it or not, whether it hurts our businesses or not.

As an IT pro, I feel that's an unacceptable situation. When your vendors start screwing you over and trying to push you around, that's when you change vendors. It's like, "Screw you, buddy, you're supposed to be working for me!"

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[ocbwilg]

So, put yourself in the shoes of a CIO faced with replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded to run Vista, and the difficulty of going to the board once again with a request for huge amounts of cash for very little gain, and then maybe Linux starts to look a little better.

That's ridiculous. CIOs don't go to the board to ask for money to upgrade an OS. If your company is big enough to have a board of directors and a CIO, then odds are you deploy new operating systems only with new hardware. Why? Because you'll be replacing the hardware on a regular cycle anyway, and throwing in an OS upgrade is even more disruptive. Not to mention that the new OS usually has higher system requirements, etc. Oh yes, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

For most large companies if they buy a PC that comes pre-installed with XP, that's what that machine will run for the rest of it's corporate life. When they are ready to switch to Vista, they'll start buying machines with Vista licenses.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[i.r.id10t]

A linux box that boots to X and simply starts a VMWare "machine" would do in this case, and you don't have to worry about unsupported hardware, finding drivers, etc.

In fact, one of my students set up something similar for training in a hospital - the software for docs and nurses were incompatable with eachother, and the software for pharmacy was incompatable with *everything*, so their project took a basic Linux install + X + VMWare - boot, pick a training program, and the appropriate windows "machine" booted to use....

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Fujisawa Sensei]

No CIO will ever think that Linux looks like a good idea just because the latest Windows is still in the "unrunnable crap" phase.

Just make sure you upgrade his box first.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Silver Sloth]

Not in the multinational I work for (and it's a name you would know). The Win2k to WinXp was a major, company wide, project costing millions of Euros. See my earlier reply as to how most, if not all, PC upgrades were driven by the need for a new OS because the old one went out of support.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

That's a very cool setup. I admit that. However, how legal are those VMs? Is the system going to survive a visit by the BSA? The VM method is one way to go, but what happens when you cannot get a legal XP license anymore?

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[fishbowl]

>However, how legal are those VMs?

What's with the FUD? We do something similar in my shop, perfectly legally.

>Is the system going to survive a visit by the BSA?

It will be interesting to see how they get the level of clearance required to enter this facility.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[fishbowl]

>That's ridiculous.

What's ridiculous here is the notion that Unix advocates never make CIO.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[SatanicPuppy]

Not sure what you mean by that...We're not going to Vista either, so if you mean "Install Vista on his box" it will be installed on his, and mine, and most of the rest of IT before it's installed anywhere else, which could be in the next 2 years, but (judging by the XP upgrade cycle) might not be for 4 or 5 years.

If you mean, "Install linux on his box" that's just flat not going to happen. We don't have the terminal services infrastructure to support remote office/outlook/etc so, no Linux on the desktop here, not for the forseeable future. I don't even have a linux desktop, because everything I use linux for right now, I can get through putty.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd LOVE for Linux to be the answer, but it won't be. As much as you all think it would be, it won't.

Majority of managers aren't that tech savvy, they just do the business - and haven't heard of Linux even. They aren't going to say "Oh, it's a cheaper OS that I've never heard of until you told me, lets get that, even though a complete training course will be needed all over the company." They go to what's familiar. Imagine the losses if they get Linux and it doesn't fit in with people that are just incapable of anything but Windows? Those people exist.

IT managers choose to deny Vista, not the people actually using the computers. Tech savvy people have their head in the clouds to think a revolution is beginning, it's a nice thought, but think again in a decade or so.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[macdaddy357]

IE only websites and web applications that need IE6 really suck if you had Vista forced on you, and you can only use 7.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Kingrames]

However, Ubuntu works.

I'd like to install Fedora 8 on my laptop since I like the software installer more, and a few other things, but those are moot points when Fedora won't or can't get my wireless to work.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[pat mcguire]

Is this really practical for most people? I mean, don't all of these VMs require a license? I can't see how most shops are going to be able to support the cost of three different versions of Windows for every computer to maintain basic functionality. This may be one job that Wine can actually pull off, if I understood you correctly the problem is that some of the software relies on obsolete versions of Windows. I'm under the impression that its support of old versions of Windows is almost totally functional, one might be able to save the expense of at least one of the older licenses by running that OS's incompatible software in Wine.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[goldsend]

Some here may argue that if it weren't for the constat new OS releases by MS, that replacing old computers wouldn't be necessary.

Umm, and to those that argue that I usually have to point out the issues involved with system degradation. Over time every system slows down and begins to perform poorly. There have been alot of people with alot of theories as to why this is, and the only thing I know is that after about three years of daily operation, a system needs to be replaced, regardless if it is useing XP or not. Just because there is no new OS released does not mean that systems do not reach EOL. It just means that the user will expect the new system to mirror the old in regards to personal data on the system (which is something that I often have to disabuse the user of).

And just because there is a new OS out does not mean that migrating NOW is a must. Do I advise my supervisors to look into Vista? No. Vista today reminds me very much of working with XP in its early days. A lot of painful hours trying to get everything up and running and never being entirely succesful. In time, after a Service Pack or two, Vista may live up to the promise it is currently making to home users. But running a system at home and at work are two different concepts with different needs and requirements. Vista works well at home almost all but the most serious gamers right now. On the job site, however, Vista sucks. Technicians are not refusing Vista altogether, just waiting until the problems settle down. Think of it in terms of new cars. You would normally wait and not buy a brand new car the first model year until after the redesign is tweaked and the problems worked out, right? Same thing with Vista.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

Let me rephrase that: Are you sure that the licenses you use are allowed to be run in VMs and that you paid for those. It is only legal if the software running in the VM has been paid for that VM. You cannot run 5 instances of Windows XP on a single machine, if only one license has been paid for. Five visualized WinXPs mean five WinXP licenses. It is quite simple.

For all intents and purposes, a Windows XP running in a VM must be paid for and as such have a valid license.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[UnknowingFool]

So, put yourself in the shoes of a CIO faced with replacing hundreds, or even thousends of PCs because they need to be upgraded to run Vista, and the difficulty of going to the board once again with a request for huge amounts of cash for very little gain, and then maybe Linux starts to look a little better.

Especially if you were one of those that bought into Software Assurance. You paid more money for an upgrade that will do you very little good, was late, and ends up costing you in tons of new hardware. When your support contract with MS comes up, at the very least, you will not be making the same mistake again. Linux may start to look tempting as a pilot project.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista runs just fine. I have been running it since May and not had any problems apart from a couple that are pretty squarely third party issues. Vista is fast and slick on my hardware.

Arg, I hate to be "one of those guys," but I have been running Ultimate for a few months (legally purchased). I have not been impressed, and I love Windows XP, and even 2000. It locks up constantly, although I'm even willing to accept a hardware issue (though I believe it's a driver issue - I've installed the latest (non-beta) versions of every driver I could find for the thing). What I have a hard time forgiving is its performance. I have an Athlon 64 x2 4800, 2GB of OCZ, Asus, and two raided Seagate 250GB SATA3 drives. The performance is "okay," but I guess I expected more out of such a machine. I feel like I'm waiting far too long for things to load. XP blazes on the same machine, and doesn't lock up.

Yeah, anecdotal evidence, but that's all I have. I could even deal with the performance issues if the damn thing wouldn't blue screen all the time!

-Anonymous Coward

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Steve001]

u-235-sentinel wrote and included the following in a post:

In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....

Try running NT 4.0 these days... Won't get you very far. That's the future of Windows XP. They are going to drop it like a hot potato.

I'm already making plans to drop Windows completely from my home computers. The only thing I do on Windows these days is gaming. Everything else is running Linux from firewall to my MythTV box.

I, too, am planning on moving away from Windows once my current computer dies. For me, the only question is whether to move to Linux or to Mac OS.

I'll probably go to a PS3 for gaming or Wii. I figure I can purchase several for the price of a single Wintendo PC and network them.

A while ago I decided to do all of my gaming on a PS2 and my main reason is: I can be sure that every PS2 game will work well on my system. That is something that I can't be sure of with all PC games.

My biggest beef with Microsoft has been their DRM and other Gestapo controls placed into Vista. I will not support them and encourage everyone else to look for alternatives.

To second this, although it's not my only reason for considering a move away from Windows, it is just one more strong reason to do so. For me as a home user, I've seen no good reason to move to Vista other than force, and any force used to move me away from XP may as well cause me to move to Linux/Mac OS.

I've been using Linux on my work Desktop / Laptop since 1999 so I'm very familiar with what my OS / Software needs are.

While I liked using Windows apps since 3.0 came out, I think I'm finished with them unless they pull a 180.

I've never been a great fan of any version of Windows (At home I used DOS until I upgraded to a computer that was preloaded with Windows 98SE), I simply use them because I've had to. Now, based on what I've been reading, I see Vista as a good reason to leave the Windows world for other OSes.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[fishbowl]

>Are you sure that the licenses you use are allowed to be run in VMs and that you paid for those.

Yes. Our license has specific language allowing it. Of course, some of our research is actually funded by Microsoft, so I doubt we're on their "to sue" list at all.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Anonymous Coward]

No CIO will ever think that Linux looks like a good idea just because the latest Windows is still in the "unrunnable crap" phase. They don't get where they are by taking big risks, and jumping from windows to linux is enough to make anyone who has any experience break out in a cold sweat.

you're stoned. the only CIOs i've met like that couldn't find their rear end with both hands, a flashlight, a map, a compass, and GPS...let alone make technical decisions.

A migration from XP to Vista will bring with it a myriad of problems, hosts of issues, hours and hours of work...And that is the tip of the iceberg of what it would take to migrate their userbase from XP to Linux.

not necessarily...there are these processes called "planning" and "testing" where you iron all the crap out ahead of time, as much as possible anyway. it works out to be about the same either if you upgrade or change OSs.

I've been involved in a good half-dozen attempts to move an all windows shop to an all Linux environment, and it always comes down to the same stuff. You may pry them off windows, but you won't pry them off their windows software, so either you have to put your trust in WINE (pause for laughter) or you have to invest heavily in windows terminal services so that you can run all the windows apps they need in a terminal session on their linux machines. Doing that will cause whole new levels of stress on your network, and it also throws up some new point of failure issues.

/sigh ...you are going about this the wrong way. you don't take their apps with them. there are alternatives to their precious outlook *shudder*...and hell, worst case is that if that's all you need to run terminal services for...quit your whining. windows may suck, buy managing 1 server can't be too hard...even for a MCSE.

On top of all the technical crap, you're going to have massive training issues, and a lot of user resistance from people who want to be able to install stupid little desktop apps. Most of the IT staff won't be happy with you, because generally most of the staff won't be linux guys.

people can learn to use new apps. 99% of office workers can sit down and click icons and read menus. it won't take much training and it sure as hell isn't rocket science. i've had plenty of users sit behind a linux desktop (KDE since it's pretty idiot savy) and they were able to browse the web, send e-mail, etc...only a handful even commented on the desktop. your staff isn't linux guys? simple...get new staff. are you stoned enough to try and teach a M$ monkey new tricks? maybe keep a few of the more talented if they are willing to learn and be junior techs for a while...but for the most part, clean house and hire the people you need. people bitch and complain about *nix people being expensive...but you can get away with far fewer of them. say you have a few hundred users and 50 servers or so...2 good admins can handle that between smoke breaks. hell, the only reason for 2 would be to have someone there when the other took a vacation. i know some admins working in shops with several hundred heavily used servers per admin, no problem...all on linux. try that with M$...i dare you.

Even if you get it all running (and every time I've ever done one of these, we got it running, and well), you're still going to get resistance. It stays ugly for long periods of time...I've seen people roll back after two years, writing off a quarter million dollar system as a bad deal.

you get resistance if you blow your nose. if you don't change, you will have another group of people who will get pissed because they want to use the latest and greatest. doing anything will piss people off, this includes doing nothing. the roll backs were probably a combination of companies wanting to blow more $ for tax reasons and

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

Over time every system slows down and begins to perform poorly.

That's really only the case on home systems. On well maintained, locked down machines, corporate machines, Windows doesn't build up any cruft.

I have a few WinXP machines that are used by "limited users" with few or no rights and they perform like on day one. That said, my users don't get to install anything willy-nilly.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[clustermagnet]

Completely agreed. If your shop is not ready for linux desktops, go with Mac

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[u-235-sentinel]

        I've been using Linux on my work Desktop / Laptop since 1999 so I'm very familiar with what my OS / Software needs are.

        While I liked using Windows apps since 3.0 came out, I think I'm finished with them unless they pull a 180.

I've never been a great fan of any version of Windows (At home I used DOS until I upgraded to a computer that was preloaded with Windows 98SE), I simply use them because I've had to. Now, based on what I've been reading, I see Vista as a good reason to leave the Windows world for other OSes.

Not Windows. The applications written for Windows.

Windows started out being crap and unstable. It's improved but it still has that same unstable crap hanging around.

I used to work for Gupta Corp in the 90's and was amused to learn they hired a Windows OS programmer to re-write Windows to stabilize the darn thing so their programs will run cleanly under it. Windows was that bad. :D

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[SatanicPuppy]

It always amuses me to see someone who really believes that it's just a matter of telling the users to learn new software, and that there is nothing available in closed source that isn't done better in open source.

They almost always call me naive as well. It's almost not worth responding, because you really have to have tried to deploy linux to a thousand new people at once to understand the true horror of the undertaking.

In short:
1) Not all CIOs are morons. If you think that, you're never going to get anywhere. You seem to think everyone but yourself is a moron though, which is even worse. You'll tell the customer what they need without listening to them try to tell you what they need (they're idiots, right?) and the whole project will end up in the shitter.

2) Planning and testing will scratch the surface of your problems, but your customer cannot be relied upon to give you an accurate accounting of the software that they really need, and that stuff will occupy 90% of your time.

3) OSS desktop applications are not as good as Microsoft's. Period. You can teach someone to use a new application, but when that application lacks some stupid function you've never heard of that they use all the time, it'll be your ass swinging in the breeze for providing a crappy solution, not theirs for not being able to make it do something it doesn't do.

4) Irrelevant. I helped deploy a system that pushed EVERYTHING out through netbooting and terminal services, from a handful of blade clusters that had 99.5% uptime, and we still had a full time job dealing with users, because dealing with users is 99% of what an IT staff does. You're thinking about it from an admin point of view, and thats a good way to lose a contract, because if everyone hates it, the project will die.

5) The rollback was because an individual like you under bid the contract (because it's easy,
right?), and when the problems I've listed above cropped up, there wasn't money to fix them so the solution ended up half-assed and crappy.

6) Proprietary apps are available on extremely specific OS setups. I dealt with one once that was proprietary to OS 9, and would have cost more than a million dollars to replace. Deciding that it will all be easy to move to linux is moronic. It's never easy.

7) Hey, I don't give a damn about Outlook, but it's a fricking deal breaker to a lot of people. Mock it to your peril; there isn't a single OSS app that does half of what it does, and if you don't at least appreciate that, you're screwed. Same with a lot of other proprietary apps which you seem to scorn.

In conclusion, you're living in a dream world, and you clearly think you're the king shit of the universe. Go work in the real world for a while, and see a few of your rollouts get fucked up because the goddamn secretaries don't like them (and that shit matters, despite the way you think it works), and then talk to me. I have lived this shit, and until you have, you have no room to talk.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Platupous]

It always amuses me to see someone make some intelligent comments and have some valid points. . .

And then Fuck up their entire point by using shit eaters language to make sure they got their smart ass intelligent point across. Because hey, to be a Big Boi in todays IT you gotta be able to make a DANM good exclimation point and drive that fucker home. Otherwise you are just the pansy in the back cubicle.

I'm not saying that there aren't good uses for cussing, but reading you. . . Well, I am glad I'm not your Manager, listening to you talk to a subordinate, user or a God Forbid, a customer. Alas this is the Internet, so that makes it easier to decide to do this. But it certainly adds nothing to others perception.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[SatanicPuppy]

Shrug. Sorry you feel that way. This particular topic evokes bad memories for me, however, and frankly, I've made this exact same argument a thousand times, and no one ever listens. So why not be profane?

It feels profane to me; all these people irrationally insisting that only a moron would ever use Windows, and ignoring the perfectly valid reasons those people have for using Windows...They fail to appreciate those things that we could legitimately learn/steal from Microsoft. It's kind of pathetic actually.

C'est la vie.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[RealGrouchy]

Oh, I'm one of those. Microsoft peaked with Win2k, but are you sure you get all security updates? Is IE7 available for your system. Does Office 2007 work for you? I must say I find it a bit curious why someone who is comfortable with not upgrading from Win2k would care about upgrading to IE7 or Office 2007?

- RG>

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Hymer]

They are going to drop it like a hot potato. Not before they got all major problems with Vista fixed, which may not happen before Windows Seven (of Nine ?) is available... they would be killed by large corporate/government/military users.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[syd02]

"Macintosh leads the pack of Vista alternatives, with support from 28% of respondents. About a quarter said they would opt for Red Hat Linux, with SUSE Linux and Ubuntu each garnering 18% of the vote. Another 9% cited other Linux operating systems and 4% were unsure." ~25% + 18% + 18% + 9% = ~70% who want to use Linux instead of Vista. They're not saying "I want to run Windows XP, even though Microsoft can drop support for it"...they're saying I want to leave Microsoft altogether. While some of your points still apply ("important programs that are Vista-only"), you may be confused about the confuse the prevailing sentiment here and what it would portend for future application support.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Trogre]

Possibly, but there's another unintended consequence here. My local Mac store has never been so busy since Vista came out.

(No, I don't own a Mac and never intend to. I use Linux)

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[GaryPatterson]

I completely disagree.

The reply was intelligent and articulate, with swearing only in the last paragraph. If anything, the language shows passion for the issues and frustrations. I think any IT manager worth their salt would feel damned lucky to have someone who knows their stuff, can actually use the English language well and is passionate about their work.

Read the previous post he replied to. That poster would rile up anyone who lives in the real world with actual, Human customers. Apart from calling SatanicPuppy stoned, the AC dropped clangers like "people can learn to use new apps" and "you get resistance if you blow your nose." I'm all for the rise of Linux, but people with attitudes like that help no-one. Users are the entire reason that IT exists in the first place, and anyone who's rolled out any user-facing IT project, even a tiny one (I've done a few), has to deal with a huge amount of inertia on the part of the users. It's not enough just to tell them to go and learn it, you've got to lead them by the hand, show them why this is better, give them real reasons to switch to the new stuff and even change business processes if necessary. Switching from Windows to Linux on the desktop is a mammoth project, and SatanicPuppy is exactly right when he talks about lower-level staff raising show-stoppers. It happens.

Hmm... got a bit carried away there, but that's an issue I've seen too many times - IT staff with no idea how users behave. As someone who's not in IT but has run several IT projects, I know that SatanicPuppy is spot on even though I wish he wasn't (it'd make life so much easier if users did just "learn to use new apps").

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Dr_Barnowl]

nLite requires .NET 2.0 to create an install disk, it doesn't require .NET 2.0 to be present on that disk.

It's not that large anyway. It's a 22.4MB download, so it can't be much more than 60MB installed. A fair fraction of 350MB, yes, but very useful. And much smaller than Java.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Platupous]

I don't think we disagree that the OP had some intelligent comments. . .

Articulate is where our contention lies.

Look, I agree with the OP in many respects, but to see him contaminate the argument with profanity, makes me think he is just some middle level talented IT pro, who could never get leverage with others and wondered why no one listens. Maybe he is not, maybe he is a top of the line man, who is everyones go-to guy, but I will say this: he limits himself when he brings insults and profanity into the game.

With regard to all of the other stuff, I am right there with you. I have been a developer for a modest period of time, and I enjoy tinkering with my environment, so I have the luxury of using whatever OS I need at a given time, and understanding the limitations of them. I bow to IT all the time and I understand their situation, as I have been there and done that too. I laugh at the people who tout linux on the desktop troughout the environment. . . Yeah right.

At any length, we disagree about the profanity, not the arguments. And for the record, I believe that one can convey passion in their writing without the use of profanity, most of the time.

Anyway, I'll give one to you:

The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way. - Mark Twain

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[darkfire5252]

With all the buzz about virtual machines, why not take the Windows operating systems that they use right now and install them in a VM that runs inside of linux? You get linux networking, security, and stability, all while being able to snapshot copies of Windows VMs, have a much more standardized VM than you ever could a workstation.

To put it in terms any CIO could get behind: "Why don't we leverage the capital investment that we already have in our existing IT solution by migrating our systems to a financially viable and historically stable platform while still running our legacy enterprise applications?"

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[old_kennyp]

NT 4.0 is easy to run on any current hardware. It works very well and very fast in a Virtual machine (Vmware) running on a Linux (pick your own flavour)box. Same with Win2k, WinXP, etc I currently run all of these on Vmware Server on Linux with no issues. It is a firewalled network with no inbound rules to any of these hosts so current Patches are not really needed anyway. As long as I have Vmware then I will be able to run these indefinitley

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[gweihir]

Windowsn 98 is not a fair comparison, due to its severe limitations in comparison with XP. XP is not that limited compared to Vista. In fact XP does the job just fine.

As to the support, I guess we will have to see. I consider it quite possible that MS will be forced to support XP a lot longer than they like to. Example: If 50% of XP customers will move to OSX or Linux when support ends, don't you think that MS will extend XP support? Also, there could be legislation that forces them to. It is not unthinkable. Or they may be given the alternative to continue support or open up the source so people can realistically support themselves. It has happened with other products in some countries.

And then there is the fact that predictions do change. And Vistas prediction for market dominance at the moment boil down to "it has allways happened before", but sound less convincing every day.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[dbIII]

I agree. The other day I had a fairly experienced and intelligent user completely reboot his machine due to unexpected spreadsheet formulas in MS Excel running in a virtual machine. Linux got blamed and not the random spreadsheet he picked up from somewhere to adapt for his own use. He didn't check to see that the apparently empty cells had formulas in them. A migration gets problems from the edge of reality even if it is successful.

Openoffice probably could do the job but he has never run it. If he didn't need to run remote apps via X he'd actually be better off with Win2k since even XP in the virtual machine is a bit confusing - and you can't blame the user since there are many situations like this.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[toddestan]

It's more work for the IT department, as you still have to make sure the Windows set ups are secure even if they are virtualized, and you have to make sure the underlying Linux installations are also secure. Probably easier just to get the legacy NT crap working on newer hardware.

Re:Oh, yes, that's what we always say.

[Corporate Troll]

I wouldn't, but there are odd people in this world ;-)

I couldn't care less for IE7 or Office 2007. Been a Firefox and OpenOffice user (on Windows, granted) since the early days. (Firefox when it was still Phoenix and OpenOffice since the 1.0 betas) The point is evidently to move completely to Linux. I pretty much only use opensource programs these days, and a few "free as in beer" programs.

Nothing new.

[Bruzer]

I read the same kind of article when XP came out. People didn't want to leave 2000 to upgrade to XP, and as we all know that happened.

Articles like this don't offer too much insight. IT workers are resistant to change... BIG surprise there.

Re:Nothing new.

[GregPK]

Different though, when 2000 came out it was pretty much everything Microsoft claimed and any transition to it was done with minimal compatability issues. Often times more things worked better after the switch. With XP, in the early years anyways there were some compatability issues. But again and overall users were happier in XP. VISTA comes out, users make the switch and the interface confuses everyone, Including the IT pro's. It has driver issues and backwards compatability issues. Even HP's own basic business systems have more compatability Errors with Vista than with XP. In other cases the interface is easier. But, to do anything advanced requires relearning how to a number of menu's. Things take longer...

Re:Nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

My feeling with XP was that it offered the average 98/ME user a big improvement in stability and security over what they had before by giving them an OS desceneded from NT/2K not from Dos/Win31. But it offered very little to a 2000 user and there wasn't any reason for them to upgrade until Microsoft stopped supporting it. However with Vista what does it gain you to upgrade? I can't see any compelling reason until support is dropped to upgrade. I can see many reasons not to such as the massive investement in new PCs that many workplaces will require.

Re:Nothing new.

[kevmatic]

Not so much. Remember that many many many companies never did switch over to XP from 2k. 2k, last I checked (about a year ago), was still the most wildly used Windows. People act as though XP has 100% entirely replaced every last 2k or something. It hasn't. Adoption wasn't as fast as MS would have liked, and you can see attempts at keeping MS from repeating XP all through Vista's launch.

What I don't remember about XP, either, was mass outcry about XP-only machines and vendors offering downgrade options. I don't remember that one bit.

No, this isn't like the release of XP at all.

I remember when I had 98 and was more or less forced to upgrade (try running 98 on 2Ghz+ hardware). I was EXTREMELY hesitant to upgrade, I mean, 98 was good, right? Games didn't work right, right? DOS stuff? It took me about 5 minutes to love 2k and I never looked back to 98. Trying out Vista, though, for the first time last week (and on the same machine I had tried to run 98 on years ago), the same thing certainly didn't happen. I was never so happy to reboot back into Gentoo before.

Re:Nothing new.

[porcupine8]

Of course, back then, the Apple alternative was a little thing called 10.1 that seemed somewhat interesting, but had yet to be proven (and 10.0 had not exactly been amazing), and most of the apps had to be run in Classic Mode.

Now, the alternative is an OS that rivals Vista in the amount of hype it's gotten and at a bare minimum at least has support for MS Office and Adobe CS products (and has a couple different ways to run your XP/Vista programs if you really need one or two of them).

And, of course, Linux has come a long way as well - in 2001 it definitely was not user-friendly enough to be seen as a viable alternative for a lot of companies. Now not only has it improved its interface in a lot of ways, it has a much better software selection - a lot of office drones can get by just fine on OO.o instead of Office, people are using Firefox instead of IE even in windows, etc.

Everyone keeps saying "the same thing happened with XP" - but it's a different world now than it was when SP came out. No, I don't think Vista is going to be a MS-crushing flop. But when everything shakes out a couple years down the road, I think that the market share figures will definitely look a little different, even if MS still has a majority share.

Re:Nothing new.

[CambodiaSam]

Yes, XP was treated the same until SP2. Once people got over the "How dare you add features as part of a Service Pack!", the dust settled and we were left with a functional OS that was better than 2000. Will Vista be the same after it goes through SP1, or will it end up like Windows NT Service Pack 2, which I seem to have nightmares of for some reason.

The bigger problem is that XP really has turned out to be "Fine" for the majority of the email using public. There just isn't enough value in upgrading everything for your email to have more "Wow" according to MS. For IT, it's DEFINITELY not worth the trouble.

Re:Nothing new.

[AB3A]

I was going to point out the same thing, but for one very critical difference: Back then, most Linux Desktops weren't quite there. It's much closer today.

Today, we have OpenOffice if you don't like the conventional Office 2007. We have many releases of Linux and even BSD that look pretty nice on a desktop. And if you don't want a bloated OS, you can pare this thing down to however little you can manage with.

That's huge. No CIO should ignore it this time. They may still head for Vista. But more and more of them are starting to see that there are real alternatives out there right now. Meanwhile, Vista is looking more and more half baked --and it doesn't even solve many problems that XP had.

Re:Nothing new.

[Cesaro]

There is a major difference though... Almost without exception everyone that made the jump to XP found it to be a better running windows system than what they were previously on (regardless of whether they were previously 95, ME, 2000.) When they made the change they didn't regret it immediately, or 2 months later.

Now jump forward to Vista and almost without exception everyone that made the jump to vista absolutely detests it. Every person I know that runs it just talks about (or actually does) go back to XP. Most immediately but some not until 2 months later when they find some incompatibility issue.

Re:Nothing new.

[bishiraver]

I finally left windows 2000 a month or so ago. I was hardcore, never-gonna-use-xp guy.

Of course, I still am. I just run gutsy gibbon, now :)

Re:Nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much. Remember that many many many companies never did switch over to XP from 2k. 2k, last I checked (about a year ago), was still the most wildly used Windows. People act as though XP has 100% entirely replaced every last 2k or something. It hasn't. Adoption wasn't as fast as MS would have liked, and you can see attempts at keeping MS from repeating XP all through Vista's launch.

This is absolutely true and .Net developers are getting the shaft because .Net 3.0 drops support for Win2k. So if you use .Net for client-side software to be used by large corporations you have little choice but to stay with .Net 2.0. That is the situation the company I work for is in because we use .Net on the client side and our customers are large corporations who still have a lot of Win2k desktops and no plans for upgrading them. But that's what we get for choosing a Microsoft development product (something I wouldn't have chosen myself). At least we don't use any Microsoft products on the server-side (we use Java and Oracle).

Re:Nothing new.

[Winckle]

You raise the point of OS 10.1, which I think is important to note. Apple got rid of their legacy crap for the most part at that time. They finally killed all support for the classic environment with 10.5, however microsoft cannot rid themselves of the ancient crap without breaking many applications that businesses insist on using.

Re:Nothing new.

[Sczi]

Now jump forward to Vista and almost without exception everyone that made the jump to vista absolutely detests it.

Count me among the exceptions then. I moved to Vista on my home pc, my work pc, and my laptop. I like it better than XP, and I'm not the only one.

I think there's a substantial bit of mob mentality clouding the issues here.

Re:Nothing new.

[tji]

> I read the same kind of article when XP came out. People didn't want to leave 2000 to upgrade to XP, and as we all know that happened.

Yeah, and I read similar things when Windows ME was released.

Even Microsoft's BOB product was initially disparaged, and we all know what happened there.

Re:Nothing new.

[trifish]

last I checked (about a year ago), was still the most wildly used Windows.

Windows "most wildly used" OS a year ago? Windows 2000 had about 5.5% a year ago. Now it has only 3%. Source: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5

It has been a negligible obsolete system for many years.

Re:Nothing new.

[JMZero]

Many of these points have already been made, but I'll chime in. I remember the move to XP well. I didn't think it was an amazing upgrade, but:

1. It didn't break any of our internal apps. Vista breaks a few and requires different support procedures for others. Stepping back again, 2000 didn't break any of our apps moving from NT 4.
2. XP had somewhat of a killer app (for a corporate environment) with Remote Assist, which has been a real boon to our support staff.
3. We still didn't jump on in any kind of hurry.

Re:Nothing new.

[dave420]

Vista is selling more than XP was at this time after XP's release, fyi.

Re:Nothing new.

[nine-times]

Actually, loads of people didn't see the point of upgrading to XP, but relatively few had any particular problem with XP.

I mean, really, what does XP offer business users over 2000? Not much. And so no one was all that interested in upgrading. But here's where the situation is different: XP didn't really cause problems. For the most part, Windows XP and Windows 2000 can use the same applications and even drivers. You can even drop all the skins and everything from XP, and there's barely a difference between XP and 2000. So the criticism of XP, that it wasn't sufficiently different from 2000 to justify the upgrade, was also its saving grace, that it wasn't different enough to cause problems.

The whole Vista thing is actually a different situation. Vista *is* different in a bunch of ways, and that means a lot of your Windows 2k/XP hardware and software won't work with Vista, or will have problems. However, none of those differences are actually very helpful.

Re:Nothing new.

[SD-Arcadia]

2k, last I checked (about a year ago), was still the most wildly used Windows. Yup, for cross-dressing orgies, can't beat the 2k experience.. 2k is still the choice for IT people who really know how to use Windows.

Re:Nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read that a lot but it's completely different this time. People don't like Vista. XP wasn't that much different from Win2000 especially in Classic mode which a lot of companies use.
Vista's main feature is the ugly Aero interface which just gets in the way. It's worst feature is the horrendous memory requirements, it's a hog. It requires new hardware upgrades, no OS should do that.
Vista Explorer is just confusing, it's feature rich but confusing, what happened to simplicity of Win2000 and XP?

Most people I know are buying PCs with Vista for their company and wiping Vista to put XP on, or, for now, just ordering XP. Vista is a flop and people will still demand XP drivers, they will be vocal. And if MS push it too hard some people will jump to OS X or GNU/Linux.

Re:Nothing new.

[Firethorn]

Adoption wasn't as fast as MS would have liked, and you can see attempts at keeping MS from repeating XP all through Vista's launch.

And I think that this is killing them. In attempting to make Vista *NEW* and *REQUIRED* and *DIFFERENT*, they broke a number of things, introduced a bunch of annoyances - killing any desire many people have for upgrading... DRM is only one of the annoyances - why would you set up an OS to work *worse* than its predecessor?

Sure, it's prettier - but there are still lots of people who the first thing they do on a new box is set the theme to 'windows classic'. Partially as a consequence, it's also slower - enough slower that a number of people have remarked that their new vista machine is slower than their 2-3 year old XP box.

Menus are all different - I've always hated how MS tends to move settings I need to change deeper into the menu. I mean, WTF do I need a 'wizard' that consists of one screen where I hit next to get to the actual menu?

WinNT was really showing its age when 2k came out, and 98 wasn't an enterprise class system. In comparison to NT/98, 2k was a combination of the best features of both as far as I was concerned*.

XP, at least post SP1, was much the same. I don't have the same feeling about Vista, seeing as how XPSP2 installs still go smoothly; software supports it, etc...

If Vista wanted to be better, serious improvements in interface would have been nice. Improved multimonitor support, the flash cache idea would have been great if other performance hits didn't wipe out the benefits, some general code cleanup, etc...

*May ME burned righteously in hell.

Re:Nothing new.

[fishbowl]

>People didn't want to leave 2000 to upgrade to XP, and as we all know that happened.

The only applications I run that require Windows are audio processing and music synthesis programs. I have several fully dedicated hosts for these applications. I tried upgrading to XP, and found that performance was better, and hardware drivers were more stable, under 2000. Granted, these machines don't connect to the network, don't have *anything* running on them that is not required for the application, and are underclocked in order to run cooler (which means, "quieter").

I experimented with Vista long enough to learn that audio drivers, even for pro-audio devices, are implemented in userspace. There is simply no way I'm even setting foot on that road.

Re:Nothing new.

[sniperdoc]

I guess you don't work in the industry. Yes IT workers are resistant to change, but it's usually because Money... does NOT grow on trees. And that's all this is... a huge waste of money.

Re:Nothing new.

[clustermagnet]

yes, but do you remember such animosity in the air? Or do you remember buying a brand new machine? Yes, hardware had to be upgraded, but not at a such alarming scale... And for what benefit? XP was a leap... vista provides nothing useful... other than blin bling lol E17 still looks better

Re:Nothing new.

[GaryPatterson]

I know of one business I worked in that was entirely Win2K and since the majority of users didn't have Internet access, they wouldn't show up in NetApplications data. I suspect that while XP is still predominant, Win2K numbers are higher than shown in that graph.

Re:Nothing new.

[trifish]

Still nothing but speculation.

Re:Nothing new.

[GaryPatterson]

I agree that my last post was purely anecdotal, but Net Applications data is definitely not representative of all computers, merely those connecting to the Internet. That factors out a lot of business PCs, making any conclusions drawn from it suspect.

Re:Nothing new.

[trifish]

Net Applications measure traffic on the Fortune 500 companies websites. They are as representative as it gets.

Re:Nothing new.

[GaryPatterson]

They are as representative as it gets.

Well that's just not true at all.

I'm saying that there are many business PCs that don't have Internet access, and if you're looking at total Windows licences in existence, you have to understand that proportion. That will affect the stats that Net Applications provides.

In addition you've got the internationally-used PCs that do connect to the Internet but whose users don't go to Fortune 500 sites. That will be a huge factor, and Net Applications doesn't even see them. An example - I'm an Australian, and most likely Net Applications has never factored in my Mac because I may never have visited on of your Fortune 500 sites.

If you're willing to restrict your data set to only the US-based PCs that are actively used on the Internet and view Fortune 500 websites, then Net Applications provides solid data. If you want a broader set (or the full set), then it's just worthless. It only sees a subset, and provides no real information on the complete set.

Re:Nothing new.

[trifish]

You in Australia don't use top sites like Yahoo, Microsoft and the likes? I think you do.

More legacy than stability

[techpawn]

Honestly for me, the number of applications that would just stop working or would need to be coaxed to run on Vista that would make it unstable is far more of an administrative headache than I know I'm willing to deal with at HOME let alone from Joe User who know how to turn a computer on and swears that when an icon is gone the application is missing...

Re:More legacy than stability

[NSIM]

Honestly for me, the number of applications that would just stop working or would need to be coaxed to run on Vista that would make it unstable is far more of an administrative headache than I know I'm willing to deal with

And just what those applications be, I can honestly say that I've not had a single application fail to run in Vista, and I have a fairly extensive collection installed.

Re:More legacy than stability

[Anonymous Coward]

I've not had one problem with Vista. I guess not being an idiot must be part of the equation.

Carry on.

Re:More legacy than stability

[techpawn]

There is quite a number of small third party applications my users use on a daily basis that are not Vista compatible. If you run EVERYTHING as Microsoft and with the latest/greatest hardware/software I'd assume you'd have no problems. I've had enough problems getting Creative Media Drivers to work on Vista laptop for personal use and I don't want to attempt anything like that at the enterprise level.

It's the risk/reward aspect that I see has a hard sell right now. When our vendors can produce applications that can run Vista we may go up that road, until then I know I'm pushing for XP Pro environment.

Re:More legacy than stability

[Sczi]

And just what those applications be, I can honestly say that I've not had a single application fail to run in Vista, and I have a fairly extensive collection installed.

I've had similar results, and I'm using x64 just to complicate things. I had problems with a game that used Starforce copy protection, which as I understand it actually installs a "driver" to implement the protection, and of course x64 is picky about drivers. But rather than fight with it, I said to hell with a game company that wants to install a driver on my system just to play a game. Same thing with shareware, a few shareware programs would install but then required administrator to launch the app, so I said nevermind. UAC (and having a better idea of what your machine is actually doing), ftw. I also had some 3rd party app screw up Windows Media Player (wish I knew which one), and it stayed broken for a while (all my usual alternatives worked perfectly, so no biggie), but then WMP just started working again, so I guess Microsoft fixed it.

Re:More legacy than stability

[Anonymous Coward]

He won't tell you what they are because he hasn't tried them on Vista yet. He's just guessing or buying into the FUD going around about Vista breaking this, not working that.

Re:More legacy than stability

[techpawn]

He won't tell you what they are because he hasn't tried them on Vista yet. He's just guessing or buying into the FUD going around about Vista breaking this, not working that.

Fine. Want a specific? Salesforce offline sync. And one application failing for our sales staff because of upgrade is more than enough.

Different things

[Slashidiot]

It's different what IT proffessionals think to what will happen. Who makes choices? The guy with the money, and withouth the knowledge. It's important to see that distinction, as it will take a loooong time to convince the people with the money that microsoft is not the best option. But at least it feels good that almost unanimously the IT people feel Vista is crap.

Re:Different things

[walt-sjc]

Depends. If you are in a company where the decision makers are clueless, this can happen. Wouldn't want to work there however. Better, sell short.

Re: Different things

[Black Parrot]

it will take a loooong time to convince the people with the money that microsoft is not the best option. The people with the money are the ones that get most upset about having to shell out for "upgrades".

Re:Different things

[rabbers]

Do IT people feel / think Vista is "crap". I've been developing systems in IT for about 20 years now, I run Vista 64bit, as do many of my colleagues. To date the only problem I had (and still have) is that there is no VPN support for my firewall, this would be a showstopper issue - although I have managed to work round it. I would agree that Vista is a great example of "Marketing over substance" i.e. you don't really get a great deal extra for your money - but it is not "crap".

Re: Different things

[Dunbal]

Kinda by definition, the people with the money are always the ones who end up having to pay for things. Which is why they're always looking for ways to make more money! It's not greed, it's survival :)

Re:Different things

[Dunbal]

As a day-trader, your logic escapes me :)

Stock prices often have no connection with reality, and shorting stock on the basis of clueless management alone is rather risky (except in the very long term). Don't worry though, if it looks volatile enough I'll buy it and short it several times today :)

Re:Different things

[paj1234]

The guy with the money, and without the knowledge - has to ask us for advice.

Re:Different things

[cyphercell]

"Marketing over substance" ... is not "crap"

Your logic escapes me.

I hate to re-post this but,....

[AbRASiON]

Please, don't mod down, just don't mod up if you don't like re-posts? How's that for a deal.
Vista's flaw isn't it's lack of a service pack it's the complete lack of THOUGHT in the design of the operating system.
The user interface is quite simply, messy - it's appalling, frustrating, confusing and slow.

Re-post below, sorry but damnit if it's not on topic and fitting (mind the language, I was pissed off when I wrote it)
(I wonder if Microsoft chumps read this site, I can post this all I want but how do I get these darn issues addressed, where do I post this to tell these idiots to wake the hell up?)
Anyhow, here goes..

First off, this post and my subsequent replies, my "general whinge with the OS"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=304745&cid=20695969 [slashdot.org]

Then in a little bit more detail
(crosspost of a post I made on a forum not more than 24 hours ago, I finally documented precisely why Vista Explorer shits me to tears)
Warning: Bad language ahead.

Why does Windows Vista insist on a startup sound, despite me disabling all sounds, they are turned off but it does one at startup, I like quiet and what if I don't want to wake people up?

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, I may have railed on Vista for performance problems, specifically in Crysis, you do need to give a new operating system a 'pass' for a while, let it settle in (it's nearly been a year though!!!)

My beef still sits with Windows Explorer, something I use daily, a lot at work and home, I need it clean, simple and easy to get data into my face as quick as possible so I can react as quickly as possible (yes, I sorry to big note but I am, *that* quick on the keyboard and when working with files)

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/argh01.jpg [shackspace.com]
Apply to all folders won't let me save the options for "Computer" (My Computer) or Desktop, this is annoying.
also, fuck the breadcrumbs bar, in the ASSSSS

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/argh02.jpg [shackspace.com]
That motherfucker 'task pane' which is taking space up from my damn explorer view.
Sure, I found some website suggesting I shrink the size of it (yay) but I can still accidentally click the bastard, plus it still looks messy.

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/argh03.jpg [shackspace.com]
Mofo! I accidentally clicked it, see explanation of why it eats babies in the JPG itself.

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/whywhy01.jpg [shackspace.com]
Those little box pluses, I like them, why take them away? It's confusing and slowing down the amount of data I can take in per 'scene' I need info and you're witholding it, just so you can pretend you're neater than you actually are.

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/whywhy02.jpg [shackspace.com]
Ahh my boxes are back, this is good, also more cluttered shit.

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/wtf01.jpg [shackspace.com]
You call this a save as dialogue box?
I hit shift tab twice (yes, I do often, try it people) to navigate quickly to where I normally would on XP.
I slap backspace like 10 times fast, this should ensure I'm at desktop, almost instantly (shift tab x2 and backspace x10 takes me 1 second)
Does it work? no, of course it doesn't you breadcrumb whores.

soooo I hit browse

http://abrasion.shackspace.com/lolsta/wtf02.jpg [shackspace.com] oh oh
Hot jesus, make the fucking hurting stop!
This is one of the best reasons WHY I can't deal, look at it

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is off-topic, but:

mind the language, I was pissed off when I wrote it If you have the presence of mind to notice that your post includes unnecessary foul language, then you have the presence of mind to go through that post and remove the words. (Alternately, if you think the swearing is crucial to the point you're trying to make, then say so and don't claim "I was pissed off when I wrote it.")

Many of the points you make are valid, and mixing in plenty of swear words only dilutes your emphasis.

(And, yes, I'm prepared for replies like: "Hypocrite! You labeled your comment as 'off-topic' but then submitted it anyway!")

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[AbRASiON]

Actually some of it was for comical affect, further to that the 'fucking' 'shit' 'motherfucker!' was put on the .JPG's not just the post - so more difficult to remove.

If you work in IT and can't appreciate a good motherfucker now and then, (Especially as a Windows user) you're a sheltered man.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be prejudiced, but I have a hard time taking somebody seriously as an IT professional when they have a disk partition just for porn.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[AbRASiON]

Hey, I'm a slashdot user, shouldn't I have a 3TB san for it?
(P.S that drive holds re-direct my documents, games, cd images for said games, mp3's, a 'temp' directory AND porn)

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[nogginthenog]

I'm with you on all those Explorer issues. Another thing that bugs me is when Vista see a BMP in a folder and thinks 'Gee in amongst these 100 C source files theres a file called companylogo.bmp. Hey, he must be looking at his holiday pictures! I'll helpfully add 'resolution' and 'date picture taken' columns'.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[AbRASiON]

Oh lovely that post is marked as a troll?
I mean I can understand over-rated but troll?
Have we got more fresh moderators from Digg on the site have we?

Please, bring on the moderators with a cluestick for goodness sakes.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Burnhard]

Classic! Mod parent funny ;)

Re: I hate to re-post this but,....

[Black Parrot]

Vista's flaw isn't it's lack of a service pack it's the complete lack of THOUGHT in the design of the operating system. Oh, *that's* new.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[ErikZ]

How can you work with technology WITHOUT swearing?

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know any good IT professionals without a pr0n partition. But I do know plenty of bad ones.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Dunbal]

Your UID is low enough that you should be used to this crap from the mods by now :)

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid to ask where you hide your porn, oh, lemme guess - in a subdirectory to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and you've set the hidden attribute on it? Give the guy a break, we all have a porn-stash but at least he isn't embarrased about it ;)

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you shut the fuck up shitglutton

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, I loathe doing development work on Vista for such reasons. I mean, WTH? Didn't any Vista programmers give their two cents during its development phase, or was usability feedback left to family members of Microsoft management: "Dad, I think you should make it this way ... it would be so much cooler".

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

I like that word, shitglutton, is that like a windows fanboi? :)

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[ToeSide]

Excellent post, language and all. It is important to be passionate about what matters to you. The Explorer development team at MS needs to have your screenshots blanketing their whiteboards and their mouses unplugged.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[eegeerg]

Thank you AbRASiON. Great post.

I like my windows explorer to act rationally: Details view. Don't save settings per directory. Make settings like current.

Basically, I want explorer to look the same, no matter which directory I go to. Last weekend I found that Vista ignores my settings, and changes into icon mode when it finds directories which have different "Sharing" attributes. Huh???

I think my wife was surprised. She said, "Wow, even you swear at the computer!"

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not for porn, it's for games AND porn!

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[theurge14]

Good gravy that's an ugly, ugly interface.

Now excuse me while I hug my OS X again.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[kybred]

How can you work with technology WITHOUT swearing? amen.

You know that old saying:

You never really learn to swear until you learn how to drive.

I think that needs to be:

You never really learn to swear until you learn how to drive or use computers.

Re:I hate to re-post this but,....

[Lisandro]

I may be prejudiced, but I have a hard time taking somebody seriously as an IT professional when they have a disk partition just for porn.

Funny, i have a hard time imagining somebody seriously as an IT professional without a disk partition just for porn.

And yes, i speak from experience :)

Taking numbers out of context? bad survey?

[DraconPern]

May be it's just a bad survey. How is it possible that 45% say system management prevent migration when all the platforms have management tools? The complete lack of application compatibility concerns makes me think this survey is bunk.

90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything NEW

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

Any good IT professional lives by the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' adagium, so what's new?

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

If u stay in XP remember "resistance is futile u will be assimilated"

As for XP->Linux && your a gamer remember "DUDE WHERES MY GAMES"

As for XP->Linux and not gamer... wtf were u doing in XP all this time?

One obvious note

[mach1980]

IMHO you should read it as 90% of the IT-professionals believes that MS released Vista to early and hence the problems with stability.

On the positive side is that many will at least try Ubuntu or similar before switching from XP to Vista. That's gotta be worth something...

Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[Infonaut]

44% are considering moving to another operating system. That's so broad as to be almost useless. "Considering" could mean:

• We've never even thought about other OSes, and we've just picked up our first copy of LinuxWorld magazine to see what all the fuss is about.
• We're really annoyed with Vista. We've started paying more attention to those Apple ads.
• We've started to do some actual cost comparisons between the various options, including Macs, all flavors of Windows, and Linux.
• We're trying out some Macs on a test basis, and we've installed Linux on an old laptop just to see if it's a viable option.
• We're in discussions with the folks at Apple Enterprise Sales to see what kind of price they can give us for our exact requirements.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[porcupine8]

The article breaks it down a little bit more:

"Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year," the report "Windows Vista Adoption and Alternatives" reads.

So about a third of that 44% have at least made it past your first two stages, and some of those are in the final stage.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're trying out some Macs on a test basis, and we've installed Linux on an old laptop just to see if it's a viable option.

I can see how "seriously" you're taking Linux as an option.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[essinger]

According to TFA 44% considered alternatives. Not the same as 44% are considering. I considered having oatmeal for breakfast this morning, but I had eggs instead. We don't know how many of the 44% are still considering. Since that the survey was paid for by a Microsoft management competitor which touts its ability to integrate Linux into Windows environments I would guess only that third still are.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[porcupine8]

Direct quote:

The survey, echoing one from Forrester last week, shows most IT professionals are worried about Vista and that 44% have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid the Microsoft migration.

"Have considered" is present perfect tense, not past tense, and is more nebulous when it comes to the time frame. But the grammar lesson isn't the main point.

They are clearly using it to refer both to people who are in the process of switching AND people who considered it at some point in the past - if they weren't, then saying that 9% of these people are in the process of switching would be complete nonsense. Yes, most likely a significant portion have given up on switching - but you cannot say that it's the entire 2/3 who are not switching in the next year based on what it says in the article. Sure, you can guess, but the article does not say one way or the other.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[xivulon]

There is a bit more detail if you bother reading:

"with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year".

Which means that 34%*44% = 15% are switching as we speak... Which is quite remarkable.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[SpaghettiPattern]

44% are considering moving to another operating system. That's so broad as to be almost useless. "Considering" could mean:

• We've never even thought about other OSes, and we've just picked up our first copy of LinuxWorld magazine to see what all the fuss is about.
• We're really annoyed with Vista. We've started paying more attention to those Apple ads.
• We've started to do some actual cost comparisons between the various options, including Macs, all flavors of Windows, and Linux.
• We're trying out some Macs on a test basis, and we've installed Linux on an old laptop just to see if it's a viable option.
• We're in discussions with the folks at Apple Enterprise Sales to see what kind of price they can give us for our exact requirements.

You forgot one:

• We don't really want to change but when we say we look at anything different than Windows we get rebates from MS.

Same holds for IBM z/OS. Tell them you are seriously considering Linux or zLinux and see the reps fly in. Not so many of us are in the position of experiencing nervous IBM reps. I can tell you it's fun to watch.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[Dunbal]

That's so broad as to be almost useless.

      Surveys (which is the data collection method used) are always very general and fairly useless. They can, when used correctly, help to identify general trends. However in the scientific community a survey is the weakest form of "evidence" since they tend to be tainted with subjective data. Actually looking at companies and tracking OS changes in a prospective manner as they happen would provide more accurate information, but this requires time, money and cooperation from everyone involved. So we're stuck with surveys. Read them with a pinch of salt.

      As a side note, I always laugh at politicians who get all excited/upset about a .5% shift in the "polls". As if it means anything.

Re:Yes, but what does "considering" mean?

[Just Some Guy]

44% are considering moving to another operating system.

The big news is that it's up from roughly 0% 5 years ago. Seriously, how many people would be seriously considering anything but Windows in the recent past?

Where is the haha tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously

XP was a different story...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because the main reason why big league IT didn't care to switch to XP when it came out is because it was only an unnecessary expense but didn't break anything. Windows 2000 was doing the job just fine and XP would do that same exact job just fine too, without a huge learning curve and a bunch of things deliberately broken. In the end, XP won out because as desktop machines got replaced in the normal replacement cycle, XP came on those new desktop machines.

Vista has a huge learning curve, plus it breaks a lot of stuff.

Re:XP was a different story...

[jimicus]

Twaddle.

Any significant IT department will either order systems pre-imaged to their requirements (Dell offer such a service), or re-image systems with their own company-specific image before they're sent out.

The big killer has always been driver support. Once the likes of HP, Lenovo and Dell are shipping PCs with significantly better driver support in Vista than in XP, then we shall see more adoption of Vista.

Re:XP was a different story...

[walt-sjc]

Business models of systems will have good drivers for XP for a very long time because large enterprise customers will demand it. Dell / HP doesn't have a choice.

Re:XP was a different story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever looked inside a business class machine? You have 1 (one) motherboard with an Intel chipset, 1 (one) Intel CPU, either an Intel or Broadcom network controller (on board) and one of Intel (on board), nVidia or ATI el-cheapo bottom of the range video.

I don't think I'm going to have a hard time finding Windows XP drivers for any of that in the next, ohhh, ten years or so. The most random component in any business machine is the audio, and 75% of the time that's an Intel i8xx or HDA component anyway. The other 25% of the time I don't care if your soundcard works, because it's a business machine!

Seriously, a business machine from any vendor is the very definition of generic.

Re:XP was a different story...

[dave420]

No, XP threw up a whole host of compatibility issues, just as Vista is doing now. Vista will appear on more and more desktops as time goes on, just as XP did. The software vendors will have to update their sloppy code to work on Vista, and eventually we'll be were we were with XP when it was the de facto desktop OS.

And, btw, Vista does not have a huge learning curve - I picked it up in an afternoon, and I'm still searching for a reason to go back to XP. You can even make it run practically identical to XP by configuring a few options (if the computer is on an active directory, that can be done automatically).

MS blunder

[rice_burners_suck]

If you read my journal, you'll see that my latest post is an expansion of my sig. You see, Microsoft's motto used to be "Where do you want to go today?" If that were still the case today, I think it would be a multiple choice question, and the choices would be:

• Mac OS X (Server or traditional version)
• Linux (pick your favorite distro)
• *BSD (pick your favorite distro)
• Other UNIX system.

The ironic thing is that all of these alternative OSes are UNIX-based or UNIX-like.

Back to my sig and journal, I haven't used Windows on my own computers for a number of years now, but I do administer a number of XP machines for my employer. This is soon to change as we are seriously considering a move to the Mac platform for all of this company's computers, and for the two must-have Windows-only applications that we use on only two of our machines, we will install VMware and run XP in a virtual machine. We have been testing this configuration for a number of months now and it is rock solid. Not only that, but these two apps are major engineering applications with four and five digit price tags, and although the versions we use are 7 years old, they do the job we need them to do and no upgrade is necessary, so it will be unnecessary for us to switch to Vista any time soon.

We did evaluate Vista when it first came out. The evaluation was a short one because we immediately recognized that MS made a big blunder with Vista. To begin with, the installer took forever to load, and then gleefully told us, in shiny letters on a colorful background, how Windows Vista saves you time, as if to say that if the Installer works this slowly, wait 'till you see the operating system! Once the system was up and running, it became quite apparent that it was a joke. We realized that if we were to embrace Vista, it would mean replacing all of our computers, training most of the employees who use them due to the interface's heavy changes, and have many issues with speed, compatibility, and integration. In short, the cost would be horrendous, and at the end of the day, we couldn't find any justification for this expense, even if we tried.

That is the bottom line. Tremendous cost; no benefit. This is Microsoft's blunder. They simply can't keep forcing upgrades because XP does everything that most businesses need from an operating system, and the course MS should have taken is one of incremental improvements. Had they spent the last five years fixing bugs, cleaning up code, optimizing the bottlenecks of the system, tightening up security, and providing new features slowly and incrementally, they would probably have Windows XP with instant search and a database file system working by now. The only additional misfeature that Vista provides is its incredibly ugly, slow, and resource hogging interface, and we want no part of that. In fact, we run all our XP machines without the Luna interface because we think that's ugly as well.

Re:MS blunder

[dave420]

It's not ironic that all the other OSs are *nix. I don't think it means what you think it does.

As for Vista, we tried it out in our company, and it's fine for our uses. All our software works on it, the performance is more than impressive, administration costs are down (due to it being far more configurable when participating on an active directory).

The installer takes a time because of what it's actually doing. If you've been trying it out at your company, you obviously have read the literature describing what it's doing as it's installing. Vista was made to gain performance as it's used. The installation procedure sets up a computer with an almost infinite number of ways it can be used, and as you use them Vista reconfigures itself (precaching various applications to memory at a certain time, etc.). So, the installer is slow because it's only installed once. After that, the performance increases greatly. It's better that way than having a quick installer, and feeling the repercussions of that haste later on. If you don't like the interface's changes, you can make it function almost exactly like Windows XP, or even 2000. You can turn off the new GUI, you can turn off the new security features (if you so desire). You can even do all that via Active Directory, so the users don't even know it's being done. The difference between Vista and XP is slight when compared to the difference between XP and any other non-Windows operating system. Speed is not an issue, as I've said before, Vista's performance increases as it's used. It gets used to what the users are doing, and organises itself around that. It uses available memory far more intelligently, using as much as it can for as much speed as possible, relinquishing it when other applications need it. Older machines work fine with it, and indeed from my experience get a new lease of life with it.

So, there is great benefit to Vista, and the cost isn't that great. The fact Vista's sales are out-pacing XP's at the same point after XP's release speaks volumes.

Re:MS blunder

[Anonymous Coward]

we are seriously considering a move to the Mac platform for all of this company's computers

We realized that if we were to embrace Vista, it would mean replacing all of our computer ok.

Re:MS blunder

[squallbsr]

Anybody else think that the Luna theme looks like it came from the Fisher-Price toy factory?

Re:MS blunder

[rice_burners_suck]

Perhaps I misunderstand you. Is your post supposed to be modded +5 Funny? This is a serious question.

Re:MS blunder

[rice_burners_suck]

Very observant of you and, yes, we know that a switch to the Mac platform requires buying all new computers. However, there is a difference. We believe that buying new computers and spending tons of money on training costs to "upgrade" to Windows Vista will provide no benefit. However, we believe that by upgrading our Celeron-class machines to iMacs, we will have some training costs (although much less than for Windows Vista) and we will have many benefits.

• iMacs take up much less room than the computers we currently have, and provide more screen real estate.
• iMacs look freakin' cool, especially the new aluminum and glass ones, which resemble Apple's other "pro" equipment in their appearance. While this benefit is a small one, it will make our offices look much better and more technologically advanced in a way.
• Macs are fun to use.
• Macs are easier to use than PCs.
• With Mac OS X we will have Spotlight for instant searching.
• The Macs will allow us to provide UNIX-based software that we've wanted to provide for our employees for some time.
• Using programs like Aperture and iWork will allow our staff to increase their productivity way beyond what they're currently capable of.
• Security.
• Many others...

Re:MS blunder

[dave420]

No, it's an honest account. But please feel free to joke instead of engaging my response. It does wonders for my argument.

Re:MS blunder

[rice_burners_suck]

My intention was not to joke instead of engaging your response. I simply don't believe that any MS product will actually speed up over time. In my experience, their products have a tendency to accumulate entropy as you run the system and slow down over time.

Perhaps some things in Vista are designed to learn from the user and make adjustments accordingly to certain system parameters. I'll accept that but I still don't believe anything will speed up over time because the effects of this will, IMO, be more than cancelled out by the effects of all the garbage that tends to find its way into peoples' Windows-based machines.

Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, Vista is Microsoft's fastest product launch ever, and easily has exceeded XP's sales at the same point:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070517/ai_n19115496

And MS reported a 27% surge in revenue on strong Vista sales:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2207551,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000610

It's really only on Slashdot that it's a failure.

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and we should have a Vista parade to drum up support for this totally worthy, non-suckass software! I promise to dress up as a drum major, smile broadly, and say really upbeat slogans! Vista all the way! Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud with stats and experience! Get on the number one team and go in for the big win! There's no way that the world's third-largest corporation could be wrong! They would never stoop to astroturfing or strong-arming tactics! Vista's fast product launch and confetti and rock star endorsements are all evidence of QUALITY and INEVITABILITY! Yay!

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[DarkAce911]

That is because everyone is buy Vista licenses and downgrading to XP.

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be careful with these numbers. Do they count only what was sold to consumers or do they count what was shipped to stores?

If MS is counting all the Vista boxes sold to stores like Best Buy that are still on the shelves, then it is possible that the adoption rate is still low but the financial numbers are high.

From MS point of view, if Best Buy already payed for those copies, MS got the money and they can report it in their financial statements.

Also, lets not forget all the new computers that are shipped with Vista pre-installed unless the buyer explicitly asks for another OS. How many new PCs have been sold since January?

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[LingNoi]

I assume those statistics are for people buying vista by itself in the store right? Not including vista sales from pre-installed computers.

How many people have you heard that got their free copy of Vista from their school or college? How many people got Vista with their new computer and then installed XP?

Now how many people did you hear actually went and BOUGHT Vista? Yeah, that's what I thought..

Wow, they sold 40 million copies, but how many did they sell for $0?

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Volante3192]

I remember those numbers being posted before about exceeding XP sales.

If I think back, wasn't that because people were redeeming all their Vista vouchers that they accumulated the past four months from OEM systems? Remember, the whole "Free Vista upgrade!" deal?

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Spad]

I don't think you can really use those "sales" figures as a meaningful metric when the vast majority of copies "sold" are actually bundled with a new PC whether the buyer wants (or knows about) it or not.

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Technopaladin]

Lets not forget COMPELLED Vista sales, through HP, Dell, and so on. More people buying more PC's mean More Vista.

Every year more and more colleges Require Laptops/PCs thats a pretty big influx of new OS sales.

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[Dunbal]

and easily has exceeded XP's sales at the same point

Of course more computers get sold nowadays, too. Adjusted figures would make more sense.

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[gilboad]

"And yet, Vista is Microsoft's fastest product launch ever, and easily has exceeded XP's sales at the same point:"

As always, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

A. The PC market has expanded, somewhat, in the 6 years since XP was released. In essence Microsoft might actually sell more copies of Vista (compared to XP) and still have slower shipment rate (number of vista copies sold/total number of machines shipped + total number of operating system sold).
B. My employer just bought a large number of new laptops. All of them came with Windows Vista pre-installed.
-All- of them were ordered with XP... but as weird as it sounds, you get Vista pre-installed, and a downgrade kit.
Let me venture and guess that in MS' books these machines were written off as Vista machines.

- Gilboa

Re:Vista is MS's fastest product launch ever

[gilboad]

s/books these machines were written off as Vista machines/books these machines as Vista machines/g

makes no sense to me...

[pablo_max]

"A survey by King Research has found that Ninety percent of IT professionals have concerns using Vista, with compatibility, stability and cost being their key reasons. Interestingly, forty four percent of companies surveyed are considering switching to non-Windows operating systems........." That statement makes no sense at all. If you list compatibility as a big reason for not taking vista, but then say you think to switch to a non-windows OS which is completely incompatible with your current apps?? What gives? I am guessing like like my employer, most business rely on some kind of customer software suite. Something written for windows. In my case, its a special database management program. There is no chance it would work on a Mac or Linux (tries wine myself ;)). We have also tried it on vista and it does work, but not always. That is the reason we dont switch. That is the reason when we get a laptop with vista, we stick on XP pro and will continue to do so until windows 7.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[essinger]

"A survey by King Research has found that Ninety percent of IT professionals have concerns using Vista, with compatibility, stability and cost being their key reasons. Interestingly, forty four percent of companies surveyed are considering switching to non-Windows operating systems........." That statement makes no sense at all.

This is because (shock) Slashdot editors manipulated the survery findings to make things seem worse for Windows than they really are.(/shock) The survey said 44% considered (past-tense) switching OSs. Of that number 2/3 have already dismissed the idea outright. Only 9% of the original 44% have taken any steps to do so. So about 4%.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[porcupine8]

Where does it say that 2/3 of them have decided not to switch? It says that 44% have considered (present perfect, not past tense) it, 25% of those expect to switch in the next year, and 9% of them are already switching. It does NOT say anything about the status of the other 2/3 of the 44% - they may have just started thinking about it but not made any decisions, they may have abandoned the idea, they may be serious about it but think they're more than a year away from actually getting the new machines. Yes, I'm sure that a good chunk have abandoned it, but it does not say that in the article.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[LingNoi]

It makes sense if you're looking at the options...

Vista - Breaks compatibility, Is expensive, Means upgrading or purchasing new equipment, having to purchase extra applications after install

Ubuntu - Breaks compatibility, Is free or cheaper with professional 24x7 support, doesn't require upgrading or purchasing new equipment.

Macintosh - Breaks compatibility, requires purchasing new equipment, possibility of having to purchase extra applications?

All three OS choices break compatibility. Since this is a the case it means companies are looking at OS's on a level playing field and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[pablo_max]

you forgot one... XP Pro... Keeps compatibility, you already have the license and you dont need to buy new hardware. Why switch?? There are no real reasons.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought, if a company is going to have to deal with computability issues, they will probably consider the OS switch at the same time. Do I pay to stay on this merry go round or get off and pay to ride the tilt a whirl? Either is going to take an operating system refresh, an application upgrade and user training. How are my dollars best spent? Am I going to be stuck doing this again in another 2 years?

Re:makes no sense to me...

[essinger]

I just replied to another post of yours. :) As I said above, "Since that the survey was paid for by a Microsoft management competitor which touts its ability to integrate Linux into Windows environments I would guess only that third still are." But you are right, I don't know that. But if you look at the linked article in the survey by the Forrester Research even that mere third of 44% is highly dubious. Forrester, which is (to put it kindly) a more respected company, estimates that in the enterprise space "Linux and Mac have 1 percent or 2 percent, and in some cases, such as Europe and the largest corporations, they don't even register."

Re:makes no sense to me...

[ozmanjusri]

This is because (shock) Slashdot editors manipulated the survery findings to make things seem worse for Windows than they really are.

I wrote the article, and apart from formatting, it was posted unedited.

Of that number 2/3 have already dismissed the idea outright.

From TFA:

"Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year," I don't believe what I have written misrepresents the article in any way.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[porcupine8]

They only have 1-2% right now - which means that if they get only 9% of that 44%, they will have tripled their market share. If they manage to get the whole 25% that claims to be switching in the next year, they'll have 16-17% total, which while not nearly enough to knock MS out of the ring, is certainly a shakeup. Look what happened when Firefox approached those numbers - lots of websites that had claimed to be IE-only started paying attention (though not all), MS actually got around to updating IE, etc. If non-Windows OSes managed to get above 10% share in the business world, it would not be insignificant, even though Forrester's prediction of MS "winning out" would still be true.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[LingNoi]

Indeed, there's no reason to switch, but for the businesses that are planning for the future you can see why some might be hesitant about going with Microsoft again.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[essinger]

Well, I guess you got me. Clearly the Slashdot headline isn't misleading. And it's way off the mark to imply that King research is spinning its survey to the best benefit of its client. I feel ashamed to admit that I even consider that 9% of 44% to include companies adding even one Linux server. That can't be happening because the article clearly states switching. We all know what switching means. There is no middle ground. So heck, why not just say that since 44% might just plausibly be considering switching, that non-Windows OSes might just climb to 46% of the enterprise market next year. A 4000% increase! Yes, no question, they have "big mo."

Re:makes no sense to me...

[essinger]

I don't believe what I have written misrepresents the article in any way.

I believe you. But changing "have considered" to "are considering" does make a difference. Look at how I got jumped on for changing "have considered" to "considered." And those denotatively mean the same thing.

Re:makes no sense to me...

[porcupine8]

What a superbly mature reply. Good job. You really made your case.

Re:Taking numbers out of context? bad survey?

[Anonymous Coward]

May be it's just a bad survey. How is it possible that 45% say system management prevent migration when all the platforms have management tools? The complete lack of application compatibility concerns makes me think this survey is bunk.

"A survey by King Research has found that Ninety percent of IT professionals have concerns using Vista, with compatibility, stability and cost being their key reasons"

The concerns about Vista specified by participants were overwhelmingly related to stability. Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista," said Diane Hagglund of King Research, which conducted the survey for systems management vendor Kace. "Cost was also cited as a concern by some respondents." you were saying something about lack of application compatability concerns?

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[DoofusOfDeath]

Any good IT professional lives by the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' adagium, so what's new?

I think you missed the part where it said the companies were currently running XP.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[elhondo]

I've only been in IT for around 15 years, but I've NEVER met an IT professional who didn't want to deploy something new. Not everything, but something. To a large degree, it's sort of why they pay us.

Broken record

[Billosaur]

Didn't this happen with Windows 2000? And Windows XP? Of course nobody wants to change to Vista! Everybody has an Windows OS that's working for them right now, they've invested a lot of time, effort, and money into it to get it working, and they don't want have to go though all the headaches with a brand new OS. Vista's problems aside, this just make sense from an IT standpoint -- changing to a new OS it time and money intensive.

Re:Broken record

[vadim_t]

Actually, not really.

Win2K at least here was adopted quite enthusiastically. Win95/98/ME had many problems, including frequent crashes and GDI/USER resource exhaustion. Want to run two copies of something big like 3D Studio Max? In Win9x you couldn't, because it used more than half of the USER/GDI resources that were available. Plus that sometimes leaked. Every techie I know got Win2K very fast, and the local geeks distributed pirated CDs to all their friends because it cut down on the amount of times people asked them to help with computer problems.

WinXP in my experience wasn't nowhere as well received, but wasn't that negative. It doesn't seem to have the Vista stigma. Here we're still on Win2K. But the reasons not to upgrade to XP and not to upgrade to Vista are different.

XP simply doesn't add anything very necessary for what we use it here. So upgrading would be pretty much a waste of time and increase hardware requirements. My attitude to XP is pretty much "Well, eh, it's pretty, but why bother". Now if I was replacing all the hardware at once I probably wouldn't have much against it.

Now Vista has a real reputation of being a bad deal. Dramatic increase of system requirements, new IT issues to deal with, compatibility issues... unlike XP it doesn't just not add anything I couldn't live without, but it also brings a whole heap of new problems, which is the real problem with it.

Coworker recently bought a laptop and brought it here. We booted it up and started messing with it. Two hours later we both concluded "Ugh, what a pain in the ass". I think he's going to install XP on it now.

Re:Bury!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you see the irony in claiming that a survey is false or FUD and that it should be censored but with absolutely no supporting evidence of your own against it?

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[timeOday]

To me it seems there is less excitement and slower uptake of Vista than previous MS releases. If true, that is new.

Office

[CaptScarlet22]

Until a version Office only works on Vista, there is no reason to upgrade from XP for businesses.

And thats only if the new Office is damm good!!

We won't be switching any time soon...I'll make sure of that.

Re:Office

[Dunbal]

And thats only if the new Office is damm good!!

      Or until they change the file format so much that your (older) version of office can't read their newer files anymore, so you'll be "forced" to upgrade.

      Gee, I wonder if changing the file format once in a while can generate more profit for Microsoft... not that your spreadsheet data will be much different, but let's write it back to front this time in the new format, and see what happens. Pay the tax, please.

Re:Office

[Serge_Tomiko]

I can think of more than a few businesses that could benefit from having more than 3 gigs of ram. I use Vista 64-bit edition for this very reason myself. I believe your are underestimating the importance of 64-bit Windows OS with broad hardware support.

Uh...No.

[SatanicPuppy]

I've been working IT for a long time, and I've NEVER liked a new operating system. New == Problems.

Unless there is a damn compelling reason, I'll stay with what is working and working well until the new thing has been out for a good while...Hell, I know shops that are still migrating to XP and while I think they're behind the times, they're not alone in that.

If you migrate up just because something new is out...That's just foolish. You're adding a fricking ton to your workload, and for no good reason.

Re:Uh...No.

[WPIDalamar]

I think the biggest problem with Vista is there is no compelling reason to upgrade for business users.

It's prettier. But that's about it.

Re:Uh...No.

[wattrlz]

I think the biggest problem with Vista is there is no compelling reason to upgrade for business users.

It's prettier. But that's about it. Prettier seems to be a huge reason for most of the end user business customers I've known. Of course that's what IT departments are for, reigning in the baser instincts of management and end users vis-a-vis technology, but it's still been my experience that most people want the prettiest thing that still runs word and power point, utility be damned.

Re:Uh...No.

[jnbszabo]

Well... it does find network printers by itself and in general has far more network savvy than ole' XP. I had similar feelings about Office 07 vs 03 but now they both feel a bit dated.

Re:Uh...No.

[Lord Ender]

The compelling reason is: Senior management demands it because they read it was better in CIO Magazine and they don't trust IT's cost/benefit analysis judgment.

Re:Uh...No.

[oliverthered]

then why not upgrade to a Mac or Even Linux with a 3d desktop.

Re:Uh...No.

[PurPaBOO]

Network savvy? Yes, of course, unless you're talking about Vista's poor networking performance and audio activities.

Re:Uh...No.

[peipas]

I would largely agree, but when studying for the TS in configuring vista, I did find one feature that would be beneficial to businesses: The separate sets of security settings for networking depending on if you are connected to a public or private network. That would be fantastic for better protecting mobile users. Still, that hardly by itself outweighs the cons.

Re:Uh...No.

[mdhoover]

The compelling reason is: Senior management demands it because they read it was better in CIO Magazine and they don't trust IT's cost/benefit analysis judgment.
Quoted for truth
CIO Magazine has caused so much pain to the techs in our organization we make a point of shredding any copy we see before it gets into PHB hands.
I shudder to think of how many wasted man hours and bad ideas from above we can directly attribute to this publication...

Re:Uh...No.

[BoberFett]

Hell, at home I'm still using Win2K. It does what I need it to, so I haven't seen the need to upgrade. I just installed XP on my wife's computer a couple weeks ago and that's only because I built her a new one and I figured it was a convenient time to upgrade.

Re:Uh...No.

[UncleTogie]

Well... it does find network printers by itself and in general has far more network savvy than ole' XP.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but XP *also* auto-detects network printers...

As for network tools, I have to agree that MS is years behind on their GUI and command-line tools compared to vanilla Linux...even more so when compared to a security-centric distro.

Re:Uh...No.

[dave420]

Well, one reason I found is that it has 800 more options for group policies, which would be appealing to some admins, I'm sure.

Re:Uh...No.

[burnin1965]

"Can I get the icon in cornflower blue?" :)

Re:Uh...No.

[Geste]

I am not job hunting, but I still get emails and notices from recruiting companies. I don't unsubscribe myself from these notices as I find some of them interesting with respect to the types of projects that are going on.

Over the past 6 months, I have gotten a couple of emails about a project manager position and another contract position for a 1000+ desktop rollout planned for 2008 at "the world's largest aircraft company". I think I know who they are referring to. In Redmond's back yard.

The email says it is an XP rollout.

Re:Uh...No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently I'm in the minority. I can't say I endorse Windows Vista but, for all its shortcomings, I think the 'problems' with it are wildly exaggerated. We run roughly 160 applications in a healthcare setting. Some are home grown, some are from industry leading vendors, and others are from small shops. Of those 160+ apps, how many would you expect to have problems running in Vista??

Count 'em. ONE. One single application has an issue and I'm confident I can resolve it without waiting for the vendor to support the platform.

Seems to me that the majority is spending more time trying to find reasons to dislike the OS than finding solutions to the few (very few) problems it poses.

Re:Uh...No.

[Kingrames]

Prettier than what?

Are we talking about the difference between the windows tower and the original macs?

I don't think it's even that significant.

Vista is the Internet's version of Iraq. The only difference being that there IS an exit strategy and the world is using it.

Re:Uh...No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where would that be? Just so I know where to avoid if I even need emergency treatment...

Re:Uh...No.

[wattrlz]

then why not upgrade to a Mac or Even Linux with a 3d desktop. That would seem like a win-win situation, but do you really:

1. Think you could get management to agree to a massive change like that?
2. Want to spend the next six weeks answering a, "Where is the start button?", "How do I get on email?" , "Where is the internet, again?" question every thirty seconds?
3. Think you could risk possibly put yourself out of a job after the adjustment period is over?

Re:Uh...No.

[TClevenger]

Prettier seems to be a huge reason for most of the end user business customers I've known.

Depends on how sophisticated your users are. When I install XP for my users, I crank it down to the 95/98/2000 Start Menu and desktop theme. Most of my users appreciate that things haven't moved around or changed much since the 95 days, and those who prefer the XP theme can easily switch it back.

When we switch to Vista (or Windows 7 at the current rate), I will do exactly the same thing.

Re:Uh...No.

[TClevenger]

You're not the only one. A well-known wireless carrier still uses 2000 (with a special support contract from MS for security updates) on the majority of their business machines. The only thing XP offered them (that wasn't already covered by third-party apps) was very good WiFi capabilities, and they don't support WiFi for their users.

Re:Uh...No.

[Darinbob]

Yep, finally got Windows XP at work last year. Posting this using Windows 2000 on my older windows box used for email and documents.

I do know of a major defense company that is planning on switching to Vista. However my friend who works for IT there is constantly coming up with new anecdotes about their incompetence. There's definately a class of people out there who firmly believe "newer means better". Put some of those people into IT and things will be interesting.

For games... Someone on a games newsgroups said "you'll have to switch to Vista eventually." The statement was a bit strong on the imperative. However chances are I'll have to have major surgery some day too, but I'm not going to schedule it for next week if I can help it.

Re:Uh...No.

[Locutus]

but when you go with Microsoft, you don't have much choice since they control the upgrade cycle. Sure you can keep fighting them for a year or two but eventually, you can't get the older OS even if you wanted to go without service updates. And that goes for all other Microsoft software too. This is because Microsoft requires you to upgrade and keep sending them money and they do not want you to just keep using what is working for you now.

Atleast with OSS, not only do you have the right to continue using the old stuff, you can keep the code around too. You control your upgrade cycle.

As you mentioned, many times upgrading is done for no good reason. Most of the time, it's done because Microsoft has a hammer over your head making it difficult to stay where you are if you have any kind of growth. IMO.

LoB

Re:Uh...No.

[tknd]

That's funny. At work I had thought we were going to stick with Windows 2000 because XP at the time did not offer much except the fancy blue theme. Yet here I am at work with Windows XP.

Re:Uh...No.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

OK, I'll bite:

• New install/imaging system which is much quicker and more configurable
• Stable images across different hardware
• Lots of group policy improvements, including such things as the ability to lock out USB flash drives (important in many businesses)
• Fast user switching when on AD (very useful for service calls)
• BitLocker whole-disk encryption
• Previous versions (kind of like Time Machine)
• UAC and other new security features
• Better firewall (inbound/outbound, more configurable)

The problem is that many businesses already use third-party solutions to accomplish these things. Whole-disk encryption is available from a number of companies, as are a plethora of firewalls and imaging utilities.

I work IT at a large corporation. We're testing with Vista, so that we can be ready to migrate sometime next year. Our migration will occur in sync with our PC lifecycle - PCs get refreshed every 3 years, and starting mid-2008 our default image will be Vista.

There's a lot of complaining and a lot of bellyaching. I had to fight a number of IT "professionals" who wanted to disable UAC because one of our internal apps wasn't compatible with it (uhh, maybe we should fix the one broken app?).

IT is slow to change and often out of touch with business and user needs. There are some very bright people who work IT at my company, but there are far more who are more interested in covering their ass than they are in meeting user needs.

Re:Uh...No.

[oliverthered]

Think you could get management to agree to a massive change like that?

But it looks nice and that's the only criteria for upgrading to vista, which is also a massive change.
Want to spend the next six weeks answering a, "Where is the start button?", "How do I get on email?" , "Where is the internet, again?" question every thirty seconds?

If you use KDE you can set it up so that it looks a lot like windows.

Think you could risk possibly put yourself out of a job after the adjustment period is over?

So get a better job.

Re:Uh...No.

[Mattsson]

it's still been my experience that most people want the prettiest thing that still runs word and power point, utility be damned. In my experience, many corporate networks have policies in place that turns of the XP look, keeping the unthemed look.
Both in order to minimize the UI change at NT/2000 -> XP migration and in order to gain performance, etc.

Also, keeping aero disabled will save larger corporations massive amounts of electricity since the graphics-cards won't use their power-hungry 3d-engines.

In short; Strike "looks pretty" from the Pro-list when talking about corporate use.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[porcupine8]

The 9% that have already started moving to non-MS OSes (and the nearly half that are considering it) must not have gotten the memo.

How many IT professionals...Pale face.

[Anonymous Coward]

"want windows at all?"

How else are they going to see out?

I don't need it

[Gothmolly]

Unless/Until MS breaks older stuff, I don't need it. I use XP to run Office, my NMS apps, PUTTY, and Firefox/IE. It runs fine, I don't need more.

If I make $XX per hour, and I have to spend N hours to fiddle Vista into working properly, deal with its learning curve, etc, its just wasted time. Where's the killer app ?

Odd Statistics

[thePsychologist]

Macintosh leads the pack of Vista alternatives, with support from 28% of respondents. About a quarter said they would opt for Red Hat Linux, with SUSE Linux and Ubuntu each garnering 18% of the vote. Another 9% cited other Linux operating systems and 4% were unsure.

28 + 18 + 9 = 55. However, 44% was the claimed number considering alternatives (that 4% doesn't count). Perhaps each was allowed to cite multiple choices?

Re:Odd Statistics

[Gregb05]

28%(Mac) +25%(Red Hat) +18%(SUSE) +18%(Ubuntu) +9%(Linux [other]) +4%(not sure) = 102%

I assume "about a quarter" meant 23% on Red Hat, which put it at a nice round 100%. I further assume this value would be a percentage of the previously quoted 44%.

Re:Odd Statistics

[-kertrats-]

28% Mac +
23% ("about a quarter") Red Hat +
18% SUSE +
18% Ubuntu +
9% Other Linux +
4% Unsure =
100% of the 44% that were looking into Windows alternatives. Reading comprehension - try it.

Re:Odd Statistics

[MistrBlank]

Actually you missed some... 28% for mac about 25% for red hat (you missed that) 18% to suse 18% to ubuntu (you misread that as both being 18% total) 9% for other 4% unsure ======= 102% I'm assuming the 2% over is probably due to the redhat figure being 22-23% in reality.

Vista isn't Stable?

[JustASlashDotGuy]

Has anyone actually had any stability problems with Vista?

In our testing, Vista has been perfectly stable. Our only complaint is that 3rd party software hasn't been updated to work with it yet (IE: be it applications such as our Audit software, or Web-based SSL VPN from Cisco ).

Some users bitched about the new GUI, but these are the same users that complained about XP's different start menu and forced 2000-class on everyone for a while.

We will happily move to Vista once the 3rd party apps work with it. Blaming Vista because 3rd party apps don't work with it makes as about as much sense as blaming Mac or *nix because, CCH didn't write a tax app for them.

Vista killed a lot of backward compatibility by making things more secure. Although their implementation of this security leaves a lot to be desired (accept/deny). We have no doubt that the 3rd party vendors will eventually update their apps accordingly.

Stability issue would definitely cause us to push our deployment schedule back, however right now we are only waiting on the vendors to update their software (all hardware works fine so far).

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[dave420]

I got a Dell with Vista pre-installed, and I decided to see if I could get along with it. I made sure I had an XP CD lying around to install should Vista not suit my needs. Well, it's a few months later, and I'm still using it. The performance is excellent, all my software works (granted it's pretty much only Adobe CS3, an SSH/FTP client, VPN client, packet sniffers, and games), and I've had no reason to change back to XP. I happen to appreciate the new GUI - it's very smooth, responsive, and coherent. I'm using it in conjunction with a Small Business Server 2003 box, and they play very nicely together. It's behaving well on the domain, the volume shadow copy functionality is working well. There are no stability problems - it doesn't crash, it doesn't need rebooting to "clear" the memory, nothing. It flies.

Seeing as Vista is selling better than XP was at this stage in its release, I don't think Vista is going anywhere. There were compatibility problems with XP, too, and they were overcome.

Re: Vista isn't Stable?

[Black Parrot]

Has anyone actually had any stability problems with Vista? Perhaps most telling of all, I haven't even seen it yet.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[PhilPSU]

I am going to have to agree. It is 3rd party applications that hold me back in my enviroment. Seeing as alot of software still runs in some weak 16 bit dos package :(. I enjoy Vista and am working out management bugs until 3rd party apps catch up. It looks like a summer deployment for me next year. The group policy redesign will significanlty reduce my sysvol and help speed up managment of security so I am getting geared up for this. Alot of these complaints though seem to bash the OS for whatever reason if it is there fault or not. Typical /.ers. Bad coding is what made Vista terriable when it first came out and not Microsofts but 3rd party apps poor design. Now that might be Microsoft's fault for letting them get away with the poor unsecure coding but not the OS itself.

Ehh flame away it was my 2 cents :)

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[falconcy]

The main problem I seem to get is one of managing to keep a wireless connection up and running for a whole working day. I usually end up rebooting at least 2-3 times during an 8 hour period. Being reasonably IT literate, I've done all the usual tricks as well as trawling the net for a fix. It seems it is not hardware specific, the problem exists with all wifi hardware, same goes for routers, people are having problems with most of them. The only possibility now seems to be a problem in Vista itself, were it one specific piece of hardware then it could be put down to a driver issue or a compatibility issue. My hardware works fine and is completely stable in Kubuntu with the exception of bluetooth and the card reader, they didn't work in Feisty, so perhaps it's time to check out Hardy in a month's time. I use Vista because that is what the rest of the office uses.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[JasterBobaMereel]

Is Vista stable? I don't care... Will my programs be stable on it ... I do care

If the 3rd party apps that work on XP/2000 don't work on Vista then it will appear to be unstable, it does not matter if it is the OS or the app the impression is that Vista is unstable.

Blaming Vista if a 3rd party app that works on XP does not work on Vista should be blamed on Vista, the 3rd party wrote the app for Windows, not XP, so it should work on "Windows". Losing support for legacy apps (16 bit etc..) is fine but all 32 bit apps should work. It is not like a Windows app not working on a Mac, the app probably has a "Designed for Microsoft Windows" sticker on the box and Vista is "Microsoft Windows"! One of the annoying parts of Vista is the files/registry sandboxing it does specifically to support older apps.

If I can't get stable drivers for my hardware - why should I upgrade
If I have to upgrade my hardware to use it - why should I upgrade
If I can't run my apps - why should I upgrade

Please don't say DX10 - I don't run games
Please don't say security - I don't believe it is *secure* and XP is secure enough (with other apps to close the gaps)
Please don't say it's pretty - I don't care

Give me a real reason.....

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[MrSteve007]

Vista has been rock solid in my personal laptop and workstation for 10 months now. Same goes for 6 workstations I've had operating for 6 months. I've found administering and setting up new users on the Vista machines connected to our domain to be nearly fully automated. All I have to do is give the user their name and password, whereas before on XP I had to manually point the outlook client and default printers manually. Vista honestly has saved a lot of time for me.

When equipped with modern hardware (ie new systems), users find that they can get their CAD work done quite a bit faster on Vista too. With the pre-caching of frequently used software, AutoCAD and Photoshop fully load in less than 4 seconds now. XP takes 20-30 seconds.

If run as administrator, nearly all of our legacy software works - you just have to set specific users with rights to certain programs. I know, a bit of a pain in the ass, but it does work. The only problem I've come across with compatibility is our older print tracking software from technesis. The program hardly works with XP, although they 'offer' a newer version that works with Vista.

Also Cisco has had Vista compatible VPN client software since June. We use it without trouble. If you take a look at Vista again, and understand how to administer the software, it's really quite easy to use in a business.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[tokul]

Vista killed a lot of backward compatibility by making things more secure.

What security issue is removed with Contacts box in Windows Mail?

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[xtracto]

Howdy freaking mother of god, thanks for posting this!, you give me the chance of my life:

Is Linux stable? I don't care... Will my programs be stable on it ... I do care

If the 3rd party apps that work on XP/2000 don't work on Linux then it will appear to be unstable, it does not matter if it is the OS or the app the impression is that Linux is unstable.

Blaming Linux if a 3rd party app that works on XP does not work on Linux should be blamed on Linux, the 3rd party wrote the app for PC, not XP, so it should work on "PC". Losing support for legacy apps (16 bit etc..) is fine but all 32 bit apps should work. It is not like a PC app not working on a Mac, the app probably has a "Designed for a PC" sticker on the box and Vista is a "PC"! One of the annoying parts of LInux is the collection of .conf files it does specifically to support older apps.

If I can't get stable drivers for my hardware - why should I upgrade
If I have to upgrade my hardware to use it - why should I upgrade
If I can't run my apps - why should I upgrade
If I can't video chat with my loved ones - why should I upgrade [note:added by my, as there is no *real* application which allows you to chat using video with my mom, girlfriend and other friends... I need Windowsze XP and skype just for that...]

Please don't say apache - I don't run servers
Please don't say security - I don't believe it is *secure* and XP is secure enough (with other apps to close the gaps)
Please don't say it's free as in libre - I don't care

Give me a real reason.....


There!
Brought to you by a Ubuntu and Fedora core user (although I am bitter because since upgrading to Ubuntu 7.10 I can only login using the "failsafe gnome" option... or the x-server wont start).

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[dannannan]

IE7 isn't stable for me at all on Vista; if you are a heavy web user it is a total nightmare. If I leave behind any kind of trail of open tabs or multiple windows, before long the thing is hanging, chuffing your HTML form input (NEVER trust your input to IE7 on Vista, it's a sure way to lose data), and crashing. I have to close all my web browser windows and start over again.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[Jeff Carr]

Yes, I've run into stability issues, but they've all been driver related stability problems.

I had tested Vista on my home system, where SATA driver issues locked Vista up completely (no bluescreen, just instantly stopped) as soon as it tried to read from the controller.

I later tested it with new bleeding edge system I'd built for a voice activated control system, but Vista wouldn't run the software properly (Dragon Naturally Speaking hadn't yet released it's Vista version) and I ran into stability issues with both the Vista 64 and Vista operating systems for this system. Finally I settled on 2003 server, but may test Vista again for this system when Dragon supports Vista 64.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[JasterBobaMereel]

I agree entirely, it doesn't matter what OS, if my apps don't run it's useless .... ...the difference is that with Fedora/Ubuntu you didn't pay for the OS, or the apps, you were not forced to upgrade, and you don't have it pre-installed when you bought the PC. Microsoft is selling Vista as stable, compatible and better....

By the way your problem seems to be with an OS upgrade (and yes these don't work on most OS's arrg!)? and isn't there Skype for Linux now?

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[JustASlashDotGuy]

Is Vista stable? I don't care... Will my programs be stable on it ... I do care

If the 3rd party apps that work on XP/2000 don't work on Vista then it will appear to be unstable, it does not matter if it is the OS or the app the impression is that Vista is unstable. I'm very glad you don't work for my firm. You wouldn't last very long if you couldn't objectively tell the difference between an OS stability issue and an OS compatibility issue. "MS Bashing" may be *cool* on Slashdot, but it won't get you very far in the corporate world... especially if you allow it to blind you from properly troubleshooting an issue.

Anyone competent in their job knows that when a piece of 3rd party software is released, the vendor cannot say it will be compatible with every version of Windows into the future. For that reason, we don't place the blame of the incompatibilities on Windows nor the 3rd party apps. Initially, none of the apps were certified for use in Vista, so we count ourselves lucky that they worked at all (as did the vendor, I'm sure).

Over time, more and more apps have been brought up to spec. Eventually, we expect they will all run under Vista. Vista changed a lot under the hood, and broke a lot as a result. Personally, I expected the vendors to be all up to spec by now, but they aren't. C'est la vie. Delays actually make my life easier, it allows me to focus on more important projects.

I'm not sure about other industry apps, but given that we are a tax/audit firm, I have a suspicion that most of our apps won't see a Vista stamp on them until after April 15th. Releasing a possibly buggy product during tax season could be disastrous. It's very possible they already have something they think *may* work, but they don't want to risk it. If you thought postal carriers were scary, you have lived until you seen a stressed out accountant on April 14th.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[prshaw]

You are not a Windows developer, that is clear.

You don't write apps for 'Windows', you are always targetting a specific version of Windows. Normally your application will run under that version of Windows and later versions. Assuming that you have written your application following ALL of the correct procedures and rules.

This is why most applications do run on newer versions of Windows without updates. They need updates to take advantage of newer features provided, but will work without them.

Most 3rd party applications that have troubles on a new version of Windows did not follow all of the procedures and rules. And I think you will find that those same applications tend to have more errors/problems then other applications. They took shortcuts (intentionally or not) to get their product to do something or even just to ship.

My guess is that the apps with problems are from the same companies each time there is a new Windows upgrade. They don't learn their lessons and keep taking short cuts and then blame Microsoft when the shortcuts no longer work.

Now this is not always the case, there are times when the developer had to do something and a change in Windows breaks what he was doing. For example I work on an application that works with IE. IE7 changed how they display drop down lists and that caused me to break. It wasn't so much that I was outside what I was supposed to be doing as I was doing something that there were no procedures or rules on. Some apps are just broken by updates.

But if you look, there are a LOT more old programs that run on the new version of Windows then are broke. So you will have a hard time convincing me that Windows is breaking a correctly and properly written application. The few (but often important) programs that get broken are generally (not always) the ones that took shortcuts or just have sloppy programming and Windows is now enforcing the rules more.

As to your question as to why you should upgrade.
There are 2 basic reasons.
1. It is more secure.
2. It is more stable.

Now if you don't want to believe those then there isn't any reason to upgrade.
If your hardware can't deliver a stable driver under one OS, why are you trusting them to supply it under a different one?
If your apps won't work under a newer version of Windows I would question if you really want to trust that app. I normally prune several apps when I upgrade because I assume they are poorly written unless I can see how the OS upgrade was expected to break them.
Hardware upgrades, if Vista doesn't support your hardware it is time to look at upgrading. It is probably really old. Of course if it is just that the hardware vendor doesn't support it anymore then you have to decide if they are worth supporting. Now for things like the fancy video, just turn it off. You didn't have it before so you won't miss it. Vista does support a lot of hardware but cannot use the newest features with it.

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[JasterBobaMereel]

No I am not a Windows developer... but then as I said if an app does not work then the reason it does not work is not important?

If my app works testably *correctly* on XP but not on Vista then I don't care if it is the app or Vista (or even a fault in XP) on one it works on the other it doesn't, I don't want to start bashing the App manufacturer or Microsoft, I just want my app to continue working.
If the app is important to my business then I cannot "prune" it and if the manufacturer has not released a new version then I cannot upgrade (yet)

With XP I don't have stability issues so Vista's "more stable" is a non-issue
XP (with AV/Firewall etc...) is at least as secure from outside attack as Vista (or so Mirosoft has been telling me for years..)

Hardware - "if Vista doesn't support your hardware it is time to look at upgrading. It is probably really old" this is simply fatuous, brand new hardware on sale when Vista was released was not up to the Vista minimum spec, and why does Vista need the level of resources it uses, it's not for stability , it's not for security (unless it's DRM!) it seems to be for pretty graphics (which yes I do turn off, I use the Classic themem in XP), and other unspecified dross?

Drivers - "If your hardware can't deliver a stable driver under one OS, why are you trusting them to supply it under a different one?" - because they are the two largest Video card companies in the world (NVidia, ATI) and I don't really have any choice...

So you think I should upgrade to Vista, change my app, upgrade my hardware, all so I can get rid of the stability problems I don't have, and to solve the security issues I don't have.... As I said give me a reason to upgrade?

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[prshaw]

>>If my app works testably *correctly* on XP but not on Vista
This is probably a bad assumption. A better statement would be "I get the results I want and I don't care if they are doing it right." My favorite example is a program that is supposed to multiply two number, super-simple calc. The program takes the two numbers and adds them together instead of multiplying them. But since you only ever put in 2 and 2, you always got 4. Then you upgrade your OS/hardware/something. And because of this you now need to put in 2 and 3. But the program gives you 5 not 6. The common thing to do is blame the upgrade for it. Hard for the end user to know the difference.

As far as your video cards, just turn off the Areo or what ever it is called. Your cards will probably work, just not able to give all the eye candy. You won't loose anything, you just don't get the extras. No reason to not upgrade.

I run Vista on a pretty limited laptop, several years old without official Vista support. It works, not a speed deamon, but the machine hasn't been for a while. I didn't 'feel' a slow down when I first loaded it, but it was not a measured test. Could have been a lot of the slowness was hidden by me trying to find where things were at.

It is strange how it is always the Mission Critical applications seem to be the ones that won't run on upgrades, yet hundreds of other programs we use do work. I don't have any reason for this, but it does seem to be how it goes. And it does make an upgrade impossible.

If you don't have security issues then it means you are not on the internet with the computer. Any computer that browses the internet or accesses email has security issues. You might have AV and a firewall, but sooner or later something is going to get by your AV, and it is going to be good enough to either fool the user or exploit some problem. Vista just raises the bar a little higher for it, still not 100% but adds a little more protection.

Same with stability. XP is pretty stable, not many real problems. Vista just raises the bar a little more. Same as we hope for in any upgrade (OS or APP), few things we want and a lot we don't. A note on what Microsoft says/means. Each version is better then the last. It might not be a lot, it might not be noticable, but they are claiming each one is better then what was there. They don't claim (or shouldn't be) that it is perfect. Some people had no stability issues with 95/98/ME. But we all think XP is better now.

So I think you should look at your Apps that are causing problems and decide if you really need that app. Is it as stable as the OS? If you do upgrade do you get anything you already wanted? If there is no upgrade yet, why not? What are they doing? If you need to keep the app, and keep it at the current version, then you can't upgrade. It wouldn't matter what the OS is, it could be smaller/faster/better and that app is going to stop you.

For hardware, I would keep what you have and turn off eye-candy. My gut says it will work (I am running some real old video cards and they all work).

And the final thing to keep in mind, sooner or later you will end up upgrading/changing OS's. Pick the time that will work the best for you, knowing that if you put it off too long it will eventually be forced on you when you can't afford to do it. (Like when you have to get the upgraded version of that mission critical app and it only runs on the new OS, I have one of those).

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[JasterBobaMereel]

I know I will have to upgrade eventually ... but why now ...

And your example is a bad one, If my app is used for 5 years without problems, I upgrade to Vista and it fails then it's the first failure ....

Re:Vista isn't Stable?

[greyphi]

It's been the 3rd party apps that have killed it for me.

Games the kids play, from barbie to spongebob all throw endless uac messages and still often freezes the system.
Quickbooks required to run as admin and still throws uac messages!?
Pre-installed HP Updater running amok and eating the majority of resources EVERY time it restarts.

Kids seeing the uac prompt a dozen times a day means they click accept every time. Shooting oneself in the foot security.

Vista spends it's time as a kids computer because it's mickey mouse layout makes me cringe every time I have to do actual work on it.

Installing Vista ?

[o'reor]

DO NOT WANT !

Re:Installing Vista ?

[porcupine8]

Your link took me to a different caption. Here's the one you meant: http://lolcatgenerator.com/downloads/lolcat-339-5268.jpg

Re:Installing Vista ?

[o'reor]

kthx ! :-)

Hence the announcement....

[Joce640k]

Hence the announcement a few days ago that Windows 7 would be "available in 2008" - to stop people from jumping ship.

(Oh, sure, seven'll be ready in the next six months...!)

statistics

[wwmedia]

98% of all statistics are made up. ~Author Unknown

If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[paj1234]

...I would give the Wine Project (http://www.winehq.org/) all the money they need. Then we could say, "Debian GNU/Linux: Runs Windows applications better than Windows does". My philanthropic contribution to mankind would be better than Bill Gates', because people wouldn't have to die in hospital any more just because the flaky hospital computer crashed again.

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, the Wine project allows Linux to run windows applications without the shittiness of the Windows operating system. There's more than a few windows applications I'd still want to run (old games), so even if windows does die I'm sure people would still be working on Wine. :)

Short of giving money (which is always helpful), there's a lot of ways we can help. Submit bug reports, install as many applications as possible and check for bugs, write up articles (and submit them to digg, post them etc) on how to install Windows software program x on Linux.

The day Wine worked 100%, I suspect Windows would be dead shortly after.

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[SatanicPuppy]

I guess Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about then =/

I've been burned by WINE too many times. Unless something miraculous happens and it starts working more or less reliably, I'm holding out for the day when all major software vendors release linux versions of their software...Between those options, I don't really see much difference.

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[Dunbal]

because people wouldn't have to die in hospital any more just because the flaky hospital computer crashed again.

      I'm not a windows fan-boy, but I am curious - how many people have died in hospital because the computer crashed to date?

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think like that, there's no doubt that you aren't billionaire...
Big cash = big brain, no cash = ? :)

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[domatic]

WINE is not and I doubt it will ever be a good way of running general random Windows apps. However, it can be targeted as an environment by Windows developers who want a quick and dirty port of an app. If the app is built with WINE in mind and shipped with a (possibly patched) version of WINE targeted then it can work quite well.

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[pat mcguire]

Ha. The hospital thing is too true. They were checking out my abdomen for appendicitis with ultrasound and the computer the device was hooked up to kept playing the happy little windows shutdown noise over and over and over, and no one knew how to make it stop. Not exactly comforting...

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[SatanicPuppy]

Sure, Blizzard proved that with WoW, which runs fine in WINE.

The problem is applications built by people who are Linux hostile...Specifically, Microsoft themselves, and people who are simply unwilling to port their applications, like Adobe, and Macromedia.

If WINE won't cover those, we still need terminal services, which means we still need microsoft.

Re:If I were an eccentric billionaire...

[Glowing Fish]

Probably none.
Mostly because life support computers, AFAIK, don't run Windows. Or any OS, for that matter. I would guess that equipment like that has a special OS written for it, or that the software is written directly into the hardware, so to speak.

I don't want it

[OneMHz]

I'm a software developer. After a couple months using Vista at my new job, I told my boss I was downgrading my dev machine to XP Pro. My job is a thousand times easier with out the great wall of Vista blocking me from doing it. On top of that, I don't know anyone else who wants it. From my mom and stepfather, to my grandparents to the office assistant, other friends... Everyone thinks it's crap.

Re: I don't want it

[Black Parrot]

After a couple months using Vista at my new job, I told my boss I was downgrading my dev machine to XP Pro. My job is a thousand times easier with out the great wall of Vista blocking me from doing it. Now you have a good idea of how us UNIX users feel about Windows in general.

Negotiating tactic

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Look, I dislike MS and its abuse of its OS monopoly, and I've been working hard to expel MS products from my life. I'll be buying a Blackbook on my trip to the US in December, and the machine in my ice cream shop will be running a free (as in speech and as in beer) "commercial automation" package on Ubuntu 7.04. That will be the end of Windows and MS products in my life for the moment, very probably for a long time, and possibly forever. That said, I think the IT professionals polled have a different reason to say they don't want Vista.
It's a negotiating tactic. They want to scare MS a bit into thinking there's a chance they won't adopt Vista, just to see if they can negotiate better prices or other terms.
Just as smart IT decision-makers made a point of having a Red Hat box somewhere visible in their offices when talking to their Microsoft sales reps during the 2000 and XP sales cycles, I'm sure they're now making sure the MS sales rep walks past at least one machine running Ubuntu and one Mac.

As usual

[courteaudotbiz]

The remaining 10% are working for Microsoft...

Re:As usual

[Svet-Am]

actually, that 10% probably wants to stick with XP as well but "corporate policy" dictates otherwise.

99.9% of US do not want to be known as thieves...

[Anonymous Coward]

murderers, etc... however, that's the way we look all over the planet, whilst under the reign of (t)error brought on US by yOUR whoreabully infactdead corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable.

the lights are coming up all over now. see you there?

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

People afraid of change. News at 11.

"Heterogeneous systems" issue

[dpbsmith]

"Yet heterogeneous systems management could be a barrier to going with a provider other than Microsoft, the survey found. Respondents reported that challenges include the need to manage multiple operating systems (49%) and the need to learn a different set of management tools (50%)."

Right... exactly the same set of challenges faced by anyone trying to manage more than one version of Windows.

I've always thought that a good measure of the quality of a software ecosystem is its ability to tolerate version skew between components that would be reasonably expected to be forward-compatible. Conversely, if an ecosystem only works smoothly when everything is at exactly the right version and patch level... particularly when the right version is not the latest version, it's an indication of a combination of poor engineering and poor management.

It was a revelation to me when, circa 1991, I heard software developers in a Fortune 500 company use the word "port" to describe what they needed to do to transition software from Windows 3.0 to Windows 3.1.

This sort of situation is tolerated by Microsoft and other large dominant companies (including Apple, these days, within its own fiefdom of dominance) and by their customers, up to a point.

To some degree it's a win-win scenario. A homogenous environment reduces everyone's support costs, provides a smoother user experience, and allows sloppy engineering to go tolerated and unpunished. It's zero-sum with regard to the cost of keeping the whole company updated, though: that costs the customer and mostly benefits the vendor. Still, a big customer will tolerate that cost, because there's some benefit, in terms of smoother operation. True, better engineering would allow heterogenous versions to interoperate smoothly, so in theory one could have the benefit without the cost, but this is the real world, and many customers may not like the upgrade treadmill but nevertheless see as being the best option.

But there's a breaking point, and it comes if it is not really practical for the customer to go to a homogeneous system.

Clearly it's not practical for a big company to go with homogenous Windows Vista yet.

Microsoft had better have come up with something truly commendable in Vista SP1.

Re:"Heterogeneous systems" issue

[MightyMartian]

Part of the issue, in my organization's case at least, is the hardware upgrade costs. All of our systems, only two or three years old, will require RAM upgrades to run Vista well. I really have a hard time recommending that to my managers, when the existing XP workstations do the job well. There's the technical administration problems, to be sure, but there are always technical administration problems no matter what OS you have. The reality is that there is nothing in Vista that makes the IT department stand up and go "We have just got to have this".

Inevitable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the end Vista will be inevitable."

Inevitable for you perhaps. I on the other hand am dual booting with Ubuntu, and am slowly but surely ridding myself of Windows. It's also surprising the number of off-line people who have heard of Ubuntu, and a few who are actually running it.

Dual booting with linux is an easy way to get Linux's numbers up without having to inconvenience yourself, you can have the best from both worlds.

Re:Inevitable?

[Corporate Troll]

For me personally, I can avoid it completely. I've been a Mac OS X user, a Debian user, FreeBSD user. However, at work, sooner or later I'll have a Vista install in front of me. That part I cannot avoid. (Unless, I finally land that Unix job I've been dreaming of...)

yeah, doesn't really matter though;

[Anonymous Coward]

at my workplace the man who is allowed to make decisions has decided that starting january 1: vista and office 2007 will be pushed out to all machines to "improve our service to our clients"

The disconnect between developers...and everyone!

[BigCanOfTuna]

I contract for an organization who's core business is developing software for the stock markets. While we use Linux in our test, staging, and production environments, I am constantly asking myself why the hell I am stuck developing on a laptop with XP? Why the hell am I stuck trying to emulate our Linux environment with Cygwin? Why are we maintaining two sets of scripts to make sure everything works (bash/batch)? Why am I forced to run performance crippling virus software? There are a number of supposed reasons. You've heard them before: "We need Windows for Outlook and Office" - I'm a developer, I need EMail and I hate documentation. Please let me use Firefox and if need be, I'll use OpenOffice. "The learning curve of Linux is too big for some developers" - Fire them, or give them different jobs. Why are you wasting my time, and others who could be more productive because of one or two nine-to-fivers? "Management of Linux would be more difficult for network support" - What you really mean is your support staff has let their skill set elapse and they have focused on Windows technologies. I'm sorry, but fire these people too. Your organization is being held hostage and is losing money by inept people.

"Just like XP flopped...."

[Joce640k]

Windows XP/2000 didn't flop because the alternative was much worse (ie. Windows ME).

Anything was better than trying to make ME work. NT4 wasn't really an option because of missing USB drivers, etc. (Microsoft was deliberately using things like lack of USB to help force the upgrade from NT4 to XP).

These days the alternative to Vista (ie. sticking with XP) is a better option, and Microsoft has nothing to leverage (DirectX 10 isn't going to force anybody to upgrade...)

Re:"Just like XP flopped...."

[ZiakII]

"Anything was better than trying to make ME work. NT4 wasn't really an option because of missing USB drivers, etc. (Microsoft was deliberately using things like lack of USB to help force the upgrade from NT4 to XP)."

Ha, when I was in the military we used that to screw with the new data guys, we would go and tell them to install that USB printer on that Windows NT machine over there... and then watch about 80% of them try for about 30 minutes to get it to work.

Re:"Just like XP flopped...."

[funkyloki]

Ha, when I was in the military we used that to screw with the new data guys, we would go and tell them to install that USB printer on that Windows NT machine over there... and then watch about 80% of them try for about 30 minutes to get it to work.
Off topic, but it reminds me of when I worked for facilities at an MLB stadium. We used to tell the newbies to go find the key to the batter's box. About 80% spent an hour or more trying to find it. Hilarious.

Re:"Just like XP flopped...."

[Gilmoure]

Maybe Vista is the new WinME? Is there a new XP lurking out there, ready to jump into the ring in 8 months or so?

Re:"Just like XP flopped...."

[fat_mike]

This is the typical "Microsoft Sucks d00dz thread". Hey, where would the military be without Powerpoint. Huh...yeah..huh...

From what I've gathered from reading this site for shitloads of years i've realized a few things:

1. Lot of high school students who are doing the "Micro$ft Sucks" thing
2. LINUX IS PERFECT AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT thing
3. IT people who are in their first job and don't understand their workplace and more importantly, the people that they walk past while going to get coffee. You know, the other employees of the company.
4. Total and complete assholes that laugh when they see Jimmy Fallon yell MOVE.

Take the time to get to know the 60 year old that was originally traumatized 15 years ago when they took away her daisy wheel typewriter (though they were great for filling in forms, looking at you every government in the world). Observe what people are doing and offer suggestions that will help them.

IT guy, you don't run the company. You can be replaced. What the boss of your boss and his boss choose, well, you can't change that because you're that guy from SNL.

There hasn't been a rational argument on this website in many years. You want to convince people, write a REAL DAMN OFFICE replacement.

Wow, tied all back into Powerpoint, didn't I.

Re:win98 to XP

[Dare nMc]

People didn't want to leave 2000 to upgrade to XP, and as we all know that happened.

I think the difference was most company's still had 98, so they were supporting 2-3 different OS's.

So you replace your 95/98 desktop machines with XP, because thats what PC's come with. Then once you figured out XP and it became stable you could go to a single operating system for all your windows boxes, including servers.

Today, most companys are only running XP. So what does Vista offer, as long as a few PC venders still supply drivers for XP, you got a supply, and as long as MS allows the renewal of site licenses for XP...

"enough features" threshold

[192939495969798999]

As of XP, we crossed over as an industry into PC operating systems that have "enough features". Anything that doesn't introduce some mind-blowing new technology (i.e. something as shockingly different as IBM DOS vs. Mac OS circa 1984), will not cause users to upgrade from now on, because the current systems have "enough features".

What's to discuss?

[talexb]

Feh. Consider:

1. XP is fine -- a remarkable achievement, actually -- a Microsoft operating system that's finally releatively stable. Well, they've had a few years to get it right. And getting an OS right is really, really tough.

2. Vista requires top of the line hardware to run decently -- dual core processors and 2G RAM. We had the exact same discussion over ten years ago when Windows 95 came out -- Microsoft swore it would run fine in 4M memory, and it never did -- 8M was better, and 12M was decent.

3. Vista is still not stable -- it is, after all, a 1.0 release. Geeks consider anything 1.0 from Microsoft a bit dodgy.

4. All current applications run fine on Windows XP, but may or may not run under Vista. No surprise there.

5. A recent article said that XP was still outselling Vista three to one on new system installs. It's not a tough choice: do you want the stable option that runs more quickly and is more compatible, or would you prefer the unstable option that runs more slowly and is less compatible? Hmmm. But the new one has such pretty pictures! Shiny! Shiny!

Sorry. Got carried away for a moment there.

I think Microsoft's suits need to just suck it up and keep selling Vista quietly, and give the engineers time to get the code right. The hardware will catch up to Vista, and the engineers will get the bugs sorted out. In a couple of years XP will be old hat.

I just wish they'd been able to get more of the cool stuff like WinFS into the latest version of Windows. It seems that this version is just new wrinkles in the sheet metal, and nothing much else. Sigh.

Re:What's to discuss?

[nine-times]

1. XP is fine -- a remarkable achievement, actually -- a Microsoft operating system that's finally releatively stable. Well, they've had a few years to get it right. And getting an OS right is really, really tough.

XP is fine, but it's growing a bit outdated. Put it next to OSX or Linux, and it starts becoming apparent that XP is several years old and not progressing with the rest of the world.

2. Vista requires top of the line hardware to run decently -- dual core processors and 2G RAM. We had the exact same discussion over ten years ago when Windows 95 came out -- Microsoft swore it would run fine in 4M memory, and it never did -- 8M was better, and 12M was decent.

Yeah, so that's a negative of Vista. It's slow and bloated and required ridiculous specs.

3. Vista is still not stable -- it is, after all, a 1.0 release. Geeks consider anything 1.0 from Microsoft a bit dodgy.

If only it were a 1.0 release, we would probably cut it more slack. It's Windows 6.0. Between version 5.0 and 6.0, Microsoft had 5 years to make a stable, worthwhile upgrade.

4. All current applications run fine on Windows XP, but may or may not run under Vista. No surprise there.

No surprise? When Apple went to a completely new codebase and UI, they managed to allow you to run "Classic" applications relatively well and with few incidents. Linux users, Solaris users, OSX users, and BSD users can share many of the same applications with just a recompile. So yeah, I guess I'm a little surprised that with all the resources that Microsoft has and 5 years to work on it, they couldn't do a better job with interoperability.

5. A recent article said that XP was still outselling Vista three to one on new system installs. It's not a tough choice: do you want the stable option that runs more quickly and is more compatible, or would you prefer the unstable option that runs more slowly and is less compatible? Hmmm. But the new one has such pretty pictures! Shiny! Shiny!

Yeah, and don't you think it's sad that after all the time and money spent of Vista, all Microsoft has to offer is "Ooooo, shiny!"?

Re:What's to discuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are completely correct.

Bravo.

Re:What's to discuss?

[Knara]

Geeks consider anything 1.0 from anyone a bit dodgy.

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:What's to discuss?

[TClevenger]

I think Microsoft's suits need to just suck it up and keep selling Vista quietly, and give the engineers time to get the code right. The hardware will catch up to Vista, and the engineers will get the bugs sorted out. In a couple of years XP will be old hat.

Better yet, stop selling new versions of Windows.

What sucks about Windows Vista is that we sat with a stagnant Windows XP for FIVE FREAKING YEARS, and then we're given the chance to pay "only" $400 for what? An incremental upgrade to XP?

Sell me an update license for $25/year. For that $25, I want the option to install all of the cool new features Microsoft is coming up with: WinFS, DX10, "Ultimate Extras", on my existing machine. It takes the pressure off of MS to trump up a new version of the OS every two years. It takes the pressure off of hardware and software vendors to rush into out-of-cycle upgrades. It takes the pressure off of IT departments to install features they don't want, or to upgrade equipment unnecessarily, or to have to wipe and reinstall thousands of machines when all they want is continued security updates.

Re:What's to discuss?

[labradort]

Please don't use Feh anywhere in public. It is meaningless. Are you trying to say "fuck"? That is a word I've heard of. Even "feck" from Father Ted I know, but "Feh" is meaningless.

Microsoft is like an ex-wife

[GomezAdams]

Buying Microsoft products is like having an ex-wife you are obligated to pay all expenses for. When she gets a new dress you have to buy her a new house and abandon the old one. Then the new dress needs all new accessories and even unrelated kitchen appliances and a car.

But then buying Apple products is the same except it starts with a new house and works it's way back to the dress, car, and kitchen appliances which can only come from the same company that built the house.

I am constantly amazed with the people who flock to Apple when they do the same thing at the hardware level that Microsoft does at the software level and that is product line lock in.

The only free choice comes when you use commodity hardware with a Linux or Free/Open/Net BSD OS. Having a geek staff to build and maintain these are no more expensive than buying into the 'Who you gonna sue when it goes bad' thinking so it has to be corporate buys only. When is the last time anyone sued Microsoft successfully for causing millions of dollars in lost revenue and productivity due to security flaws and buggy productivity tools?

Re:Microsoft is like an ex-wife

[Anonymous Coward]

People are like fucking insects. They don't think. And you can shove whatever shit down their throats. Micro$oft knows this. That's my it is the richest company out there. Always good to have a monopoly.

And then there are the funny folk who think that buying an Apple will suddenly solve their problems. You'll have to buy new hardware. Hardware you cannot upgrade like a PC meaning in a couple of years, you'll have to buy another package. All included. This is even more fucked up than the Micro$oft racket.

But fortunately there's a new guy in town. His middle name is Freedom. GNU/Linux.

Re:Microsoft is like an ex-wife

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I am constantly amazed with the people who flock to Apple when they do the same thing at the hardware level that Microsoft does at the software level and that is product line lock in.

Apple does tie their hardware and OS and it is a huge drawback to using their products. Of course if they didn't do it, they'd go out of business because they'd be directly competing with MS in the OS space, which given MS's ability to illegally leverage their monopoly is a losing proposition, regardless of the relative quality of the products. That said, aside from that one tie in, Apple doesn't do a lot to tie other products to their OS or computers. They work with standard compliant devices, connectors, APIs, protocols, etc. A lot of what they use is not the most popular, but for the most part it is open and can be implemented freely by others.

The only free choice comes when you use commodity hardware with a Linux or Free/Open/Net BSD OS.

For some people, freedom is not the only aspect they care about, nor even the most important. If I was building a corporate infrastructure today, from the ground up, I'd probably build it on Linux on the server and for most of the desktops, with Windows and OS X, where it made sense. When given a choice of which desktop to use personally, however, OS X is my first pick for the majority of tasks and if that means Apple hardware, so be it. Their hardware is top shelf and independently evaluated as among the most reliable and well made in the industry. I use Windows, Kubuntu, and OS X daily, and I can tell you, all the Linux distros I've used have significant work to do before they catch up to OS X, not just in overall functionality, but also in some important back end technologies (like openstep and system services). I'm not the only one who thinks so either. I know nearly 100 professional Linux an BSD developers who have switched to OS X on the desktop in the last few years and of all of them only one switched back. He did so not because he disliked using OS X, but because his hobby was a Linux desktop distro and he did not like dual booting all the time.

Maybe another thing to think about is not everyone objects to non-free software. I, personally have no problem with closed source software made for pay. It is the business model with the best results in some software markets. I don't object to MS because they use tying and bundling and closed source. I object to them because they use tying and bundling with a product they have monopolized, and thus undercut free market forces and hinder innovation. If MS was split in two and both companies had all the rights to Windows, I'd have no objection to them continuing to bundle and use nonstandard protocols and tie products because the market would sort it out and the best product would win. I object to it now because they artificially force a lot of us to use the worse product in order to interoperate with everyone else.

Re:Microsoft is like an ex-wife

[GomezAdams]

I don't object to commercial, non-free software either. In fact I buy my Linux distros and some of the toys I run on the boxes. I use Freedom as in Libertas, to choose the best suited tools and distros to get my work done without being forced to keep buying a product line because it evolves to generate cash not to make my life better.

A better question...

[foniksonik]

How many Business Professionals want Vista? They are the users AND the people who will influence the decision. IT Pros already use an alternate OS... Linux, OS X or at least dual boot or use a virtualized Windows as needed. Unfortunately IT Pros don't get to decide what OS gets used.... they just have to support it. Until there is a perfect replacement for Office and Exchange on Linux or OS X (which is half way there), the business users will be using Windows.... eventually they will use something newer than XP.

Who's going to write Vista-only programs?

[Joce640k]

Apart from Microsoft, what kind of idiot would write Vista-only software?

There's a few games which require DX10 but I bet they regretted doing it.

Serves them right for believing the Microsoft hype...

Re:Who's going to write Vista-only programs?

[Firethorn]

There's a few games which require DX10 but I bet they regretted doing it.

I can testify that they've lost at least 1 sale with me. Probably a whole lot more.

The other 10%...

[Thanshin]

...don't want Oido.

The HW requirements for Vista are laughable

[HW_Hack]

At the public school funding levels .... you just don't instanly upgrade 300 PCs with memory or video cards - not going to happen. Many of our machines are barely setup to run XP. Less than 1/4 of our machines could run Vista - and that would require turning off Aero-effects etc.

Our school is 70% Mac - 30% PC

Yet ... 1/2 of our Macs will move to Leopard next Summer - and many of these are as old / wimpy as the PCs.

I'm not saying Apple OS X is perfect - but M$ dropped a real turd when it cobbled together Vista. And thats how I view Vista - a bunch of "Marketing Driven Crap" cobbled together. Viva XP !!!!! (as an avid Linux user I can't believe I just said that)

So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[Bilby Baggins]

Basically from Vista's release announcement I've been saying that it hasn't had enough time in dev, it was released too early, and that Microsoft didn't get around to doing any of the things that they said they would do with Vista- basically, that Vista is to XP what Millennium Edition was to 98SE- a backslide. I tried to get one Vista laptop to connect to our campus wifi with no luck, and basically had a hell of a time navigating the few Vista systems that came around.

When it came time for me to get a new laptop, I desperately wanted to get one with XP, an operating system that has mostly had the major issues worked out of it, and that I knew well inside and out. But my business partner made the good point that, as IT Consultants, we were going to have to support it, so we should know it, whither or not we really like it. And (of course) the best way to get to know an OS is to live with it.

So I've been running Vista for about a week so far, with heavy use both plugged in and on battery, and I have to say this (in bold in italics so you get the idea of how surprising this was to me... ) I'm pretty impressed with Vista. YES, I know i has problems, some of which are VERY aggrivating. It shows as using a lot of ram, and it does tend to bother one overly much while installing software and doing other system tasks. BUT- for the avarage user, these warnings will help to make it harder for malware vendors to install their junk software, for even if the spyware/adware uses an IE exploit to enter the system, if they are trying to hide behind the vague shell of being valid software their install will cause a warning to pop up for the user. While this doesn't stop a user for still allowing it, it DOES make them aware of the problem- an improvement. to be sure.

I also have noted that yes, Vista DOES look a lot like Windows XP professional in drag. The menus are confusing... but only for someone used to 98/2k/XP. Oh, and you can make Vista behave and look quite a bit like XP, as well. Personally I've left the pretty stuff on- it's not too bad looking, and hell, if Apple can get away with a pretty UI, why not Microsoft?

Vista has it's share of problems, but overall I'd say that it will be an improvement over XP- once some of the worst issues are taken care of.

Personally, I've not had any software compatibility issues yet, and have installed old versions of Winamp, CDex, and even Total Annhiliation on the system with nary an issue.

I'm NOT saying that it's perfect, nor that it's ready for a large-scale enterprise roll-out. Realistically speaking, XP is a better platform anyhow- hell, most corporate networks could still be using terminals for much of their work! But it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft.

Please note that not only did I post this from my work OSx machine, I'm also in charge of maintaining 200+ desktops with OSs ranging from Win98SE to OS9 and a couple variants of linux. So i'm not a total OS/UI noob ;)

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[mindwanderer]

I recall reading somewhere (think it was Ars) that Vista preloads certain programs into RAM based on user patterns (ie. if you routinely check your mails at a certain hour, it will preload your email proggy). I wonder if this the culprit for all the bloatware talk.

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[Bilby Baggins]

It does seem to do something of the sort... my laptop has a 200gb 4200rpm drive, which normally means massive lag when loading software, but there doesn't really seem to be that much of a delay. Add to that the fact that the ram overhead doesn't seem to increase when you load software, and it does seem that Vista is pre-caching software. Don't know if that's good or bad, but it does make commonly used apps nice and quick to launch and run.

Compared to say... Valve. and Half-Life 2.


Wait, you say that Valve and HL2 are both bloated beyond belief and would run slowly on a supercomputer? I am shocked, shocked and surprised sir!

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[naetuir]

You're missing the point. Yes, IT Professionals are going to have to support it whether they want to or not... ... But where is the ROI in upgrading? You have to.. retrain users, buy new hardware (very few 'in use' enterprise worthy systems will run Vista properly) and invest in a new OS that doesn't have the 'field time' that is currently available for any other established OS (XP, Mac OS 10.4 or Linux).

Not only those, but.. Where does the return come from? Are you becoming more productive with XP (Cancel or Allow?)? Are you wasting less time on customizing your OS (Where did they put that darn setting I used to know wher it was?)? Less time on defragging your hard drive?

Or, are they just trolling for more money? It certainly seems like a beautified Windows XP (albeit with more issues), that they are requiring you to have and run bloatware (DRM, et al), without any new 'killer app' to make you really want to switch.

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[crabpeople]

"BUT- for the avarage user, these warnings will help to make it harder for malware vendors to install their junk software, "

You misspelled "condition the user to blindly click on more and more useless prompts".

users already do not read prompts, so heres an idea, lets increase the amount of prompts they have to read! how can that fail!

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[Bilby Baggins]

No one reads them, so lets take the safety tags off of everything and let God(s) sort 'em out?

It's a truism that no one reads the warnings... but is it true? Despite me hearing time and time again that no one reads the warnings anyhow, I still see them quite often, on what most people consider very good and user-savvy software- like Spybot S&D, Firefox, and many others. Sure, a lot of popups can make the most concious user start to blindly click through, but I would rather they overdo it a bit instead of not telling you anything. "Oh, Hai, I blocked ur software" is NOT the log file entry I want to find when troubleshooting software that won't work.

but that's just me...

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[luzr]

So I've been running Vista for about a week so far, with heavy use both plugged in and on battery, and I have to say this (in bold in italics so you get the idea of how surprising this was to me... ) I'm pretty impressed with Vista. Well, report back after a month. I too was quite happy with Vista in the first week, but finally downgraded after a month. I like Aero and new fileselector, but besides that, I really do not see what advantages Vista brings. I have met a lot of disadvantages though... (e.g.: No SPX/IPX support, Vista locks my user account in Win2003 domain, C++ build process 15% slower than in XP on the same hardware...).

Re:So I Was a Vista Skeptic...

[Anonymous Coward]

"BUT- for the avarage user, these warnings will help to make it harder for malware vendors to install their junk software, for even if the spyware/adware uses an IE exploit to enter the system, if they are trying to hide behind the vague shell of being valid software their install will cause a warning to pop up for the user. While this doesn't stop a user for still allowing it, it DOES make them aware of the problem- an improvement."

You've got that backwards. Getting warnings about anything and everything decensitizes one to warnings until you get to a point where you just ignore them entirely, making the system AND THE USER less secure.

Still the wrong question...

[Joce640k]

How many Business Professionals give a damn about what OS they're using?

All they care about is whether or not they can get their job done. Switching to a whole new OS and/or office suite would be counterproductive for most people.

But Vista has bad tco

[sjwest]

A friend recently bought a dell and vista for his home (no not me), and he found out that

• usb Lexmark printer was useless.

• Aol connection needed a router rather than a usb modem.

OK so Printers are cheap, but there was nothing wrong with the lexmark usb printer he owned (there not bothering to support there 'legacy' printers), and the router cost him $100 from aol I understand.

If my friend worked out what vista cost him, i am not sure he would have bought it, yes he should of done more research, but if he is any indication then vista means some pretty usable stuff is going to get obselete.

Yes much of this does not apply proper to 'proper it' But Vista tco for my friend became at least +$200 more than he thought it might.

Re:But Vista has bad tco

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but you have to work on your grammar. I really had trouble understanding you. You used "there" twice where the correct word was "they're" or "their", and you said "should of" (which is nonsensical) when you meant "should have". You are also missing punctuation, creating run-on sentences, and misspelling all over the place. If you want people to read your posts, you might want to slow down and proofread for a moment before clicking "submit".

Re:But Vista has bad tco

[paj1234]

I agree with the other guy that your posting needed correcting. You meant to write:

A friend recently bought a Dell and Vista for his home (no not me), and he found out that:

        * USB Lexmark printer was useless.

        * AOL connection needed a router rather than a USB modem.

OK so printers are cheap, but there was nothing wrong with the Lexmark USB printer he owned (they're not bothering to support their 'legacy' printers), and the router cost him $100 from AOL I understand.

If my friend worked out what vista cost him, I am not sure he would have bought it, yes he should have done more research, but if he is any indication then Vista means some pretty usable stuff is going to get obsolete.

Yes much of this does not apply 'proper IT' but Vista TCO for my friend became at least +$200 more than he thought it might.

Duh...

[Shads]

... vista makes life harder for IT. Why the hell would we want it? XP is stable if not secure. Linux is secure and stable for those who don't need XP. Hell Macs are a world above XP too.

When playing games at work is a valid reason

[tepples]

I don't see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, unless you play games at work. Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista? If your company develops software for Windows OS that will be made available to the public, you need Windows Vista in order to test your product software for compatibility. If your company publishes reviews of proprietary works such as video games designed for Windows Vista, you need Windows Vista to run these works.

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[shinmai]

In both of your examples, I see no reason for the whole computer infrastructure of the company to get the upgrade. Some testbed-machines should suffice just fine. It's like with web-development (that I'm much more familiar with), I have various different browsers installed on a handfull of machines, but I only use one browser to read slashdot, the others are there just for testing...

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[devjj]

You're pointing out two very specific cases where Vista is necessary; not a reason why it is necessary for everybody. As an example, consider your hypothetical company who publishes reviews of games for Vista. There's nothing saying that Vista has to be deployed site-wide. You could have a set of Vista machines and still do everything else on XP.

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[stumblingblock]

And if your company designs aftermarket parts for the Yugo, you well better buy yourselves some Yugos. As for others?

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[SargentDU]

devil said: "You're pointing out two very specific cases where Vista is necessary; not a reason why it is necessary for everybody. As an example, consider your hypothetical company who publishes reviews of games for Vista. There's nothing saying that Vista has to be deployed site-wide. You could have a set of Vista machines and still do everything else on XP."

Not to mention the rest of the company could be running intel Macs, or AMD or Intel linux boxes.:)

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[devjj]

Good point. I assumed that running some version of Windows was a baseline requirement, but you're absolutely right.

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[ccp]

If your company develops software for Windows OS that will be made available to the public, you need Windows Vista in order to test your product software for compatibility. If your company publishes reviews of proprietary works such as video games designed for Windows Vista, you need Windows Vista to run these works.

Well, that leaves open just 99.99% of bussines, which do neither of the above.

Cheers,
CC

Re:When playing games at work is a valid reason

[sjames]

Developers may need a few machines to do QA for Vista but need not (and probably should not) update everything else. The same applies for reviewers.

In other words, neither of those is a reason to all out switch, but are reasons to update a couple of crash test dummies.

Re:The disconnect between developers...and everyon

[director_mr]

Perhaps in your specific instance it might make sense to let some of the staff switch over to Linux. But wholesale firing of half the company so that you can avoid emulating Linux seems a little unrealistic. I look forward to you presenting your well thought out plan to management and seeing how far they go with it. I also think your description of your support staff as a group of people that have let their skill set "elapse" because they focus on Windows technologies as odd. Your company has to hire its support staff from the same pool of labor that every other company in the US does. There aren't a whole lot of people running around with Linux certifications and with years of experience supporting it in a company. Things like that take years to happen at this point.

Comprehension difficulties

[Mostly a lurker]

Macintosh leads the pack of Vista alternatives, with support from 28% of respondents. About a quarter said they would opt for Red Hat Linux, with SUSE Linux and Ubuntu each garnering 18% of the vote. Another 9% cited other Linux operating systems and 4% were unsure.

28 + 18 + 9 = 55. However, 44% was the claimed number considering alternatives (that 4% doesn't count). Perhaps each was allowed to cite multiple choices?

I have problems with your quoted paragraph myself, but not for the reasons you cited. The percentages they quote are for only those considering alternatives.

The figures in this case are Linux (25 + 18 + 18 + 9) about 70%, Mac 28% and 4% unsure. I assume this adds up to over 100% because the number for Red Hat was actually less than 25%.

My main gripe is that the casual reader does not see the very interesting fact that getting on for three times as many are looking at a Linux migration versus a Mac migration. I am actually skeptical of this survey but, if this is true, this is a stunning statistic.

Please mod up - funny and true

[wmaster]

Why was this rated down? Greetings, Chris

I'm pro-MS, and I don't even want it.

[Meorah]

I don't even want it on my primary management workstation because it doesn't run win2k3 admin tools properly. I still make others in the company run it to find any software compatibility issues (haven't found any yet), but for IT work purposes, I'd rather just use XP than worry about remoting to a DC.

And as for the MS recommendation to remote to a win2k3 management server, what about the 90% of companies out there who don't have the resources for that?

Anyway, I'm still getting all new systems with Vista licensing with downgrade rights so a year down the road a Vista migration won't be quite as expensive. But there's no way I'm moving out of beta for my environment without the ability to run server admin tools on a Vista box.

Maybe overhyped but...

[ledow]

The last school I worked at, we got a free volume license for XP or Vista Business (we could use either at any time and chop/change whenever we wanted without having to do anything - the school's licenses worked out that way), we had Vista Business media sent to us as part of our usual arrangements, we were Windows-only, we were revamping the network and basically would have started things from scratch (other problems got in the way but we were planning to take down and re-do the network from scratch over the summer).

We chose XP. It didn't even take a second's thought - we all just mutually agreed Vista wouldn't be worth the effort. We did do a small viability test to see what we'd been given for free and put it on a high-end machine etc. to test it. We couldn't find a single compelling reason to use it over XP and yet we found lots of reasons against - starting with "we don't know what it'll do, whether it'll run everything we need or what problems it will cause us - even after testing it" and going through to "it slows the machines down".

There was literally nothing. We had a network running only a handful of servers, transition would have been effortless because this was before we'd started imaging the machines for the next term and we just all agreed not to. T'aint broke, don't fix it. XP t'aint broke - and the parts that ARE broke weren't fixed in Vista. SP3 is around the corner. SP2 is good enough for our purposes. Vista didn't solve any problems that we had but would have introduced whole new problems that we wouldn't have had - starting with user-retraining - even in Classic settings, it works differently.

Our servers were mainly managed by batch scripts (yes, not even VB scripts) and a common piece of school computer management software. We didn't even bother to look up if they would work with Vista - the OS just didn't even get that far in our estimations. Plus, on the "non-kids" part of the school, we had just plain AD and logon script management. We could easily do Vista on one side, XP on another as they are physically seperate and don't need to be compatible. We didn't bother.

Where were the advantages? Any established network already has stuff in place which makes that all the stuff that Vista touts as features useless - they are all either permanently turned off or people use a better non-Microsoft replacment. For example, we turned all our XP machines to "classic" settings because it meant that we could keep another two "generations" (i.e. a full annual/termly purchase) of computers running at the same settings as the rest of the network at a reasonable pace. Without "classic" we would have had to upgrade or scrap two generations of machines because they wouldn't have been usable. With Vista, we were looking at moving on an extra two generations of PC's minimum - it was too expensive, even in "classic" mode. And to run it "as intended", we were looking closer to four generations.

There wasn't anything new to manage. Vista behaved the same under the management of a Server 2003 server as XP did. It was, to all intents and purposes, a heavier XP. There wasn't anything for the users, especially not after you bring it in line with XP-era performance. Maybe they could have used a handful of features at home but in a business you didn't want half of what it was trying to do.

Maybe if they'd released the next Windows Server at the same time - so that they worked and could be purchased, spec'ced, learned, managed and upgraded in tandem - it would be more of an enticement. As it is it's just a slow XP. With less drivers. And more nuisances.

When people that get Vista licenses literally FOR FREE with the way they purchase licenses and months later they still haven't done more than "curiosity" testing and still don't use your product, you have a problem. We don't get any expressions of surprise or attempts to push Vista when we order PC's in bulk and categorically specify "XP Pro pre-installed, drivers & licenses please, no Vista" on the

Most gadgets still support Windows 98

[Joce640k]

Even today I still see occasional "Windows 98" floppies in the boxes of pen drives, ADSL modems, printers, etc.

XP will be much harder to leave behind than W98 was. You're probably safe for at least another decade.

wayne says: drop it like its hot

[bennini]

Try running NT 4.0 these days... Won't get you very far. That's the future of Windows XP. They are going to drop it like a hot potato.

With a mentality like that, don't be surprised when general users and IT departments decide to drop Microsoft like a hot potato. It's only a matter of time. Microsoft is riding on the success they amassed during the past 10 years. The wave has got to hit the shore somewhere....

Microsoft's general "security policy" in Windows Vista is that you now have to click two times rather than once to do anything administrator-like.

Timmy helping grandma install Skype
-Screen fade. grandma: "ZOMG WHATS HAPPENING??"
-Did you REALLY initiate this Installation by clicking on the setup.exe file?
-timmy: "Go ahead grandma, its Ok to click yes a second time."
-timmy leaves, 1 week later, leet hax04 remotely deploys gnarly worm onto grandma's computer.
-Screen fade. grandma: "ZOMG WHATS HAPPENING??"
-Did you REALLY initiate this Installation by clicking on the setup.exe file?
-grandma: "timmy said to click Yes a second time.."

Windows Vista security at its finest.

Re:wayne says: drop it like its hot

[WhiteWolf666]

The real possibility for an exodus from Windows is the following:

A) Windows->Console for gamers.
B) Windows->OS X for professionals, and some going to a Windows-like linux (like SuSE).
C) Windows->gOS type distributions for causal users.

A/C are the vast majority of Windows users, and the thing about those two segments is that they are very price conscious. Consoles are vastly cheaper than desktop pcs, particularly game worthy pcs, and systems capable of running gOS are both easier to use, and vastly cheaper, than Vista desktop PCs.

Yup - plain didn't work properly

[cheros]

Caveat: I had Vista "for Business" before I zapped it.

I bought a spare Sony VAIO (SZ4XWN(, and was told it was not possible to have XP on it. Well, for a combination that was allegedly "Vista ready" it sucked seven ways from Sunday. IE hang pretty much continuously unless I ran it as 'admin' (i.e. gave it the rights it should NEVER have), I had to wait for a Vista ready version of quite a lot of software (including anti-virus) and it hung for the most bizarre reasons, not exactly helped by the heap of crap that Sony insists on adding to a system.

In the end I gave up, put Linux on it and VMWared a freshly bought copy of XP Home. I just rebuilt it as Sony has eventually caved and produced XP drivers for this machine - it now works very well.

So, my *own* experience with Vista has been crap. I have since been told that the "Business" version is indeed the worst of the lot, which I find insane - that's where they could have made inroads. Instead, it's been the best marketing for both the Apple and Linux camps ever..

Wear some GoogleBot

[laurier57]

Or, think about how google manages to get the content in its cache--the site sends back a full page for browsers identifying as GoogleBot. Konqueror at least has a site-specific browser ID option, not sure about others (Opera does but limits you to FF, IE alternatives)

Re:Wear some GoogleBot

[corsec67]

Google will drop sites from their listings that do that. Experts Exchange uses JS to hide the results, but they don't get rid of them from the page, as that would annoy google.

BMW in Germany was giving a different page to google than to browsers, and got dropped from search results until they fixed that.

Yet something seems different this time

[WebCowboy]

Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore.

You know, those are some of the exact reasons Vista hasn't gained the traction in enterprise environments that MS would like:

* There is hardware out there with drivers not available anymore except for WinXP or earlier, because it is just a bit too old for MS or the vendors to care (in the latter case, it is often the issue of being economically unjustifiable to support products recently discontinued on very new OSes).

* Important programs are XP-only, and will not be Vista-ready for a long time, if ever. My employer's current products won't be ALL Vista-ready for another year. Furthermore we have some applications in "extended support" (not the term our marketing dept. uses, but basically software that is not being sold to new customers ore being upgraded but is still in support mode--we are legally obligated in some cases to support our pruducts for upwards of 20 years). That software will NEVER be Vista-ready but could be used well past 2010.

* Vista and its updates occasionally break application software and in some cases the lack of MS' "critical updates" is something to look forward to. The more mature the software, the more stable it is. It is more difficult to hit a moving target when it comes to making your applications reliable. In the last few years I've personally had to deal with a couple of major bugs in our customers' systems that were a direct cause of a bug fix. We had to go to great lengths to convince MS that Windows was no longer behaving as documentation said it was (ie. we were not relying on previously buggy behaviour). Subsequently a hotfix was released to fix the bug introduced by a previous hotfix that fixed another bug.

This is bad enough in a business enterprise system. With the longer product cycles and more demanding (reliability-wise) industrial environment the issues with Vista are still intolerable. Literally there will not be very serious uptake of Vista in that area until MS releases the next version of Windows (or until the time they THINK they're going to release it).

(Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line)...Try running NT 4.0 these days... Won't get you very far. That's the future of Windows XP. They are going to drop it like a hot potato.

And yet, I am currently dealing with a facility that just finished upgrading their offices to Windows XP at about the time Vista was released, and has exactly zero 2003 servers out there--in fact they still run a good portion of them on NT4. They are stuck with them until they are forced to upgrade a lot of equipment on a production line because the application is no longer sold and the vendor is probably no longer in business. Upgrading for many people isn't just a matter of 5 or 10 thousand to upgrade a server...sometimes it involves costs upwards of a quarter million or more....for one server (or one redundant pair).

I've noticed something with every new release of Windows since 2000 was released: the uptake has steadily slowed. When NT4 came out it offered marked improvements over 3.x. Furthermore the market was less established--there were more non-Windows legacy systems being picked off. Then 2000 came out and it was well received, but I'd argue not QUITE as rapidly adopted as NT4--it sold briskly and there were a lot of upgrades but NT4 stuck around WAY more than NT3.x did. Then XP and later Server 2003 came out and there was a very muted response to them--they were readily accepted in new installations but enterprises were extremely slow in upgrading--so much so that 2000 is still very common in the server room.

Now we have Vista and the impending release of a new server OS, and not only is there no enthusiasm to upgrade, there is even resistance to accepting NEW systems with the software. No, things are different now--even though that's what weve always bee saying.

Re:Bury!!!

[ThirdPrize]

I am just saying that I didn't want to see it. I didn't say that you couldn't see it.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[justthinkit]

Rubbish.

We all want to deploy something better, something useful, something cool. Only the foolish, easily swayed, clique-ish wannabes want to rush to install something new. I am straining my brain to recall a new version of something that I was in a rush to install. Sure, plenty of upgrades were ok, had a reason for the install, ended up being ok or even good in the end. But very few times was I fool enough to want to rush to install.

Ok, I thought of one time where I wanted the new -- DOS 6. It could have been DOS 5, but 6 gave us a memory manager & (crap but better than nothing) anti-virus to boot, so I upgraded all computers in the department. This was a major improvement because then I didn't need ten or twelve boot disks. Then I had a predictable, and larger, amount of free ram on each machine. Then I had MSAV that could be updated department-wide and removed via cmd-line call in batch file to free up more ram when needed. Yup, DOS 6 gave us a lot. It has been a bumpy road since then -- every "upgrade" bringing some serious downside(s) with it.

- W2K/XP is more robust than Windows 9x/ME but it is quite a bit slower.

- Big name anti-virus products are now much worse than they used to be. So bad that I don't even use McAfee or Norton any more and rip them out as fast as possible if they come installed. The browser-like interface on the last version of NortonAV I tried was just about the worst interface I have ever used in my life.

- IE v7 is blocked on all my machines but one -- there is serves as a reminder of how ugly a multi-tabbed browser can look, if you pour enough money into it.

- Microsoft Office hasn't been worth upgrading to since Office 2000. And that is where I will stay until that is dragged from my fingers. At which point I will probably go with Open Office as I just don't want Microsoft's latest bloated version of Office. Not at all, on any terms.

I think the only new stuff that IT people actually want to deploy is hardware. There is nothing more annoying that waiting for old machines with tiny amounts of ram to boot up. It sucks when everyone in the company has a different piece of junk on their desk. Printers have gotten better over time. Cable modems are easier to install today than when they were first introduced. Thumb drives beat Zip drives.

Of course the problem is that deploying hardware is a relatively small part of an IT pro's job. "Ok Bob, here's your new laptop. Uh, thanks." Most of the time we are paid to install things worse than other things. I think I need a vacation.

Stone Edge Order Manager?

[tepples]

Today, we have OpenOffice if you don't like the conventional Office 2007. Does OpenOffice.org Base run proprietary off-the-shelf Access/VBA applications such as the popular Stone Edge Order Manager? If not, what comparable package should users of Stone Edge Order Manager migrate to?

Re:Stone Edge Order Manager?

[AB3A]

I think you know the answer to that question.

The larger question is this: How much longer is Microsoft going to maintain backward compatibility with the original VBA apps and object models? What's the cost of rewriting that?

Basically, it's the devil you know versus the devil you don't. Some will take that gamble. Some won't. We'll see who comes out on top...

The cost of change for change's sake

[davidwr]

I have nothing against Vista per se but I do have something against changing from XP to Vista just for the sake of changing.

Even if the licenses were free, the cost of training everyone on the difference between XP and Vista and the cost of maintaining two sets of operating systems over the transition, not to mention the optional cost of forcing existing computer to upgrade to Vista, isn't cheap.

The only major value that Vista has for me over XP is 1) it's supported for a few years more than XP and 2) it has improved security. It also has some other useful features like the repair-from-CD-boot is vastly improved over XP. But on the whole it's simply not worth the cost of upgrading.

As long as XP meets my needs I see no need to quit using it.

If Windows 2000 or NT were still getting security bug-fixes, still supported through an automated update mechanism, still supported by 3rd-party security-software vendors, and still available as a downgrade option for new machines, I would recommend shops using those systems stick with them until there was a business need to change.

As for older operating systems including Windows 98, OS/2, DOS 1.0 and CP/M: For shops running non-networked systems or systems in an isolated network, if it works for you and you have the ability to manage the occasional problem, don't change it for the sake of changing it.

Obvious

[lil_billy]

Anyone who knows anything about IT knows that 90% of IT professionals don't want any kind of change. Ticket volume increases and system reliability decreases with any major IT modification.

Furthermore, the title for this post inflames the article's contents in order to get attention. Classis yellow journalism.

Makes no sense whatsoever..

[dhavleak]

Quoting from TFA:

Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista. (emphasis mine)
Quoting the headline of the /. post:

90% of IT Professionals Don't Want Vista (emphasis mine)
Hardly the same thing. Concern != Don't Want. And you have to be crazy not to be concerned when you deploy a new OS in your enterprise.

TFA even cites a Forrester Research article to back up it's claim (without linking to it). If you want the actual link, here it is. That study actually claims that one third of businesses will switch to Vista in 2008, which I think is ridiculously optimistic -- but it just goes to show what these studies are worth.

Then there's this gem:

Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista Let's consider compatibility first. Do these 961 IT Professionals think that switching from XP to OS-X or XP to Linux will give them less compatibility headaches than switching from XP to Vista? On reading this, I can't even understand how CmdrTaco decides that this post is worth our time!!

And next, let's consider stability. Stability first of all requires a definition -- it's very unclear what stability the 'study' is referring to. I'll assume for a moment we're talking about Vista not crashing. This is a very valid concern -- any time you're doing an enterprise deployment/upgrade. That's why you test your apps on the hardware you purchase. That's why you standardize on the hardware you have validated -- so you know you are buying machines with h/w, with supported drivers, etc. None of this is new to OS deployments/upgrades in general. I'm not sure what other kinds of stability they might be referring to, but it takes on an all-encompassing vagueness in a very FUDlike manner in TFA. I mean, if you're talking about stability from a support perspective, nothing has changed between now and XP. MS is not about to go belly-up anytime soon, so your vendor is not going to sell you an OS and then dissappear into the ether. Maybe stability refers to the disruption caused by transitioning OSes in the very first place. Understandable. That's why businesses aren't using Vista yet. They don't switch to a new OS just because it was released. They had (or at least should have had) very clear requirements, cost-benefi analysis etc. done when they deployed XP. If they did a good job with that deployment, and it is still serving their needs, they have absolutely no reason to switch. Windows XP will go End of Life in 2014 (i.e. MS will support it until 2014). Until then, if their requirements have not changed in a way that necessitates them to switch, they should not switch -- unless there are some other circumstances (like perhaps needing to deploy new h/w and wanting to sync the OS upgrade with that), or perhaps some cost-benefit analysis shows that they can save money by switching to Vista (just tossing that out as an example -- no need to launch an all-out assault on me).

This mean

[Clarious]

there is still 10% percent of IT Professionals want to use Vista? Vista must be better than I thought.

You lost the Hustler contract

[tepples]

I have a hard time taking somebody seriously as an IT professional when they have a disk partition just for porn. Good. LFP Inc. will be taking its Hustler contract elsewhere.

re: nothing new? Nah, a lot is new....

[King_TJ]

The Win2K to XP migration was a totally different thing than what we're seeing here. I remember working in corporate I.T. when XP was released, and like many other companies in our area, our company was still largely running Windows NT 4.0 on the workstations at that time. NT 4, after all, had 6 service packs by that time, and was considered pretty "mature" and "stable". All our machines came with it when they were new, were certified to work with it, and we had drive images with our full application set already made up for NT.

Everyone liked what they saw with Win2K, but the thought was "Well, we'll wind up with it eventually, as our old machines break down or reach "end of life" for whatever reason. The new ones will start coming pre-loaded with Win2K and we'll work that into a mixed environment for a while." The laptops (having a shorter life-span than desktops) were our first Win2K systems in use.

XP came along, mid-transition, for us - and so we started testing it, and making disk images with both XP and Win2K, to see how they both worked out for us. Ultimately, we decided to pass over Win2K and move straight to XP (but that's around the time I quit working for them too, so can't tell you definitively how it all went down after that).

The thing is, back then, XP was attractive even to "hesitant upgraders" like our company, because it was possible to set a few GUI options to give it a Windows 2000 "look and feel". Most of XP's impact came with improvements in things like "zero-configuration" wireless ethernet support, and better handling of PCMCIA cards on portables. The "eye candy" was un-necessary, but could largely be disabled. (Make fun of their "teletubbies" looking wallpaper default all you want, but that's just a lousy .BMP image file you can delete or change. Not a big issue.)

The XP to Vista migration is asking all your users to go through training, learning about completely new interface elements. Administrators have to re-learn where all the configuration options have been moved to (usually for no good reason other than Microsoft wanting it to feel "new and different"). Yeah, they promise more "security" in the OS, but that's a double-edge sword the way it was implemented. (It's likely a big factor in causing incompatibility with older software that was written assuming the user has more "administrator-like" rights in the OS than they do under Vista.) Migrations from 2000 to XP usually demanded you upgrade your PC's RAM, but XP to Vista seems to demand not only another similar bump in RAM, but also a potential bump in hard drive space, a newer video card, and in some cases, even a faster CPU. After all that, it has problems copying files over networks, and problems with file copies being SLOWER than they are under XP. (At least, that was the case last I checked. Obviously, update patches and the forthcoming SP1 for Vista may change some of that.)

Considering the relatively high cost of Vista licenses too, it's just a lot harder to cost-justify than a switch to XP (especially in a world where some people pretty much skipped over Win2K anyway).

This time around is different

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like this is just a rehash of the same topics that were posted back when WinXP was released, but as many have pointed out already things aren't exactly the same as they were back then.

What do we have to gain with WinXP?
Are there any substantial gains for a company to deploy it?
Is it more stable? Is the performance gain enough to justify the investment?

Windows Vista requires better hardware but fails to deliver improved performance to justify the added investment. If I were managing a company I'm sure I'd take that into consideration.

I do believe that in time Vista will takeover XP, but it'll take a long time. And in the meantime some people will start to wonder if it really pays off to stick with Windows.

Linux is clearly poised to become the better option. Not because it is cheaper in the short term, but because it just might be cheaper in the long run because you can continuously upgrade your systems and avoid transitions that require added investments in hardware, retraining your users, managing problems arising from backward compatibility issues, etc.

Its not that these issues would disappear if you were to move to linux, but you'd have a better control of the transition. And in the end, your costs could be significantly cheaper just by avoiding the features that bring no added value to your particular company.

Vista is not going to be a big flop. But I think this time around people are going to start noticing that there are serious alternatives out there. The amount of software available for linux is growing. In time it'll become a viable option. Next year is not going the year of linux on the desktop, but 5 years from now it might be.

Vista's user interface works exactly like...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the typical "sophisticated" and snobish big-city male homosexual brain (who smokes a lot of really pure high-dollar weed) would desire and expect it to work.

Microsoft has opened a Pandora's Box.

[Aslan72]

We're in a world where Open Source has created compatability and the goal is brining everyone in under the same roof. Leopard, Ubuntu, SUSE and their ilk have created experiences that are comparable to Windows and, in some cases, even better. The onus is now on MS to keep up. If we're waiting on SP1 for this OS to be stable (which we are) I would have rather they waited a year and released a better product. There was a ars technica article where they interviewed the manager for Vista some time ago and everyone at MS was praising him because he was marshalling people and ditching features in Vista in order to get it out the door. I'm horribly dissapointed in what came out. There were features that I, for one, was looking forward to and would have given Vista's poor security implementation a whole lot more grace in my eyes had they included them. --pete

Re:Microsoft has opened a Pandora's Box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Leopard isn't Open Source.

Testing for the Air Force

[jesuscash]

I'm the lead on testing Vista at my base for the Air Force. I have to say that I would not give my advice to procede with a full deployment. However, my voice is meaningless as the Air Force has pretty much already decided to go ahead with it and seems to be doing this as a let's-see-what-breaks-and-mitigate. The sad issue is that MS contractors are hired on to key places. We are essentially paying them to sell us their products. I have literally been told by one of these people that something was not a bug but a feature. It's prettier but what does it offer my people? Our testing has fortunately prompted two people I talked to this weekend to buy Apples for their home use.

Ahh...

[mmcuh]

I don't know much about Windows Vista - I have never used it, I have never seen anyone use it, I have barely read about it. And yet, because of Microsoft's patent trolling, ballot stuffing and general misbehaving I can't help enjoying this type of reports.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[Meorah]

Office 2000 is long in the tooth.

2003 made some nice improvements to Outlook. (rpc over https, junk-mail filter)

2007 made some nice improvements to Word/Excel/Outlook (excel bug notwithstanding).

If you are a power user for any of the basic Office apps and still using 2000, you would enjoy any office upgrade.

If you're just supporting Office and aren't really a power user, then I can see how you wouldn't notice any differences. But that means you are holding back your power users instead of enabling them to do more. Try Office 2k7 for 2 weeks and your users will get used to the new UI and wonder how they ever got along without it.

Vista still sucks for corporate environment though.

Comparisons to XP are invalid

[HangingChad]

Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it

I was there and this nothing like those days. There is a perfect storm of circumstance conspiring against Vista success. The devaluation of the dollar and crisis in confidence of the valuation of US investment instruments will put many big enterprise upgrades on hold. Based on just the phone calls I get, I see more companies actively seeking alternatives that will run adequately on the commodity hardware they already own.

MSFT contributed to Vista's problems by delivering late, stripping out the value functionality, jacking the prices and confusing the market with their licensing scheme.

Business is good for people writing those decision papers right now.

Re:Comparisons to XP are invalid

[QRDeNameland]

Well said.

There is another aspect implicit in this that doesn't get noted as much.

As IT technology matures, decision makers are more and more forced into the position of actually having to justify the money they spend. And as the experience of businesses in upgrading software has accumulated, one thing become clearer...the cost of major software upgrades to the customer are increasingly external to the software itself...that is, while MS might get $100-200 per seat of added revenue from your business's upgrade, the cost to you may be 10 times that after compatability testing, fixing bugs, figuring workarounds, etc. And it's not just Microsoft...many software vendors, especially industry-specific enterprise software, are very agressive about forcing customers to upgrade so that they can both keep their revenue streams flowing and reduce their development costs by not supporting so many old versions.

However, IT shops seem to be discovering that this model does not serve them nearly as well as it does the vendor. I've seen multiple cases where agressively pushed or mandated upgrades for which the customer had no pressing business need were implemented, and between buggy code and unforeseen issues these ill-advised upgrades disrupted other pertinent business for months...hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by a customer in order to justify a few thousand to the vendor.

And that is why Vista does not need to necessarily "suck" in order to fail...it just needs to prove itself to have enough issues to make the external costs high enough that most shops don't bother. I've heard from quite a few colleagues that Win32 software that was originally developed in NT4, and had either minor or zero issues when migrating to 2K and then XP, are having major issues with Vista. You could argue that many of these problems are related to assuming admin access (as I would tend to assume) and Vista is forcing these developers to use better coding practices, but that also has to balance against "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" especially when there may be no good business case for doing so.

Ubuntu rulez!

[Ux64]

Our organization changed from XP to Ubuntu when we were thinking about Vista. Free update, free software, free developing tools etc. Also our customers now get free OS with our products. No need to buy expensive Windows licenses for every workstation that only runs our software.

It's just so great!!!

Re:Ubuntu rulez!

[Stonent1]

So what is "our software"?

GG Vista

[Bengie]

Here's a good one. I work for It an my Uni and MS sent us a corporate version. It refuses to talk with their authentication server and locks itself down after 2 weeks. Our student labs already have Vista just because we need to use what most people are going to be use to, with all new computers shipping with it.

Re:LOTFLMYO

[LingNoi]

Truth doesn't matter, look at some of the outdated information people spread about Linux without using it themselves.

Re:LOTFLMYO

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, you are a proud and happy fucktarded M$ Windoze user and developer simply because you are too fucking stupid to even fucking exist let alone use a god-damned fucking computer. As such you should hit your fucking head against the fucking corner of a god-damned fucking door until fucking death. If you have fucktarded children then you should take your entire fuckarded family on a trip. When you are on your fucking trip you should drive at fucking high speeds until you reach a fucking tree and crash into it while you and your entire fucktarded family not wearing seatbelts. You and your entire fucktarded family are not only polluting the fucking gene pool, but you are stealing fucking O2 from the rest of us you stupid fucktard.

GO AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY FUCKTARDED WINDOZE LUSERS!
__________________________________________
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

Where's Vista server?

[Eponymous Coward]

It's going to be really interesting to see what Vista Server looks like. It's one thing for desktop / consumer editions of Windows to be thoroughly wrapped in DRM, but quite another for a server OS. Are they really going to reset major subsystems at the drop of a hat in a server OS because of DRM? I remember reading about the audio system causing networking problems and I believe the video subsystem checks for intrusions something like 30 times per second. Not something I want my server OS worrying about.

-ec

Re:How many IT professionals... had a sexchange?

[seyyah]

Great news!
So these expert sexchange cases are actually shown, eh? Right there in the cache, huh? 'cause to be honest, I never really understood how they did 'em.

Furthermore, over 50% would switch to Linux

[KWTm]

Yes, the article gives further specific info that can tell us how seriously the respondents are thinking of switching:
961 respondents
865 said they didn't want to deploy Linux
423 said they would consider non-Windows systems
38 are already switching to non-Windows
106 have not started switching, but expect to switch before 2008 ends (so much for "Windows 7")

What I can't tell is how many people they asked which non-MS system they'd switch to. Did they just ask people who considered non-Windows, or did they ask everyone, "If you were forced to choose non-Windows, which would you choose?" Assuming the former, then they asked 423 people, of which:

118 would choose Mac OS
106 would choose Red Hat Linux
76 would choose SuSE
76 would choose Ubuntu
38 would choose another Linux distro of some sort
17 weren't sure

That makes 431 people, so 8 extra people snuck in there somewhere, but you get the idea. About 2/3 of people (who considered non-MS systems) chose Linux of some sort, although the article chose to "split the vote" and said that Mac OS came out on top. Anyway, that is good news that over a quarter of the 961 respondents said they would consider switching to Linux. It gives Linux more standing in the eyes of hardware manufacturers who, hopefully, will be more willing to offer hardware drivers for Linux. (Broadcom Wireless, are you listening?)

and the 10% of IT Professionals are..

[yaiba]

working in Redmond WA.

Only between the keyboard and computer

[Overzeetop]

I don't mind that MS has a new operating system. I mind that MS has decided to change how and where everything used to manage the system has been changed. I mind that their "paradigm shift" to tasks rather than actions prevents me from getting to the parts of the OS I need to manage the system. I run a small company and we're all XP (and a 2k3 SBE). I do the IT because I can't really justify 5-10% of my annual operating budget to an IT consultant. I know where things are, and have a good idea of how to keep things running. Every time I run into a default Vista install, I spend tens of minutes looking for "the old way" of doing things. Now, I wouldn't need to if I were trained in such things - but isn't the point of modern OSes to minimize the amount of technical resources necessary? I still can't set the wireless card to do internet searches and have the wired card only do lookups for ips in the 192.168.0.x space, just like I can't with XP, but now it takes me three times as long to fool the system into doing just that.

Personally, when I hit a key, I want whatever I've just initiated to be done. Now. With several billion operations per second, and only 2 million pixels on the screen, I shouldn't even notice anything has happened, and yet amazingly I find a 1-4 second delay for most operations under vista. I hate to get all old-man on modern IT, but DOS was faster under a 33MHz processor for executing simple operations. Transparency is not particularly valuable if the computer can't keep up with my inputs.

Error: 865 of 961 disliked *Vista*, not Linux

[KWTm]

Sorry about replying to myself --that error slipped by my tired eyes until after I had hit the submit button.

Of 961 people, 865 said no to Vista, and 423 considered non-Windows, of which about 280 (assuming my assumptions are correct) would choose Linux.

Certified to run under wine? Win-Win-Win Situation

[Anonymous Coward]

"WINE is not and I doubt it will ever be a good way of running general random Windows apps."

It depends, if a company certified that it's product would run under Wine that would take a lot of risk and headache out for the user. It's not that it doesn't work that pisses people off, it's that they don't know and if they try to find out for themselves they may waste a lot of time just to end up ultimately with a program that doesn't work.

A company certifying that it would run under Wine is a win-win-win situation. It's a win for the company because it's less expensive than having to port it over to run on *nix natively. It's a win for the customer since they know it'll run under wine. It's a win for Wine, because the company will need to ensure that it runs under Wine, and submit the necessary patches to ensure that Wine can run it.

Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

It's what you get when you let lawyers write your software.

My Reasoning

[Tarlus]

As a sysadmin, I would fall in that 90%.

I'm not so much concerned about incompatibility, instability or user-unfriendliness.

The license would be expensive and I'd have to upgrade 100 machines which are all comfortably running XP. XP works for everybody. Nobody has any applications which require Vista. So there's really no motivation to buy it.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sadly, once security updates cease, a lot of those people in that 90% will have no choice but to reconsider the switch.

Re:My Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. For business customers ROI on Vista is a massive loss.
Even the most suck-up Microsoft and Gates lover CTOs can't swallow that.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

From the same article:

"I can confirm that the tweaks work. However, they don't work miracles, from a performance standpoint. I own an Nvidia 8600 card, and turning up the settings to "high" with the tweaks enabled gave me about 15 frames per second. But it looked fantastic."

Hear, Hear! Re:Well there you have it

[LazloToth]

Well said! For a long time, administrators heard security consultants saying "network security is a process, not a product." We recognized that, in fact, it was a process involving the integration of several products and procedures. So we began doing all the things we could do within budget and personnel limits to batten down the hatches. Firewall management, spam filtering, OS security updates, and virus containment were big parts of the security pie. Now, when someone says they can improve my network's security at the workstation OS level, I pretty much take it to be marketing fluff.

Abandon Ship!

[Erris]

I've been working IT for a long time, and I've NEVER liked a new operating system. New == Problems. ... [by upgrading] You're adding a fricking ton to your workload, and for no good reason.

The issue is no longer if M$ can make Vista "good enough" it's if Windoze has ever adequate. Despite the usual grand promises and six or seven years of development, Vista looks like more of the same. Significant migration will kill the network effect and M$'s inferior software will die with it.

Apologists advise you to cling to Windoze at any cost but that's obviously crazy and short sighted. They FUD other systems but no other system is a buggy or painful as what they have for you. Other, bigger companies with better product have come and gone. M$ is sinking and those who cling to it without alternative skill sets will go down with them.

Now watch the usual M$ PR drones call me names and mod this comment out of sight. That's fine, because this comment is obvious by now.

Re:Abandon Ship!

[Stamen]

The issue is no longer if M$ can make Vista "good enough" it's if Windoze has ever adequate. First, I'm a big Unix advocate, and I'm by no means a supporter of Microsoft's products. However, comments like yours does absolutely nothing to help your cause. As soon as I see M$, Windoze, or other such 5th grade silliness, I tune out a comment, disregarding any thoughtful or insightful analysis that it may have contained.

Perhaps there is a reason that your comments are "mod'd out of sight". Language can be powerful, do try to learn to wield that power effectively.

Re:Abandon Ship!

[nuzak]

Erris is just one of twitter's sockpuppets. Twitter essentially does nothing but troll any and all Microsoft-related articles with the same language. Best to just shitcan him with a red dot next to his name and forget about him.

Re:Abandon Ship!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi twitter!

I am one of those "MS PR-Drones", oh, sorry, "M$ PR-Drones". Except I'm not actually paid by "M$", or anyone else. In fact, I'm a linux user, and I develop free software. I just happen to think that you're a borderline insane, delusional, obnoxious little shit, so every time I get some mod points, I click on your posting history and mod your inane little rants out of sight.

If Microsoft wanted to pay me for doing so, that would be great, but the truth is, I'm happy to do it for free as public service.

By the way, it's MS, spelt with an S. Try it. Allow the nineteenth letter of the alphabet into you life.

XP EULA still insane

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter HOW good XP is I cannot and will not agree to the EULA and the activation.

If MS do as they said they would at the beginning of activation schemes and give out an unlock code for XP I may think again.

Otherwise, I don't care if it gets me hot rampant sex each night, I'm not using it.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[CFTM]

Office 2000 was quite annoying, Outlook 2000 in particular. At my company, most users use the dreaded PST to store email as we don't want them leaving gigs of data on the mail server. Well before Outlook 2003, those PST were limited to 2 gigabytes of data and the corruption process would begin at 1.4GB of data. Nothing like having users corrupt their PST's, then having messages get stuck in the outbox and proceed to hammer someone with 300 emails in ten minutes...yeah Outlook 2000, I want to stay on that POS.

Snicker

[LaughingCoder]

It doesn't matter what 90% of IT professionals want. What matters is what 90% of the users want. The days of IT running the show are long gone. Those days ended when the PC came out.

TS as an alternative?

[gothzilla]

I'm the entire I.T. Dept for a smallish office. We've got two 2k3 servers and about 20 workstations that all still run Windows 2000. I've been struggling with the Vista upgrade concept for a while now and it's really not a fun thing.

The idea of upgrading all our desktops, installing Vista, and then hoping all of our applications work just fine on it scares the hell out of me. Sure I can do testing before hand but you just can't test every scenario and there are always things that pop up.

My question now is this. Would it just be easier to throw everyone into Terminal Server sessions and let them use 2k3 as their desktop? I wouldn't have to spend money upgrading desktops, desktops that die will be replaced by cheap thin clients, and I save money from not buying Vista licenses. Does this sound feasible to do? (Assuming all applications work and everyone can do their jobs of course.)

Re:TS as an alternative?

[TClevenger]

I guess the first question is, do you need to upgrade? Windows 2000 has free hotfix support through March 31, 2010. By then, not only will Vista be stable, but Windows 7 might be out and stable as well.

If not, I think I would recommend XP. We have a terminal server running for specific finance apps, and it tends to bog down in the middle of the day. If any portion of your current desktop clients start doing intensive computing at the same time, I could forsee some speed issues, even on a dual quad core server. HP and Dell have cheap managed business desktops (capable of running Vista later) with XP Pro preinstalled for well under $1,000, so even a hardware upgrade on the desktop side would be cheaper than a server beefy enough to handle 20 moderately heavy desktop users.

I don't even want XP

[Bryansix]

XP is the operating system that I am most familiar with now. It is what most people compare to Vista when they say Vista has stability problems and is slow, etc. The thing is I would still have Windows 98 on my computer at home if Microsoft still supported it. And I mean REALLY supported it by releasing full fledged security updates and even new features without bogging it down. There was nothing wrong with 98 when I finally switched my home comp to XP about a year ad a half ago now. I was farmiliar with XP because I had to support it at work. Still I knew that nothing in XP really made me want to switch. I mean, maybe the ability to kill processes. That would be it.

Upgrade to XP

[SgtChaireBourne]

... not least of which is that it will likely arrive on a new PC bought, not because vista is available but because a new computer is required...

However, even if they're stuck in the Windows quagmire (for whatever reason or excuse), most OEMs allow purchasers to upgrade from MS Vista to XP for the asking. That's the catch though, they have to ask or else they're stuck with the infected machine.

Seriously, for 99% of what most home users do, Kubuntu / Ubuntu would be a drop in replacement -- except for the maintenance and malware nightmares.

Out of Office Reply: Well there you have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I am unavailable right now. I am playing a computer game that requires full-screen mode, and will have only limited access to email. If this issue is urgent, please contact: notmyboss.

Thanks!

Won't it be a shame if...

[pentalive]

Won't it be a shame if the in-the-works Windows 7 fails like Windows Vista has.

In other news...

[goodmanj]

90% of IT professionals don't want to do more work.

I got a lot of respect for the IT guys who go the extra mile for their users, but there's no denying that migrating to Vista is going to involve a hell of a lot of effort, overtime, and disaster management. Even if the OS was the hottest thing since sliced bread, the best of the IT guys would sigh and grumble a bit, and the worst will actively stonewall.

Vista dominate over once adoptio critical mass

[felix9x]

I don't think it matters what IT people are thinking. What about countless small businesses that are purchasing new PCs and are not giving a second thought what OS is being configured on the PC. Literally not even bothering to see what the default OS selection is when they buy. They just make sure Office is included and there you go -- Vista adoption. Once this network effect happens Vista will be the default OS for business no matter what.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[justthinkit]

Who uses Outlook? I've never seen a Microsoft email application fit to use. I'm on Eudora and have been for 11 to 12 years. For event reminders I use xReminder Pro v4.

I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

If such a large percentage of the people interviewed are thinking of switching to non Microsoft OS, I don't think the user group chosen was diverse enough. Those numbers do not represent the majority.

Re:I don't think so.

[ClosedSource]

I didn't see any margin of error on the survey, so it's probably not valid. I'm sure the 10% won't be asked the next time.

MS rebranding

[toby]

"What do you want rammed up your a** today?"

Just like XP

[sniperdoc]

If you really think about it, Vista is behaving just like XP did when it first came out. But where I have a problem, is that Microshaft is trying to push Vista on people KNOWING FULL WELL that the business world has problems with making a move so soon after release. Windows 2000 is STILL deployed in all types of business environments, and some businesses are STILL making a migration to XP. Notwithstanding, that a majority of business software is not compatible with Vista. In our case, we use server application called BST Enterprise, and it is not compatible with Vista's IE7. There's a patch for XP IE7, but not for Vista. So, I'm supposed to dish out another $12K for the Enterprise software, $10K for a server that can handle the newer version, and the pains of upgrading my database just so Vista users can access the server to fill in their timesheet? If it comes down to it, I will be purchasing my Dell systems with Vista, and I'll just purchase retail OEM XP if I have to. I run Vista Business at home along with XP, I also have a dual boot at work just to test the waters every so often. Right now, Vista is terrible for a business environment and I don't see it getting better any time soon. Because of the "required" shift to Vista in 2008, I see Linux becoming a big player in the future. Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot.

Vista vs XP

[Nicolay77]

I can say that I have heard more positive things about Vista during launch than I heard about XP during its launch. The architecture change is bigger and better than in 2K->XP. In this regard MS should not be worried...

What's different is what MS has at stake. They _need_ Vista to succeed much more than they needed XP to succeed. And the market perception about MS has changed too. In XP times MS was an OK company. Now they are simply EVIL. Using XP instead of Vista is the only way people has to hurt MS.

Another difference is the huge amount of time it passed since the last release. MS made lots of companies to subscribe to any SO updates that would have happened in the last 6 years.

Then they released nothing during that years. They got the money and provided nothing in exchange of that money. That's a (very valid) reason for a lot of companies to dismiss Vista, as in 'this is payback time'.

So the initial opinion of Vista is in fact better than the initial public opinion of XP. But, public opinion of XP changed slowly but surely towards positive, specially with service pack 2. All its problems were technical and nothing else. Vista has already fixed most of the technical problems and public opinion is still bad. I see no signs of the public opinion of Vista getting better.

Seems like people finally understood that DRM sucks and should be repeled with full force.

Re:Vista vs XP

[TClevenger]

I can say that I have heard more positive things about Vista during launch than I heard about XP during its launch. The architecture change is bigger and better than in 2K->XP. In this regard MS should not be worried...

That's because it's a different situation. XP didn't sell well at first because it was obvious that it was W2K with a different Start menu and color scheme, for $150. Vista's not selling well because of its instability, lack of hardware driver support, confusing array of versions, high price and appetite for hardware (any machine that could run 2000 could run XP at about the same speed, and with a faster boot time. Not so with Vista.)

My 5 Cents Comments

[HerbieStone]

I once designed GUIs as a professional and found it to be a very difficult job. I too hate Explorer with a passion, though now that I work with Ubuntu at home and at work it has become more and more a memory of the past. But I disgress...

Designing GUIs is difficult because you don't really know what it should look like until someone else tries to use it. Every person will use your GUI a bit differently and those will want you to adjust your GUI your GUI accordingly (and often be right at that). And (and this is the most problematic part) even persons who don't use your GUI will still have an oppinion how the GUI should look like and work, according their own logic and might demand that you change it (bosses and such). That is why I have huge respects to the guys over at apple. Oh and I don't get me wrong. I don't search any excuses for MS, after so many years they still manage to screw up on the usability side. I just want to give you another perspective as to why such might crap happens at MS. My guess goes towards bad bosses.

The other thing I wanted to say is, that I think your "DISK1C___GAMES PORN___(E)" is pretty kinky and I bow before you beeing so straight forward and not obfuscating it after taking screenshots of it ;)

Cheers
Herbiestone

Re:More Network "Savvy"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to disable automatic searches for network folders and printers in XP ("on" by default) in order to keep it from finding those things. But if you want Vista to access shared printers on older OS's, you could lose an afternoon.

Vista is the new Linux ;)

[freeweed]

Those arguments only hold water when used as a criticism of Linux.

Similar vein, have you seen the number of Vista tweaks lately that, in essence, boil down to "find this obscure text file and modify this line"? Virtually every Slashdot article about Vista these days is full of them:

Poster A: This behaviour in Vista doesn't work right.
Poster B: Oh, that's easy enough to fix, go into the registry and find this key, and change this value...

It's no longer obscure settings that maybe 3 people on the planet care about. I've watched entire discussion threads go 50 posts deep, many people complaining about this issue, then someone posts a solution, and everyone's grateful.

And I sit there thinking "wow, just like Linux". ;)

What the hell is the rest of the 10% thinking?

[Sepiraph]

And what are they smoking (or how much are they getting paid by Microsoft)?

Becoming mainstream?

[AncientPC]

I came across a few PC vs. Mac ads bashing Vista's low adoption rate and people were downgrading to WinXP. I guess Vista complainers is no longer geek-only, but rather mainstream now since Apple's advertising it?

No value in Vista - just headaches

[Anonymous Coward]

The major reason why corporate IT deos not want - and hopefully will not - switch to Vista is simple:
Corporate IT has been running on XP now pretty well, and there are no "must have" Vista features and improvements, that would truly force corporate IT to upgrade, against all the cost and efforts, which comes with major OS upgrades.
In Microsoft and business lingo: the ROI on Vista is just not there to even consider it.

Microsoft may have reached the magic limit where they can make automatic upgrades every few years to every product - now basically motivated by the need to generate new source of revenue, instead of providing something vitally important new stuff that costumers value and are willing to pay for. Maybe the automatic software upgrade cashcow era is simply over.

There are reasons for businesses to switch.

[ghjm]

They haven't become evident yet, because everyone's still dealing with application and driver compatibility.

Once the drivers and applications work, enterprises will adopt Vista for the new group policy features alone. There's no reason MS couldn't have done this on XP, and I'm sure customers will demand that MS backport it. But if Microsoft hangs tough, it's so compelling a feature that enterprises will follow MS to Vista just to get it.

Working network-layer access control is also a big enterprise feature, although it doesn't work well until everyone in the environment has upgraded. This is the feature that will sell the last handful of Vista licenses, when IT turns on access control on the switches and your XP machine is suddenly on GuestNet.

AUP is at its core a good idea (it should be, it's been a best practice on Unix for more than 20 years). It's been implemented horribly badly, but no doubt there will be a Vista SP1 which will fix the worst of the problems. If it turns out to have good real-world results vs. malware, word will get out.

The Vista installer makes it easier to do hardware-independent remote installs. On the server side, RIS has been replaced with Windows Deployment Server, which will be better once everyone figures out how it works. No more hand-rewriting INF files to get a driver to integrate into your RIS image. Also, WinPE is now available to everyone with a valid Vista license, so bootable utility discs (or PXE images) can finally come out of the closet.

So yes, there are reasons to upgrade. None of them matter if your apps or drivers aren't supported, but give it a year and I think we'll see businesses moving to Vista. I don't think the new activation server requirement is going to slow adoption much, even if I personally think it should.

-Graham

Laptops

[wandazulu]

I care.

Your comment might be true for a regular desktop machine where there's plenty of room for another disk or two, and the memory slots are easy to get to. A laptop, however, is a bigger deal; yes I can get a laptop with 4 gig of ram and a 200gig disk, but it will put me back $4000. The majority of laptops in my life have 1 gig of ram *at *most*. It's too expensive to roll out a couple hundred laptops with the specs to make using Vista feel comfortable.

Re:Laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't list an outrageous price for a laptop

There's a laptop for sale today in the FRY's ads section for the L.A. Times today that had one listed for $499
Vista Home Premium
Dual Core
1 GB Ram
http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=32664&adid=5374238&subid=18622826&type=

I don't know if you have been following the market the last year or so, but you can get 2GB sticks now for $50 and I have seen the 2GB ones for laptops for $80.

At brunch Sunday, a friend said her PC was dying

[WillAffleckUW]

Everyone there recommended she not get Vista but consider getting a Linux or Mac box.

Not a good sign.

Stability problems are caused by the DRM

[PingXao]

I wish more "journalists" would investigate the cause of the things they "investigate". Look at what's behind Vista's stability problems and you'll find 3 letters staring at you: DRM. Nobody ever points this out. Mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) articles you read on Vista's problems seem to bend over backwards to avoid the elephant in the room:

The biggest new feature in Vista is one that was implemented for people other than those who buy and run it.

It's a big cause Vista's performance and stability problems. Yeah, hardware is cheap, but when a new Windows OS runs slower than the previous one on the same hardware and there are no real new must-have features, then to me it's a no-brainer. Vista will never, ever run on any hardware I control.

As for the title of this article, I rest my case. It restricts what I can do. It was not developed with me in mind (whether I'm an individual or a business). If it wasn't for Microsoft strong-arming developers and ISVs Vista would be dead and buried already.

You're leaping, AC

[Infonaut]

I can see how "seriously" you're taking Linux as an option.

You can? I was putting myself in the shoes of a hypothetical IT chief. That says nothing about whether I've "considered" Linux or not. I went past the "considering" stage a long time ago.

I did read it - still useless

[Infonaut]

with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year

Being "in the process of switching" or "expecting to switch" are practically meaningless statements because they are forward-looking, and inherently subjective. Being "in the process" could mean anything from getting pricing estimates from vendors to installing hardware to finishing in-house training for your IT department so you can support the 100 Linux boxes you just installed. At any point short of hardware purchase, the switch could get derailed. "Expecting to switch" is even less reliable. I as an IT manager might be expecting to switch, but the CTO might block the effort. Or the CEO might. Or any number of things could happen. I could change my mind. The list goes on and on.

I'm no fan of Vista, but this data is almost useless. We'll just have to wait and see what actually happens. Prognostication is bound to fail.

*cough*

[msimm]

I don't know how your company works but technology decisions where I work get vet by technology people, not the bean counters. I mean some decisions get made based on application, but not broadly based on the whims of uninformed individuals (who would have to answer to problems and revenue lost due to poor decisions, just like we do).

Re:LOTFLMYO

[jwilcox154]

And the winner for the higest usage of the F-Bomb in a single post goes to - Twitter!

Windows is just a tool like GNU/Linux and MacOS X so relax otherwise you may suffer a stroke form all of that stress. ;)

Nail/head...

[msimm]

Often times more things worked better after the switch.

This has been the deal-breaker for me. We've deployed Vista in tests. Had none of the application issues that we couldn't at least work around. But after using it for any amount of time the one issue that really sticks is that Vista is not an improvement. Instead of building on their flagship OS they have taken lateral and even some backward steps. If all I wanted was a nice looking OS (Aero) I'd have moved to a company that's built a business doing it (Apple). But what I want is something that can run my business applications rock-solid and excels at playing games at home.

If you think about it Microsoft didn't really have to do too much to make Vista a quietly successful operating system. It didn't have to be revolutionary, it just needed to build on their existing success.

In the future I hope that they learn from this experience. I should never be asked to buy a new operating system that degrades performance. Rearranging the system layout and adding new layers of anti-consumer DRM just adds insult to injury.

Like diarrhea...

[msimm]

Vista is fast and slick on my hardware.

More seriously, the problem is Vista isn't really fast or slick. The UI changes seem arbitrary. The hardware requirements might not be unreasonable, but they also seem to presume that performance related advances in computer science stopped suddenly sometime after XP. I'm not interested in the UAC or the improved DRM lock-down. I want to see better mobility and power management. Better multi-tasking and real-time scheduling. Want to sell me something? Give me a better version of what I have today. Apple users get the Time Machine, we get confirmation dialogs. And most users today are savvy enough to see the difference.

Probably a lot..

[msimm]

At least the ones who have a reasonably large user base and don't want to be fired or retrain them all. Windows succeed because it's known. Vista kind of sucks because it seems to arbitrarily making some things which are known unknown and you end up having to retrain users anyway.

Seriously..

[msimm]

EX results used to drive me crazy before I figured out how and why it happened. Each resulting link will give you a page with a question and then a long strings of images with fake/greyed out answers. Think of the fake answers as their advertising (which is forgivable only because the real answers tend to be decent quality). Continuing to scroll below these fake/image answers will provide the real ones. That's why they show up so frequently in google searches (the images don't get parsed) and look confusingly legitimate in the search and deceptively useless when you check the link.

I've actually sat over the shoulder of one of our programmers while he was looking though and EX post and was going to give up because he thought there was no answer until I took the page and flipped his scroll further towards the bottom (viola).

Windows Vista is Windows ME's bastard child

[tmick7]

Win ME: - same kernel as win98, same file system. - slightly changed the GUI menus, altered access to DOS in order to speed up boot times. - included windows movie maker, so people can make shiny home videos. I think we all can agree Windows ME was a clusterf*ck. Basically MS changed win 98 ever so slightly, and then repackaged it as a new os. Win Vista: - same kernel (minor changes to the way Ntoskrnl.exe handles MMCSS for seamless video playback) again, shiny! - changes the menus around, and offers the 'slick' aero UI. Shiny trifecta complete. Vista is a dressed up version of XP. They put XP in a room with Win Media Center edition and had them go at it. Out comes Vista, which shares the same pedigree as Win ME. I work at a law school, 200+ employees w/ 400+ computers. I'd like to never upgrade them to vista. Unless some decision maker (guy w/ the money and no clue how to attach a picture to an email) makes me, I never will. Linux? Please. Reason? See desc. of boss, X that by 1/3 # of employees.

Right...

[Bafoon]

1)I bet this survey was paid by god knows who that writes for this site...because that's not what the previous surveys said 2)stability issues...that's such BS.Any "IT Person" and by "IT Person" i mean an actual person with a brain that is actually qualified and smart enough to identify and fix problems...not just some bafoon who updates with windows update and got his IT job through connections and family ties...,can tell you that Vista simply IS the most stable version of windows so far.Specialy the x64 version. As far as compatibility goes the problem could simply be that in the year 2007 there are still a bunch of CHEAP companies that are 2 CHEAP to upgrade their working DOS software from 1995 and blaiming Everything since Windows 98 for their problems. Here in my countries i see entire companies on Vista including developers who run more software on Vista that most of these so called IT professionals have even heard of...with no freaking problems what so ever. And the most frustrating thing about these companies is the fact that they hire any bafoon who sends them an email that gives the apperance of actual computer knowledge...then they blindly believe anything this genius tells them. No bloody wonder you have a few hundred thousand machines that have licensed copies of Norton Antivirus and secretaries that can't even send out mail because these idiots block all the ports...incoming and outgoing but forget to set up their mailserver so that's actually not an open relay. But nobody notices because he is the all mighty "IT PROFESSIONAL". These polls should be banned all together.They keep people from upgrading 2 good software and are the biggest reason why people fear to install linux based servers in their companies. And yes I still say Vista is more stable than any previous version of windows and that the only GOOD reason to hesitate with an upgrade is possible pricing problems.That's what the end users need to start bitching about.Not security and not stability.Because these are currently NOT a problem...as most unix supporters who don't know jack about jack would like to have us all believe.

What's more worrying

[Trogre]

is that apparently 10% of IT professionals do want Microsoft Windows Vista.

90% of IT Professionals Don't Want Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

it's nice to know that at least 10% of us are still computer literate then

Re:LOTFLMYO

[LingNoi]

And the winner for the higest usage of the F-Bomb in a single post goes to - Twitter!

lol, I was reading that post and all I could think was.. "It's Twitter"

Anyone else consider migrating to gOS

[ProppaT]

I migrated my office over to gOS and productivity has shot through the roof! Everyone can browse the internet twice as fast, with none of those pesky IE browser crashes now. ...........

Re:Nail/head... /Nail/Head

[Paul Pierce]

*Mod Parent up*

2000 was a step leading to XP. It said, oh, sorry about winME, I'm more secure, reliable, and I have many more technical tools; use me for now. 2000 was a good OS, but XP built on that and appealed much more to desktop-users. It looked better, had the drivers you were looking for, was easier to navigate, and really improved on the amount of BSODs.

XP could run as fast as 2000 on the same hardware - crucial. Vista is a nice OS, but application issues they could not afford. I have come across network sharing issues with XP-to-Vista, static IP issues while IPv6 is on, Pop didn't work when originally shipped, and Aero constantly Blue Screened a co-workers Laptop.

I could almost overlook these issues for myself, but I can't for a business deployment solution. The killer for me is the hardware requirements. I can upgrade my machine to run Vista quite well, but man, then all I can think about is how fast XP would be on it. Vista has made me realize just how good XP is. XP > Vista whereas Leopard > Tiger.

In a related survey..

[Anonymous Meoward]

90% of IT professionals will not be eating laminated cardboard for lunch. (The other 10% don't eat lunch.)

Re:yep

[Axed33]

Great, so let's solve the backwards compatibility problem by punching a gigantic hole in security measures that took 6 years to develop, thus negating the point in developing said security features in the first place. If MS allowed developers to go along the old path they would, as it's the path of least resistance.

Annoyingly different

[56ksucks]

Vista is annoyingly different than XP. They've moved and renamed common windows folders with no reason, they've taken the menus off the windows. And while you can put them back on a) menus have been a fundamental part of the gui interface for like 30 years. People are going to miss them. and b) Grandma isn't going to know how to put them back. On top of this the windows classic theme does not resemble XP, it resembles 9x/2000!!!!! Again, if grandma got her first computer with XP this is going to confuse her. The lack of an XP like theme is bogus.

Also, why is it necessary for a computer to ask my permission 4 freaking times to create a folder? How is that more secure?

I probably didn't like the changes in XP when it first came out. But I've had a few years to get use to them, and they weren't this annoying. I'm in no hurry to upgrade to 2 gigs of RAM and install Vista any time soon in 256 colors because I can't find a video driver. I'll stick to XP for now.

Re:90% of IT professionals doesn't want anything N

[fishbowl]

It's also the first MS release that's accompanied by a full-scale ad campaign from a direct competitor.

And now that upgrading the OS typically involves a hardware upgrade *anyway*, this particular competitor
is seeing significant interest, because it's a more reasonable comparison. And this is somewhat new.

My unscientific observations suggest it is working. I've seen more Macbook Pro's in the last year than
the total number of portable computers I've ever seen before.

Good for you, buy that $500 Vista Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

A $500 vista machine runs like absolute shit. I don't care if your "good" system runs vista fast and slick, I'm tired of the $500 pieces of shit being sold at the stores with vista installed. The $500 computers can barely boot the os in a reasonable time. Install a few apps and get a little spyware by mistake and the $500 computers don't have the horsepower to be useable at all... I mean they're just way worse than XP, INCLUDING unpatched XP with 2001 year hardware. Microsoft software is in the crapper this year. Vista sux, Office 2007 sucks more. I don't see how $500 buys a satisfactory computer.. Neither do I see how less than $2500 buys a reasonable computer either.

I've been a microsoft/IBM clone zealot for a long long long time. Microsoft's DRM, and crappy vista coupled with retailers installing vista on $500 machines that can barely run Windows XP let alone vista I am completely outraged. When February rolls around I'm going to get a Macintosh. I really fucking hate mac, but I hate microsoft more.

By the way, a brand new $500 computer will not surpass my old Dual Intel Xeon 2.4ghz with 3 SCSI 15k rpm hard drives in a striped raid... Probably not for another 5 or more years until hard drives get faster. Systems with value class processors and 54k rpm hard drives never makes a fast computer... They barely make a useable computer.

Re:Good for you, buy that $500 Vista Machine

[Zeinfeld]

A $500 vista machine runs like absolute shit. I don't care if your "good" system runs vista fast and slick, I'm tired of the $500 pieces of shit being sold at the stores with vista installed. The $500 computers can barely boot the os in a reasonable time. Install a few apps and get a little spyware by mistake and the $500 computers don't have the horsepower to be useable at all...

Here it becomes pretty clear what your game is. If a system is compromised by malware it is not going to run fast regardless of what O/S is running. Boted Linux is just as bad as boted Windows.

I don't notice any problem booting Vista, seems to boot faster than XP to me. And unlike XP it seems to be ready to do work when its booted rather than some time later.

Been a while since I booted a Unix box, in those days it took about ten to fifteen minutes but that was twenty years ago.

With no beta testing?

[Joce640k]

I doubt it...

.NET installer

[tepples]

It's not that large anyway. It's a 22.4MB download, so it can't be much more than 60MB installed. You'd be surprised how much space the .NET installer can consume. It has to download the whole thing, uncompress it, and copy big parts of the Windows folder to install it as a single, atomic transaction. Then it has to do the same thing with the updates, and for the uninstallers for the updates. If I want to install nLite to slim down my existing Windows XP installation (that is, without reinstalling) to reclaim disk space, I don't want to run out of disk space on my Windows partition while installing it.

Re:.NET installer

[dbIII]

The new .NET appears to be on a website that needs to do a validation check before download too. Anybody had luck getting that going on a virtual machine?

Re:.NET installer

[Dr_Barnowl]

I wasn't aware that you could use nLite to slim an existing installation ; thanks for that.

To the sibling, I believe that WGA works fine inside a virtual machine, although you might run into some licensing wrinkles (but it sounds like you aren't running any "real" installations). It should also work in Wine, as long as you're in WinXP mode (unless MS have changed the anti-wine checking code).

In addition, the redistributable installer for .NET 2.0 is not currently a WGA authenticated download.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

The remaining 10% of IT the professionals

[chord.wav]

Don't want any MS OS at all.

Most OEMs let you upgrade from Vista to XP

[SgtChaireBourne]

... not least of which is that it will likely arrive on a new PC bought, not because vista is available but because a new computer is required...

Good. Hit a nerve with that one.

Even if those home users are stuck in the Windows quagmire (for whatever reason or excuse), most OEMs still allow purchasers to upgrade from MS Vista to XP for the asking. That's the catch though, they have to ask for the upgrade from Vista to XP or else they're stuck with the infected machine.

Seriously, for 99% of what most home users do, Kubuntu / Ubuntu would be a drop in replacement -- except for the maintenance and malware nightmares -- and it's now possible to get Ubuntu installed on several big brand OEMs like Dell. WINE is seriously underrated for the one or two legacy apps holding people back.

Hasta la Vista, baby!

[s1d]

You have just been Terminated!

more to the point

[alizard]

if you load Vista on a home box and it takes you a few hours and some research to get it working, unless you've got a deadline, you're in for some annoyance. If you roll it out to 10,000 PCs and none work, you have a real problem.

actually, I'm running that "secure"

[alizard]

combination of Win98SE on a VMware Server guest on Debian stable/testing right now. Works great. (reliable, stable, fast, secure) In fact, it runs far better than it ever did running as the native OS. And since all I do with it is Eudora, MS Word97 (rarely used-except for envelope printing), Excel97, and PaintShopPro (haven't gotten through the Krita or Xara LX learning curve yet), it's exactly as much Windows as I ever expect to need.

You Forgot the end

[Anonymous Coward]

It should read that 90% of IT pros don't want vista, and 90% of the world doesn't give a flying crap.

Microsoft Vista and Myself

[Tezdoll]

I have used Microsoft Vista and I have used Ubuntu, and RedHat, and Mandrake, and on and on ... I can say that Windows XP all be it a good stable platform has started to get stagnate. Then, Vista came a long and offered me something new, clean looking, and as an admin; some new admin features.

I have approx 250 machines and 22 servers (all windows xp / 2000 and 1 (one) IBM as/400) If you told me that I had to switch all that out to Mac-n-trash / linsux (or any other flavor) you saying I would save money? I have one question for you... HOW DO YOU FIGURE!

I would have to replace 250 machines, all from dell. That only sell machines with Windows on it, then I would REMOVE it? And replace it with Linux? ORRRR purchase a MAC for more money than a dell with Leopard? Then have to switch all my servers to Server X or Ubuntu Server edition (which is horrible) and then the kicker... train all the people to use and get administrators for all the new servers.

You guys just cut my cost in half! (Sarcasm)

... just like ME

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, oh why, do we keep having these articles about the second version of Me? Yes, Vista is failing to get market penetration in exactly the way Me didn't -- and for the same reasons.

XP Still available

[Chili-71]

I'm a Senior Technical Consultant for a major Reseller in the Midwest. I deal with high end systems on a daily basis and know what works or doesn't work.

So when I recently ordered a new PC for my wife from Dell I was given the option to get Vista or XP. I obviously chose XP. I'm not saying Vista is bad - it does have it's good qualities. After all it does look pretty.

But for home use and gaming - especially gaming - Vista is, as they say, "Not ready for prime-time."

this news wins "The Best FUD of the Year 2007" awa

[thisispurefud]

this news wins "The Best FUD of the Year 2007" award.

Re:LOTFLMYO

[FreeForm Response]

It certainly illustrates the diversity of the word. ;-)

The other 10%

[Anonymous Coward]

The other 10% worked for Microsoft's Support Staff

about:DX10

[wilec]

Would someone explain to me what the logic is with DXxx versions in Windows. It has been a long time since I stayed that current with the esoteric details of Windows. These posts seem to imply that DX10 capable drivers will never be available to Windows XP. Is it an issue of API changes so extensive that a replacement kernel and a few dlls could not provide backward support?

It sounds to me to an example of intentional obsolescence. This is logical enough I guess from Microsoft's standpoint anyway. It just all seems so wasteful to me. I can see a reason for these expensive OS upgrades as we move up in address space 8-16-32-64-128, or with a transition like moving from 98/NT to 2000 maybe but not for the incremental improvements we have been seeing from Redmond for the 32bit versions of the OS. Anyway, since it does not seem to be working out for them this time does anyone wonder if we might see MS blink and commission an intermediate upgrade step like a non-free service pack for XP?

I'm just happy I am not on that treadmill anymore or IBM's pay through the nose OS/2 Sub Service plan. The openSuse 10.2 install I am posting this from had it roots in Suse 9.0 and has see about six upgrades and countless updates but still works and is my wifes main, if not only, boot OS. I mean everything works as well with it as with a clean 10.2 install. I tend to play a bit with things an have been mostly using another 10.2 install with Beryl at the last SVN version prior to fusion. I have a clean openSuse 10.3 install I am checking out, in addition to Sabayon 3.4 on another clean install. Plus I have scores of so other distros via VMWare, and yes Win98 and NT4, BSD, ReAct, etc. never owned XP or 2000, though I do use both at work.

The Linux community is dynamic, fun, well coded and inexpensive for me. MS would be in a bad place if every third person went so far as give Linux an honest try. But I don't think many ever will, this stuff is just not that important to them. Plus they have been conditioned to expect less and pay more. About the only scenario I see that would work for most of those I know is if gasoline hits $5 per gallon AND they lose or damage their restore CD WHEN they next trash out XP, (every three months to a year, depending on the person).

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew