Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Hard Upgrade Path From XP To Vista To Win 7

Posted by kdawson on from the twisty-little-passages-all-different dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"

6 of 496 comments (clear)

  1. Tested on a beta... by spun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, I'm as rabidly anti-windows as they come, but isn't this a little unfair? Windows 7 is still beta, it doesn't surprise me that there are still some driver issues.

    The idea that we will have to either buy Vista AND Windows 7, or do a clean install, just plain sucks.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Tested on a beta... by neokushan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I get the feeling this article was deliberately misleading on several fronts. Here's an example:

      Yes, this is an older, though not ancient, system we were trying to upgrade. Yet, it boggles the mind that the laptop upgraded fairly easy to Vista Service Pack 1 and then flat-lined with Windows 7. So much for the Microsoft mantra "If it works in Vista, it will work in Windows 7."

      They claim that the machine they're running this test on did not boot windows 7 correctly, but did boot Vista correctly. This is only half the truth. They first installed XP, then upgraded to Vista, then Upgraded to 7 - something Microsoft themselves does not recommend. Then, when it all doesn't work, they blame Windows 7. They do NOT test if a clean install of Windows 7 worked without issues and I strongly suspect that it would.

      No sysadmin in their right mind would ever perform a task like this, it's far too time consuming and ultimately pointless - why install an XP system, install all the software you need, then two two major OS upgrades just to create an image you can format other machines with? Why not just install a fresh copy of 7, then the appropriate software and image that?

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  2. Re:Just for the Record by meist3r · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I still say Linux has unknown issues.

    But at least I can actually run a computer while trying to figure them out ...

  3. But should it be that way? by PontifexPrimus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not saying that this might not be the reality, but really, think about to the specs you mentioned: 2 gigabytes of RAM. A dual core processor. 80 GB hard drive.
    And all of that just to get the operating system to run! I mean, what are office computers used for? I'd wager that 90% of "office use" consist of text processing, internet browsing, emailing and instant messaging. I used to do word processing on a 386! And it was fast!
    I really don't want this to appear like a personal attack, but why the hell are people willing to accept something like this? It bugs the hell out of me that perfectly good computers - computers that have a hundred times more power than actually needed for the tasks they're used to - are thrown away because the underlying operating system is so greedy that it can't run smoothly with fewer resources than those you mentioned.

    --
    -- Language is a virus from outer space.
  4. Re:crazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I the only one who finds it humorous how some people bitch about Windows not being backward compatible and others bitch about all the problems due its backward compatible heritage?

  5. Re:crazy by eikonos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility. It should be based on un*x (not DOS), should have a well-planned, polished GUI for regular people with command-line and options for power users.

    Then there's the fifth group: those who realize that describes OSX and have already switched.