Gartner Tells Businesses to Forget About Vista

Barence writes "IT analyst firm Gartner has told businesses to skip Vista and prepare to roll out Windows 7. Companies have traditionally been advised to wait until the first Service Pack of an operating system arrives before considering migration. However, Gartner is urging organisations that aren't already midway through Vista deployments to give the much-maligned operating system a miss. 'Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7, so at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity.' Even businesses that are midway through planning a Vista migration are urged to consider scrapping the deployment. 'Consider switching to Windows 7 if it would delay deployment by six months or less.'"

Comments

Insightful analysis... four years late.

[symbolset]

What Gartner is for is to tell us what Microsoft wants us to do.

What insightful, cutting edge analysis this would have been... four years ago.

The Gartner experts say all companies should move off Windows XP by the end of 2012 to avoid problems with application compatibility.

I agree with this part... but do not agree about what companies should move to. It's time to get off the train to crazytown.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mangu]

I agree with this part... but do not agree about what companies should move to.

With Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with Vista, the big question is how many feet they have. If the answer is "two", then windows 7 is their last bullet.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

Heck, MS has more feet then that. They shot themselves in the foot with Windows ME too, luckily for them they had the reasonably stable Windows NT ready to go out the door. I think the only reason why Windows 7 will succeed is that MS's hardware requirements are commonplace. For example with Vista, you had companies left and right selling laptops and desktops with the minimum specs needed for Vista, they would have been great XP machines, but for some unknown reason they put Vista on them, that totally killed its reputation (because for some reason people think its *normal* to require 1 GB to run an OS, which I don't understand).

MS is swimming in money. On the other hand, they keep losing mindshare to Apple left and right.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Hurricane78]

Well... I think th "swimming in money" aspect is already way smaller than it was, and I also think that Microsoft is already preparing for the moment when it will be gone. Which certainly will happen when Win7 fails.

*hopes this will happen*

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[guyminuslife]

Heck, MS has more feet then that.

THEY'RE GIANT ****ING CENTIPEDES!!! FROM HELL!!! WITH LASER CANNONS!!!

(Look at that, I just shot myself in the foot with a laser cannon. And that's what I do to my friends!)

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Savage-Rabbit]

With Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with Vista, the big question is how many feet they have. If the answer is "two", then windows 7 is their last bullet.

Microsoft shot itself in the foot at some point with Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, various iterations of Windows XP, Windows Vista... the list goes on and those are only their operating system FUBARs. My personal Microsoft Office FUBAR list starts at the "red crosses of death" that fucked up one of my first project reports almost two decades ago and goes on from there. You can probably find a longer list than mine. The only thing that differed from shot to shot was the caliber of bullet they used which so far has been anything from a 22 cal to a 20mm explosive shell. Most other companies in the software business can only afford a limited number of foot-shots before they go bankrupt. Microsoft's saving grace is not an infinite supply of feet but rather a cash money powered ability to heal from shooting them selves in the foot with amazing speed.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[dr_wheel]

"They shot themselves in the foot with Windows ME too, luckily for them they had the reasonably stable Windows NT ready to go out the door."

Not exactly sure what you meant by this. Windows NT was around long before ME. I thought, maybe you meant Windows 2000. I was pretty sure that ME and 2000 were released around the same time. Nope. According to wikipedia, Win2000 came out in February 2000, while ME came a full 7 months later in September. So... what exactly did you mean?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mangu]

MS is swimming in money

That's relative. Their stock value, currently around $20, never again reached their peak of $60 after 2000.

Their cash reserves aren't what they used to be, they spent two thirds of it trying to shore up the stock price, without result.

Their revenues are dropping through the floor.

It's a huge company that won't disappear so soon, but if you pay $40 billion in dividends and still have so much problem to get the stock price back to 30% of the peak...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[tsa]

And don't forget, the laser cannons are attached to its head!

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[SerpentMage]

I don't know anymore about a company that wont disappear soon...

I have been thinking quite a bit about this and the one thing that could REALLY do major damage is the fabled Apple Tablet.

Up to this point Apple has been gaining market share, by building new markets for itself. Point to Apple.

But this netbook thing I think is here to stay and we have not seen the end of that design. Thus if Apple were to bring onto market an Apple Tablet in the netbook range then people would seriously look at that device.

I don't have an iBook (had one several years ago). Write code for the most part using Windows and .NET. But I have an iPod Touch and Apple has made some nice revenue from my buying of music and apps.

Now if they were to bring onto market a Tablet I would be client number 1 because right now I want an easy to use tablet to surf my information. Yes I have a Windows Tablet, but Vista sucks big time.

And this raises another point. If Apple puts in a stake in the netbook market how much longer will companies like HP wait and beg for scraps from Apple? They will go scurrying to Apple for anything because they don't want to risk landing in the abyss...

And I am sure that Steve Jobs would just love to stick a stake into Microsoft for the decades of damage Microsoft caused...

Thus I do think if something like this happened, Microsoft VERY QUICKLY would go the way of the Dodo...

Disclosure: I write programs using .NET and that would put a crimp in lifestyle...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this Vista / Windows 7 dilemma reminds me of when I lived in Parador and had to choose between the Blue party and the Red party. I chose Blue. Some went with Red, but I found Blue more compelling. True, both parties ran President-For-Life Simms, but Blue had something Red lacked. It's the same way with Windows 7. It's new and fresh.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

Apple can't make it in the netbook category because they won't sell cheap hardware plain and simple. If Apple really wanted to crush MS all they would have to do would be sell OS X for PCs. They could do it easily, build up ~25% marketshare in the first few months, and basically confine MS to gamers and businesses, until they built up about 50% marketshare in a year or so.

Put OS X on PC hardware and Apple will be the next king of silicon valley.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[besalope]

Not that I like M$FT, but they did have a 2:1 stock split in 2003 that would help decrease their stock price. More shares = lower value per share.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

What's 1GB of RAM these days? $12? Sheesh.

Vista has far cheaper memory requirements than any other released version of desktop Windows, to date.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[NeverVotedBush]

All these posts and no mention of "Bob"...

Yep, it really was that forgettable. ;-)

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

But the question is why? I can get a Ubuntu system to do far more than a Vista system on 512 MB of RAM. I can have more impressive 3-D effects with less RAM without slowdowns. No system should really require more than 512 MB of RAM. Sure, everyone should really have a gig or two of it because its dirt cheap today, but an OS should have a minimal footprint.

If you can't have a fast system with 512 MB of RAM you are doing something wrong.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[samriel]

Put OS X on PC hardware and Apple will be the next king of silicon valley.

Yes, they would win on the software side. However, if you can put OSX on PC hardware, then you have no incentive to buy Apple's own hardware. This knocks the legs out from under Apple, and they have a net loss from this move. They haven't done it yet for good reason.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[bonch]

I don't think Apple is interested in the netbook market because they consider the iPhone to be their portable computer.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

How would it be a net loss? Lets say Apple has control of 3% of the market currently. And lets say they make $500 in profit for each Mac (software/hardware) sold on average. Lets say that they only make about $100 for each license of OS X, it isn't a lot more of marketshare before they start to make a profit.

Software is dirt cheap to make when you are Apple. Whether they sell 100 copies of OS X or 500 million, it still cost the same to develop and sell (packaging/DVDs are cheap today). People will still buy Mac hardware for the unified experience, specs, or design. I simply can't see Apple losing money on software with just about 0 competition. (Ask anyone if they would rather have a Mac or PC who isn't a developer or gamer and they will almost always say Mac).

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[capnkr]

{snip}...certainly will happen when Win7 fails.

One way for Microsoft to make it a Sure Thing: instead of having proper security be a simple 'best practice', continue to have it be simply The Most Expensive Option.

FTFA -

"AppLocker, meanwhile, gives companies granular control over the applications - right down to the version number - that employees can install on their office machines.
"Both of these will require Windows 7 Enterprise Edition, available only to organisations with Software Assurance, or Windows 7 Ultimate," the Gartner analysts warn."

Foot, meet bullet.

This is not just something for corporate use. I have plenty of clients who would be glad to benefit from letting me use this tool on their systems (and boy would it make my job easier...). Parents could use it for the kids, geeks could use it on the systems they invariably get asked to fix for a buddy, etc... MS keeps getting their asses handed to them on the issue of basic security. When are they going to finally learn that they *need* to implement/make available good security across _all levels_ of their OS? The totally free software that I use has a bare fraction of both the potential and the real-world security problems MS OS'es have.

So why does MS continue to act as if charging for security is a Good Thing, when it can so easily be had for free?
And why don't more "expert tech analysts" call them out on this?

Yeah, yeah - I know...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

But it clearly isn't. A full keyboard is necessary for any real work, and so is a *real* OS and not a walled garden. I can't do half the things that I can on a Mac or even Windows box on the iPhone, the browser lacks Flash so many sites won't work, etc.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mdwh2]

Apple can't make it in the netbook category because they won't sell cheap hardware plain and simple. ... confine MS to gamers and businesses

So MS will be "confined" to merely all Internet devices, gaming and all businesses, leaving Apple to be "king" of the remaining niche markets? I can just see MS quaking in their boots at that.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mdwh2]

Which is exactly the point he was making. They're a niche player in the mobile phone market anyway, and anyone who wants a full blown netbook isn't going to satisfy themselves with a phone.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[trickyD1ck]

could it be that the demand for an OS which ist fast on 512MB is not great enough? could it be that to make such optimizations would cost more than the increase in revenue and hence a resource misallocation? i don't know the answers for sure, but microsoft employs probably the smartest guys on the planet who make decisions based on exactly this kind of questions, so i suppose if they do something, they have a reason to do so. contrary, if you base your decisions on anything but the market demand (ideology, gut feeling, etc.), what you get is 1% market share.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mdwh2]

512MB? Amiga can do a multitasking GUI in 512 KB. Beat that, Ubuntu boy.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[petermgreen]

MS ported most of the important stuff (plug and play and support for a common driver model between the two lines to help hardware manufacturs transition) to the NT line with 2K but bottled out of pushing 2K to home/small buisness users and produced another version of the 9x line instead.

So when ME flopped it wasn't a huge deal, they just added a home edition to the next minor release of the NT line and scrapped 9x. While 2K/XP was slower than 9x it was a noticable improvement in terms of both stability and ability to handle lots of windows open at once.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[EpsCylonB]

and ability to handle lots of windows open at once.
I believe its called Multitasking

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

So where can I buy an Amiga? Oh yeah that's right, they don't exist anymore.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[ozmanjusri]

So why does MS continue to act as if charging for security is a Good Thing, when it can so easily be had for free?

Microsoft has a delicate balancing act to manage.

There's a massive industry that's emerged to work around Windows' security deficiencies. Companies that collect malware in honeypots. Companies that generate malware signatures. Companies that write antivirus software. Companies that train users how to avoid Windows pitfalls. Businesses to monitor networks for intrusions. Businesses to repair or reinstall failed Windows machines. Security researchers, patch writers, forensic specialists... and so on, ad nauseum.

There are millions of people kept in continuous employment just to protect and maintain Microsoft's OS, many of them the "expert tech analysts" you're asking to call Microsoft out. Unsurprisingly, those people are often Microsoft's most energetic supporters.

Microsoft does not want to alienate their most ardent fans.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[petermgreen]

I don't think the issue with lots of windows on 9x was a multitasking issue per-se (afaict the issue would happen regardless of whether all the windows were created by the same app/thread or not) but an issue with win9x still relying on some 16-bit GDI stuff and running out of GDI resources.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mdwh2]

Of course they still exist. Not commonly available but about as common as Ubuntu boxes in my local store...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[SL Baur]

If Apple really wanted to crush MS all they would have to do would be sell OS X for PCs. They could do it easily, build up ~25% marketshare in the first few months, and basically confine MS to gamers and businesses

The only thing keeping businesses from going Apple is Microsoft vendor lock-in. The company that I work for has recently allowed employees to select Mac Powerbooks for their company issue notebook computer. I see a lot of Macs around now and all of the people in my group who were up for hardware refresh selected Macs to replace their Microsoft Windows notebooks.

As near as I can tell, when given a choice, people will choose something other than Microsoft. The hell of it is that Microsoft still gets its cut because they put a (licensed) copy of Microsoft Windows on the Apples. I suppose that's an improvement over paying for two copies of Microsoft Windows.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Spasemunki]

The stock price will likely not reach those heights again not because Microsoft is fundamentally in trouble, but because the market primarily values growth. Microsoft already owns a piece of damn near every computer in the world, so there's really nowhere to go but down; their non-core offerings have, at best, a checkered history and don't inspire confidence in investors.

MS has been transitioning out of the 'growth' mold in the assessment of stock pickers for years. That's why the price is down, and is staying down. Paying out dividends is not a ploy to buoy the stock price, as the stock is already training at a premium way above the dividend value; paying dividends is just what a reasonable Board does in response to a huge excess of cash that can't be reasonably invested in growth. They're a publicly traded company and have to act in the interest of the shareholder.

As to their revenues... they took modest losses in one of the worst economies since the Depression, during a period when their last major product release is several years in the mirror, and people are holding out on major purchases as the next one comes into view. That's a pretty enviable position to most companies.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[guruevi]

Depends on your computer etc. sometimes you can't just install 1GB of memory, these days you need two or even three chips in order for it to work. Then you got those machines (most laptops, netbooks, mini and micro form factor desktops) that only have 2 slots so any upgrade requires a full new set of modules, most of the time you have to get somebody to put it in for $50 and then there are those people that would actually like to use their computer and having 1GB eaten by their OS is a huge waste of resources especially if it doesn't give them anything but some fancy buttons.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[rootofevil]

theyve been down this road before. the clones were nothing good, and almost caused apple to fail.

those who dont know history...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[colinrichardday]

Just about any box in the store will run Ubuntu, and getting Ubuntu isn't that difficult.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[operagost]

They shot themselves in the foot with Windows ME too, luckily for them they had the reasonably stable Windows NT ready to go out the door.

No, they had Windows 2000 already out the door, and it was darn near rock solid.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

1984 called, it wants its bouncing checkered ball while formatting an 880k floppy back.

Amigas had their time, but so did the Model T.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Rakshasa Taisab]

So we should insert empty loops in code just cause CPU cycles have never been cheaper?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[symbolset]

So why does MS continue to act as if charging for security is a Good Thing, when it can so easily be had for free?

More to the point, why do we keep paying them for something we know they can't deliver?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[DDLKermit007]

You don't know anything about drivers do you? So what if Apple opened up their OS tomorrow to ALL shitty hardware on the market they would fail. OSX is a solid little thing because Apple tests the hell out of hardware in their machines. So much of MS's time is spent making sure every cheap POS PCI card you drop into your system works halfway. Apple would go from making something elegant, and functional to damage control overnight just like MS.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[drolli]

MS has more than two feet. MS has previously shot themself in their foot (e.g. DOS4.0 DOS 6.0). Since that time a "skip one update" strategy was always useful. It just spares you half of the negative side effects. If you skip the updates which introduce a lot of new technology, you wont have any trouble. This means: use the x.1 version (or a high service pack), and not the x.0 version. MS x.0 versions are usually crap from viewpoint of compatibility and reliability. 5.0: 2000 5.1: XP 6.0: Vista

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[simplexion]

Why do so many people refer to ME as a serious product? They only released it to force companies away from the old 98 platform that didn't want to leave it. It was designed to suck.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[VGPowerlord]

I'm assuming he meant taking the Windows 2000 core, updating the GUI a bit, and releasing it in 2001 as Windows XP.

Seriously, ME was on the market for all of a year before it got dumped.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[F34nor]

But the only reason you can talk about this is because the iPod gave Apple cash again. They could stop charging rape prices for their hardware because they weren't swimming for their life. Now they sell their hardware for a premium price parity and shockingly you get what you pay for. Hardware sales are not the be all for Apple anymore. The iPod means that they might even to be able to sell Macs as a loss leader to drive software sales but nobody over their has the big a pair of balls.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Mystra_x64]

They are just trolls with heavy regeneration.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[bazorg]

Do you really think MS tests anything before the OEM releases to market? jeez.... And just what do you think is stopping Asus, MSI, randomgadgetfactory.co.cn , etc. from testing their OS X drivers to hell like Apple does?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[thsths]

> What's 1GB of RAM these days? $12?

Talking standard DDR2, yes. But what about DDR1, or DDR3?

Next issue: the 3GB limit. If Windows uses 1 now, that only leaves 2 for the applications. If you were using 2 GB before, you would install 4 GB, and lose another GB because of the limit.

Corporations want to use older PCs, too. Getting an engineer out to replace 1 GB with 2 GB of DDR1 can be quite expensive.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Wingsy]

"But I have an iPod Touch and Apple has made some nice revenue from my buying of music and apps."

Since the app store and ITMS exist primarily as a catalyst for selling iPods and iPhones, I believe Apple made their money from you buying that iPod rather than your one or two dollar content purchases.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Broken Window Fallacy

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

No Actually I have bought 10 dollar apps, and have bought 10 dollar music CD's... I use my iPod touch to track my portfolio when I don't have my brokerage software running. And stock apps are not 1 to 2 dollars. They are 6 to 10 dollars.

I have easily spent more in apps and music than on the actual device.

I have noticed that I use my iPod Touch as an information device (read the news, email, portfolio, etc, etc...) And I would not give up my device at all. Does it replace a PC? No, but I only need 1 PC.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[jonbryce]

That's usually the case with Microsoft, but I would say that Windows 2000 was their best OS release ever in terms of stability.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[gtall]

Apple cannot crush MS by selling OSX for PCs. As someone else alluded, they'd have to make it work for all the wacky hardware out there and that would cause their biggest strength, reliability, to go right out the door.

But there's a bigger problem, all the special purpose apps that are built for Windoze. There's no way to run them except dual boot or some hypervisor. So, you are Joe Windoze shop and you can: (1) do what you know and love (kissing MS's ass) or (2) buy OS X and run the apps you want using the dual boot or hyperthingy, in which case, why are you even screwing around with OS X in the first place.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[KnowledgeKeeper]

Heck, MS has more feet then that. They shot themselves in the foot with Windows ME too, luckily for them they had the reasonably stable Windows NT ready to go out the door.

They shot themselves in the foot with MS-DOS 4.0 an nobody even blinked. They released MS-DOS 5.0 and everybody just flocked around it.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Lennie]

There are sources saying they only have 1/6 left of the money they were swimming in before.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[flappinbooger]

"MS is swimming in money. On the other hand, they keep losing mindshare to Apple left and right."

That's because they're into MONEY, not MINDSHARE.

Sometimes being a cult isn't about the mon....

Ooh, look, a mac store! That is so COOOL! Sorry, I need to buy this. What was I ranting on about?

(yes, I know it's not that simple but you know it's more true than not)

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[DarkOx]

Yes Microsoft does test and Q/A things, or at least collect evidence that the manufacturers have done that. What do you think those windows logo stickers on some but not all products are all about? How rigorous they test and certify? I don't know but they are doing something.

There real problem is not is if Vendor A's montherboard X works with Vendor B's video card Y and while running Vista. Its does it work when Vendor C's sound card Z is also present in the system, then what happens when the end user decides to install Vendor D's video card W into the system as a second adapter.

Its not possible to test those combinations and make sure they all play nice, there are to many. Apple has a third party market but its mostly limited to external stuff connected by fairly abstract bus interfaces such as USB. Most of those devices don't ship with MAC drivers either they tend to conform to one of the standards and use the system driver from apple for USB storage, USB audio or whatever. Which is not to say they don't come with software just not much at the driver level.

Where stuff that can cause real trouble is concerned like anything that actually gets its own address space, the hardware market in the MAC world is pretty closed. Things are licensed and you have to work pretty closely with Apple. Apple probably can and probably does test most of the likely hardware permutations.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[drolli]

Assessing quality depends on the metric you apply.

If you measure "range of systems installation works without crashing/requiring drivers etc." i'd say XP wins. That not 'stability' but 'Average Cost'. But you are right. for making small, tailored, well controlled systems, 2000 was better.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[homesnatch]

You link to to this but fail to explain or postulate whether this scenario falls into the Broken Windows Fallacy. There is a mathematical formula to determine the economic benefit of "breaking stuff" to the business economy... In some cases, if the formula does not prove beneficial, it falls under the "Broken Window Fallacy".

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[DarkOx]

The 3GB limit is the amount of memory a single process can address on a 32bit windows system. You can certainly put and use more than that in the professional and server versions of Windows. You can certainly make use of it as well provided you are running more than one big process. I am not suggesting that Windows make particularly good use of the system resources or that a desktop user should be expected to have 2gb of RAM, just that you can use more.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Octorian]

And that's why Windows gets mandated by policy...

My company is going in the other direction. In years past we had very liberal policies, and half my office (a tiny office in terms of the company) went Mac. Of course corporate IT continued to hate us for it (despite being Mac users at-home) since the Mac never plays nice with their corporate enterprise solutions. (and no, MS Office for OSX isn't covered under the MS enterprise software agreements. we have to find money for it separately)

Now policies have changed, Windows PCs are now mandated by policy, and we'll be clinging on to our Macs for dear life until they're old enough we have to replace them with Dell bricks.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mdwh2]

luckily for them they had the reasonably stable Windows NT ready to go out the door.

This was hardly luck - they'd been developing NT for years, precisely because of the limitations of DOS/Win 9x. It was long their intention to switch entirely to the NT line, but they had problems with people wanting backwards compatibility with their ancient DOS applications.

It was Apple that were more in that situation - they'd shot themselves in the foot by the increasingly outdated "classic" MacOS. They floundered for years trying to modernize it, without success (Copeland). Luckily they were able to buy another OS, allowing them to ditch MacOS and use the rebranded OS they'd bought as a replacement.

(because for some reason people think its *normal* to require 1 GB to run an OS, which I don't understand).

I think it's normal for a modern OS to make full use of modern machines. Of course an OS doesn't need 1GB - I can run AmigaOS in 1MB, for example. But what market value is there in releasing OSs for small resources? Firstly, the market demand for that is low (since most computers, even netbooks, have at least 1GB these days), secondly if you have less than that, there are plenty of older OSs (from AmigaOS to Windows XP) that run fine on it. Microsoft would just be in competition with themselves.

On the other hand, they keep losing mindshare to Apple left and right.

Hardly. What evidence is there for this ludicrous claim?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[db32]

Yeah! Because linux and BSD are bug ridden pieces of crap when it comes to drivers too...oh...wait...but they don't have the same level of idiocy implemented in their driver model... Apple's hardware control has been a very important factor, and probably will continue to be, it isn't anywhere near as ugly as you imply. I think the major distinction to here isn't so much the hardware variety, so much as allowing whatever closed shop hardware vendor to give their chunks of driver code system level access site unseen. The Linux/BSD model of driver doesn't really do that.

It has way more to do with the driver development and implementation model than the actual variety of hardware. It isn't the POS PCI card, it is the POS drivers for that PCI card that cause the problems.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Darkness404]

I think it's normal for a modern OS to make full use of modern machines. Of course an OS doesn't need 1GB - I can run AmigaOS in 1MB, for example. But what market value is there in releasing OSs for small resources? Firstly, the market demand for that is low (since most computers, even netbooks, have at least 1GB these days), secondly if you have less than that, there are plenty of older OSs (from AmigaOS to Windows XP) that run fine on it. Microsoft would just be in competition with themselves.

Sure, but you don't get anything more for your better hardware. Vista isn't really any more stable then XP, its slightly more secure because of UAC but also more annoying than heck, you get a slightly shinyer GUI but that GUI gets blown away by compiz-fusion effects on any distro of Linux for a lot less resources, the thing is, Vista doesn't do anything more than XP yet it uses up more resources. That isn't normal.

If MS made Vista do something that added to the experience that used up more RAM/CPU that would be understandable but it does not.

Hardly. What evidence is there for this ludicrous claim?

Go to any college campus that doesn't hand out laptops and you will find a large amount of Mac machines. The iPod has made the Apple brand appealing, their advertising has most people relating to the problems by the PC, most people would rather have a Mac that was given to them then a PC, unless they were a Windows developer or a gamer.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[drinkypoo]

if Apple were to bring onto market an Apple Tablet in the netbook range then people would seriously look at that device.

I think Apple is a bunch of punk-asses and yet I would pay $400 for an Apple tablet in the netbook form factor. Bluetooth, USB2, 802.11a/g/n and multitouch plus a decent SDHC/SDIO slot is all I ask. I'll pay $450 if you can give me three slots like that across the top. Finally, give me some easily visible screws to get in and remove the battery myself and I'm yours. XOXO, signed, a traitor in a minute.

For all their lemons (there have been plenty) nobody makes hardware as "sexy" as Apple's. And with someone else's software... :D

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[drinkypoo]

Realistically, OSX doesn't like being stuffed in small memory. It'll probably run in less than Windows 7 (it certainly did in the 10.small-number days) but it was never fast like that.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Elektroschock]

Windows 7 is Vista SP2.

but I mean, look at the alternatives. KDE4 is for software nerds what Vista is for Windows users.

Windows 7 is KDE 4.3. It is the Windows/KDE you really wanted.

While user say, no no no no no. KDE 3.5 and WinXP are fine.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Targon]

Windows 2000 and XP were both faster than 98/ME once the driver quality had advanced. This is a big issue that far too many people forget about.

When the quality of the drivers is low, then no matter how good or bad the OS is, it will seem worse. System instability is often the result of these bad drivers. At launch, the biggest problem with Vista was the poor driver quality across the board. NVIDIA was the source of what, 30 or so percent of the blue screen problems that people experienced with Vista in 2007? For 64 bit, reduced performance is due to the drivers not being as good as for 32 bit in many cases. It all comes down to how much effort hardware vendors put into making good drivers.

When Windows 7 comes out, since it uses the same driver model, the driver quality will start off higher than we saw with Vista, which means it WILL be a better choice for most people. I just wouldn't expect good drivers to show up from Creative Labs though, since they intentionally cripple the performance of their older products under new operating systems, just to push consumers into buying their latest products.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying dividends does not make a company's stock go up. Since a dividend represents paying out equity, the stock price goes down.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[orngjce223]

MS Office for OSX? Couldn't you use OpenOffice?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mpe]

Corporations want to use older PCs, too. Getting an engineer out to replace 1 GB with 2 GB of DDR1 can be quite expensive.

The cost of the RAM probably isn't really a factor so much as the time involved...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Latinhypercube]

OSX is god awful and useful only to housewives (not even).

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mysidia]

Not really.. in this case Microsoft and their partners are the beneficiaries of the 'broken window'.

And the customers who have to spend more money on better security have already paid for Windows. Now they get to wait and pay for security software and updates to windows to fix the security problems their software vendors have created and solved for them.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Latinhypercube]

Agreed. If your complaining about 1 gb of ram... I think it's you who needs to 'upgrade'.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Bungie]

Next issue: the 3GB limit. If Windows uses 1 now, that only leaves 2 for the applications. If you were using 2 GB before, you would install 4 GB, and lose another GB because of the limit.

There is no set 1GB amount used by Vista. The 1GB is the reccommendation for running Vista comfortably (including applications). Vista can run decently under as low as 512MB and you can even boot it under 256MB (painfully). It's hard to gauge the memory usage and requirements for Windows because it's memory management is very complex.

Under 32-bit Windows each process is assigned 4GB of virtual address space which is split into 2GB for the application and 2GB for the kernel (unless you use the /3G switch which gives 3GB application/1GB kernel). The virtual address space is made up of physical and paged memory and there is no distinction between them for the process. Pages are constantly moved between physical memory and the pagefile. The technical memory limitation is pretty much the amount of physical memory and the swap file size combined. Windows also does a lot of caching.

The 3GB is a limitation of the 32-bit x86 architecture and the actual size can vary depending on how much of the 4GB address space is consumed by your chipset and hardware (which map into the 4GB address space). IIRC it is accounted for as part of the kernel address space...but cannot be used for anything else (and on XP it is not added to the available memory total in System Properties).

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[myspace-cn]

I'm scared to change from what's working perfectly currently. XP behind a linux firewall. Will my lexicon[s] work still? I don't really know. I ain't willing to find out yet. I don't even care if it's being given away free for a year, since my old hardware is now starting to shift though and become my new hardware. The old amd kX's are now the new firewall/router. fans are clogging and dieing and burning up higher level components. note: it's not the fans that are the worry, I can pick them up for a couple bucks, but I can just plunk out xxx for a firewall, xxx for a server, xxx for a text workstation, etc. I can't even find a telemarketer network to build right now. I could make 100k a year easy on that shit. And what are they runnin? XP, 200X, PBX's... I don't hear em talking about Vista or 2008. How about you? You willing to dump all your boat anchors for lightweight, expensive blazing fast quad cores? Do you even still have a job?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[myspace-cn]

Hell I said that all wrong, but it's close. Fuck it.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mjwx]

theyve been down this road before. the clones were nothing good, and almost caused apple to fail.

those who dont know history...

But it was IBM clones that caused Microsoft to become as large as they did. Those who don't know history and all that.

Apple's business model, past and present is contradictory to having a majority market share. primarily because Apple must retail too much control over the product for it to be used effectively by most businesses and lack of competition between manufacturers will only serve to maintain high prices.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

[...]the big question is how many feet they have. If the answer is "two", then windows 7 is their last bullet.

You seem to be forgetting about ME...

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[mjwx]

And I am sure that Steve Jobs would just love to stick a stake into Microsoft for the decades of damage Microsoft caused...

"We must give up this idea that for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose."

- Steve Jobs, circa 2003.

Apple and Microsoft are just two sides of the same coin. Replacing MS with Apple will do nothing to change IT, besides this it will never happen. Apple is completely unsuitable for businesses.

Microsoft likes to pretend it's a business, Apple likes to pretend it's a family, in reality they are both run like the Mafia.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[ciggieposeur]

AppLocker, meanwhile, gives companies granular control over the applications - right down to the version number - that employees can install on their office machines.

In Debian-land, we call that apt-pinning. It's been in Debian since at least July 2002 (woody).

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

Oh, boo-hoo. Cry me a river.

When EDO DRAM was getting cheaper, nobody bitched that it was less expensive than 30-pin SIMMs (unless they did bitch, in which case they were laughed out of town).

If you really want to go back in time: All of this stuff is cheap compared to the 256kbit SIP chips for an Everex 2-megabyte EMS expansion board I used to have on my 10MHz XT. (And let's not even talk about what the 64KB RAM expansion cabinet for my TRS-80 Model I cost.)

But that's all silly. So, again: Apples to apples, or in any other reasonable comparison, Vista has cheaper memory requirements than any other Windows, on common hardware of the day.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[sillybilly]

Once written, software is dirt cheap. Writing it is the only thing that really costs money.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Meski]

If you can't have a fast system with 512 MB of RAM you are doing something wrong.

More than that, if you can't have a fast system where the footprint of operating system, virus checker, and all the other stuff that runs in the background will be happy with 512 MB[1], there's something wrong.

[1] admission, I typed 512k here before re-reading it. I wish!

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Hurricane78]

Who pays for their products? I know I certainly never did. And I only know two persons who did. One of them is now some psycho and not my friend anymore. The other one installed and defended Vista. He's dead now. (Not by my hand. He simply ate too much crap.)

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[badkarmadayaccount]

Sun Microsystems begs to differ with their servers, ILOM, anybody?

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Cro Magnon]

[1] admission, I typed 512k here before re-reading it. I wish!

I remember when 512K was a big deal. IIRC, my first machine sold with 256K, but I upgraded to 384K. Git off my lawn!

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Cro Magnon]

Next issue: the 3GB limit. If Windows uses 1 now, that only leaves 2 for the applications. If you were using 2 GB before, you would install 4 GB, and lose another GB because of the limit.

It seems to me that that's another problem with 32 bit Vista. It won't run with less than 3GB and it can't use more than 3GB!

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[drinkypoo]

Sun Microsystems begs to differ with their servers, ILOM, anybody?

Speaking as someone who spent $900 on a Sun 4/260 with 24MB RAM and a 500MB disk... when I could have got a 486 for the same amount of money (though probably not with a 19" trinitron) Sun machines have never been sexy, and never will be sexy. SGI machines were sexy, fuck even some IBM machines have been sexy, but Sun? WRONGO

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[badkarmadayaccount]

Alright, so I'm a tech nerd even more than you apparently, cause I can't see anything else "sexy" about a machine.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious, the most expensive part of software is often the maintenance of the program. It costs more to fix a problem and make sure that it doesn't break anything that's already out there. Not to mention that you might not have all the same people working on the code - there's time to get caught up on the code. Or poor documentation, or any myriad of other problems associated with maintaining code.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[Meski]

I upgraded on a trash-80, with the 'approved' method of piggy-back soldering multiple ram chips. I forget the size, but it was something in the order of 4k to a thundering 16k. Try doing that with a SMD

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[whiledo]

On an unrelated topic, I just thought I'd let you know I'm posting at +2 now on this new account. Not sure how long it's been that way, I just noticed it and had a foggy memory of some comment where somebody got all snotty claiming they could figure me out based on my starting score (and their faulty knowledge of how slashdot worked).

I know, weird to bring it up after about a month. It's just that you seemed so concerned about it.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[MarkKB]

So when ME flopped it wasn't a huge deal, they just added a home edition to the next minor release of the NT line and scrapped 9x.

Actually, Windows 98 was supposed to be the end of the 9x line. Microsoft had always intended to have a Windows 2000 Home Edition (codenamed Neptune), but it was scrapped and rescheduled for the next version of Windows when it was realized that it would delay Windows 2000 even more (2000 had already suffered numerous delays over the years).

Windows ME was very much a stopgap release.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

Heh. Good to see your karma has improved.

I'd forgotten (hey, you don't get to be 21054 without being around for awhile) that I'd configured Slashdot to shove new accounts into the black hole of -1 postings, which puts most of 'em at 0.

Again, I'm glad that you're now posting at +2, and that your new account has been around long enough to avoid my -1 newbie scoring. You accomplished the former rather quickly.

I look forward to a long future of tyrannical disagreements with you. :)

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

Oh - I almost forgot. I noticed a week or so ago that Slashdot had given me the option to turn off ads (for free), just for being such a good sport on these pages. Whether based on karma or frequency or what, I implore you to let me know when your 1515553 account reaches this new milestone.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[sillybilly]

If it's more expensive to maintain a program than to create a new one, write a new one from scratch that does exactly the same thing. Hence writing a program is the most expensive part, unless you're not thinking outside of the box and you think you're stuck with what you got, and making the wrong decisions financial-wise.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[whiledo]

That's been in a while now. It happens as soon as your karma goes into the "Good" category. Had I known you were so concerned, I would have let you know when it kicked in a week or two ago. Congratulations on being as valued to slashdot as a three week old account.

And considering I've had various slashdot accounts since as soon as slashdot added accounts (the oldest comment of mine that I can find in google is from January 1999), it's quite like I've already had several tyrannical disagreements with you, you just don't know it. I look forward to continuing to educate you on how slashdot works, though.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

Thank you for your condescending remarks.

Please keep me posted on any other improvements to the Slashdot moderation, karma, and advertising systems.

Regards,

adolf

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[whiledo]

Thank you for your condescending remarks.

Amazing words, from the author of such past totally non-condescending remarks as:

I'd guess that you make a habit of such fallacies, and that this tendancy might be part of the reason why you post at 0...

that is to say, you're a simpleton

Whether based on karma or frequency or what, I implore you to let me know when your 1515553 account reaches this new milestone.

Sauce for the gander, eh?

I'll definitely keep you posted. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for the next time you try to insult someone by telling them what a newbie they are and how you, the slashdot old-timer, are far superior due to a string of digits next to your name, only to repeatedly find out that they know far more about the system than you do.

Re:Insightful analysis... four years late.

[adolf]

Hey, you know - that's cool. Everyone's simple from time to time.

I think the real reason for my previous condescention was a case of having the wrong booze. Tonight, however, I drink Red Stripe, and all seems well with the world at the moment.

I do remember Slashdot before comments or logins. When it was just a quick perl hack with a cute rounded corner on the upper-left of the titles. When Taco had the whole thing to himself. I just didn't have anything meaningful to say for awhile (though one could easily argue that I never have), and by the time I did, 21054 was the number.

Them's were the days. *hic*

Gartner

[sentientbeing]

Gartner is just a Microsoft lobbying group. Treat them as such.

Re:Gartner

[jcr]

Gartner is just a Microsoft lobbying group.

I remember when Gartner was telling everyone that OS/2 would matter. It's not that they work for MS as such, it's that they're in the business of providing CYA documentation for anyone who wants to do what everyone else is doing.

-jcr

Re:Gartner

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Then why are they suggesting that businesses avoid Vista and cancel existing transitions to Vista? That doesn't sound like a Microsoft party line to me.

Re:Gartner

[marcello_dl]

sometimes you sacrifice something expendable for the result you want; the expendable concept is "vista sucks", which many people believe anyway. The result is "wait and buy win7" instead of "windows isn't dominant anymore, consider the alternatives"

 

Re:Gartner

[CarpetShark]

They're not suggesting that. They're TELLING people to stop sticking with XP, and spend money on Windows 7. Microsoft cut its losses on Vista a long time ago, but obviously had to keep up some pretense that it was really a good product, and doing well. Their main goal for a long time has been to get Windows 7 out in some sort of more-acceptable-than-vista state (which they seem to have failed at), and to make sure people buy it this time, which they're attempting to ensure with extra PR, and the usual highly questionable tactics like this Gartner thing.

Re:Gartner

[home-electro.com]

/., please stop posting these stupid Gartner reports.

Moderated story -1. SPAMBIN

Re:Gartner

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering we're talking about desktop operating systems deployed in a corporate environment, saying "Windows isn't dominant anymore" would be a lie.

Re:Gartner

[NeverVotedBush]

Absolutely true!

Microsoft Windows is by far the first choice of hackers, malware authors, organized crime, and government espionage operations.

Windows is definitely their preferred OS and I doubt that will change with Windows 7 especially with the various issues that have already cropped up in RC1.

Re:Gartner

[Anonymous Coward]

Their main goal for a long time has been to get Windows 7 out in some sort of more-acceptable-than-vista state (which they seem to have failed at), and to make sure people buy it this time

How have they failed? I've only heard good about Windows 7 so far. Am sure there's a lot of issues that I've missed what with all the love and joy, but what is it?

Re:Gartner

[Mad Leper]

Rather typical, instead of offering counterpoints to support Linux, they instead make baseless accusations of bribery and arm twisting on the part of Microsoft.

It's childish and petty, and rather typical of the replies I see on Slashdot whenever some group or organizations failure to embrace Linux is reported.

Re:Gartner

[ozmanjusri]

I've only heard good about Windows 7 so far.

Try it yourself then.

I've used it long enough to get a feel for the OS, and would say it's not bad. Certainly feels better than Vista, but not as good as a well-sorted XP install.

That's the main problem with 7 - it doesn't change anything significant about using a computer. It won't make your life easier or your work more productive. Sure there are some minor enhancements, but nothing you can't get on XP with a few freeware apps, and is is definitely more sluggish on the same hardware than XP.

So in exchange for your couple of hundred dollars and a mandatory hardware upgrade, you get a whole lot of... not much at all, really.

Re:Gartner

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. We should be rational adults and suck up to Microsoft like the rest of the industry.

Re:Gartner

[bastion_xx]

That and the umbiqutious magic quadrant tables. Which, for delving into new products or services can be useful. The problem is when management states that only products in the top-left quadrant are to be included, regardless of the actual business requirements and IT culture.

I used to work with one of my favorite Gartner analysts back in the 90s while at Philip Morris. I didn't trust his opinion then, and he's still out to lunch most days.

Gartner, Jupiter, and all the others add some value, but nowhere near the monthly subscription costs IMO.

Re:Gartner

[rastilin]

I've been using it on my laptops for a few days now and I think it's pretty good. Certainly the online driver downloads are the BEST feature. That's basically it, search is good, themes are nice but I suspect that it's silently corrupting my FTP transfers; I'm almost certain that it's due to paging on the low-ram server. Still the fact that it happens without printing a warning is pretty disturbing. Beyond that, it's really no better than XP.

Re:Gartner

[gbarules2999]

I'm getting rather tired of the "I hate Slashdot" fad. Get a grip, go somewhere else.

Re:Gartner

[gbarules2999]

This.

It may be easier to install, but aside from prettier fonts its not really much of an upgrade.

In the Year 2015 ...

[eldavojohn]

Software Engineer: I sure am kind of on the fence about Windows 8, it's too quick and responsive ... I can't put my finger on it ...
Systems Engineer: Not enough bloat? Maybe you just miss Windows 7?
Software Engineer: No, it's not that ... it has the quality of that one before Windows 7 ...
Systems Engineer: Windows XP?
Software Engineer: No, there was something that happened briefly in between those two that Windows 8 feels like ...
Systems Engineer: I don't know what you're talking about, we need to get back to work, here are all your requirements.
Software Engineer: Vivid? Vivace? Something foreign sounding ...
Systems Engineer: No, you idiot, shut up! Don't you remember the ...
Software Engineer: VISTA!
*men with guns in black clothing with Gartner symbols sewn into them storm from the Gartner door near the servers and slip bags over the two engineers' heads and drag them towards the exits; they are never heard from again*

Pretty funny

[Jane Q. Public]

how they change their tune 180 degrees when it becomes convenient for Microsoft. (Apologies for the mixed mataphor.)

tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

What either Vista *or* Windows 7 brings, in practical terms, to the typical business or personal XP user, other than the guaranteed availability of (paid) tech support.

We already know that either of the newer versions require relatively recent hardware b/c they consume more CPU, RAM, and disk than XP does.

Re:tell me again...

[RiotingPacifist]

Home users - Security, UAC stops stuff running as admin.
Business - erm,well,err...?

Re:tell me again...

[CarpetShark]

tell me again...What either Vista *or* Windows 7 brings...

DRM, reduced performance, and upgrade fees.

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

An upgrade to Windows 7 from XP brings a lot more than people think for businesses:

BitLocker + a TPM means that a laptop theft basically becomes "just" a hardware theft, as opposed to hardware + data on it. A cost of a laptop is chump change compared to the revenue loss and loss of PR face when having to report that sensitive data was stolen to shareholders, the SEC, customers, and the press. BitLocker can also be used on workstations so a redeployment or sale of machines can be done without trashing the hard disks. Just a format command will do the job. (Vista's format.exe command explicitly overwrites the volume master key sectors, ensuring that recovery of any data even with a copy of the recovery info isn't going to happen.)

A decent privilege model. Apps shouldn't demand admin or LocalSystem rights unless they need it. No, this isn't a magic bullet for security, but it is a great step in the right direction. XP also has this, but most developers still just write assuming that all users are in the Administrator's group.

BitLocker To Go = those tons of USB flash drives are at least protected with some type of password that users write to (assuming the policy to require it before writing is allowed is set.) If user loses the password, the data is still recoverable.

Better OS imaging. WIM is a lot more customizable than XP's imaging model. The only exception is the fact that even VLK editions of Vista require activation which make this a major thorn in the side of businesses, even with an internal KMS. You can make multiple corporate images and images can be used across CPU/HAL architectures, as opposed to having a specific image for a certain model Dell, another image for the HPs, and so on. Add some PXE support, and you can reimage a new or trashed machine with just a boot from the network, as opposed to the Ghost CD and an external hard disk.

There are a number of under the hood things that Vista has that people don't notice which do improve security and reliability. ASLR, multiple privilege levels (like how IE8 runs in a pseudo-jail), background checking of disk filesystem integrity, volume snapshots, disassociation of Windows Update from Internet Explorer, and a good number of other security improvements.

The activation issue is, in my personal experience, the second biggest reason why businesses stay with XP, the first being the issue of legacy drivers that don't work under Vista. I just don't get the point of activation in VLK editions. The BSA will rip a business to component atoms who is caught pirating, so activation doesn't ensure MS gets any more revenue than it does already in the business sector.

Re:tell me again...

[Ghubi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#DirectX_10

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you aren't aware that Win7 can handle up to 256 cores. Where's you research to prove your point?

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

Discusses the removla of dispatcher spin locks from the scheduler which allows a Windows 7 desktop to run up to 256 cores.

Re:tell me again...

[RiotingPacifist]

BitLocker + a TPM means that a laptop theft basically becomes "just" a hardware theft, as opposed to hardware + data on it.

BitLocker To Go = those tons of USB flash drives are at least protected with some type of password that users write to (assuming the policy to require it before writing is allowed is set.)

But companies that need this have been doing it on xp for years, companies that don't still wont bother because of the additional overhead.

And while i do agree that windows7/vista are significantly more secure, I'm under the impression that companies have been able to lock down xp pretty well and migrating means having to lock down a whole new system that admins are less familiar with

The activation issue is, in my personal experience, the second biggest reason why businesses stay with XP, the first being the issue of legacy drivers that don't work under Vista..

I think the biggest reason is that it requires a significant effort, and for a properly secured system there is little benefit.

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck are talking about
try
w7 64 you moron

Re:tell me again...

[mdwh2]

What does XP bring to the 2000 user?

Re:tell me again...

[petermgreen]

I just don't get the point of activation in VLK editions. The BSA will rip a business to component atoms who is caught pirating, so activation doesn't ensure MS gets any more revenue than it does already in the business sector.
MS learnt with XP that if they release a no activation required version for some subset of customers (in the XP case volume license ones) then it WILL get leaked and the pirates WILL use it to avoid activation. They can put a key on the WGA shitlist but not everyone installs WGA and they can only do that for keys they know are in widespread illicit use.

As I see it the main point of activation in windows vista/7 volume license editions is to make it harder/riskier (if MAK activations start getting used up unexpectedly quickly someone is going to start asking questions) for people to "borrow" thier employers key to use on thier private machine(s) and possiblly thier friends machines.

Re:tell me again...

[Mad Leper]

DRM ? What DRM are you referring to ? Surely not the imaginary "Vista DRM" FUD that has been debunked numerous times before...

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

In which version can we expect these features to be added to Ubuntu????

Re:tell me again...

[Shikaku]

Truecrypt.

Oops I should offer a free and trusted alternative.

Re:tell me again...

[Deagol]

Primary colors?

Re:tell me again...

[CarpetShark]

Not as long you'd think, if Shuttleworth gets his way:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/377005

Re:tell me again...

[jonbryce]

Clear Type font rendering.

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

my company has about 5000 employees.
we run primarily one application so for us Windows is just the loader for it. If the application does not change ... we won't either.
Why would we ?

Re:tell me again...

[Anonymous Coward]

A migration to Kubuntu 9.04 brings a lot more than people think for businesses:

GPL free software license means that a laptop theft becomes "just" a hardware theft, as opposed to hardware + software on it. You can also use CryptoFS to encrypt your data and if somebody actually manages to hack into your laptop the bad PR for GNU/Linux generated by hoards of Windows fanboys will drown any bad PR about your companies' inept IT department.

A decent privilege model. Apps shouldn't run with setuid/root and they don't need it since the user-dependent configuration resides in each user's home directory. This isn't a magic bullet for security, but other OS just have taken the first steps in this direction.

GnuPG for those USB flash drives to protect the files with something like a long password. But if user loses the password, the data is not recoverable.

Best imaging support. Using dd, rsync together with abstract storage devices and the virtual file system (VFS) one can do baxkup on device-level, partition-level or file system level without any exceptions. Using distributions such as Knoppix one can run the OS independent of the hardware without writing an image to the hard disk at all.

While GNU/Linux always was a solid multi-user operating system from the ground up, they recently added a hood with KDE/GNOME. However migrating users do notice the stability and lack of malware. The file system does not need defragmentation because it does not fragment in the first place. Virtual file system/device permissions and user groups form a solid basis for security which is free of feature creep and hacks.

Lack of courage, in my personal experience, is the second biggest reason why businesses stay with Windows, the first being inertia. However WGA, DRM, and vendor lock-in will continue to penalise businesses which are not willing to objectively evaluate their options.

Re:tell me again...

[1s44c]

XP brings nothing new to the windows 2000 user. There are no real improvements at all. XP has a firewall that sucks, but the anti-virus software you are forced to buy likely has a better one.

XP, Vista, 7, none of these things have any advantage over 2000. The whole windows product line is based on the lie that newer is better. The whole gui setup on all windows products is piss-poor compared to KDE 3 and windows security is and always has been almost totally lacking.

Re:tell me again...

[Nkwe]

While Truecrypt is great software, it doesn't have the integration with the Windows administrative environment that Bitlocker does.

With Bitlocker you can set enterprise policies (via the group policy mechanisms) that control if encryption is required or not on workstations, fixed drives, removable media, etc. You can control centrally via policy how the encryption keys are protected (simple or complex PIN required; PIN manually entered, or required to be on a flash drive; TPM hardware required or not, etc.) Finally you can mandate key escrow in Active Directory (which allows you to be in legal compliance with various data discovery issues, should an employee "forget" his or her PIN.)

Granted that many environments and businesses do not need central policy management, but there are many that do. Windows 7 (and Visa) when combined with group policy and Bitlocker provide a pretty decent encryption solution when dealing with large laptop / workstation deployments. Do not underestimate the importance of key escrow when using encryption in the enterprise!

not really that insightful

[Gary W. Longsine]

Insightful would be something like this: Businesses which are dependent on proprietary document storage formats like .doc, .xls, and .ppt, or upon Windows-only programming frameworks like Win32, .Net, or ASP should immediately begin migration to platform independent programming API and document storage formats.

Re:not really that insightful

[mhall119]

Or investing in Wine and Mono, to make their existing infrastructure platform independent.

Why migrate from XP to vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me wonder what goes on into people's mind when they consider migrating from xp (x86 or x64) to vista. The functionality is the same, if not better in XP and it is a lot more efficient. Our team of designers uses XP x64 Pro and not vista, simply because of the benchmark differences. I've been testing Windows 7 RC1 (7100) for the past week and It's been going very smoothly. For the most part, I feel like it's faster than XP, but sometimes it doesn't feel that way. What's so impressive is that they managed to make the interface so pretty without it having an effect on performance.

As of yet, I haven't encountered any problems except for this ONE msi that had "blank" buttons but it installed properly anyways. Needless to say, after running some numbers I might get our systems switched to RC1 because it's that amazing of an OS.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[Darkness404]

The reason is simple for a small business or home user. Its what was on the computer. If you don't employ a full-time tech person, are too small or have too few computers to buy in bulk and get volume licensing, and don't have any software that is mission critical that doesn't work on Vista, I can see why many people would move to Vista.

Its hard to argue to keep an early P4 machine when a few components start failing whenever you can get a machine thats much more powerful for ~$300. If you don't have a volume license for XP, that requires you to pay an extra $50 or so, which is 1/6th of the machine's price! When faced with these facts, small businesses move to Vista because theres nothing else that doesn't cost more.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[jawtheshark]

Its hard to argue to keep an early P4 machine when a few components start failing whenever you can get a machine thats much more powerful for ~$300.

Except that most likely early P4 machines are not failing. I'm typing this on a P-IV 2.6GHz machine. It's been running since fall 2003. Yes, I did some minor upgrades: Notably, 512Meg RAM to 2Gig RAM, 120Gig IDE HD to 500Gig SATA and a better graphics card, but that was mainly because I got it out of another machine... The original, while only DX7 would have done fine: I don't play games. None of these upgrades were necessary. The 2Gig were on sale (and is the maximum possible according to the motherboard documentation). The harddisk, I could have avoided by copying superfluous stuff to a terabyte-USB disk.

In the same room I have a P-IV 1.9GHz with 512Meg RDRAM. I got it out of a dumpster. Works perfectly fine. No components are failing.

The components that most often fail in computers are in order: power supplies, fans, and harddisk. Only the last one is really a problem. None of them are expensive to replace.

Sure, a 300€ PC bought new would blow away performance-wise, but keep in mind that I save 300€ by not spending money on a new machine since my current one does everything I need. Before you say anything: yes, I probably upgraded it in excess of 300€ (after all, those upgrades were done over a span of 6 years), but I spent them ages ago. Not now...

300€ is a lot of beer I can drink instead ;-)

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[erroneus]

If you need the 64 bit memory range for some reason, Windows XP 64 bit will not cut it as drivers for that version of the OS are scarce at the most inconvenient times.

But if you are comfortable within 3.5GB or less (give or take a few hundred MB) then Windows XP 32 is still king of Windows.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[BenoitRen]

Windows 32-bit has been able to address more than 4 GB of RAM for at least a decade now. You just weren't licensed to use it.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[spanky the monk]

I used to pull working computer/parts out of dumpsters all the time at uni. If you live in a first world country and don't need to play games, you don't even need to buy a computer! Just dust of some garbage and install your favorite linux flavor. Yesterdays gaming machine is my workstation.

I haven't bought a computer for about 6 years.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[jawtheshark]

I haven't bought a computer for about 6 years

Except for the EEE 701, neither have I.

My current server is a frigging AMD64 3400+.... From a dumpster. That would make a nice desktop.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[blincoln]

Windows 32-bit has been able to address more than 4 GB of RAM for at least a decade now.

Even though the high-end 32-bit versions of Windows Server have been able to address more than 4GB of RAM, they can't make as effective use of it as the 64-bit versions.

For example, the Volume Shadow Service on 32-bit Windows can't deal with volumes > 10TB, even if you're running Enterprise and have 32GB of RAM in the system. You *must* be running a 64-bit version of the OS.

If I remember correctly, this is because the 32-bit Windows builds have a 2GB virtual memory size (per process?), whereas 64-bit increases it to 8GB (again, per process I think).

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

This violates the principle of
"garbage in - garbage out"

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[arkhan_jg]

Windows XP (and 2000) used to be able to use PAE to address above 4GB of RAM with 32-bit versions. IIRC however, they disabled it because too many driver makers assumed there was a direct correlation between the paged memory and the physical memory and PAE and remapping breaks that, causing all sorts of odd bugs. So they disabled it generally in SP2 for XP and SP1 2003 for 32 bit versions.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[nsheppar]

Congratulations, a link posted in slashdot comments has been slashdotted. Well done, slashdotters!

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[Bungie]

If I remember correctly, this is because the 32-bit Windows builds have a 2GB virtual memory size (per process?), whereas 64-bit increases it to 8GB (again, per process I think).

Windows uses PAE address memory over 4GB on 32-bit system. Under 32-bit Windows a process has a 4GB virtual address space which is divided into 2GB application and 2GB kernel address spaces. The problem was that a lot of drivers and software expect that configuration and end up doing things like truncating pointers which they expect to be a certain size. In order to avoid a lot of problems they left the limitaion in place for 32-bit Windows.

Re:Why migrate from XP to vista?

[BenoitRen]

Really? Wow. It's fine at the moment, though.

What I'm wondering is why my comment was modded +5 Funny. Is it because it's controversial among the GNU/Linux loving fanboys or something?

Vista is going the Windows ME way

[zaibazu]

A few nice features added but easily outweighted by too much crap that only pissed off the end user.

Why go to Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooooo... why go to Windows 7? What is ITS value prop?

Re:Why go to Windows 7?

[symbolset]

What is ITS value prop?

It could be your last chance to get committed to Software Assurance. That's the amazing deal where you pay Microsoft every year 1/3 the price of their full software stack and in return you get to use the useful upgrades they come out with every twelve years for FREE.

Re:Why go to Windows 7?

[mokus000]

That it's not Vista?

Re:Why go to Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when the Microsoft sales rep told me about this. i told her immediately and flat out that it held no value for us of any kind and would not be considered at all. i also told her I knew this was simply a way for Microsoft to recover the revenue it had been losing not being able to sell Office for $4-$500 a pop anymore.

I've been saying this for...

[Anarchduke]

For all the venom poured at the feet of Gartner, they are only saying what I have been saying since for months.

Gartner is only giving advice that many IT analysts have been saying for quite some time. Skip vista, hold on to Windows XP, and wait for the next release before considering upgrading. Hardly a controversial statement, especially with Windows 7 due to go Gold by the holiday season.

I know Slashdot has a tradition of instantly hating everything remotely associated with Microsoft, but Gartner is an IT firm that spends a great deal of time advising businesses on how to best implement Microsoft products. They aren't the Mouth of Sauron, speaking what the Eye of Mordor wants spoken.

Honestly, Microsoft would really prefer that businesses upgrade to Vista now, then upgrade to Windows 7 a year from now. That means more money to them. Gartner is only giving common sense advise and saying, hold off on spending your money because Vista is dead end.

Yes, we would all like to see more businesses switch to Linux, but that isn't going to happen very quickly, if at all. But if your company is thinking of migrating from XP to a more modern operating system, it would come as no surprise if the analyst they hired said, "don't go to Vista, wait for Windows 7".

Re:I've been saying this for...

[Shados]

Honestly, Microsoft would really prefer that businesses upgrade to Vista now, then upgrade to Windows 7 a year from now. That means more money to them

Aside for all the businesses with software insurance or a similar licensing agreement, where its the same amount of money either way :)

Re:I've been saying this for...

[gmuslera]

No, they aren't the Mouth of Sauron, because what the Eye of Mordor wanted to be spoken was something like "One OS to rule them all, and in the blueness bind them"... not even that they managed to say right.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[jollyreaper]

For all the venom poured at the feet of Gartner, they are only saying what I have been saying since for months.

Yeah. It's just such a duh statement, though. That's why we're making fun of them, they're either restating the completely obvious or making inaccurate predictions.

In other news, Gartner advises not to upgrade computer to Windows 7 while in the tub.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[rahvin112]

Honesty would be Gartner saying that Windows 7 is Windows Vista with a new coat of paint and that there is no real reason to upgrade to Windows 7. The press turned against Microsoft on Vista because of the IT backlash, but lets be honest they've bought the press lock stock and barrel on Windows 7. There isn't a damn thing different about Windows 7 and vista under the hood. The same things that Gartner and others blasted Vista for is being ignored with Windows 7. Microsoft must have paid the appropriate people really well in advance of the Windows 7 reviews because franly their's NO business incentive to upgrade from XP.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[hawkingradiation]

...Gartner is an IT firm that spends a great deal of time advising businesses on how to best implement Microsoft products. They aren't the Mouth of Sauron, speaking what the Eye of Mordor wants spoken.

Gartner sure says what Microsoft wants: it wants users to buy Microsoft products just like "Directions on Microsoft". Good thing for Windows 7!!! In fact for large businesses who seem to have the least need for Vista Gartner actually recommended Vista. So this is the same analyst who in 2007 recommended Vista for large businesses, or is C-NET pulling another Microsoft and trying to up-sell another Microsoft product just like everybody is up-selling Windows 7? Oh yeah, about Linux never being ready for the corporate environment or Microsoft being too dominant: where is your faith man? I know my faith was personally crushed when the "failure" tag was removed from the article. What a bad day!

Re:I've been saying this for...

[CarpetShark]

Gartner is only giving advice that many IT analysts have been saying for quite some time.

Exactly. Haven't you noticed the shill-pattern yet? Most of those people started saying that stuff even before it was clear that Windows 7 booted on most of the machines around, much less after any serious long-term testing that you could possibly build a business recommendation on. These guys have been parroting the Microsoft line for months, that Windows 7 is as good as XP. Only now, others have had a chance to do real testing, it's becoming clear that they lied, as benchmarks show no difference between Windows 7 and Vista.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[trawg]

Doesn't this just reek of a clever long-term business plan by Microsoft?

Maybe they realised, years ago, everyone was really happy with XP. Holy shit! They'd made the perfect product! Noone would ever want or need to upgrade again!

So they intentionally release Vista as a turd. Everyone hates on it and noone decides to upgrade.

Then they release the new hotness of Windows 7 - compared to Vista, it's amazing! Everyone gives it good reviews. Why /wouldn't/ you install it? It's SO much better than Vista!

Everyone has, meanwhile, forgotten they're happy on XP and just wants to get back on the upgrade bandwagon.

A CUNNING PLAN!

Re:I've been saying this for...

[WindBourne]

IIRC, Gartner was one of the first to say that all shops should move to Vista. Then, when it came out and had a poor reviews, Then and ONLY THEN, did they say, that MAYBE you might not want to move to it. Gartner is attached to the front of Bill's and Chuck's Pants.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Microsoft must have paid the appropriate people really well in advance of the Windows 7 reviews because franly their's NO business incentive to upgrade from XP.

Indeed, the marketing campaign for Win7 has been brilliant. Brill-fucking-ant. Somebody on Madison Ave is going to buy an island with the money they've earned on this.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know Slashdot has a tradition of instantly hating everything remotely associated with Microsoft

Absolutely false, and demonstrably so. Methinks you are getting hoisted by your own little rant-petard.

It may have been cool 5 years ago to pull out that particular everyone-on-Slashdot-is-homogeneous-in-thought. Or not.

Re:I've been saying this for...

[moon3]

Two towers there actually, Orthanc (Apple) that want "OSX to rule them all, and under Apple bind them".

6 months!

[RiotingPacifist]

Windows 7 may be better than vista, but surely your going to wait for SP1*, meaning it will be at least a year before its good to go.

*Hell i even wait for 'sp1' before trusting a new ubuntu release (Obviously as a geek i start using it at beta 1)

Re:6 months!

[Malc]

Yes, it's definitely bad advice. One never deploys a new MS OS when it's first released. This won't be a six month wait at this point, but 12 to 18.

Re:6 months!

[Courageous]

Windows 7 may be better than vista, but surely your going to wait for SP1*...

Dude. Windows 7 is Vista SP2. Like, everyone knows that man.

C//

Thanks, Shill!

[drinkypoo]

Gartner is telling us to pretend Vista never happened, just as Microsoft intends. But that's like seeing the original Highlander, then seeing Highlander 2... and then going to see Highlander 3! Why the fuck would you do that? You know it's going to be a let-down.

Re:Thanks, Shill!

[fostware]

There's a Highlander 2?

Although that is around the time I started receiving hypnotherapy...

Re:Thanks, Shill!

[cjmnews]

Highlander 2 doesn't exist. It was never made, never released. Just move on to Highlander 3 then the TV show, then stop. Don't go any farther.

You were warned!

Re:Thanks, Shill!

[Svartalf]

Heh... As far as I'm concerned, there never was a 2 OR a 3. The original Highlander was awesome, everything other than it, and to a lesser extent the TV series, was simply too "out there" compared to the original to be truly worth watching. 2...I wanted my 90 minutes of my life back from them... I didn't bother with 3 because it struck me as more of the same WTF?!? type crap I sadly experienced with 2 and didn't want to lose another 90 minutes of my life that way.

Re:Thanks, Shill!

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a highlander 3??

I'm still going to wait...

[viyh]

For Windows 9, which will be based of of linux kernel 2.8.12.

Re:I'm still going to wait...

[CarpetShark]

For Windows 9, which will be based of of linux kernel 2.8.12.

The way Microsoft do things, it'll probably be based off Linux 1.2.1

Re:I'm still going to wait...

[that this is not und]

Kernel 1.2.13 was a good baseline for a long time.

Re:I'm still going to wait...

[CarpetShark]

Kernel 1.2.13 was a good baseline for a long time.

Which is why MS forked it around there, and have been working on Windows FT (Fixed Technology) ever since ;)

Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[reporter]

The real insight is that Microsoft is also skipping Vista. The new Windows 7 has a built-in virtual machine that emulates Windows XP. Windows 7 does not emulate Vista.

Why? Likely, the number of Windows-XP users is substantially larger than the number of Vista users. Sheer profit motivates Microsoft management to pursue the larger market: Windows-XP users.

Gartner, highest bidder

[Anonymous Coward]

I no longer trust anything Gartner has to say, even when I agree with them (skip vista), as in this case, I almost feel like checking my own facts again..Gartner's cred is gone.

Re:Gartner, highest bidder

[CarpetShark]

Everyone agrees on skipping vista. It's a common propaganda trick to start with something you'll accept (vista sucks), then feed you what they want you to accept next (buy Windows 7).

Re:Gartner, highest bidder

[Svartalf]

Did it ever really HAVE cred to begin with?

Before you start the switch you should

[ClosedSource]

Immediately file for Chapter 11 because you might as well get all of the reorganization done all at once.

Hilarious Bit of Buffoonery

[Timtimes]

By both Microsoft and this apparently paid-off IT analyst. They might as well come right out and explain to us that continued Windoz torture is good for us somehow. It's all the rage these days anyway. Enjoy.

Skoda tells me to buy a new Skoda

[knarf]

Sony tells me I need a Blueray player, Philips says I should look into ditching that old coffee maker for one of those wasteful cartridge-thingies, Proctor and Gamble insists my hair needs Head and Shoulders, Gartner says we should consider buying the next Microsoft operating system. Since when do I care about what advertisers say?

Re:Skoda tells me to buy a new Skoda

[John Hasler]

> Since when do I care about what advertisers say?

Well, you care enough to know what they say.

Congrats, Gartner

[gmuslera]

At last they manage to say something that were at least half right... But they still have to fix the operating system name in the "prepare to roll out Windows 7" half.

Oops, my mistake

[hyades1]

I thought Windows 7 was everybody's pet name for Vista SP1.

Re:Oops, my mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Windows 7 was everybody's pet name for Vista SP1.

no its Vista SP2

Re:Oops, my mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Server 2008 shares the same kernel binaries with Vista SP1.

Windows 7 is more closely related to Vista SP2.

Re:Oops, my mistake

[MojoStan]

I thought Windows 7 was everybody's pet name for Vista SP1.

no its Vista SP2

Vista SP2 was finished more than a week ago and Windows 7 will be finished in October at the earliest.

So this lame joke should be updated to "Windows 7 is Vista SP3" (minus all those features that are being added to Windows 7 but not added to Vista).

Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[TheThiefMaster]

It doesn't emulate Vista because 7 is 100% Vista compatible. Nothing to emulate.

There's a program compatibility option, and all it does is report "Vista" as the OS instead of 7.

Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, it's because Windows 7 and Vista are the same thing at the core, and emulating Vista on Windows 7 would be like emulating Windows 95 in Windows 98.

telling the obvious to the clueless

[petes_PoV]

... AND getting paid for it

You've gotta respect the "analysts" at Gartner. Anyone who's read anything about PCs within the last year would have come to this conclusion. However, when you write it in a high-priced report, and present it in a pretty cover, some sort of Dilbert-ian logic takes over and the contents (whatever they happen to be) suddenly have the meaning, insight and authority that makes them worthy of directorial consideration.

Re:telling the obvious to the clueless

[John Hasler]

> You've gotta respect the "analysts" at Gartner. Anyone who's read anything about PCs
> within the last year would have come to this conclusion.

Well, no. Some of us have come to the conclusion that the thing to do is not have bugger-all to do with any Microsoft products at all.

Re:telling the obvious to the clueless

[inode_buddha]

"Well, no. Some of us have come to the conclusion that the thing to do is not have bugger-all to do with any Microsoft products at all."

Seconded. And decades ago, at that.

Re:telling the obvious to the clueless

[StormReaver]

> Anyone who's read anything about PCs within the last year would have come to this conclusion.

Anyone who's used a Microsoft operating system in the last 15 years should have come to this conclusion a long time ago. I predict two things will happen:

1) The sun will rise in the morning (obvious inaccuracies aside).

2) Microsoft will release Windows 7 to much fanfare, and people will forget the last 15 years of wasted effort trying to keep Windows in operation. They will be shocked, SHOCKED, at all the Windows viruses hampering their work and play. They will bitch and moan, but will keep throwing their time and money in the fire. The temporary good judgment they showed at avoiding Vista will evaporate.

Keep XP

[Billly Gates]

There is a server recession/depression and Business need to put off investments and asset upgrades until the business environment becomes more favorable.

What kind of ROI (return on investment)will upgrading bring? Seems MS had already succeeded in building a better mouse trap. No real reason to upgrade unlike its predecessors.

Re:Keep XP

[triffid_98]

What kind of ROI (return on investment)will upgrading bring? Seems MS had already succeeded in building a better mouse trap. No real reason to upgrade unlike its predecessors.

Well, Microsoft has already stopped mainstream support for XP, though I believe they'll continue supplying security patches for a few more years...

Re:Keep XP

[vic-traill]

Extended support cycle for XP Professional and XP Pro x64 runs until 08/04/2014. Mainstream support for both stopped 14/04/2009. So what's the difference between mainstream and extended support? Mainstream support includes everything in extended support plus non-security hotfix support (although you buy a contract for this if you do it within 90 days of mainstream support ending), no-charge incident support, warranty claims and design changes and feature requests.

So which of these now not available mainstream items concern people?

XP's a pretty mature product at this point, or at least as mature as it is going to get, I'd say. Unless you think that some non-security hotfixes are going to be Really Important to Have, the difference between mainstream and extended support at this point looks pretty minimal to me.

I suggest that it comes down more on side of application support for XP than anything else. If you have apps you really require to run your business and new versions *that you require* don't support XP, you'll be driven to the Windows 7 bump, or have to find an alternative.

I'm with the GP comment on this one - what's the ROI on the cost and the effort of upgrading an enterprise from XP to Win 7? I just don't see the motivation. And even if some next rev of MS Office doesn't support XP, will there be sufficient value in that Office upgrade to drive the o/s upgrade? If not, then MS gets hit w/ the double whammy - the lack of motivation for the o/s upgrade drives down the sales of that next MS Office revision.

Re:Keep XP

[triffid_98]

I'm with the GP comment on this one - what's the ROI on the cost and the effort of upgrading an enterprise from XP to Win 7? I just don't see the motivation.

So with the site license program they can just keep adding licenses for a discontinued OS?

If that's the case I'd wager the only traction would be if new systems dropped driver support for XP at some point. The company won't care what gets shipped on their systems since they have to re-image them anyway.

Re:Keep XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on if a business has SA licensing with Microsoft, Windows 7 brings plenty of ROI. By now, almost all hardware has caught up with Vista's hardware requirements except netbooks and extremely low end desktop PCs. So, assuming a 3 year equipment cycle due to tax amortization, the average Dell Optiplex or HP will have enough enough RAM to run Vista, Symantec Endpoint Protection, some type of asset management client (NetOctopus, Tivoli, OpenView), PGP Universal or other enterprise whole disk encryption solution, and Microsoft Office.)

With SA, Windows 7 is already paid for. You can make a corporate image, put it on a remote WDS server, and have machines boot and install that image over the network (assuming you have the bandwidth for it.) Making custom images for departments is easy (say finance gets special software to limit what apps, computers accessible to the public get an image of DeepFreeze, the call center gets the CRM app, and so on.) It doesn't matter if the box is Intel or AMD either. Vista doesn't give a care that it was imaged on one HAL, and being deployed to a different one.

Then there are the behind the scenes security features. Since XP was released, attacks against Windows have been becoming heavier and more sophisticated with attackers changing from lone hacker mercenaries to dedicated corps working for organizations and national intel services. XP, to be honest, wasn't designed for today's threat model... but its an 8 year old OS, and no other OS maker has been required to not just support existing installations of a backlevel OS, but deal with new ones as Microsoft has had to. I'll show my prejudice here: If the hardware doesn't force XP to be loaded, XP just needs to die.

Vista beings a lot of security features, and Windows 7 brings more. You want to have your operating systems in line with what attacks they will be facing, and Windows 7 in addition to some decent (ICSA certified at the least) security software can do a decent job, assuming whomever has administrative access has decent administrative skills.

Finally, corporate regs like Sarbanes Oxley, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and others might require a move anyways. Using a known backlevel version of an OS for sensitive data may fall into the lines of failing to use due diligence when protecting data.

So, for businesses who have modern machines made in the past 1-2 years, Windows 7 shouldn't be too difficult a move. If they have stuff that requires XP... that's what XP compatibility is for.

After the update, their will be some positive ROI, especially with any modern hardware that has a TPM 1.2 chip on it. Like stated previously, good policies using Bitlocker and Bitlocker To Go will help mitigate what would be catastrophic data loss scenarios. This in itself is excellent insurance.

Re:Keep XP

[vic-traill]

So with the site license program they can just keep adding licenses for a discontinued OS?

Good point - I missed this. Volume License Agreements allow the holder to backgrade (upgrade?) the license you purchase on a new machine to, for instance, XP Pro SP3. And you're also right that new hardware will sooner or later have no drivers for XP.

So - Why would I upgrade to Windows 7 Over XP?

[deathpulse]

What are the advantages again? Are they worth paying money for an upgrade? Windows XP works for me - at home and at work... I think MS has a SERIOUS value proposition problem.

Re:So - Why would I upgrade to Windows 7 Over XP?

[AnalPerfume]

The advantages to you are that you have too much money and Microsoft don't have enough, it's about equilibrium and all that bullshit. By donating to a multi-billion-dollar bonus fund you can feel good about yourself that you have helped a poor board member while also ensuring that you couldn't spend that money on anything wasteful......like food for example. By cutting back on food you can lose some weight which has all sorts of benefits. A fitness regime which consists in part of vigorous forum posting demanding that XP be allowed to live beyond it's execution date will help too. Don't helping your fellow man feel good?

Re:So - Why would I upgrade to Windows 7 Over XP?

[cfryback]

This is an ongoing question. I was forced to explain the reason for going to XP (migration done this year!) from 2000. Since migrating, I think we have only had one or two BSOD's - and a quick BIOS upgrade fixed that (we are an HP shop, BTW). Sure I mean there was no real technical reason to upgrade, as most of our users use apps and not the OS features anyways. But I am convinced that but not upgrading, you end up like we did - an old OS trying to run on modern hardware, which was becoming a support nightmare trying to explain why their PC would BSOD three or four times a day. We going to Vista? Not a chance - but I am running Win 7 on a test PC, and have started loading in our corporate applications - and as such all working as expected. Though I have noticed that everything SEEMS to be running quicker on 7 vs XP. Keep in mind, I am running it on a very stock standard HP 7600 (Pentium D705, 2GB Ram - 80Gb HD) - aside from the Areo interface (which I doubt we would have anyways) everything else is working just dandy.

Re:So - Why would I upgrade to Windows 7 Over XP?

[Lonewolf666]

This is an ongoing question. I was forced to explain the reason for going to XP (migration done this year!) from 2000. Since migrating, I think we have only had one or two BSOD's - and a quick BIOS upgrade fixed that (we are an HP shop, BTW). Sure I mean there was no real technical reason to upgrade, as most of our users use apps and not the OS features anyways. But I am convinced that but not upgrading, you end up like we did - an old OS trying to run on modern hardware, which was becoming a support nightmare trying to explain why their PC would BSOD three or four times a day.

So I'm not the only one who noticed problems with Windows 2000 on new hardware.
My current PC (built from components in 2007) was never quite stable under Windows 2000. I suspect that the hardware vendors had stopped caring at that point and did no real QA on the Windows 2000 drivers anymore. For the MSI graphics card (a NVidia 8600 GT), only an obsolete Windows 2000 driver version was offered at all. A switch to XP fixed the problems.

On the other hand, my older Pentium IV is quite stable under Windows 2000.

Re:So - Why would I upgrade to Windows 7 Over XP?

[gbarules2999]

You get to stimulate the economy?

It does seem convenient

[HalAtWork]

It does seem convenient since MS could use the influx of cash (not to mention the good press if adoption goes well). However, considering that staying with a mature XP has worked out better, would it be worth it for businesses with existing XP installations to start migrating to Vista now since it has been tested, and hope for an extension of Vista's availability and support in the same vein as XP's?

.8 probability that Mister Softee Sucks...

[Trip6]

and a .9 probability that he underperforms, if you know what I mean!

Please apologize to Ozzie Osbourne

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be Crazy Train

Is Gartner a Division of Microsoft?

[MarkvW]

Is Gartner a subsidiary of Microsoft?

Re:Is Gartner a Division of Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's part of there R&D section. They research and develop there customers. (also know as advertising)

Re:Is Gartner a Division of Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

+3 Insightful for asking that?

This site is full of the most stupid dumbfucks I have ever encountered in my life.

XP Mode.

[symbolset]

XP Mode marries all the reliability and security of XP to the usability and device compatibility of Vista. Brilliant!

Re:XP Mode.

[Anonymous Coward]

XP Mode is done through virtualization and only works on some CPUs.

Re:XP Mode.

[scalarscience]

What the AC next to me is trying to say is that XP Mode does NOT offer improved device support. Virtualization abstracts hardware for the software that is running in the virtual machine, but the OS/hypervisor/etc below it still needs proper driver support for "device compatibility" (to talk to peripherals etc).

Re:XP Mode.

[mhall119]

I believe the point the GP was making is that the virtualized environment would have all of the negative aspects of both XP and Vista, without any of their respective positive aspects.

Re:XP Mode.

[ozmanjusri]

XP Mode is done through virtualization and only works on some CPUs.

Yep.

And if you're going down that path, why not run your instance of XP in a VM on Linux?

More compatibility, less cost and far fewer security issues. If you're going virtual, what's the point of Windows 7 at all?

Re:XP Mode.

[EpsCylonB]

virtualiztion on ubuntu is not as simple as it is in Win7, you need to install either xen,kvm,quemu,etc. Its given me problems in the past.

Re:XP Mode.

[gbarules2999]

VirtualBox?

Samba support

[caubert]

The company I work for has its network and file sharing built on Samba. Well, W7 does not support Samba yet, so no migration planned. Getting through to shares does actually work, but joining a Samba domain does not. I don't know, MS, please fix it.

Re:Samba support

[fluffy99]

Well, W7 does not support Samba yet

It's Samba that needs to catch up, not Microsoft. Windows7 dropped support for the archaic NT4 domain structure that Samba emulates.

Samba is a poor substitute as a domain controller. Sure you can get an NT4 style domain working, but you're missing out on all the power that Active Directory gives you. For that matter, Samba leaves a lot to be desired as a windows file server as well.

Re:Samba support

[The Cisco Kid]

Sure, catch up with an undocumented proprietary moving standard. Guess what - thats one of the reasons MS keeps changing things - it isn't to make it work better, its to make solutions from anyone other than MS work less well.

The correct solution is to ditch the entire Microsoft paradigm altogether. Things like Samba are just a band aid for the drooling masses who's eyes glaze over if the buttons aren't in exactly the same position on every computer.

Re:Samba support

[mvdwege]

you're missing out on all the power that Active Directory gives you

Such as?

Mart

Re:Samba support

[Shuntros]

What he said ^^

AD is a widely used "pretend directory service", adopted by idiots worldwide who know nothing about computers or how they work.

As a directory, it's about as piss-poor as they get. Just look at the likes of eDirectory; runs on almost every OS you can think of and is superior to AD in every way, and has been for about 15 years.

Re:Samba support

[Bungie]

you're missing out on all the power that Active Directory gives you

Such as?

Such as not using the antiquated NT4 domain model.

Re:Samba support

[fluffy99]

Group policies, better groups, software deployments, far more granular permissions, the ability to delegate permissions and roles, not requiring a linux weenie to run it, not constantly playing catchup when a MS update breaks the half-assed bandaid called samba, kerberos support, pki support, smartcard logon, multiple redundant domain controllers versus a pdc and non-redundant bdcs, etc.

But that's just off the top of my head.

So aside from emulating NT4 domain authentication, and a pared down version of a SMBFS file/print server - what is the big benefit of trying to replace a proper MS domain controller with a linux box? Cost? To me the added headaches aren't worth it.

Re:Samba support

[mvdwege]

I was going to post a detailed rebuttal, even giving you some of your points, but if your level of debate is calling names before any substantial argument can be made, you know what? You can just fuck off.

Mart

Re:Samba support

[fluffy99]

Where did I call anyone names? You're the one with "anal-retentive" in your sig. :}

Re:Samba support

[jtosburn]

Funny. I just joined a Win7 machine to a Samba domain. There is a hoop to jump through, but any business running Samba can manage setting a couple reg keys.

Seems to work, so far.

Re:Samba support

[fluffy99]

What were those keys? I saw some traffic on the samba list about a known bug on the samba side, and some suggestions about keys to try on the Windows side (like disabling secure signing). I saw some folks were managed to successfully joined a samba domain, but it would stop working as soon as the windows client tried updating its machine account.

The registry settings I saw, dumbed down the security on the windows side a bit, which could potentially opened up some added vulnerability.

Re:Samba support

[fluffy99]

I did some more digging. http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2009-February/063187.html Amusing enough, the poster identifying the registry keys and the bugs in Samba works for Microsoft. So yeah MS did help fix the problem.

This email also identifies the registry fixes which compromise security in the name of interoperability. The fixes (disable secure signing, dropping 128-bit req, and allowing ntlm and lanman auth) qualify as a Cat-I vulnerability findings if you happen to be subject to network vulnerability scanning.

Forget vista, forget windows 7...

[DeltaQH]

Get Android with Google docs!!! ;-)

Um...

[sootman]

... won't businesses wait for Windows 7 SP1 anyway?

That said, every geek worth his salt (let alone any actual IT professional) should take advantage of the fact that MS will let you download and run the Release Candidate Customer Preview of Vista 7 Ultimate for free for a year. Works just fine in VirtualBox (also free, for Win, Lin, and OS X) as described here. Even if you hate MS for whatever reason, it's still worth knowing what they're doing, especially if you can do so for free on whatever platform you're (probably) currently using.

Re:Um...

[John Hasler]

> Even if you hate MS for whatever reason, it's still worth knowing what they're doing,
> especially if you can do so for free on whatever platform you're (probably) currently
> using.

Why? I learn all I need to know about what Microsoft is doing by reading Slashdot.

Bleh

[Anonymous Coward]

Gartner has been wrong more than have been right about many major IT issues over the years. It's a bunch of analysts which means people who don't know enough about technology to actually implement it so they write about it instead. I have worked at a number of very large companies that had Gartner accounts with Gartner "experts" on various topics who would come and talk to us and were considered a joke by everyone but management. To be fair though for those who consider themselves Microsoft shills they did in fact advise against using IIS several years ago because of rampant security issues. Anyway what this thread is missing is the fact that very few business want to "upgrade" to 7 either. They don't see the return on their investment. It's not any easier to support, offers no new features or functionality of any use to the average corporate worker and requires a lot of investment to roll out which companies really aren't wanting to do right now. I recommend most companies look at locked down Linux desktops for most users who just need the basics. The fact that most companies right now are planning on sticking with the archaic Windows XP doesn't tell you how good XP is but how bad the replacements are that Microsoft spent years and billions of dollars developing. if we can get Outlook/Exchange and Office out of corporate environments Microsoft is done for. As bad as both products are they are entrenched. The latest version of Windows Server are actually pretty good but not good enough that I don't replace them with Red Hat every chance I get which at this point has been many thousands of servers.

Ahem

[furbearntrout]

Keep on walking (just sayin.)
Isn't Gartner part of MSFT's marketing division anyway?

Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its 100 Vista compatible because it is Vista. duh.

Gartner Morons...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the strategy of not changing platforms unless you actually need to? The only reason to move from Win2K to XP was because Microsoft wanted businesses to pay some more money. That has been the sole reason to move from any version of WIndows to the next ever since.

Windows 7.....is Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 is Vista. The same. They aren't different. Its just 7 is Vista with a bunch (7?) massive service packs. They are trying to make Vista suck less. Its still the same though. 7 is a refactored Vista. Windows \7ista. Mostly the same. Microsoft couldn't come up with something totally new in such a short time, and needed something (anything) to sell. At some point, you will be able to apply the 7 big service packs to Vista to get windows \7ista. Same beast, but sucks less.

Its all fixed in the next release

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me see if I've got this straight:
If I wait until the next release of Windows then I will get a faster operating system that is more stable and has greater application compatibility. There will be fewer (note - fewer) blue screens of death and drivers will be easy for third party vendors to develop.
Brill - at last I will be able to upgrade from Win95!

What happened to the early adopters?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have wondered what happened to the companies that rolled Vista out with great fanfare years ago?

Now they expect everybody to be early adopters of Windows 7?

Makes sense

[thetoadwarrior]

Windows 7 is basically a service pack for Vista so it's not like you're moving to something completely different. You're moving to Vista as it should be.

Bye-bye PC sales.

[Anonymous Coward]

better for users, and results in greater longevity.

I assume Gartner's advice also holds true for HOME users.

In short, if you need a computer now, don't consider Vista. Sounds like even Gartner's bashing Vista now. Either hold off on your purchase, go with Linux, or go to the Mac. Windows Vista PCs are hereby dead.

SAVE VISTA!

[David Gerard]

Original blog post - Facebook group

Microsoft has said it may ditch Vista the moment Windows 7 comes out. They've since backtracked - but we need to make sure they know our feelings.

Windows 7 is CASTRATED APPEASEMENT to soy latte-sipping girly-men who wish they owned a Mac. We want a REAL operating system. An operating system that PERSONIFIES America's INDUSTRIAL MIGHT. That makes you feel AWE at the MAJESTY of the progress of its operation. VISTA is a monument to everything that makes us the country we are!

Like Chrysler, like Hummer, like Edsel - "Vista" is a name that will be remembered as the greatest operating system in Microsoft's history.

Just Say "No" To Seven -

SAVE VISTA!

We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to join the Facebook group. So far we have about 80. TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

"I fully support this initiative. My computer business employs 200 people; the best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward." - M. Shuttleworth, London

"I can't tell you how much Vista has done for my business. So many people depend on it." - S. Jobs, Cupertino

"Vista is the one thing that will keep people seeking out and using systems that are at the forefront of technology. It's been the best thing for all of us." - L. Torvalds, Portland

"I'm ... I'm touched. *sob* I didn't think anyone cared. You guys. Developers! *sob*" - S. Ballmer, Seattle

I think xkcd already covered this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where "The Matrix" == "Windows 2000" (or XP -- your choice) and subsequent versions of the OS were never made.

From the diary of S. Jobs (2016)

[Kugrian]

Sender: bgates@microsoft.com
Date: Jan 30, 2007 04:38
Subject: RE: should I update to Vista?

XP is amazingly brilliant!

Stick with it. Don't bother changing, everyone is happy! Just stick there. There's lot of alternatives, but ignore that, comfortable cushion and all that.

We'll release a better version in 2009/10.. try that instead
.
PS: thinking about retiring soon, so won't be able to reply to anymore of your emails.
PPS: WinFS will be in this version for sure :)

---

Doesn't this just reek of a clever long-term business plan by Microsoft?

Maybe they realised, years ago, everyone was really happy with XP. Holy shit! They'd made the perfect product! Noone would ever want or need to upgrade again!

So they intentionally release Vista as a turd. Everyone hates on it and noone decides to upgrade.

Then they release the new hotness of Windows 7 - compared to Vista, it's amazing! Everyone gives it good reviews. Why /wouldn't/ you install it? It's SO much better than Vista!

Everyone has, meanwhile, forgotten they're happy on XP and just wants to get back on the upgrade bandwagon.

A CUNNING PLAN!

Nah, don't think so.

talk about a bad idea

[gooeee]

bad advise, first moving strait to windows 7 from XP users are going to have a hard time, and you think they didn't like the change to Vista wait till they get there hands on this beast, a lot of users are going to be looking at tech support funny when they get there new OS, because there not behind one OS but two, there's been two major changes to the operating system, and you guys have been telling them not to switch wait for the next one, bad advise. I think this one will come back and bite you in the ass.

Microsoft is just trying to boost initial adoption

[zamfield]

...of Windows 7 so they can claim it is a resounding success of a product launch. And Gartner is just the cheerleader they pay to get the "message" out. Nothing to see here.

This...

[symbolset]

is the quality of innovation we've come to expect from the market leader in desktop operating systems. It's truly revolutionary thinking combining the most prominent attributes both of their own software and the creations of others to yield unheard-of benefits for the customer.

Emperor wears a Thong

[eyepeepackets]

The reviewers who actually do performance evaluations of Windows 7 continue to make this point: The performance between Windows 7 and Vista is marginal at best and often indistinguishable.

Windows 7 is Vista with a marketing make over. It's being pushed from the bottom up in a faux ground swell astroturfers saying "Windows 7 is great!" but ignoring the performance evaluations.

The best that can be said for Windows 7 is that its true name should be Vista SP2.

Re:Emperor wears a Thong

[Rockoon]

Reviewers who do performance evaluations of operating systems are (A) retarded and believe in it, (B) pitching their review to retarded people who believe in it, or (C) both.

You are proving that the "reviewers" that you have read are in group (B) or (C), and that makes you retarded.

Mod me down, I don't give a fuck. The poster I am replying to is stupid and reaching for anything anti-microsoft no matter how irrational that thing is. Performance evaluation of an OS indeed.. you modded up a flaminmg retard and that makes the modders flaming retards TOO.

Meet the seventh windows same as the old windows

[Vexorian]

NOW WITH DOCK!!!111

Everybody notice that Gartner is Microsoft's 'voice' so, this is really what Microsoft wants to ensure people believe. That they reformed from the vista screwup, that it is suddenly better. People on the other hand would love to believe it, as after years and years of growing a huge windows dependence they need a good version - yes, even geeks do.

However, the truth is, that besides the new theme and a more responsive interface it really is the same as vista in the guts... Of course, compatibility got better, but that's because companies have had all these years to work in vista compatibility... I think MS should get used to longer betas or something like that. As for me, since windows 7 still has the stuff that made me dislike vista (the stronger DRM, WGA, and other restriction technologies) I have quit my hopes.

be on the look out there alot of p4 with bad caps.

[Joe The Dragon]

be on the look out there alot of p4 with bad caps.

yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this will be funny when you post it for the 67th time on Slashdot to spam your blog... but so far I'm not impressed.

Re:yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the BoycottNovell website has been suspended. I'm guessing due to the fact Roy posts around 8 anti-Microsoft stories a day. The search engines alone must eat up 90% of the available bandwidth. So the usual lot of trolls that think he is funny have to come here to read his Spam.

Win7 can handle up to 256 cores

[symbolset]

Of course it can. So can Linux. Naturally if you use Linux you can run all the incidences of Linux you want without paying extra. That'll be handy when we get to that many cores because lots of useful new software is coming out as virtual appliances - like OpenFiler.

Now... What are you going to do with those threads? Run every Explorer tab in a separate VM? How many incidences of W7 do you need on one workstation? How many incidences of W7 can you run on that SuperDome box for the base price? Hm? And when that's a $5k desktop workstation machine what's that going to cost? Is the W7 virtualization cross-platorm? By cross platform I don't mean "All the version of Windows and Microsoft's lapdog Novell's toxic SLED." I mean everything. Well?

The W7 Extreme Signature Racing Stripe Edition might as well be their 3-app limited crippleware on the kind of iron that's landing this year and next. Last time they missed the turn thinking the minimum was higher than it was. This time they miss thinking the maximum was smaller than it is. Poor Microsoft. Their software just isn't flexible enough to scale.

DirectX 11

[Nom du Keyboard]

Of course, all those DirectX 10 and 10.1 video cards will need to be replaced for W7.

Re:DirectX 11

[TeknoHog]

You can already get Direct X11 on Linux...

Re:DirectX 11

[gilbert644]

No, you can't.

Re:DirectX 11

[TeknoHog]

Note to mods et al, my original post is meant somewhat tongue in cheek. Note especially the spacing as Direct_X11, not DirectX_11.

Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[arkhan_jg]

That's not entirely true, for drivers and antivirus software at least. I've a couple of bits of hardware, not least my logitech quickcam 9000 that don't work on win 7, and kaspersky, avg and sophos all had problems with the windows 7 beta, though they seem to work ok on the RC so far.

Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista.

[Phroggy]

And yet, the Windows 7 RC is somehow really buggy, compared to Vista.

I've got a folder containing a handful of very large (over 8GB) video files (recorded with PVR software). When I try to open the folder, it hangs. If I boot into Safe Mode, move some of the files into different folders, then reboot normally, it becomes apparent that accessing certain files causes the system to hang, while accessing other files is no problem. It's not an Explorer problem, because CLI commands will hang too. I've run the mfgr's hard drive diagnostic tests, and chkdsk.

I have a VGA CRT and a DVI LCD projector set up for mirroring/clone mode. Every couple of minutes, the CRT goes blank for a second, then returns to normal. This didn't happen on Vista.

I like the new Mac-like taskbar, although I notice it STILL can't reliably figure out what the front-most window is. Notification icons are monochrome like Apple's menu thingies, which is fine for things like a volume control but not so good for, you know, notification. Still, they had to do something about that mess.

When I was a boy...

[CZakalwe]

Amigas had their time..

So has the "19XX called..it wants it's whatever back" line. And while you're quite right, none of us who loved that computer will ever forget how awesome and innovative it was for it's time.

Re:When I was a boy...

[sillybilly]

Oh what a feelin!

My Drug dealer called....

[Anonymous Coward]

... he wants payin' for them mushies bro!

They're improving their value prop

[symbolset]

Now you can't get a lot of their more exciting offerings like Server 2008 Datacenter edition unless you buy SA. Which means if you don't buy SA, you have to buy a separate copy of Server 2008 for each virtual machine you might run. And you can only transfer the license every 30 days, so if your cluster fails over you have to wait a month before you fail back, and run your cluster in non-redundant mode for that month. So the non-SA versions of Server 2008 are crippleware because they can't do HA. Way to sell product by subscription! These reality enhanced individuals have no idea what their competition is doing to their value proposition. And even if you buy into that they only support VMs that run Windows and their Novell Linux lapdog, SUSE SLED. Ubuntu? Redhat? Mandrake? Oracle Unbreakable Linux? BSD? Debian? Never heard of that stuff.

For those who are paying attention, Software Assurance is the incredible deal where you pay Microsoft every year 1/3 the price of their full software stack and in return you get to use the useful upgrades they come out with every twelve years for FREE. Isn't proprietary licensing great? There are other rules too. You wouldn't believe what obscure rules in the license agreement these tards pulled up when they were trying to drive Ernie Ball out of business. What they got instead is that he paid them, deleted their software, and became a Linux fan.

Suing your customers isn't the best way to win friends and influence people.

What a load of BS

[cheros]

Sorry, but this *really* irritates me. These people appear to have reverse Alheimers: good short term memory and zero long term. But I haven't (more the reverse, so I may post this twice :-)).

This is BS as it depends on two unmentioned assumptions:

1 - businesses actually need anything more/newer than XP. Well, MS has been postponing the end of support a few times now because people would either not move to Vista or move to Linux which would REALLY be unacceptable because they wouldn't come back after sinking that one-off cost. Granted, Vista has apparently introduced some features that may help in the future, but MS has now learned that there is only so much beta, sorry, alpha testing the buying public will accept. And business has learned it doesn't actually NEED the repeated pain of migration, even if MS says so. You could say the racket is up, in almost the same way as the use of expenses by UK MPs.

2 - somehow, Windows 7 will be better than Vista and not the disaster that Vista was. Well, we're back to business as usual then: the PROMISE of improvement. The eternal promise that has allowed MS to make a profit ever since they discovered with MS-DOS that people would pay for upgrades as long as it fixed something or looked different. The issue is that, here too, Vista has given that promise viability a serious dent. Well, without some volume deployment you will not find out where they screwed up this time, put another way, leave that all important hook to sell you the NEXT version. So that report is concluding something without any factual basis.

Well, I think XP will be installed here a little while longer. And when supports ends it's a question if it will be Windows again. It could be Linux (some retraining required) or OSX (hardware costs, and not enough depth behind the interface - we`d like the control ourselves, Jobs, thanks). And OpenOffice, as I rather lose productivity once at the start of the day to start it up than the whole day because I have to figure out where they put all the functionality in Office 2007. If the argument for not moving to Linux is "that it looks different" I would be intrigued to see how Office 2007 was defended.

Oh, and Gartner? Well, that doesn't need much more discussion now, does it?

Vista is Microsoft's Edsel ...

[golodh]

Vista is Microsoft's Edsel, but on balance the Edsel didn't hurt Ford all that much.

Yeah... upgrade from XP without upgrade path!

[Otis_INF]

Windows 7 doesn't seem to have an upgrade mechanism from XP, so you're kindly asked to repave your disks and install Windows 7 on it. Or upgrade to Vista first of course.

So Gartner, how are all these business suppose to forget about Vista if they're then stuck with a situation where no upgrading is possible?

(yes I know about images, and centralized software installation management, but think about all those smaller businesses with 4-5 computers for example... )

Exactly

[SmallFurryCreature]

Apple is the biggest PC maker in the world, and they are LOVING IT. Why should they want to be Microsoft? Which is what the GP is telling them to do. Ditch the hardware and become a software company. Like MS.

But you can't out MS MS. Apple has a unique position, they are the only company to make a complete PC: Hardware, OS and utilities. Nobody else does that. Well okay, IBM, Sun/Oracle, HP on the big heavy stuff but not for desktop PC's and laptops.

It allows them to control the total experience. Do you think Dell was happy with Vista? For everyone who didn't buy Vista, how many also didn't buy a PC since their old PC ran XP fine enough? Most people I know upgrade windows and their PC at the same time and I know more and more people who skipped this upgrade.

So no, Apple would have to be insane to put OSX on anything but an Apple. It would ruin their business and their reputation at the same time. Apple after all has NO driver problems to worry about. They know EXACTLY what is inside your Mac because they put it there.

Idiotic Hype.

[crhylove]

True: Vista blows.
False: Windows 7 solves it.

The hype is ludicrous. XP DOMINATES Win 7 in every way. I've tried it out on a host of machines, and XP is superior performance wise across the board.

If you're running a business you're much better off with Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Why are you paying for a buggy OS that causes extra IT headaches in virus and malware?

Stop the 7 Hype. It's crap. It's pretty, like a mac, but slow and bloated and unnecessary. Like a Mac.

XP is best for games or legacy apps. Linux is best for real business. Same as last year, the year before.....

Let me predict the future!

Hardly.

[crhylove]

Windows 7 may be a service pack for Vista, but what Vista SHOULD BE is an improvement in stability, speed, efficiency and features to XP. It is none of that. It is inferior to XP on every level, save eye candy, where it is solidly beat across the board by Linux and Mac anyway.

Windows 7 should die, just like Vista is dying. I refuse to use either and only use XP or Linux Mint.

There isn't one good reason to use anything else. Macs cost way too much fucking money, and every other version of Windows is inferior.

In particular I use MicroXP quite a bit. Search for it on btjunkie.org. I have a valid XP license, but I prefer the smaller foot print and faster speed of MicroXP hands down, for everything but Microsoft Office, which I don't use anyway:
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

Wait for Windows 7.

[crhylove]

Because the day it is as fast and lightweight as XP it will be totally worth it.

Except that shit ain't never gonna happen....

Oh that's right, everyone with half a brain is staying on XP indefinitely, or has already switched to Linux.....

Bingo.

[crhylove]

Anybody singing Windows 7 praises either is getting paid or never used XP.

It's inferior to XP and almost every flavor of Linux right out of the box.

Where have you been?

[crhylove]

All the gamers I know (pretty much every man, woman, and child under 40) are still on XP.

Granted, a couple hacker friends and myself loves us some Ubuntu Compiz, but honestly, nearly EVERYONE that is serious about computers, games, or life in general still uses XP.

Or they grudgingly use Vista cause it came on a new machine and they don't know what to do about it.

Now if only we could get decent performance in GTA IV on Ubuntu....

Here's your migration path:

[crhylove]

MicroXP as an OS. Blazingly fast, runs on old hardware, is backwards compatible with 99% of your current application needs.

Then replace all your applications with:
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable
and the like.

Then as you weed out the last apps that require Windows, switch to Linux Mint, and never pay for software or get locked into a corporations dying gasps ever again.

Re:Here's your migration path:

[gbarules2999]

Can't use Linux Mint because it may be technically illegal in some areas to redistribute (codecs, does it have libdvdcss2 on it?). Use Ubuntu, and then when nobody's looking, type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras" really fast.

Re:Here's your migration path:

[crhylove]

True.... that is an option. :) I don't care to follow rules I disagree with though, and in my opinion the whole idea of "intellectual property" is ludicrous and fundamentally shows a lack of basic mental function in much of our species.

And that is why....

[crhylove]

.... a Mac is worth the extra $600 you will pay for identical hardware.....

Or is it? I can get TWO computers for $600 that will run Ubuntu great.

Granted, Mac has it's audience: People with too much money who don't know dick about computers.

Good for them.

I must be IN crazytown.

[crhylove]

Cause I swear to god I'm not even on a train right now.

And until I can play Grand Theft Auto reliably on Linux, I'll probably be sticking with XP.

It took Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

10 attempts before they got it right. Microsoft are only at attempt 7.

repeat

[asdfndsagse]

They told people to skin XP and wait till Vista (longhorn) only a few years ago.http://www.stefanoforenza.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/studio-free-software-cii-ep-2009-21366-annex.pdf

Re:be on the look out there alot of p4 with bad ca

[jawtheshark]

Well... I haven't found any of those yet. Bad caps tend to show quite early in the lifecycle of a computer. Since P-IV's are pretty old by now, the probability of finding one with bad caps is low. Also, if a machine doesn't work, it gets sent back to the dumpster. ;-)

Oh no, we don't

[Mutatis Mutandis]

I have plenty of clients who would be glad to benefit from letting me use this tool on their systems (and boy would it make my job easier...).

Well, you just lost me as a potential customer :-)

Absolutely the very last thing we need is another tool to expand the IT-run police state. For years now, people have been transferring more and more power to IT in the name of security. It has done great harm to productivity. Please note: Making the work of IT people easier is not synonymous with productivity.

What we do need are OS'es that give users freedom to work as they need to, while providing an adequate --- adequate, not perfect! --- level of security.

MS is not even attempting to go there. We need different solutions, really fast.

Re:Oh no, we don't

[capnkr]

My bad - I should have specified that they would be mostly home users, attempting to run their own systems but not very knowledgeable about said, who are not afraid to acknowledge that at times they need help due to the fact that they really have no idea what this or that pop-up asking to install or update means, and/or how clicking "Yes" or "OK" might affect their system stability and/or security. These are people I see monthly or more it seems, for reasons like to restart the printer spool, or to add applications which have updated into their firewall rules list. Mostly older folks. People I wish the whole "internet appliance" idea would have taken off for. :) I don't think you'd fall into that category, or you wouldn't be here, FWIW. ;)

Not Caring

[hachete]

And I find myself ... not caring. I've not heard anything about Windows 7 that makes it compelling.

XP on netbook: that truly stank of desperation, and will be marked as the point when MS truly lost it. And they had to screw the netbook spec with a hard-disk to shoe-horn it into place. Epic failure.

switching to Windows 7

[viralMeme]

How about advising them to skip Windows 7 and migrating to Apple - Mac OS X Leopard or a Linux Desktop, or isn't anyone paying them to say that?

the sweet feces of Bryan Lunduke and the LHB blog

[rs232]

Some people seem to find the BoycottNovell website interesting, Bryan Lunduke for one and the Linux Haters blog, which is recommended by none other than Miguel de Icaza

"I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't have something appropriate to close of K-pride week with, but then sweet feces rained down from heaven"

VM Mode.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not indeed?

But, but ....

[Anonymous Coward]

but Windows 7 is Vista SP1

Gartner says skip and adopt the same thing?

Win7 IS a good basis to run apps on

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good OS. I've got vista and win7 and working in w7 is good. Vista does have a weird feel to it, like it's unfinished (subjective true, but that's what counts). w7 is finished even at rc1 from a how-it-feels mood. xp, well, it's sort of like grandma's cookies: they'll do but it's not something you want to have all the time (now that there's better). I'm sort of glad mac users, and linux'ers, won't get to use it, just as glad I'm sure that they are.

AM I the only one

[The Cisco Kid]

MS has not had time since they released Vista to write an entirely new OS.

"Windows 7" *IS* Vista with a different name and and an eye-candy face lift.

--

Microsoft-free since 1995

SDRAM, anyone?

[Erikderzweite]

What about SDRAM? I am unlikely to get 1Gb of those at a reasonable price -- they aren't that common anymore. Besides, why bother?
All I could salvage for my aunt's pentium-4-1,4-GHz-based-PC from various dead computers was 640 Mb SDRAM (2x256+1x128). The PC itself is a throwaway thing.
With Linux on board she gets a PC which has more flashy effects than both Vista and 7 combined (and that's with 64Mb Geforce-2 card), is much more secure (and faster due to the lack of antivirus) and has a more advanced GUI (multiple desktops, Alt-dragging/resizing, mouse buffer etc.) than its Windows counterparts regardless of their OS version. And don't even get me started on remote maintenance.
As for companies -- they'll stick to the currently used OS for as long as it gets anyway. Some will migrate to MacOS, very few -- to Linux-based solutions, but the majority is hooked so they'll stay on Windows and Internet Explorer.

Companies buy Gartner reports for a reason

[jocknerd]

This is one of those. Where else could a company come up with a plan like this?

And some related issues

[Lonewolf666]

First, a bad application would frequently crash the entire system. While Win9x was supposed to be able to terminate bad 32bit applications without crashing itself (according to MCSE class), in practice that did often not work. The Windows NT line was much better at that.
Second, memory management was limited to 512 MB. Run multiple applications and you might exceed that. Of course, that only became an issue a few years down the road when 1 GB and more was affordable.

Shocking Shocking I say

[olddotter]

How do I get paid big money to state the obvious?

Crazy...

[Corson]

Vista is an OS that has reached SP2. Windows 7 is still on the drawing board. Does it makes sense to encourage adoption of Windows 7 rather than Vista? That's senseless.

Mac OS availability

[Nerdposeur]

Put OS X on PC hardware and Apple will be the next king of silicon valley.

Maybe not. Windows has to support as many hardware configurations as you can come up with; OS X has to support only what Apple makes. Which means they can put less effort into compatibility and more into cool features.

Their image seems to be "expensive but worth it." With minority market share, I doubt they want to trade that for "basically the same as Windows."