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US Army Will Upgrade To Windows Vista
MojoKid writes "While many organizations are preparing for an upgrade to Windows 7, the US Army is upgrading to Windows Vista. The upgrade will include getting rid of all the Office 2003 programs and installing Office 2007 in its place, and is scheduled for a Dec. 31 completion date. Half the Army's computers (they have 744,000 desktop units) have Office 2007 so far, and 13 percent are on Vista, which was released in January 2007. Windows 7 is supposed to launch before year's end, so the Army will be fully on Vista sometime after Microsoft's next-generation OS is already launched."
Surely it must have occurred to at least a single person at the Pentagon to upgrade to Windows 7 and not to Vista?
Cool, am gonna keep an eye out for harddrives on ebay now, might just come with a free copy of vista installed!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Sono Pazzi Questi Americani.
If you always wait for the next release of that software, that car, or that style shoes you like you'll never end up with anything.
You need to draw a line somewhere. Windows Vista is a good move because it's been available for some time and they've had enough time to test it out with whatever software they might use. XP is getting more difficult with new machines, and if you want to stay on a Microsoft platform it's the way to go.
Windows 7 isn't so much different than Vista in terms of the operating system itself, and it's more similar to XP in interface than Windows 7.
I don't understand what the issue is here. I guess some people don't understand how IT works in organizations with more than a few hundred users.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Vista just hit sp2
At the Air Force clinic I work at, all the workstations are XP, and Office 2007 was pushed on to every computer last January. 2003 worked great, 2007 drags ass. Everyone's been having problems with templates breaking, macros requiring endless confirmations, and just plain trying to find where the hell everything is in that damned ribbon. Not fun.
The only Vista computers I've seen were down at the Education and Training center for test-taking. I can't imagine why they replaced them, the test program we use could fit comfortably on a Windows 98 box (and I think that's what it was originally programmed for). Nevertheless, the powers that be have decided that a monochromatic visual basic simple-text-and-button testing application requires dual core Vista machines with 2 gigs of ram each.
Your tax dollars at work.
Windows 7 basically = vista + a heap of untested code and new features.
Vista has been out for 3 years now and is a "known quantity". SP2 is out soon, and many people live by the policy with MS software of "wait for SP2".
The military deciding to roll out Windows 7 now would be rather foolish. They need to migrate OFF XP if they want continued support in 2010, so really, its either vista or Linux, etc. Like it or not, Vista is the path of least resistance.
Besides, vista isn't as bad as the reputation anyway... in the 3 years I've run it, none of the problems have been insurmountable, and there are plenty of benefits over XP. No one cares that it may be 5% slower at foo task when you're running it on hardware that is 500% faster than the gear you replaced.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I know there are going to be dozens (if not hundreds) of vista jokes about this article but I still don't know why everyone hates vista so much.
This is going to sound really weird, and I am not making this up. I'm a Linux user (kubuntu at the moment, used to use slackware and I'm thinking of installing fedora) and I have an old mac that I use regularly too. I wasn't too fond of XP, and I'm not a huge fan of microsoft either because of their dirty business tactics. I got Vista (with sp1) cheap because I'm a uni student. The first thing I did before buying Vista was to make sure that all the parts I had were compatible, and luckily they were as I only just built the computer. Anyway, so I installed vista expecting there to be a million problems, I had a preconceived negative opinion of vista and I was actually quite surprised. Its stable, fast (on my computer, at least) and I'm quite enjoying using it.
However, I never used Vista before SP1 and I didn't have the driver problems. And I guess because I don't use XP that I wasn't missing any of XP's features.
Anyway, I guess my experience isn't the usual experience. Sure, I'm not going to make Vista my main machine (I love kubuntu and os x too much to do that :)) but I don't regret installing Vista.
This is just Obama's plan to drastically reduce the size of the military!! Would YOU stay if you had to work with Office 2007 AND Vista? Think about it.
I am not left-handed, either!
Exactly my thoughts.
Why in in the name of all that should be secure would the military be using windows of ANY Flavor.
This situation just cries out for SELinux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selinux which at least has a chance of penetration resistance.
Even if we are talking about pay clerks and supply desk drones, why take this risk and this cost at this time when secure platforms are available for free?
Of course it we are talking strategic or combat systems then we have an severe dereliction of duty issue here, and someone needs a little time out in the brig.
(And, no, don't come around posting about how Windows can be hardened and made secure. That's the "Humvee as Combat Vehicle" argument all over again. Why does the Army need to lean every lesson twice!)
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
On mission-critical systems, they do. But Windows is good enough for probably 95% of what people in the Army do with computers -- spreadsheets, e-mail, presentations, documents.
Just like any other organization. Do you really care that the billing department in your doctor's office is using Word and Excel?
At least they have upgraded from RIS to WDS, that will make the upgrade to win 7 much easier. And they have gotten used to MS's new and interesting licensing schemes. Both have been a big hurdle for us. Those factors actually played a big role in us skipping Vista for our users.
The small organization that I work for as Tech director is still standardized at Office 2000, and that was a rather recent development as pleaded them to move up a bit because so much of my support time was used to maintain various office aps of a variety of versions. Office is a total nightmare. It has to be the most labor intensive application for techs ever devised and it's only used out of ignorance.
They also had hissy fits when I tried to get them to use Openoffice as a trial (which we really can't use because Mail Merge is so entrenched in the culture and OO just doesn't do it well, at least in version 2. And even if it does Mail Merge well now we can't go to OO now because of the hissy fits and people refusing to learn new stuff).
Office is a plague on the business culture in the U.S. We have people using it because "they've never seen anyone use anything else." We have people that think they can make super complex documents in Word that should be done in InDesign or Tex and then find that the layout totally blows up when they change 3 characters. We have people using Powerpoint to create 200 image slideshows. Microsoft has somehow managed to make everyone believe that Office is an all-in-one tool out of a load of garbage. It's amazing.
I can't imagine something that has hurt the computing world more that Microsoft Office (though as this is slashdot I am sure people will post them now).
The day is coming when I will have more people using Vista or 7 (64 bit to get more than 4GB of memory for other big tasks) and I have to update all the office apps and face question after question from people who can't read a help file or look up a question with Google. I don't envy these Air Force folks one tiny bit.
I guess that's a rant...
Yeah, like 7 isn't Vista rebranded with a new taskbar.
Even all drivers are compatible.
I don't think "upgrade" means what they think it means.
Because there in some quarters there is the cult-like mentality and most of the rest of people don't know any better. Most office drones with little skill and ambition never used any word processing program before Office and they don't have the will to learn anything.
Really... a huge amount of Office use is simply because of ignorance, sloth, and inertia (as well as Microsoft Zombies that happen to be working in the IT department and management). There are are hundreds of programs that do what Office in a better and cheaper way, it's just it get past the masses of users who don't know any better and who don't have the curiosity to try anything new, even if it eventually make their life easier.
No CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER OS for OUR boys! They know the MILITARY MIGHT of VISTA is what the world needs! FREEDOM ISN'T FREE and VISTA IS FREEDOOM!
Join SAVE VISTA on Facebook! (Original blog post.) We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to tell Microsoft to abandon their Windows 7 foolishness and go back to Vista! We have 89 so far. Only 99,911 to go!
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!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
All sarcasm aside, I think this a perfect example of Military Intelligence! ;)
The Russians use Linux, so they figured they'll be incompatible to avoid spying.
...this could be dangerous. Are you sure you wish to pull the trigger?
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I should know. I work for a city government and we are getting ready to bring in Sharepoint. No business plan, no requirements documents like are needed for the small web apps I write. We're bringing Sharepoint in because the CIO is a sheep just like 95% of the other CIO's out there. If they see others doing it, they're going to follow suit. Meanwhile, due to budget constraints, our libraries will be open fewer hours. Yep, we've got our priorities in order.
The 1st step to cripple enemy networks is convince them that something unsecure is the most secure system of the planet. That is really a subtle plan, but surely will work.
The place I work at (Air Force) runs a different copy of Vista than you can actually buy. It has to be thoroughly tested and OK'd by the Air Force before they are even allowed to install it on any machines on the network.
The Army probably does the same. Rolling out Vista now is like they started rolling it out on release date. They couldn't have rolled it out any sooner if they wanted to. Same for Windows 7. The earliest they'll see it ok'd for use is probably two years from release. Why people make a big deal out of it? Probably because they're ignorant and want to make a fuss.
-SaNo
"In the process, generate a new IT re-education process within the government to train people on Linux and just be rid of Windows ..."
That is workable, just as it was when we switched from green-screen terminals to Windows in the USAF.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The Russians use Linux
You mean their brand new, very own OS, right?
Ubuntu and Open Office would save this country millions of dollars.
The NT kernel has many great features that put it on a par with Unix in terms of security and functionality. As yet, no operating system using the NT kernel has actually used those features. Even UAC is a bizarre hack of a permissive userland, and doesn't use the kernel's security features. It's about as secure as Windows 98, thanks to Microsoft's butchery of the userland in the name of backwards compatibility.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Windows can be hardened and made secure. Just because you're too stupid to figure out how doesn't mean it can't be done. I am part of a shop that manages a 12,000 computer network, about 10% XP now, 70% Vista, the rest are various Windows server versions running under VMWare ESX. Not one *nix distro or flavor. We had a grand total of 4 malware infections last year, all because of 'privileged users' that we allowed to install software and who stupidly ran untrusted exes. Bottom line, computer security is about policy, configuration, and educating your users, not whether you run *nix or Windows.
The Russians use Linux
In Soviet Russia, kernel compiles you?
Anybody want my mod points?
You wanna know why? Well, the bailout money has to be spent somehow, right?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Personally, my hatred of vista isn't because of hardware support. For the most part, MS is pretty good about providing support of all the crap you can possibly come up with to plug into your computer. When a new driver API is released, sure, the OEMs have to get off their ass and write new drivers.
my hatred of vista is based off the fact that there is a ton of stupid crap that is loaded on the OS that does nothing but look cool and slow your machine down. I don't want any fucking Aero-transparent window bullshit. I want an os that is like a formula 1 car: fast as hell and without a single non-essential part.
Between win 2k and win7(~8 years) the memory footprint of the OS has grown from ~100mb to ~500mb. What real utility do I get for all that? They still have not bought out winzip and winrar and integrated it in the OS, which is way more basic and useful than services to 'detect unused icons on my desktop'. Using ISO images is pretty much an accepted standard these days, and how much support is there for them in vista? But there is a list of idiotic services running as long as your arm on a fresh install of vista. (Fun game, what percentage of them do you actually fully understand what they are doing on/for your system? I'm a professional windows programmer, and I understand perhaps 75%, wtf?)
No, most people will probably tell you that vista seems to run just fine. MS has spent a lot of time turning their OS into something that is easy and pretty to use. I use the OS for a living. I don't have time to fuck around all day with pretty 'abc block' themes that make the desktop animate windows when they are closed.
I suspect that a lot of people hate vista for what it isn't as much as for what it is.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Even UAC is a bizarre hack of a permissive userland, and doesn't use the kernel's security features.
If you can get past the idea that UAC is only the UAC prompt you will see that UAC is indeed much more, and that UAC very much so use the kernel's security features.
Among other things, UAC manipulates the security token of the process, stripping away access rights. This is what is used for both the sandboxing of low integrity processes as well as the elevation prompt.
Normal processes launched by the user is stripped of admin rights by default. Only if the user is actually an admin and only when he tries to access something which requires those rights will the prompt appear. Confirming the UAC elevation prompt will grant the access rights to the process token.
Certain processes - such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer - are launched in low integrity mode. The process token is stripped of even more rights, preventing it from writing to the registry or to the file system except for an isolated region.
The kernel also ensures that a lower integrity process cannot send messages (or otherwise access) a higher integrity process. So while applications you start on the desktop may send messages to eachother, the IE or Chrome instances cannot send similar messages to desktop apps, even if taken over by an attacker.
Essentially Vista/7 subdivides the user's account based on what he/she is doing. Surfing the internet: low integrity. Running normal, local applications: Normal integrity. Performing admin tasks: Elevated integrity. Installing new applications: Trusted installer integrity.
I don't know about you, but this is distinctly a kernel feature in my book. Specifics here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc138019.aspx
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