Slashdot Mirror
XP Users Are Willing To Give Windows 7 a Chance
Harry writes "PC World and Technologizer conducted a survey of 5,000 people who use Windows XP as their primary operating system. Many have no plans to leave it, and 80% will be unhappy when Microsoft completely discontinues it. And attitudes towards Vista remain extremely negative. But a majority of those who know something about Windows 7 have a positive reaction. More important, 70 percent of respondents who have used Windows 7 say they like it, which is a sign that Windows 7 stands a chance of being what Vista never was: an upgrade good enough to convince most XP users to switch."
I have Macs on my desktops, and I run Linux for my number crunching machines. So, I'm no Microsoft fanboy. However, it seems to me that Microsoft actually tried to do the right thing with Vista... namely they built a reasonably secure operating system from the ground up and decided to actually enforce the programming paradigms. The problem isn't with Vista, it's with the antiquated applications that still need tons of shims to work. For example, I recently installed Quicken on my father in law's XP machine and discovered that it wouldn't work unless running as an admin account, which is simply absurd! So, I worry that Windows 7 is just a light weight version of Vista with most of the security rolled back so that insecure applications will be able to continue running and users won't complain about their favorite applications breaking.
And this time, unlike Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista, Windows 7 really will be secure. Really!
They arrived at 7 for the version number in this way: Windows 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 lines are self-explanatory. The NT4 and Windows 95/98/ME family were all part of the 4.x version of Windows. Win2000 and XP were 5.x, so naturally Vista was 6.0. That leaves us at 7 for the new Windows.
I bet your VCR has 12:00:00 on it too :P
At my job, we're all learning linux, latex, openoffice and hiring programmers to get us off MS software all together. Granted, I'm the boss, so it makes it easier, but it is still a very gradual process. Also, my employees have started bringing in their personal laptops with Ubuntu on them -- I figure now is as good a time as any. Our IT department will try to get us to upgrade to Win7 but I will fight the upgrade train as much as politically sane to do, because I'm just not interested in learning it and I'm really tired of getting screwed by MS with every other OS. I keep XP around because lots of software runs only on it and nothing else, especially PCs that control equipment. These PCs will need to stay, but we no longer need dedicated windows desktops in the group, the last one is now dual-booting to debian. Everything else except the equipment drivers is mac or linux.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Nope. Sorry, but nope. SysAdmins are the ones who have to suffer from changes, they're not the ones that make or even decide them. There are 3 deciding factors when it comes to a system switch:
1) Requirements of a top important application
2) Golf partners of decision makers
3) Investment cycles
Only the first reason is one that is based on technical issues, and even in those the average Admin (and sometimes even CTO) has little if any say in. Essentially, if MS wants to "force" enterprise customers to update, they need to nudge the makers of important enterprise applications (Autodesk, SAP...) to require newer systems.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I may get modded troll for this, but open source != quality code. In theory, it is more likely that that is the case, but I have seen some open source code that made me die a little on the inside. Microsoft's developers are generally smart people who know their job. Many of the issues that ships with the operating system results from very poor (and too much, IMO) management. (For the record, I am not a Microsoft employee...I just like following various companies, of which Microsoft is one.)
^ This is the typical slashdotter.
Sitting around seething in hatred towards Microsoft, clinging to Windows until the Year Of The Linux Desktop finally arrives.
Just something to point out, necessary applications aside, it is fully possible to move to Linux with a minimalistic desktop. On an Ubuntu system (the flagship desktop distribution), one can either install XFCE or just grab Xubuntu and run with that.
With that said, I don't see it entirely as a bad thing that Windows, Max OSX, and modern linux distributions bundle eye candy into their newer offerings. Something that is easier on the eyes, or gives the user a bit of shiny will create an overall positive experience. I mean we all could have gotten along very well with our current GUI looking like Windows 3.1 in term of style but part of the user experience is how sleek and nice an interface is. It's why some people buy Macs, others install Compiz, and many XP users will go to Windows 7 even if all their previous applications work perfectly well in XP.
Turn based strategy game that runs over XMPP. Phalanx
You're wrong. The Custom option can preserve your hard disks content, and you can transfer all your user settings using USMT (Corporate) or Windows Easy Transfer (Home User).