Microsoft Vista, IE7 Banned By U.S. DOT 410
An anonymous reader writes "According to a memo being reported on by Information week, the US Department of Transportation has issued a moratorium on upgrading Microsoft products. Concerns over costs and compatability issues has lead the federal agency to prevent upgrades from XP to Vista, as well as to stop users from moving to IE 7 and Office 2007. As the article says, 'In a memo to his staff, DOT chief information officer Daniel Mintz says he has placed "an indefinite moratorium" on the upgrades as "there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."'"
As a webmaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As a webmaster (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not unfair, it's just plain stupid.
Seriously, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did anyone seriously think large enterprise level customers would be jumping to Vista immediately, or even worse, letting their employees arbitrarily upgrade their own machines?
Why it's news (Score:5, Insightful)
Other Policies (Score:1, Insightful)
Good policy (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, it's a sound decision, and isn't a slap to microsoft at all. Everyone has to evaluate their own situation and upgrade if they feel it benefits them. Hell, having a win98 box (non-networked) and running a robot safely for the past 8 years is certainly safer than upgrading it. TFA was clearly biased, and made some idiotic remarks like "ZOMG, if the government doesn't buy vista, MS will go broke!" as if the millions of XP licenses are suddenly free.
So, hold all the "haha" tags, because a thorough evaluation of major upgrades on critical infrastructure makes some sense.
avoid early adoption in production systems (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could say "never upgrade without a compelling reason" but time marches on and lack of new software and the approaching end of vendor support can be very good reasons to stop using a product.
With that in mind, don't even consider using a Windows-based system unless it's been around 6 months UNLESS there is a very good reason, and strongly consider moving away from it at least 6 months before end-of-life.
Machines which are in special-purpose environments, such as machines which are not connected to any network, or which are adequately firewalled and whose connections with non-firewalled machines are heavily restricted, can continue to be used after end-of-life, but even these should be migrated to a vendor-supported environment or at least one where you have source code so you can fix problems yourself.
I feel sorry for the guy who made this decision. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Have you ever thought about what you'll do after government service?"
non-story (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently because of Microsofts crappy handling of IE7 upgrades (flagging them as "critical updates"), we had a number of remote users on IE7 and our SSL VPN appliances simply would not work. I had to call a moritorium on upgrading to IE7 and deployed the Microsoft "prevent IE7 update" patch in order to stop these critical updates.
Then, I had to use early-release code for our Juniper VPN concentrator, which broke about half a dozen other things.... Finally, after a few weeks, new a firmware revision for the Juniper VPN came out which enabled me to get the box back to a stable state AND allow IE7 to be used.
But if we had simply called a "ban" on IE7 upgrades in the first place, it would have saved me a lot of headache and our company a lot of productivity.
This is not a "Microsoft sux" decision, but merely a business-case against early-release software that they would likely take whether it was Microsoft or Juniper or Cisco or Oracle or whatever...
Now, Microsoft's handling of the IE7 "critical update" bullcrap.... that falls clearly in the arena of "Microsoft sux".
Stew
Why not change the site to Slash-Microsoft? (Score:1, Insightful)
WTF?
Thousands of companies have banned upgrades when new products come out that might break internal apps or include the need (and expense) of training users.
Why is this news?
When I see the headline: "NSA embrases Active X as a security standard, THEN it might have some news value. All these Bash-Microsoft threads only serve to remove cred from this forum, unless they contain some REAL NEWS or INFORMATION.
Bitches!
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about the features sometimes (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think a lot of nontechnical users couldn't care less about new features or redesigned interfaces -- what they've got works, and they don't want it messed with. So every time a software company adds a bunch of features or redesigns the interface, there's a good number of the user base that is going to be seriously ticked off because they have to retrain on all the new stuff.
Microsoft is one company that doesn't even come close to getting that. I've seen some of their smart house ideas for example -- their designs solve problems that people don't have to begin with. (Is anyone really in such a state that having the fridge track the RFID chips in your food packaging will improve things? Well, handicapped people and shut-ins, maybe, but for the vast majority of people it's overkill at best.)
Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way (Score:5, Insightful)
And you can make a business case for that. Face it -- you develop for your company based (hopefully) on a set of standards for what the company will use as its backbone technology. I worked at a Fortune 500 once, and they held on to Netscape 4.7 for the longest time, because it was deployed everywhere (globally), and everything was designed to work for it. It wasn't the greatest browser, but it was still better than IE5 at some critical things.
Change comes slowly at big companies/organizations, because it's due to economies of scale. The more machines you have to upgrade, the more applications you have to re-write to support the upgrades, the more the bottom line takes a pounding. Even if you manage to pull off a major, world-wide upgrade, you're going to spend the next couple of years fending off bugs that will turn up every day. Eventually you will get it stable -- just in time for the "next big thing".
Companies cannot afford to go chasing every new technology or upgrade that comes along, without risking the stability that IT works so hard to create.
Re:What's that noise? (Score:2, Insightful)
You misspelled "sending a campaign check to" and "sponsored."
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:5, Insightful)
"..there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."
The DOT is just figuring this out now? Hell, most of us knew this years ago.
Re:Why not IE7? (Score:2, Insightful)
Customer: "I cannot access internet/my bank/whatever"
Me: "Did you install IE7 recently?"
"Yup"
"Okay, use system restore. Here's a complimentary link to firefox."
They do not call again.
Re:LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone's system breaks beyond economical repair. Must buy a new system. New system comes with Vista installed. Boss gets new system, subordinate gets bosses old system, because IT guy works for boss. Now boss sends out letter or email that has M$ new "enhanced" format of HTML or doc, and everyone has to upgrade.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Ban? Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the positives from the articles aren't mentioned.
I also like the use of the word "ban", which doesn't appear anywhere in the memo. No negative implications with that word.
If you are going to bash someone, at least be a bit more subtle.
Re:Seriously, so what? (Score:3, Insightful)
After a horrible experience with Vista on a brand new system, I've made the same decision. For the last few new MS 0Ss, I've been right on top of new versions, but this time they've really pulled a boner.
Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vista the new Me. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No Office? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not change the site to Slash-Microsoft? (Score:2, Insightful)
They make this into news because it gets all the moron script kiddies laughing, thinking that another "victory" has been struck against microsoft. Anyone who's ever worked in a large shop knows that this is standard business practice. Microsoft knows how the system works too. Bill Gates is not sitting with his head in his hands asking "God, why not!?!?!". All the amateurs like to think he is but we know the truth.
It's easy to sort the n00bs from those who've been around the block a couple of times when you read some of these bash articles. Anyone in the know could have told you that this would have been the case long before Vista was ever released.
Oh well, 14 year olds with your unread copies of 2600 in your backpack... have a blast. No one else is moved by this announcement.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe the idiot moniker was misplaced, and should have been self-attributed?
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't most people actually turn their heads to LOOK before changing lanes?
That's the way I was taught to drive.....
I keep a constant eye on the mirrors while driving to have a good feeling where traffic is around me, but, I always turn to look before changing lanes...
Re:Why it's news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, so what? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why not IE7? (Score:3, Insightful)
They work under IE6, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Konqueror, but not under IE7.
Juniper SA is one example. Some older versions of PeopleSoft act kind of funky. Some of the online CRM stuff doesn't behave properly.... there are others... not to mention all the internal software.
Blah.
Also, don't discount the fact that the average business-cost of a man-hour of employee time is about $30/hr and assuming a liberal 1 hour to coordinate with the user, access their machine and do a complete install and config (including staff overhead), the cost of deploying it to 60,000 users is a hair under $2 million in IT costs and $2 million in productivity loss during the upgrade process.
And then the question is "why did we just spend $4 million"? What did it get us?
Stew
Re:Improve security - buy alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh. The question IN FULL is why they are using an office suite as a software development environment and application platform. 99% of the applications "written" in excel would have been far better developed as a standalone application and excel offers no functionality whatsoever over roviding the same functionality in a web app.
Because when you use a system that is not an application environment as if it were one, hidden costs rear their heads. Your application won't work in newer or older versions of the software, for example.
You're assuming that it is cheaper to do business this way, and in the short term that's correct - and that's okay if you don't plan to survive beyond the short term. If you want to actually be around for the long haul, you have to be farsighted, not exceptionally shortsighted.
Re:Seriously, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly because of the price, and secondly, because the Windows XP computer works well for them. And, they paid a good price for it, and would like to see if they can get some more miles out of it. A third, and perhaps major reason is that they are unclear as to "just what Vista does", besides look pretty.
It would be Big News if Microsoft could say that Vista is a secure operating system, and that Vista spells the end of the viruses and trojans war.
The point is that there is a trickle down effect.
No one paid any attention to the individual or family that "decides not to run out and buy Windows Vista"
But, a major government department that has perhaps thousands of computers, making this decision not to upgrade, and giving reasons, gets everyones attention.
That individual or family now doesn't feel all alone, the U.S. DOT is on the same page as them.
It's a matter of money for the individual, and a matter of money for the U.S. DOT, not to mention the other reasons they have, that are much more serious for Microsoft.
Everyone thinks the Government has plenty of money, and "buys $100.00 toothbrushes", etc.
Money to burn, literally. So, perhaps their reasons are more about the "other problems", rather than the money.
What large organization or Government entity will be next?
Please don't let this story get on Drudge Report. [drudgereport.com]
Yes, I know Drudge Report has a little text box where one can send in story links.
Don't all rush in and do that at once!
Re:As a webmaster (Score:2, Insightful)
The upgrade to IE7 on XP has broken the ability to scan documents on HP wireless printers. Fall back to IE6 and things work fine.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, for Christ's sake, you're not turning around and staring over your shoulder, you're doing a quick eye flick to determine whether the space is occupied by A) air, or B) something large, metal, and opaque that may do significant body damage if you run into it. If this takes you longer than a fraction of a second, you're doing it wrong.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:3, Insightful)
I may be an asshole, but I've never caused an accident in well over 10 years of driving, and I've stopped a couple chain-reactions from people rear-ending me while I was stopped from going any further because I stopped back far enough. I also quite often drive larger vehicles where the ONLY way to look behind you is through the side mirrors (ever think of that, retard?), and trailers, which are a little bit of a trick to back up and pretty much REQUIRE you to use the mirrors in many cases.
In short, go fuck yourself, and have a nice day!
Re:As a webmaster (Score:3, Insightful)
This does usually limit the availability of some features, but I've rarely seen must-have features that can't be achieved in a standard way.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you on crack? They're not in the same neighborhood, much less ball park.
All Xserves come with unlimited client licenses. And the OS X Server software comes in two flavors, unlimited clients ($1k) and 10 clients ($500). The 10 client limitation ONLY applies to AFP connections. Everything else - mail, web, smb, ftp - is sill unlimited.
Try putting 500 users on an Exchange server. Try putting 500 users on OS X Server. Spend the extra money on an all expenses paid conference trip to Vegas for two weeks.
Re:As a webmaster (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As a webmaster (Score:4, Insightful)
Browsers are still playing catchup to full XHTML/CSS compliance.
'Javascript' is a moving target, with incompatible dialects in each browser. ECMA standardized the language some years back but vendors keep adding new features [mozilla.org] that aren't available in other browsers yet.
It would be nice if web designers could at least use a baseline of available web standards of 2006 and know that all the major browsers would support them correctly. i.e. CSS2.x [w3.org], ECMA-262 v3 and E4X [wikipedia.org].
Sadly, today's web applications tend to implement workarounds specific to IE and firefox (gmail for example), leaving other browsers as unsupported.
So it's not about designing websites to run with any browser that will ever exist in the future but a battle creating ones that run using the standards of today. :( IE 6 is 5 1/2 years old and should be regarded as a legacy platform.
Re:Nothing really unusual about it (Score:4, Insightful)
unlimited license of server is $1000. it COMES with the xserve.
Maintenance (3 years of free upgrades, for 10.5-6, etc.) is another $1000, and entirely worth it.
So initial license purchase on top of the hardware is $1000 if you want 3 years of major versions of os x server. From past experience, that saves you $1000, because 2 more updates will happen in the next 3 years.
You are looking at $4,000 from apple vs $4313 from dell, but the dell only comes with 5 CALs (bare minimum 1u dual dual core xenon servers).
Well, duh! (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why Microsoft wants to move to a lease-type role model where you rent the software rather than own it--because there's no compelling need to change and eventually they will stop upgrading. Or, worse for MS, they'll move to other applications like Open Office.
Our office is certainly not going to Vista and not even IE7. We use Oracle portal for the web and testing found some issues using IE7 with it. I've also helped a friend with her website and commercial CDs. Security setting are almost backwards. We found IE7 will have some basic securities locked up so tight (like running a CD from the drive) that it's hard to find where to turn them off. More important things, like phishing security that should be left on and probably won't interfere, can easily be turned off by a menu, however.
While I currently have IE7 for testing, I personally use FireFox exclusively for everything else, it has everything I could want and then some.