The Hard Upgrade Path From XP To Vista To Win 7 496
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"
Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm as rabidly anti-windows as they come, but isn't this a little unfair? Windows 7 is still beta, it doesn't surprise me that there are still some driver issues.
The idea that we will have to either buy Vista AND Windows 7, or do a clean install, just plain sucks.
Linux updates were at least upgrades (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux was a steady progression of stability and driver support (with the exception of a few evil kernel updates). MS upgrades are just ... reinventing the wheel. New GUI widgets, maybe some new hw support that wasn't there, but generally increased bloat, or swapping 1 user level idiosycracy for another. With Linux kernel updates you were generally sure of getting a better experience.
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article tried installing Windows 7 on a single hardware setup (a thinkpad) that failed, and that's where the "oh my goodness, how can Microsoft expect all these businesses to upgrade from XP to Windows 7, it's not going to work on pretty much ANY hardware" came from. (Yes, exaggerated).
If they tried, oh, I don't know, 10 other computers, I would be interested. But writing an article after trying a single computer? Especially annoying is the fact that they said they came to this conclusion after an "attempt at a sim " ... nevermind, just read it for yourself.
The Test Center came to this conclusion after an attempt at a simulated enterprise upgrade and other evaluations of the process on different pieces of PC hardware.
The initial plan: Create a master image on a PC running Windows XP, then upgrade that PC from XP to Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 beta. Then use an imaging utility like Acronis' Snap Deploy to push the image out to other XP clients (all on the same hardware as the imaged machine) and overwrite the XP operating system on them with the Windows 7 image.
Their plan: Let's do a mult-hardware test by deploying an imaged upgrade on same-hardware machines?
And, of course, after it failed, they tried another hardware configuration.
A testing of XP to Vista to Windows 7 on a custom-built desktop, with newer components including an AMD (NYSE:AMD) quad-core Athlon and motherboard, went smoothly.
Yipee. So we have a total of two hardware configurations tested...
Enterprise upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
The enterprises will do clean installs rather than in place upgrades. The entire system will be deployed through system center or suchlike. Silly article.
Re:Just for the Record (Score:5, Insightful)
I still say Linux has unknown issues.
But at least I can actually run a computer while trying to figure them out ...
Re:Just for the Record (Score:2, Insightful)
[citation needed]
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:2, Insightful)
With earlier versions of Windows, a clean install was clearly preferred. So why not do that again?
Besides, I suspect that most corporate users will just update the whole PC and buy new ones with Windows 77 pre-installed. In the 10 years of my IT career I have seen one large company (Novartis) that actually did its own OS installations on a regular basis. The rest just used the computers with whatever OS was delivered at purchase, most of the time the unchanged vendor installation.
But should it be that way? (Score:5, Insightful)
And all of that just to get the operating system to run! I mean, what are office computers used for? I'd wager that 90% of "office use" consist of text processing, internet browsing, emailing and instant messaging. I used to do word processing on a 386! And it was fast!
I really don't want this to appear like a personal attack, but why the hell are people willing to accept something like this? It bugs the hell out of me that perfectly good computers - computers that have a hundred times more power than actually needed for the tasks they're used to - are thrown away because the underlying operating system is so greedy that it can't run smoothly with fewer resources than those you mentioned.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I get the feeling this article was deliberately misleading on several fronts. Here's an example:
They claim that the machine they're running this test on did not boot windows 7 correctly, but did boot Vista correctly. This is only half the truth. They first installed XP, then upgraded to Vista, then Upgraded to 7 - something Microsoft themselves does not recommend. Then, when it all doesn't work, they blame Windows 7. They do NOT test if a clean install of Windows 7 worked without issues and I strongly suspect that it would.
No sysadmin in their right mind would ever perform a task like this, it's far too time consuming and ultimately pointless - why install an XP system, install all the software you need, then two two major OS upgrades just to create an image you can format other machines with? Why not just install a fresh copy of 7, then the appropriate software and image that?
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who finds it humorous how some people bitch about Windows not being backward compatible and others bitch about all the problems due its backward compatible heritage?
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still in beta, for goodness sakes. I'm sure, at the end of it, Windows 7 will be a massive hog that requires outrageous amounts of RAM and disk space, but I think knocking a beta for kernel panics is a little over the top. That's like taking a bleeding-edge Linux kernel, compiling it and then bitching that it doesn't seem to work reliably in a production environment.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with you to a to a certain point in that Win 7 is still beta, it's LATE beta, and a beta that has already been released for public testing. What we have here is essentially a release candidate version. If not RC 1, maybe RC 0.9 or 0.8 At this point there aren't likely to be many major changes in the OS. Of course, doing an upgrade from one version of Windows to another has always been a dicey affair, so some failure is unsurprising.
However, even taken with those two rather large grains of salt, the fact that Win 7 can't recognize a T43 synaptics trackpad (same one as in all the T4x series) is rather unnerving. And the lack of an upgrade path from XP to Win 7 [crn.com], when Microsoft KNOWS that people have been picking XP over Vista since Vista's launch, just smacks of petty sour grapes.
I swear, it's as though Microsoft is just DARING people and businesses to find reasons to use other OSes.
Re:Enterprise upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
The initial plan: Create a master image on a PC running Windows XP, then upgrade that PC from XP to Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 beta
Headline and most of the article say it's Windows 7, with a lame disclaimer at the very end that it's a beta.
Yet, it boggles the mind that the laptop upgraded fairly easy to Vista Service Pack 1 and then flat-lined with Windows 7. So much for the Microsoft mantra "If it works in Vista, it will work in Windows 7."
MS didn't say Windows 7 Beta, you numbnut. And then this:
A testing of XP to Vista to Windows 7 on a custom-built desktop, with newer components including an AMD (NYSE:AMD) quad-core Athlon and motherboard, went smoothly.
I'm getting tired of this anti-MS drivel on here. And technology sites are noticing. Read the first line of this article http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/oh-the-humanity-windows-7s-draconian-drm.ars [arstechnica.com]
The popular technology website Slashdot plumbed new depths on Tuesday with a post about the terrible DRM situation in Windows 7. Proving that some sites will publish just about anything as long as it's anti-Microsoft, the post enumerated the DRM restrictions that Windows 7 apparently inflicts on the honest and upstanding computer user.
Before long, Slashdot will lose whatever reputation it has if drivel like this is posted. There's lots of stuff to bash MS on, please don't post nonsense.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty ticked about having to play tech support on family member and friend's computers to deal with wireless router incompatibilities and trying to get vista to run acceptably on "Vista ready" laptops that I really wish Microsoft would own up and give us realistic guidelines for what hardware their software WILL actually run on.
TPM/DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Gotta get rid of all that old 'un-trusted' hardware somehow.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this may be true, but I still think that writing articles about this in regards to what still is a beta product is sensationalistic and unethical. When the ready-for-prime-time product comes out, and if some or all of the issues raised still exist, I'll be at the front of the line to spew venom on Microsoft. Until then, the basic understanding with beta software is that you'd best expect problems.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Headline and most of the article say it's Windows 7, with a lame disclaimer at the very end that it's a beta.
Agreed. It seems as though everyone has forgotten that we're running Windows 7 BETA 1. One of the Windows 7's design goals is complete driver compatibility with Vista- I imagine they will have that by the RTM. They damn near have it now. Add that to the fact that Windows 7 uses generally less resources and this article is basically total BS.
Who told them they could run that beta in a production environment anyway?
You're not really allowed to use the beta for benchmarking or publishing articles like this claiming that a future product will be limited based on the results from the preliminary beta. Not only is it a "dick move" but it's actually a violation of the EULA and slander.
Seriously, if this was a serious tech news site they could get in trouble for doing this. Like it or not, Windows 7 had a EULA with which you specifically agreed not to do this upon downloading and installing it.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also like to point out that the vast majority of hardware incompatibilities are the result of lazy / exploitative vendors. Sure, they could get their driver writing team to write some drivers for their older hardware and keep their customers happy... OR they could just say, "it's microsoft's fault," and then make you buy a new product.
Vista is tougher to peg because you saw all kinds of problems. You saw Microsoft making big changes up until the last second that completely screwed even their own software groups (WHS 64bit Connector anyone?). At the same time you've got nVidia cranking out drivers that are blue-screening machines left and right. Then, just for fun, you've got the aforementioned vendors that are refusing to roll drivers for products they just released a year before Vista came out. What a mess.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a wild ass guess on my part, but I'm willing to bet that the problem is that they are trying to UPGRADE them. Anyone who has dealt with Microsoft OS's knows that the upgrades suck. To do a proper upgrade in the Microsoft world, you need to do what everyone else calls a "pave and rebuild". I don't know anyone in their right mind who tries to do an in place upgrade on Windows. That is just asking for headaches. They'd be better off doing a fresh install, creating a disk image from that and then pushing out the image. If Microsoft really cared about their userbase, they would just do away with "upgrades" all together and just admit that they don't work right. The same thing goes for their server software, Exchange, SQL, the whole nine yards.
Re:crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be 100% compatible, I'm just saying that there's a lot more in a computer than just the parts you listed, and it's not as simple as it may seem at first glance from putting together a computer from "individual" parts.
Why Upgrade Windows XP at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot imagine a situation where I would recommend to a company that they use money and resources to upgrade a Windows XP box to a newer OS. What a waste of time.
When the XP box reaches end of life you replace it with new hardware and put your ready to go Windows 7 image on it. Duh.
The Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 path seems even more unlikely. Chalk this article up as an academic exercise, not a real world scenario.
Re:crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, millions of people lose every day because they are tied into proprietary garbage and they don't even know it.
I've been trying to make peace with myself over this horrible atrocity for some time. I don't respect people who capitilize on ignorance. People who inject ignorance in order to capitalize on it are below scum in my book. That is why I so hate Microsoft and more specifically, Bill Gates.
Re:Hardware works (Score:5, Insightful)
You could say the same thing about old Windows applications, but imagine the Slashdot outcry you'd get in response: "Microsoft is so bad you need two machines to run old applications! Man Microsoft sucks! I'm going to start spelling it with a dollar sign, I'm so upset about this!"
Face it, it's silly to complain about OSes that don't focus on application compatibility while using the one OS *most* famous for breaking old applications.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure no Fortune 500 sysadmin would do it that way, but what about end users? Or even smaller businesses? Those are a large portion of Microsoft's business, and they aren't being provided with an upgrade path?
Re:But should it be that way? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have to agree. Every Windows upgrade has been a mess. Attempting a major OS upgrade without a good backup would be retarded, even in the Linux world. And once you have backed up your important data, a fresh install is the same amount of effort for considerably better results. In my mind, MS needs to forget about the idea of selling upgrades to consumers. Consumers don't buy Windows, they use what their pc came with. If they have the technical skill to both desire the upgrade and know how to do it, they will know how to pirate it.
The real market for Windows is OEM's and business and MS should know that. MS already dominates the OEM world, so there's not a lot of additional sales to be had, although if they can offer a substantially better experience it might drive pc sales overall.
The business world is both willing and able to upgrade, if they actually do things they need/want without breaking all their legacy apps. Unfortunately for MS the intermittent large updates strategy is the exact opposite of what businesses want, they would much rather have frequent small updates they can roll out on their schedule. Completely re-imaging thousands of pc's in the field is a huge task, and because the versions are so different as to require different training, making only upgrading some computers and not others very difficult.
MS is clinging to a release model that has been made antiquated by the internet. The pc is just part of a much larger overall infrastructure, and incremental change is much easier to swallow.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of numbers pulled out of one's ass:
People complain about this sort of stuff whenever a new OS or new big SP comes out but the reality is this: if you have relatively recent components made by prominent manufacturers, your stuff is going to work 90% of the time.
And if that isn't good enough for you a year after that, 99.9% of recent name-brand components will work flawlessly. I waited a year before installing Vista and the only thing that I didn't get to work was my ancient PC game controller since vista dropped gameport support, and its awfully hard to be mad at them for that since the gameport was essentially obsolete 10 years ago.
Re:crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
If it isn't 99.99% compatible, it isn't getting on my machine.
What the fuck does that mean? If it's compatible with your hardware, then you should run it; if it's not, then you shouldn't. Where did that number come from? It implies that your decision to run software on your own hardware is dependent on its compatibility with the rest of the world's hardware.
You know, Microsoft bashing hysteria used to be funny, and largely warranted, but Windows is so much better now than it used to be. If the trade-off for more stability and a finally shifting security paradigm is some hardware incompatibility, then I'm happy to accept. Maybe a corporate customer running legacy PCs won't, but that's not me so I really don't care. Let Microsoft lose customers - maybe the resulting increase in competition will make their software better.
Re:crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
How much different models of mice, motherboards, processors, network devices, graphics cards,... exist? Surely more than 10. It's not about percentage of your components, it's about all recent, different type of components.
If you had only 10 components/devices in your computer and for each of those there would be a 1000 different models then you'd have 10000 variations. Out of a billion users, only 99.99% success would make a lot of unhappy customers...
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:2, Insightful)
The article doesn't say you can't go from XP to Vista to Windows 7. It just says you can't go *directly* from XP to Windows 7.
That said, I can't find any explicit confirmation or refutation that you can't go from an upgraded Vista install to Windows 7. I certainly wouldn't bother, but I also always do a clean install for everything except OS X upgrades.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
I just took it to mean he wants it to work will all his hardware or he won't install it.
Hardware, software... Apple leaves both behind at a whim.
Mac did break backward compatibility, but with good reason.
Apple breaks backward compatibility with each iteration. Some iterations much more drastically than others. It wasn't just a one time thing.
And saying 'but with good reason' doesn't make peoples stuff work again.
And if its a good enough excuse for Apple than Vista can use it too. Vista is better than previous versions (assuming suitable hardware). The security improvements are real, not just theatre, and represent a huge 'break' from previous Windows iterations. It is responsible for most of the compatibility issues -- and in my opinion it is just as 'forgivable' as apple's architecture switches. Microsoft HAD to make these changes to make the OS more secure; this pain was a long time coming and I'm glad it finally happened.
They made their OS run better and the upgraded applications allowed the same functions but with new technology.
And they required you to pay for those upgraded applications. iLife to iLife08 isn't a free upgrade. Apple Remote desktop 2 to 3 isn't a free upgrade. Final Cut Pro 5 to 6 isn't a free upgrade... and if you had the old version they didn't work with leopard.
But hey, if I'm ok with paying to run upgraded applications that allow the same functionality but with new technology, then why are people pissing and moaning that Office 2k/XP isn't 100% vista compatible... they can just just upgrade.
At least, from a business point of view.
These are the same businesses running Windows 2000 servers? Who screamed blue murder when XP came out? And managed to scream even louder when Vista came out? The only reason you don't hear businesses screaming when Apple releases an update is that not many businesses rely on them. If Apple gets significant marketshare, the volume of businesses screaming when they release new OS updates will rise accordingly.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
And the backwards compatibility may be in different areas of an OS, and be a good thing in some areas and bad in others.
Re:crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2, Insightful)
The article tried installing Windows 7 on a single hardware setup (a thinkpad) that failed, and that's where the "oh my goodness, how can Microsoft expect all these businesses to upgrade from XP to Windows 7, it's not going to work on pretty much ANY hardware" came from. (Yes, exaggerated)
Erg.... actually, a thinkpad is a *very* common laptop in the cooperate world. The other bit is I'm sure they will add some special sauce to next cut of Active Directory that will require Windows7. They did with XP pro, did again with Vista business...
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Apple isn't able to arrange kick-backs from beige box companies (Dell, HP, etc.).
Hefty Minimum Requirements == New Hardware == More Hardware Sales.
Business 101
Re:crazy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:5, Insightful)
My take on that is a properly designed and planned out OS shouldn't have to break half the planet on each upgrade cycle to make progress.... Why can't MS work this way?
Short answer: it would break their business model.
90% available ca. 1990 on a 68020. (Score:1, Insightful)
plan 9 had most of these things in 1990
(unicode, 2d scrolling, cut & paste) on
a machine with 1mb of memory. what it didn't
have was bidi or subpixel rendering, as it
was 1bpp.
so what's the excuse for such bloat?
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
People complain about this sort of stuff whenever a new OS or new big SP comes out but the reality is this: if you have relatively recent components made by prominent manufacturers, your stuff is going to work 90% of the time.
90% really isn't very good (especially when you're in the 10%) and isn't this the same sort of criticism aimed at Linux?
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility. It should be based on un*x (not DOS), should have a well-planned, polished GUI for regular people with command-line and options for power users.
Then there's the fifth group: those who realize that describes OSX and have already switched.
Re:crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is not responsible for writing drivers to run HP hardware. They ARE responsible for producing a working API and documentation for writing drivers to suit their OS, and given the amount of hardware out there that *does* simply work, I'd say they held up their end of the deal.
If your HP hardware does not work in Vista, go talk to HP about it, if they do nto fix it, return your defective device and get one that works. It should not be Microsoft's problem.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seems like you don't get it.
I upgraded a couple of months ago from XP to Vista. Do I have a Vista system now? Then I can upgrade to 7. Oh, is it rather a "Vista Upgraded from XP" system, which cannot be upgraded to 7? It means that Vista and "Vista upgraded from XP" are two different things then. I have to keep in mind what kind of Vista I have then.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:3, Insightful)
With hardware the way it is you can easily expect that a computer which purchased a year ago could of come with XP, the company updates sometime this year to Vista and then in late 2010 they upgrade to Windows 7. While some other computer started off fresh with Vista.
If they still don't support an XP to Windows 7 upgrade path that is going to be a problem.
Re:upgrades with progress, without pain (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Apple isn't able to arrange kick-backs from beige box companies (Dell, HP, etc.).
Hefty Minimum Requirements == New Hardware == More Hardware Sales.
Kickbacks from who? As Apple sell the hardware themselves they already get all the profit from hardware sales.
Re:Tested on a beta... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Well, has Microsoft ever released something with poor driver support before?"
All the NT series had dreadful driver support up to and including XP. People tend to forget how bad XP was at the beginning because it's been around for a long time, but the fact of the matter is that there was lots of hardware for Win9X that's never worked with it; large amounts of 9X and DOS software didn't run on it at all it at all, or was annoyingly problematic (especially games); getting XP Home in particular to integrate with an existing Win9X network involved so much pissing around that a lot of people gave up in despair; it had hefty hardware requirements by 2001 standards; and its authentication mechanism was universally hated hated by both customers and the computing press.
All of the above problems led to predictions by some in the press and most FOSS supporters of a combination of both a mass exodus from Windows and legions of people refusing to upgrade from Win9X due to the fact that it ran faster on old hardware than XP did on new systems, and worked with the peripherals and software people already had. And if this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it's because it _is_ hauntingly familiar, just as it was hauntingly familiar to those who remember all the wailing and gnashing of teeth when MS ditched Windows 3.X for 9X, and then again when they replaced the NT 3.1 UI with the 4.X one.
"That's a real problem, from that it sounds like Windows 7 is a pig."
Windows 7 is also a beta, which means that (gasp!) it's likely to lack some things that will be in the shipping version, have other things that won't be in the shipping version, and a bunch of other things will unstable, slow, or lacking certain features because they haven't finished writing them yet.
"Apple has no qualms about dropping support of their newest software on older machines. However, what happens if they lie about it and say that older machines are supported and they aren't?"
Don't confuse Apple's shipping versions of OS X with their betas, which can be and frequently are very different indeed in terms of hardware requirements, software compatibility, performance, and APIs from what they eventually release.
Re:MS deliberately releases buggy software. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then he'll tell you that, actually, you should roll out Linux to all 120,000 desktops.
Best read up on SAMBA, bub.