83% of Businesses Won't Bother With Windows 7 545
Olipro writes "Most enterprises stated they won't bother with Windows 7 for at least a year as they simply continue to distrust that compatibility issues won't occur with their mission-critical software ... The Million Dollar question will be whether the fact that XP upgrades to Windows 7 requires a clean install will prove to be Microsoft's undoing." I suspect that will change before they actually release the OS.
The answer is 'no' (Score:5, Informative)
The Million Dollar question will be whether the fact that XP upgrades to Windows 7 requires a clean install will prove to be Microsoft's undoing.
The Million Dollar answer is "no". Because when you upgrade a corporate desktop, you don't upgrade in place. You create an image and you reimage your desktops en masse. Anyway, Microsoft will find a way to spur Windows 7 adoption, probably by making Windows XP slower with a required security update again.
Doesn't require clean install (Score:5, Informative)
Also, don't most people want to do a clean install of a major OS version?
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
As an IT Manager for a small company, I have no reason to move off of XP. Until I am forced, I will not migrate to Vista or 7. There just is no compelling reason to do so. More and more I seek to take functionality AWAY from the desktop. There are applications we use that require us to use Windows on the workstation, but more and more we look to web apps to meet our core business needs.
The fact is there is nothing in Vista that makes me want to move to it. There are no problems with XP that are making me look for solutions. We are in the process of locking down workstations to the point that even the security concerns become irrelevant. If you asked me what killer feature would make me switch... I couldn't think of it. Certainly not in what I have seen so far.
The only thing that will make me switch is the unavailability of the OS. And even that would take a while. We order standard model PCs, and do disk imaging. If I found out about Dell not being able to offer XP to us any longer, I'd make one last order for 20 PCs of that model, image and be set for two years.
Bottom line is that XP (heck even 2000) meets the needs of most businesses. Microsoft would (and likely will) have to force us to switch. Why screw with what works?
Re:Doesn't require clean install (Score:2, Informative)
Neither do I, because of these 2 issues (Score:1, Informative)
1.) REMOVAL OF THE PORT FILTERING GUI FRONT-END CONTROLS in VISTA &/or Windows 7 - Port filtering functions perfectly operating simultaneously alongside software firewalls, & IP Security Policies
(All 3 security "filters" for IP here, run FINE together, even w/ a NAT true stateful packet inspecting "firewalling" router, for example)
They do so in a layered security manner, just like door handle locks (firewall), deadbolt locks (port filters), & chain locks (IP Security policies) do...
(I.E.-> Take 1 of those 3 layers down (which is what many malware seek to do, right away)? The others are STILL IN THE WAY, since they all operate via diff. drivers on DIFF. LEVELS of the IP stack...!)
AND
2.) The issue with HOSTS files involves EFFICIENCY more than security though!
See - in removing (after a 12/2009 Patch Tuesday update) 0 as a valid blocking IP address (vs. the larger & slower 0.0.0.0, & worse still the default 127.0.0.1 loopback adapter address)? MS made a blunder on disk, since the filemass is now larger & WILL be slower to read thru, as well as not being able to 'pack' as many entries into a tinier filespace to read them up from.
Contributing to inefficiency & yes, "bloat", in doing this latter one...
----
Top that off w/:
A.) Built-into-the-OS "DRM"
&
B.) The practical removal of OpenGL gaming
(Oh, on this one? Well - There are supposedly ways to make OpenGL games run though, via the OpenGL icd iirc, but it's a hassle & the games do NOT look like they were intended to be from what I have heard tell, once the 'hack' is put into place)
?
TO Microsoft: YOU CANNOT SELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY DO NOT WANT... who the hell are your marketers, & what are they thinking??
APK
P.S.=> I am only "SCRATCHING THE SURFACE" of other things folks' objected to in both Windows 7 &/or VISTA (I personally also didn't like the amount of interface change that occurred, dumb really, for a company into "backward compatibility", because it makes people 'relearn' how to do what they've done for more than 14++ yrs. in Windows 9x - current MS OS' based on the Windows-NT branch of them)... apk
It also just takes time to test things (Score:5, Informative)
I do Windows support for work so one of the things I do when a new version is coming out is test various apps and services and find out what works, what doesn't and so on. Sometimes things don't work and you have to find a workaround, or wait for the vendor to update things. There is NO reason to jump right in and cause problems. You wait and test instead, and then when it is ready, start deployment.
Also many systems you don't really want to upgrade. They are too old to run a new OS well. So you leave them with what they have for their lifetime. The OS upgrade happens when new hardware is purchased, though that isn't seen as an 'upgrade' by normal metrics.
So I'm not surprised that businesses aren't jumping on board. Why would they? In our case (a university department, not a business) my desktop will start running Windows 7 when the RC comes out. Maybe one or two other tech people will do likewise. When the release comes out, only new systems will be purchased with it, and depending on what they are doing they might get XP or Vista put on them if there are 7 issues. We won't start offering it as an upgrade for probably 6 months after release, since I'm guessing it'll take that long to make sure everything is thoroughly tested and there's been time for vendors to issue updates. At that point we'll likely move anyone who wants to over, and try and have all new systems running it, but won't make a big deal if people want to stick with XP. We probably won't start pushing it hard for another year or two. It will have to be gone by 2014, of course, because that's when security patches stop.
There's just no sense in rushing in to a new upgrade. That doesn't mean you are opposed to it, just that you want to do it right.
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
Just don't expect it to be 'finished' for some time.
Re:Huh. (Score:3, Informative)
Leopard is pretty good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Huh. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually now would be a great time for a Windows XP compatible operating system.
Indeed. There's loads of projects that try and make linux look like XP, for example:
http://www.instantfundas.com/2008/03/make-linux-look-like-windows-xp.html [instantfundas.com]
Still waiting for an 'official' (K)Ubuntu remix, tho...
Re:xp does the job well (Score:3, Informative)
I've been doing a lot of testing on Win2k8, listening in dark corners, etc.
I've heard buzz that they are going to release a Corporate level only workstation version of windows 2008; since Win2k8 actually doesn't suck (how it manages that with the Vista kernel at it's heart is beyond me), it could prove interesting, if true.
Re:xp does the job well (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously you didn't go through the migration from Windows 98/ME to 2k/XP. I lost multiple printers and a scanner in the process. Once the sale is made, the hardware maker has no reason to revisit and update drivers for old devices, they'd rather you upgrade to their current model--which probably will include drivers for the older OS's.
Re:Huh. (Score:3, Informative)
I dunno about how different the GUI in general for Vista is over XP, but, I gotta say if it is at all like the major changes they did to the menu system on the MS office products (word and excel for instance), then there IS a big difference and I could see where retraining would be needed.
Man...when I got to this new gig, and opened up the latest versions of Word and excel for the first time, I was totally lost. I swear I was embarrassed that I could not find the Save As option. Clicking that 'button' on the top left of the screen (I didn't originally think it was a button from first looking at it) was not intuitive. I've not had to look up on the web or use MS Help in years for anything office related, but, I just could not find shit on that application. The ribbon thing is just such a new paradigm, a huge break from anything I'd seen in the past with MS office tools.
I'm sure with time, like anything, one can pick up on this stuff pretty quick, but, if the interface to Vista or Win 7 is as a drastic change at the Office tool set was, I can see how it would confuse and piss off a lot of people...and require a good bit of retraining from the less tech people at a company.
Re:Doesn't require clean install (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Huh. (Score:3, Informative)
Another reason is training and support. Vista and Windows 7 are so much more different from Windows XP. If someone calls "Tech Support", tech support will have to have a completely different script/list for Windows 7.
No, they are not. Even my wife was able to sit down and continue working as usual.. she required no new training to use Vista after we left XP. It's not identical, but it's no different than going from 95 to 98, or 98 to 2000.
Sure, an intelligent user such as your wife can get around just fine. That's very different from what the original poster was saying, which is that tech support staff will need new training and materials.
If tech support people are telling users to open the "Add/Remove Programs" or "Display" control panels, or open the "Documents & Settings" folder, or right-click the "My Computer" icon, go to Properties, click the Hardware tab, then click the Device Manager button, there will be confusion. In Vista, these have all moved to "Programs and Features" and "Personalization", "Users", and although there is a link in the sidebar from System Properties to Device Manager, Device Manager is now a stand-alone control panel.
Re:Huh. (Score:3, Informative)
As you say, it's not finished. ReactOS is a very decent attempt and a very interesting project from a hobbyist/programmer standpoint, but it's not really to the point where any company would consider it usable yet. If ReactOS could bring itself up to par as a production ready Windows-compatible OS (sort of like Linux compared to a "real" Unix), then I think it would start to pick up in popularity quite a bit.
Re:Huh.... and the same can be said for,,, (Score:3, Informative)
I guess the real problem is that Microsoft keeps trying to make one-size-fits-all operating systems, when the market seems to be diverging a bit. A lot of businesses really do not need most of the features in Vista or Win7, or in OS X or KDE4, and would rather be able to just hang on to a more bare-metal OS that runs the applications they need and nothing else. This is perhaps a growing window of opportunity for Linux, since it is trivial to strip out "advanced" features of a Linux distro and get a plain vanilla desktop; if Wine becomes capable enough to run these business critical applications, we might start to see migration away from Windows, unless Microsoft extends XP support or creates a special "Windows 7 Bare Metal edition" (Windows BM?). Of course, that is assuming that those businesses are even planning a migration. There are still places where DOS is being used for critical applications...