US Army Will Upgrade To Windows Vista 374
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."
Doh! (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't wait forever.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Don't ever install anything ms before sp2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Vista just hit sp2
The US Air Force rollout (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
no surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Doh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You can't wait forever.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Add to that the usual military BS. I did a 4 year stint in the Navy and if I remember correctly it takes 7 signatures just to go on vacation. I can't imagine how many signatures you'd need to roll an OS to 744,000 desktops (Geez that's a huge number. Can that be right?)
Aside from the time it takes to get things done in a huge organization you have the simple fact that Windows 7 is brand new. I wouldn't suggest my mom roll out W7 before SP1. Certainly the friggin military wouldn't do that either.
Re:no surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup, 5% might not seem as too much of a slowdown... except in extremely tight, time critical applications, and you know, the army doesn't have any of those so it should be fine.
Re:Vista in .. (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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!)
Re:Doesn't the US Army care about Security (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
The mcirosoft office plauge (Score:2, Insightful)
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 task (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, like 7 isn't Vista rebranded with a new taskbar.
Even all drivers are compatible.
Re:Doesn't the US Army care about Security (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:You can't wait forever.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your tax dollars at work (Score:0, Insightful)
I can't believe this is what we pay for
Re:Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would suspect that over some nice luncheons and dinners that the US Army would have been "persuaded" to upgrade to Vista and not 7. This kind of crap happens all the time in government agencies that don't have to balance their funding sheets.
In large corporations things are vetted and validated mostly*, but for things like the Army it's all about "chain-o-command". This seems to breed corruption from the highest levels down, unfortunately the soldiers are the ones who bare the brunt of the issues - just look at the joke that the "Land Warrior" project is.
No doubt the person who made the decisions has been bought by MS or has a vested interest in MS.
Government waste (Score:5, Insightful)
h8 vista h8h8h8 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:You can't wait forever.. (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree. If I were with the Army I absolutely would not move to Windows 7. Hell, right now it is still in beta. Vista has already had SP1, and will shortly have SP2 to redress programming issues and security flaws. Windows 7 will not be at that same level.
I ordinarily would go on a soapbox and rant about how the Army should get away from Microsoft products and move to some version of Linux. However, the average enlisted man will have an average IQ, and will be barely computer literate at all. It is to the Army's advantage to stay within the Windows family of operating systems rather than try and retrain a few hundred thousand people for a different operating system.
~sigh~ I hate supporting Vista. But, I have to agree with the Army on this one. Vista with 2 service packs, running on hardware that is adequate to handle the operating system, is a perfectly reasonable move for them. Why should they wait another couple of years for Windows 7 to have its 2 service packs out.
When I supported NT 3.51, I and every other admin I knew was opposed to moving to NT 4.0 until at least 1 service pack had been released, preferably 2. When Windows 2000 came out, we advocated waiting until at least 1 service pack was out, preferably 2. Windows XP, waited until sp1 was out, would have preferred sp2. Now Vista is out, and sp2 is being released, and it finally looks ready to entrust business critical applications on it.
Windows 7 looks spiffy and all, but I am going to say the same thing I have been saying since I started supporting Windows networks. Wait until sp1, preferably sp2, before entrusting business critical functions or, in the Army's case, functions critical to the safety of our troops, to a brand new Microsoft (guaranteed buggy) operating system.
Re:You can't wait forever.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Linux, Windows, and even some MacOS on my Hackintosh machine. As an IT professional, I think it's important to have some exposure to all of them.
If you can get by on Linux, then that's great! I love Linux. I really like the new KDE stuff they're doing quite a bit. But I use Windows too, and it's fine.
So you had problems with Vista on a machine or two and you got "OMG PISSED OFF M$ SUCKS!!" That happens when you install a new operating system on older hardware sometimes. Two years later now, it's a lot better. Better hardware support, better software support.
Go ahead, keep ranting on. I try to take a more pragmatic approach.
PS. I hated the first implementations of PnP. I much preferred cards with jumpers because you never had a problem. Now, with PCI, APIC and reliable IRQ sharing it's no longer a problem. It's called progress.
Re:Doh! (Score:1, Insightful)
Upgrading to Windows 7 would be reckless. Regardless of what you think of Vista (I personally can't stand it), it is wiser to switch to an established platform than one that hasn't been properly vetted. The military and corporate worlds don't have the luxury that you do... their priority is to get work done efficiently, not to argue about DRM or WGA or game compatibility/performance. Moreover, Microsoft's abandonment of support for XP is a real issue to them. If you're ever in charge of a large number of computers, you may one day understand that.
Re:Doh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure about the army, but it is (now) stable enough for my purposes, especially on an AMD Athlon 3000+ based system.
I'm sure any OS that can stay up for two weeks can be used to manage nuclear weapons.
Re:Doh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, Microsoft's abandonment of support for XP is a real issue to them. If you're ever in charge of a large number of computers, you may one day understand that.
This is the part of the issue I have a real problem with. I don't like the idea that the U.S. Army is at the mercy of a private entity's marketing strategy. I want rugged long term support for my nation's military. This could be easily achieved with either an in-house or open source based solution. Relying on the release schedule of one specific private entity just to keep functioning seems to be the very definition of folly. I cannot see any reason why SELinux isn't the standard installation for military PCs. It's open, it'll be maintained as long as the Army maintains interest in it, and it's as secure as a fully functional machine gets (IMHO)...
But I digress, this isn't about what they COULD do, this is about what they ARE doing; the U.S. Army is putting itself in a compromising situation under a multinational entity. I cannot fathom how this can be justified, let alone swept aside with corporate mumbo-jumbo about "getting things done". It's the "getting things done" department of any business that releases shoddy products to meet artificial deadlines, only after the "do it right" department has had time to look things over for awhile does the product get stable (if it ever does). This isn't acceptable for something like the military where you need your product to work right, the first time, every time, for as long as it needs to.
Re:Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
This would be true with any OS.
It isn't the OS that makes a machine secure it is how the OS is setup and maintained and the practices of the machine's users that make it secure.
Any modern OS is a huge chunk of software and WILL have holes in it to exploit. The trick is keeping aware of the risks and keeping up both active and passive measures to lower the chances of an exploit to as close to none as it possible given what the machine in question needs to do and the sensitivity of the information.
There is no "Secure" modern OS over time.
Re:Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Close but not quite accurate.
The main problem is that Microsoft are so enshrined in government circles that when they choose to end-of-life a product the government feel the heavy pressure from Microsoft lobbyists to conform and buy the new version with tax payers money rather than try a different vendor or FOSS solution. If that pressure was lifted and Microsoft lobbyists banned from government would Microsoft be so keen to end-of-life some products knowing that large government departments would have to switch and potentially NOT to their new product therefor losing their very lucrative contract? Methinks not.
Re:Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would go ahead and cite references, links, older posts, etc. but I'm supposed to be watching a movie with my daughter in 15 minutes.
The army was essentially a "whatever the local person decides" for non-critical systems up until 2001 or so, at which time they started looking at the big picture; for instance it was declared a punishable infraction to put a XP system on a military network when it came out; it wasn't until Microsoft donated something like 3 million?(it might have been 3 million $ worth) licenses to the DOD that XP was allowed, around 2004?
But this... someone has seriously slipped a cog. I would love to get a share of whatever payoffs had to have been involved to let Vista on a DOD network; I refuse to think that NIST is so incompetent as to think this isn't going to at minimum double their overall support costs, and, I dunno, quadruple downtime? With windows all but admitting that Vista is total crap with the push for Windows 7, and the real possibility of a Windows 2008 server "workstation" version coming out, this is criminal.