Gartner Tells Businesses to Forget About Vista 309
Barence writes "IT analyst firm Gartner has told businesses to skip Vista and prepare to roll out Windows 7. Companies have traditionally been advised to wait until the first Service Pack of an operating system arrives before considering migration. However, Gartner is urging organisations that aren't already midway through Vista deployments to give the much-maligned operating system a miss. 'Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7, so at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity.' Even businesses that are midway through planning a Vista migration are urged to consider scrapping the deployment. 'Consider switching to Windows 7 if it would delay deployment by six months or less.'"
Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Insightful)
What Gartner is for is to tell us what Microsoft wants us to do.
What insightful, cutting edge analysis this would have been... four years ago.
The Gartner experts say all companies should move off Windows XP by the end of 2012 to avoid problems with application compatibility.
I agree with this part... but do not agree about what companies should move to. It's time to get off the train to crazytown.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Funny)
With Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with Vista, the big question is how many feet they have. If the answer is "two", then windows 7 is their last bullet.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Interesting)
MS is swimming in money. On the other hand, they keep losing mindshare to Apple left and right.
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Heck, MS has more feet then that.
THEY'RE GIANT ****ING CENTIPEDES!!! FROM HELL!!! WITH LASER CANNONS!!!
(Look at that, I just shot myself in the foot with a laser cannon. And that's what I do to my friends!)
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And don't forget, the laser cannons are attached to its head!
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Not exactly sure what you meant by this. Windows NT was around long before ME. I thought, maybe you meant Windows 2000. I was pretty sure that ME and 2000 were released around the same time. Nope. According to wikipedia, Win2000 came out in February 2000, while ME came a full 7 months later in September. So... what exactly did you mean?
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:4, Informative)
MS ported most of the important stuff (plug and play and support for a common driver model between the two lines to help hardware manufacturs transition) to the NT line with 2K but bottled out of pushing 2K to home/small buisness users and produced another version of the 9x line instead.
So when ME flopped it wasn't a huge deal, they just added a home edition to the next minor release of the NT line and scrapped 9x. While 2K/XP was slower than 9x it was a noticable improvement in terms of both stability and ability to handle lots of windows open at once.
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I believe its called Multitasking
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I don't think the issue with lots of windows on 9x was a multitasking issue per-se (afaict the issue would happen regardless of whether all the windows were created by the same app/thread or not) but an issue with win9x still relying on some 16-bit GDI stuff and running out of GDI resources.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Informative)
That's relative. Their stock value [yahoo.com], currently around $20, never again reached their peak of $60 after 2000.
Their cash reserves [seattlepi.com] aren't what they used to be, they spent two thirds of it trying to shore up the stock price, without result.
Their revenues [microsoft-watch.com] are dropping through the floor.
It's a huge company that won't disappear so soon, but if you pay $40 billion in dividends and still have so much problem to get the stock price back to 30% of the peak [yahoo.com]...
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know anymore about a company that wont disappear soon...
I have been thinking quite a bit about this and the one thing that could REALLY do major damage is the fabled Apple Tablet.
Up to this point Apple has been gaining market share, by building new markets for itself. Point to Apple.
But this netbook thing I think is here to stay and we have not seen the end of that design. Thus if Apple were to bring onto market an Apple Tablet in the netbook range then people would seriously look at that device.
I don't have an iBook (had one several years ago). Write code for the most part using Windows and .NET. But I have an iPod Touch and Apple has made some nice revenue from my buying of music and apps.
Now if they were to bring onto market a Tablet I would be client number 1 because right now I want an easy to use tablet to surf my information. Yes I have a Windows Tablet, but Vista sucks big time.
And this raises another point. If Apple puts in a stake in the netbook market how much longer will companies like HP wait and beg for scraps from Apple? They will go scurrying to Apple for anything because they don't want to risk landing in the abyss...
And I am sure that Steve Jobs would just love to stick a stake into Microsoft for the decades of damage Microsoft caused...
Thus I do think if something like this happened, Microsoft VERY QUICKLY would go the way of the Dodo...
Disclosure: I write programs using .NET and that would put a crimp in lifestyle...
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Put OS X on PC hardware and Apple will be the next king of silicon valley.
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Put OS X on PC hardware and Apple will be the next king of silicon valley.
Yes, they would win on the software side. However, if you can put OSX on PC hardware, then you have no incentive to buy Apple's own hardware. This knocks the legs out from under Apple, and they have a net loss from this move. They haven't done it yet for good reason.
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Software is dirt cheap to make when you are Apple. Whether they sell 100 copies of OS X or 500 million, it still cost the same to develop and sell (packaging/DVDs are cheap today). People will still
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:4, Informative)
theyve been down this road before. the clones were nothing good, and almost caused apple to fail.
those who dont know history...
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Apple is interested in the netbook market because they consider the iPhone to be their portable computer.
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Which is exactly the point he was making. They're a niche player in the mobile phone market anyway, and anyone who wants a full blown netbook isn't going to satisfy themselves with a phone.
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Apple can't make it in the netbook category because they won't sell cheap hardware plain and simple. ... confine MS to gamers and businesses
So MS will be "confined" to merely all Internet devices, gaming and all businesses, leaving Apple to be "king" of the remaining niche markets? I can just see MS quaking in their boots at that.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Insightful)
The stock price will likely not reach those heights again not because Microsoft is fundamentally in trouble, but because the market primarily values growth. Microsoft already owns a piece of damn near every computer in the world, so there's really nowhere to go but down; their non-core offerings have, at best, a checkered history and don't inspire confidence in investors.
MS has been transitioning out of the 'growth' mold in the assessment of stock pickers for years. That's why the price is down, and is staying down. Paying out dividends is not a ploy to buoy the stock price, as the stock is already training at a premium way above the dividend value; paying dividends is just what a reasonable Board does in response to a huge excess of cash that can't be reasonably invested in growth. They're a publicly traded company and have to act in the interest of the shareholder.
As to their revenues... they took modest losses in one of the worst economies since the Depression, during a period when their last major product release is several years in the mirror, and people are holding out on major purchases as the next one comes into view. That's a pretty enviable position to most companies.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's 1GB of RAM these days? $12? Sheesh.
Vista has far cheaper memory requirements than any other released version of desktop Windows, to date.
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If you can't have a fast system with 512 MB of RAM you are doing something wrong.
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So we should insert empty loops in code just cause CPU cycles have never been cheaper?
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> What's 1GB of RAM these days? $12?
Talking standard DDR2, yes. But what about DDR1, or DDR3?
Next issue: the 3GB limit. If Windows uses 1 now, that only leaves 2 for the applications. If you were using 2 GB before, you would install 4 GB, and lose another GB because of the limit.
Corporations want to use older PCs, too. Getting an engineer out to replace 1 GB with 2 GB of DDR1 can be quite expensive.
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Insightful)
{snip}...certainly will happen when Win7 fails.
One way for Microsoft to make it a Sure Thing: instead of having proper security be a simple 'best practice', continue to have it be simply The Most Expensive Option.
FTFA -
"AppLocker, meanwhile, gives companies granular control over the applications - right down to the version number - that employees can install on their office machines.
"Both of these will require Windows 7 Enterprise Edition, available only to organisations with Software Assurance, or Windows 7 Ultimate," the Gartner analysts warn."
Foot, meet bullet.
This is not just something for corporate use. I have plenty of clients who would be glad to benefit from letting me use this tool on their systems (and boy would it make my job easier...). Parents could use it for the kids, geeks could use it on the systems they invariably get asked to fix for a buddy, etc... MS keeps getting their asses handed to them on the issue of basic security. When are they going to finally learn that they *need* to implement/make available good security across _all levels_ of their OS? The totally free software that I use has a bare fraction of both the potential and the real-world security problems MS OS'es have.
So why does MS continue to act as if charging for security is a Good Thing, when it can so easily be had for free?
And why don't more "expert tech analysts" call them out on this?
Yeah, yeah - I know...
Re:Insightful analysis... four years late. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has a delicate balancing act to manage.
There's a massive industry that's emerged to work around Windows' security deficiencies. Companies that collect malware in honeypots. Companies that generate malware signatures. Companies that write antivirus software. Companies that train users how to avoid Windows pitfalls. Businesses to monitor networks for intrusions. Businesses to repair or reinstall failed Windows machines. Security researchers, patch writers, forensic specialists... and so on, ad nauseum.
There are millions of people kept in continuous employment just to protect and maintain Microsoft's OS, many of them the "expert tech analysts" you're asking to call Microsoft out. Unsurprisingly, those people are often Microsoft's most energetic supporters.
Microsoft does not want to alienate their most ardent fans.
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With Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with Vista, the big question is how many feet they have. If the answer is "two", then windows 7 is their last bullet.
Microsoft shot itself in the foot at some point with Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, various iterations of Windows XP, Windows Vista... the list goes on and those are only their operating system FUBARs. My personal Microsoft Office FUBAR list starts at the "red crosses of death" that fucked up one of my first project reports almost two decades ago and goes on from there. You can probably find a longer list than mine. The only thing that differed from shot to shot was the caliber of bullet t
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Yep, it really was that forgettable.
not really that insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you start the switch you should (Score:5, Funny)
Immediately file for Chapter 11 because you might as well get all of the reorganization done all at once.
Re:not really that insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
Or investing in Wine and Mono, to make their existing infrastructure platform independent.
Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? Likely, the number of Windows-XP users is substantially larger than the number of Vista users. Sheer profit motivates Microsoft management to pursue the larger market: Windows-XP users.
Re:Real Insight: Microsoft is also skipping Vista. (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't emulate Vista because 7 is 100% Vista compatible. Nothing to emulate.
There's a program compatibility option, and all it does is report "Vista" as the OS instead of 7.
XP Mode. (Score:5, Funny)
XP Mode marries all the reliability and security of XP to the usability and device compatibility of Vista. Brilliant!
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I believe the point the GP was making is that the virtualized environment would have all of the negative aspects of both XP and Vista, without any of their respective positive aspects.
Re:XP Mode. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep.
And if you're going down that path, why not run your instance of XP in a VM on Linux?
More compatibility, less cost and far fewer security issues. If you're going virtual, what's the point of Windows 7 at all?
It does seem convenient (Score:2)
Gartner (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then why are they suggesting that businesses avoid Vista and cancel existing transitions to Vista? That doesn't sound like a Microsoft party line to me.
Re:Gartner (Score:5, Insightful)
sometimes you sacrifice something expendable for the result you want; the expendable concept is "vista sucks", which many people believe anyway. The result is "wait and buy win7" instead of "windows isn't dominant anymore, consider the alternatives"
Re:Gartner (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft Windows is by far the first choice of hackers, malware authors, organized crime, and government espionage operations.
Windows is definitely their preferred OS and I doubt that will change with Windows 7 especially with the various issues that have already cropped up in RC1.
Re:Gartner (Score:4, Interesting)
They're not suggesting that. They're TELLING people to stop sticking with XP, and spend money on Windows 7. Microsoft cut its losses on Vista a long time ago, but obviously had to keep up some pretense that it was really a good product, and doing well. Their main goal for a long time has been to get Windows 7 out in some sort of more-acceptable-than-vista state (which they seem to have failed at), and to make sure people buy it this time, which they're attempting to ensure with extra PR, and the usual highly questionable tactics like this Gartner thing.
Re:Gartner (Score:5, Informative)
Try it yourself then.
I've used it long enough to get a feel for the OS, and would say it's not bad. Certainly feels better than Vista, but not as good as a well-sorted XP install.
That's the main problem with 7 - it doesn't change anything significant about using a computer. It won't make your life easier or your work more productive. Sure there are some minor enhancements, but nothing you can't get on XP with a few freeware apps, and is is definitely more sluggish on the same hardware than XP.
So in exchange for your couple of hundred dollars and a mandatory hardware upgrade, you get a whole lot of... not much at all, really.
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/., please stop posting these stupid Gartner reports.
Moderated story -1. SPAMBIN
In the Year 2015 ... (Score:5, Funny)
Systems Engineer: Not enough bloat? Maybe you just miss Windows 7?
Software Engineer: No, it's not that
Systems Engineer: Windows XP?
Software Engineer: No, there was something that happened briefly in between those two that Windows 8 feels like
Systems Engineer: I don't know what you're talking about, we need to get back to work, here are all your requirements.
Software Engineer: Vivid? Vivace? Something foreign sounding
Systems Engineer: No, you idiot, shut up! Don't you remember the
Software Engineer: VISTA!
*men with guns in black clothing with Gartner symbols sewn into them storm from the Gartner door near the servers and slip bags over the two engineers' heads and drag them towards the exits; they are never heard from again*
Pretty funny (Score:2)
I've been saying this for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gartner is only giving advice that many IT analysts have been saying for quite some time. Skip vista, hold on to Windows XP, and wait for the next release before considering upgrading. Hardly a controversial statement, especially with Windows 7 due to go Gold by the holiday season.
I know Slashdot has a tradition of instantly hating everything remotely associated with Microsoft, but Gartner is an IT firm that spends a great deal of time advising businesses on how to best implement Microsoft products. They aren't the Mouth of Sauron, speaking what the Eye of Mordor wants spoken.
Honestly, Microsoft would really prefer that businesses upgrade to Vista now, then upgrade to Windows 7 a year from now. That means more money to them. Gartner is only giving common sense advise and saying, hold off on spending your money because Vista is dead end.
Yes, we would all like to see more businesses switch to Linux, but that isn't going to happen very quickly, if at all. But if your company is thinking of migrating from XP to a more modern operating system, it would come as no surprise if the analyst they hired said, "don't go to Vista, wait for Windows 7".
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Aside for all the businesses with software insurance or a similar licensing agreement, where its the same amount of money either way :)
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For all the venom poured at the feet of Gartner, they are only saying what I have been saying since for months.
Yeah. It's just such a duh statement, though. That's why we're making fun of them, they're either restating the completely obvious or making inaccurate predictions.
In other news, Gartner advises not to upgrade computer to Windows 7 while in the tub.
Re:I've been saying this for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honesty would be Gartner saying that Windows 7 is Windows Vista with a new coat of paint and that there is no real reason to upgrade to Windows 7. The press turned against Microsoft on Vista because of the IT backlash, but lets be honest they've bought the press lock stock and barrel on Windows 7. There isn't a damn thing different about Windows 7 and vista under the hood. The same things that Gartner and others blasted Vista for is being ignored with Windows 7. Microsoft must have paid the appropriate people really well in advance of the Windows 7 reviews because franly their's NO business incentive to upgrade from XP.
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Exactly. Haven't you noticed the shill-pattern yet? Most of those people started saying that stuff even before it was clear that Windows 7 booted on most of the machines around, much less after any serious long-term testing that you could possibly build a business recommendation on. These guys have been parroting the Microsoft line for months, that Windows 7 is as good as XP. Only now, others have had a chance to do
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Doesn't this just reek of a clever long-term business plan by Microsoft?
Maybe they realised, years ago, everyone was really happy with XP. Holy shit! They'd made the perfect product! Noone would ever want or need to upgrade again!
So they intentionally release Vista as a turd. Everyone hates on it and noone decides to upgrade.
Then they release the new hotness of Windows 7 - compared to Vista, it's amazing! Everyone gives it good reviews. Why /wouldn't/ you install it? It's SO much better than Vista!
Everyone
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6 months! (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows 7 may be better than vista, but surely your going to wait for SP1*, meaning it will be at least a year before its good to go.
*Hell i even wait for 'sp1' before trusting a new ubuntu release (Obviously as a geek i start using it at beta 1)
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Yes, it's definitely bad advice. One never deploys a new MS OS when it's first released. This won't be a six month wait at this point, but 12 to 18.
Thanks, Shill! (Score:5, Funny)
Gartner is telling us to pretend Vista never happened, just as Microsoft intends. But that's like seeing the original Highlander, then seeing Highlander 2... and then going to see Highlander 3! Why the fuck would you do that? You know it's going to be a let-down.
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There's a Highlander 2?
Although that is around the time I started receiving hypnotherapy...
I'm still going to wait... (Score:2, Funny)
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The way Microsoft do things, it'll probably be based off Linux 1.2.1
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Which is why MS forked it around there, and have been working on Windows FT (Fixed Technology) ever since ;)
Skoda tells me to buy a new Skoda (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony tells me I need a Blueray player, Philips says I should look into ditching that old coffee maker for one of those wasteful cartridge-thingies, Proctor and Gamble insists my hair needs Head and Shoulders, Gartner says we should consider buying the next Microsoft operating system. Since when do I care about what advertisers say?
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> Since when do I care about what advertisers say?
Well, you care enough to know what they say.
Congrats, Gartner (Score:2)
telling the obvious to the clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
You've gotta respect the "analysts" at Gartner. Anyone who's read anything about PCs within the last year would have come to this conclusion. However, when you write it in a high-priced report, and present it in a pretty cover, some sort of Dilbert-ian logic takes over and the contents (whatever they happen to be) suddenly have the meaning, insight and authority that makes them worthy of directorial consideration.
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> You've gotta respect the "analysts" at Gartner. Anyone who's read anything about PCs
> within the last year would have come to this conclusion.
Well, no. Some of us have come to the conclusion that the thing to do is not have bugger-all to do with any Microsoft products at all.
Re:telling the obvious to the clueless (Score:4, Insightful)
> Anyone who's read anything about PCs within the last year would have come to this conclusion.
Anyone who's used a Microsoft operating system in the last 15 years should have come to this conclusion a long time ago. I predict two things will happen:
1) The sun will rise in the morning (obvious inaccuracies aside).
2) Microsoft will release Windows 7 to much fanfare, and people will forget the last 15 years of wasted effort trying to keep Windows in operation. They will be shocked, SHOCKED, at all the Windows viruses hampering their work and play. They will bitch and moan, but will keep throwing their time and money in the fire. The temporary good judgment they showed at avoiding Vista will evaporate.
Keep XP (Score:2)
There is a server recession/depression and Business need to put off investments and asset upgrades until the business environment becomes more favorable.
What kind of ROI (return on investment)will upgrading bring? Seems MS had already succeeded in building a better mouse trap. No real reason to upgrade unlike its predecessors.
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Well, Microsoft has already stopped mainstream support for XP, though I believe they'll continue supplying security patches for a few more years...
Samba support (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Samba support (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, W7 does not support Samba yet
It's Samba that needs to catch up, not Microsoft. Windows7 dropped support for the archaic NT4 domain structure that Samba emulates.
Samba is a poor substitute as a domain controller. Sure you can get an NT4 style domain working, but you're missing out on all the power that Active Directory gives you. For that matter, Samba leaves a lot to be desired as a windows file server as well.
Re:Samba support (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, catch up with an undocumented proprietary moving standard. Guess what - thats one of the reasons MS keeps changing things - it isn't to make it work better, its to make solutions from anyone other than MS work less well.
The correct solution is to ditch the entire Microsoft paradigm altogether. Things like Samba are just a band aid for the drooling masses who's eyes glaze over if the buttons aren't in exactly the same position on every computer.
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
... won't businesses wait for Windows 7 SP1 anyway?
That said, every geek worth his salt (let alone any actual IT professional) should take advantage of the fact that MS will let you download and run the Release Candidate Customer Preview of Vista 7 Ultimate for free for a year. Works just fine in VirtualBox (also free, for Win, Lin, and OS X) as described here. [sun.com] Even if you hate MS for whatever reason, it's still worth knowing what they're doing, especially if you can do so for free on whatever platform you're (probably) currently using.
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
SAVE VISTA! (Score:5, Funny)
Original blog post [today.com] - Facebook group [facebook.com]
Microsoft has said it may ditch Vista the moment Windows 7 comes out. They've since backtracked - but we need to make sure they know our feelings.
Windows 7 is CASTRATED APPEASEMENT to soy latte-sipping girly-men who wish they owned a Mac. We want a REAL operating system. An operating system that PERSONIFIES America's INDUSTRIAL MIGHT. That makes you feel AWE at the MAJESTY of the progress of its operation. VISTA is a monument to everything that makes us the country we are!
Like Chrysler, like Hummer, like Edsel - "Vista" is a name that will be remembered as the greatest operating system in Microsoft's history.
Just Say "No" To Seven -
SAVE VISTA!
We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to join the Facebook group. So far we have about 80. TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!
"I fully support this initiative. My computer business employs 200 people; the best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward." - M. Shuttleworth, London
"I can't tell you how much Vista has done for my business. So many people depend on it." - S. Jobs, Cupertino
"Vista is the one thing that will keep people seeking out and using systems that are at the forefront of technology. It's been the best thing for all of us." - L. Torvalds, Portland
"I'm ... I'm touched. *sob* I didn't think anyone cared. You guys. Developers! *sob*" - S. Ballmer, Seattle
Emperor wears a Thong (Score:4, Insightful)
The reviewers who actually do performance evaluations of Windows 7 continue to make this point: The performance between Windows 7 and Vista is marginal at best and often indistinguishable.
Windows 7 is Vista with a marketing make over. It's being pushed from the bottom up in a faux ground swell astroturfers saying "Windows 7 is great!" but ignoring the performance evaluations.
The best that can be said for Windows 7 is that its true name should be Vista SP2.
What a load of BS (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but this *really* irritates me. These people appear to have reverse Alheimers: good short term memory and zero long term. But I haven't (more the reverse, so I may post this twice :-)).
This is BS as it depends on two unmentioned assumptions:
1 - businesses actually need anything more/newer than XP. Well, MS has been postponing the end of support a few times now because people would either not move to Vista or move to Linux which would REALLY be unacceptable because they wouldn't come back after sinking that one-off cost. Granted, Vista has apparently introduced some features that may help in the future, but MS has now learned that there is only so much beta, sorry, alpha testing the buying public will accept. And business has learned it doesn't actually NEED the repeated pain of migration, even if MS says so. You could say the racket is up, in almost the same way as the use of expenses by UK MPs.
2 - somehow, Windows 7 will be better than Vista and not the disaster that Vista was. Well, we're back to business as usual then: the PROMISE of improvement. The eternal promise that has allowed MS to make a profit ever since they discovered with MS-DOS that people would pay for upgrades as long as it fixed something or looked different. The issue is that, here too, Vista has given that promise viability a serious dent. Well, without some volume deployment you will not find out where they screwed up this time, put another way, leave that all important hook to sell you the NEXT version. So that report is concluding something without any factual basis.
Well, I think XP will be installed here a little while longer. And when supports ends it's a question if it will be Windows again. It could be Linux (some retraining required) or OSX (hardware costs, and not enough depth behind the interface - we`d like the control ourselves, Jobs, thanks). And OpenOffice, as I rather lose productivity once at the start of the day to start it up than the whole day because I have to figure out where they put all the functionality in Office 2007. If the argument for not moving to Linux is "that it looks different" I would be intrigued to see how Office 2007 was defended.
Oh, and Gartner? Well, that doesn't need much more discussion now, does it?
switching to Windows 7 (Score:3, Insightful)
AM I the only one (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has not had time since they released Vista to write an entirely new OS.
"Windows 7" *IS* Vista with a different name and and an eye-candy face lift.
--
Microsoft-free since 1995
Re:tell me again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Home users - Security, UAC stops stuff running as admin.
Business - erm,well,err...?
Re:tell me again... (Score:4, Informative)
An upgrade to Windows 7 from XP brings a lot more than people think for businesses:
BitLocker + a TPM means that a laptop theft basically becomes "just" a hardware theft, as opposed to hardware + data on it. A cost of a laptop is chump change compared to the revenue loss and loss of PR face when having to report that sensitive data was stolen to shareholders, the SEC, customers, and the press. BitLocker can also be used on workstations so a redeployment or sale of machines can be done without trashing the hard disks. Just a format command will do the job. (Vista's format.exe command explicitly overwrites the volume master key sectors, ensuring that recovery of any data even with a copy of the recovery info isn't going to happen.)
A decent privilege model. Apps shouldn't demand admin or LocalSystem rights unless they need it. No, this isn't a magic bullet for security, but it is a great step in the right direction. XP also has this, but most developers still just write assuming that all users are in the Administrator's group.
BitLocker To Go = those tons of USB flash drives are at least protected with some type of password that users write to (assuming the policy to require it before writing is allowed is set.) If user loses the password, the data is still recoverable.
Better OS imaging. WIM is a lot more customizable than XP's imaging model. The only exception is the fact that even VLK editions of Vista require activation which make this a major thorn in the side of businesses, even with an internal KMS. You can make multiple corporate images and images can be used across CPU/HAL architectures, as opposed to having a specific image for a certain model Dell, another image for the HPs, and so on. Add some PXE support, and you can reimage a new or trashed machine with just a boot from the network, as opposed to the Ghost CD and an external hard disk.
There are a number of under the hood things that Vista has that people don't notice which do improve security and reliability. ASLR, multiple privilege levels (like how IE8 runs in a pseudo-jail), background checking of disk filesystem integrity, volume snapshots, disassociation of Windows Update from Internet Explorer, and a good number of other security improvements.
The activation issue is, in my personal experience, the second biggest reason why businesses stay with XP, the first being the issue of legacy drivers that don't work under Vista. I just don't get the point of activation in VLK editions. The BSA will rip a business to component atoms who is caught pirating, so activation doesn't ensure MS gets any more revenue than it does already in the business sector.
Re:tell me again... (Score:4, Insightful)
BitLocker + a TPM means that a laptop theft basically becomes "just" a hardware theft, as opposed to hardware + data on it.
BitLocker To Go = those tons of USB flash drives are at least protected with some type of password that users write to (assuming the policy to require it before writing is allowed is set.)
But companies that need this have been doing it on xp for years, companies that don't still wont bother because of the additional overhead.
And while i do agree that windows7/vista are significantly more secure, I'm under the impression that companies have been able to lock down xp pretty well and migrating means having to lock down a whole new system that admins are less familiar with
The activation issue is, in my personal experience, the second biggest reason why businesses stay with XP, the first being the issue of legacy drivers that don't work under Vista..
I think the biggest reason is that it requires a significant effort, and for a properly secured system there is little benefit.
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I just don't get the point of activation in VLK editions. The BSA will rip a business to component atoms who is caught pirating, so activation doesn't ensure MS gets any more revenue than it does already in the business sector.
MS learnt with XP that if they release a no activation required version for some subset of customers (in the XP case volume license ones) then it WILL get leaked and the pirates WILL use it to avoid activation. They can put a key on the WGA shitlist but not everyone installs WGA and t
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DRM, reduced performance, and upgrade fees.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Clear Type font rendering.
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Its hard to argue to keep an early P4 machine when a few components start failing whenever you can get a machine thats much more powerful for ~$300. If you don't have a
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Except that most likely early P4 machines are not failing. I'm typing this on a P-IV 2.6GHz machine. It's been running since fall 2003. Yes, I did some minor upgrades: Notably, 512Meg RAM to 2Gig RAM, 120Gig IDE HD to 500Gig SATA and a better graphics card, but that was mainly because I got it out of another machine... The original, while only DX7 would have
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I used to pull working computer/parts out of dumpsters all the time at uni. If you live in a first world country and don't need to play games, you don't even need to buy a computer! Just dust of some garbage and install your favorite linux flavor. Yesterdays gaming machine is my workstation.
I haven't bought a computer for about 6 years.
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If you need the 64 bit memory range for some reason, Windows XP 64 bit will not cut it as drivers for that version of the OS are scarce at the most inconvenient times.
But if you are comfortable within 3.5GB or less (give or take a few hundred MB) then Windows XP 32 is still king of Windows.
Re:Why migrate from XP to vista? (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 32-bit has been able to address more than 4 GB of RAM for at least a decade now. You just weren't licensed [geoffchappell.com] to use it.
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Windows 32-bit has been able to address more than 4 GB of RAM for at least a decade now.
Even though the high-end 32-bit versions of Windows Server have been able to address more than 4GB of RAM, they can't make as effective use of it as the 64-bit versions.
For example, the Volume Shadow Service on 32-bit Windows can't deal with volumes > 10TB, even if you're running Enterprise and have 32GB of RAM in the system. You *must* be running a 64-bit version of the OS.
If I remember correctly, this is because the
Re:Why go to Windows 7? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is ITS value prop?
It could be your last chance to get committed to Software Assurance. That's the amazing deal where you pay Microsoft every year 1/3 the price of their full software stack and in return you get to use the useful upgrades they come out with every twelve years for FREE.
They're improving their value prop (Score:4, Informative)
Now you can't get a lot of their more exciting offerings like Server 2008 Datacenter edition unless you buy SA. Which means if you don't buy SA, you have to buy a separate copy of Server 2008 for each virtual machine you might run. And you can only transfer the license every 30 days, so if your cluster fails over you have to wait a month before you fail back, and run your cluster in non-redundant mode for that month. So the non-SA versions of Server 2008 are crippleware because they can't do HA. Way to sell product by subscription! These reality enhanced individuals have no idea what their competition is doing to their value proposition. And even if you buy into that they only support VMs that run Windows and their Novell Linux lapdog, SUSE SLED. Ubuntu? Redhat? Mandrake? Oracle Unbreakable Linux? BSD? Debian? Never heard of that stuff.
For those who are paying attention, Software Assurance is the incredible deal where you pay Microsoft every year 1/3 the price of their full software stack and in return you get to use the useful upgrades they come out with every twelve years for FREE. Isn't proprietary licensing great? There are other rules too. You wouldn't believe what obscure rules in the license agreement these tards pulled up when they were trying to drive Ernie Ball [stumbleupon.com] out of business. What they got instead is that he paid them, deleted their software, and became a Linux fan [cnet.com].
Suing your customers [sco.com] isn't the best way to win friends and influence people.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an ongoing question. I was forced to explain the reason for going to XP (migration done this year!) from 2000. Since migrating, I think we have only had one or two BSOD's - and a quick BIOS upgrade fixed that (we are an HP shop, BTW). Sure I mean there was no real technical reason to upgrade, as most of our users use apps and not the OS features anyways. But I am convinced that but not upgrading, you end up like we did - an old OS trying to run on modern hardware, which was becoming a support nightmare trying to explain why their PC would BSOD three or four times a day.
So I'm not the only one who noticed problems with Windows 2000 on new hardware.
My current PC (built from components in 2007) was never quite stable under Windows 2000. I suspect that the hardware vendors had stopped caring at that point and did no real QA on the Windows 2000 drivers anymore. For the MSI graphics card (a NVidia 8600 GT), only an obsolete Windows 2000 driver version was offered at all. A switch to XP fixed the problems.
On the other hand, my older Pentium IV is quite stable under Windows 2000.
Re:Gartner, highest bidder (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone agrees on skipping vista. It's a common propaganda trick to start with something you'll accept (vista sucks), then feed you what they want you to accept next (buy Windows 7).