How long till you adopt Vista?

[Moira]

That's exactly the message I was in essence trying to get across before. Our workplace won't upgrade to Vista in the foreseeable future. The time involved in training and supporting users who have no previous experience with Vista will be a very time consuming task.

Quite simply, it isn't necessary for the programs and apps that users run on their PCs. Whilst I agree that IT managers and staff may want to take a good look at Vista, I really question whether the early release for businesses is going to generate as much business as MS seem to think.

A lot of the features are going to appeal to home users far more than businesses IMHO and it is irritating the way Vista is broken down into about 10 different versions, if you include the 64 bit editions. Not only will hardware upgrades be necessary in a lot of cases, but most corporate PCs won't be able to fully utilize the fancy effects that Vista has placed so much importance on.

That, plus the fact that most business I would have thought, will wait till at least major bugs have been addressed and probably a service pack brought out will probably lead to a slower take-up of the new OS than MS realize.

[FNFiveseveN]

I have been running 64bit vista beta and RC 1 on a decent comp - 2gig 3500+ XP and cannot stand it compared to windows xp... The place I worked at allowed me to build a computer with a dual Core Amd processor and 1 gig of ram...the results were even worse. Granted this is pre-release garbage ware but Vista seems like its just an excuse to force upgrades on older machines with no real return or value in the process.

My other thoughts are that the O/S seems strangely like a Mac X machine with dirty underware (sorta a pun)... it looks pretty on the outside but when you get into its pants it starts to stink in a real hurry.

In my dream world microsoft would figure out a way to make use of that free OS called linux and begin to function more like a computer management system and less like a theif in the night which steals your resources and sales them to the highest bidder...

I doubt that when I do make the change to vista I will enjoy it.

[Moira]

I have to say my PC coped with it OK, and I just put it on my second desktop which is an Athlon64 3000+ SFF with 1 gig RAM. But the UAC feature drives me round the bend, and I could see myself simply disabling it. If I've just double clicked a program, I don't need asking whether I really want to open it! I know the logic behind it, but it just irritates me when every single action you take is preceeded by this.

I know it's supposed to be configurable, but for instance when I was trying to edit the bcdedit file from a command prompt in Vista to delete a duplicate entry in it, could I hell work out a way for it to give me permission! In the end I downloaded a tool that did the job for me from a GUI.

[Moira]

Well, I'm delighted My one insurmountable obstacle to running Vista right now was the lack of Biostar fan control on the only PC which had a 3D graphics card. Over christmas I plan on upgrading all the PCs, ie new laptop and more RAM plus a decent video card for my dual core here, so they should all run Vista nicely, but the one sticking point so far has been that as a permanent operating system it would be absolutely useless if the fans were spinning at 100% capacity all of the time, as I like silent PCs.

A friend suddenly reminded me tonight that from a previous system I still had a manual fan control with a dial to turn the fans down to the minimum level necessary, therefore completely doing away with the need for Biostar fan control Vista drivers. This has been fitted and at last the one really annoyance of RC1 64 bit Ultimate version currently running on my SFF has been removed. True, there are two minor pieces of hardware that don't work yet, but that's no big deal.

Not that I plan to install Vista on *all* the PCs. I'm keen to use Ubuntu and other users will be much more comfortable in XP until I know my way around Vista, but I know I'm going to want the Ultimate edition on my own PC sooner or later.

What makes me laugh is that Vista went to manufacture just last Wednesday. Businesses won't have it till the end of the month, home users will have to wait until the end of January. Yet already it's all over the net! As soon as people get activation keys with MSDN subscriptions, these will also be prolific and apparently there's already a crack (though I have no proof this works, however it's only a matter of time).

Talk about zero day warez ..... I wonder if "Microsoft" and "security" will ever truly belong in the same sentence?

[nihil]

Hi Moira, I am in one of "those moods" this morning, so you have been warned..............

I like the noise my PCs make................frequently, it is the only intelligent conversation I will get all day!!!

As for fitting words into sentences, zeugmas, oxymorons, and the like................ just use or omit the three letter word "not"

[Lv4]

So When Will You Get Vista

My choice isn't there, so I'm going to do a write in.

I'll adopt Vista when my company adopts Vista. Not before, not after.

[mohaughn]

I really question whether the early release for businesses is going to generate as much business as MS seem to think.

Most large corporations get software assurance with their support agreements so they get the upgrades for free. Well, not for free, but it is included in the cost of software assurance. The early release is not to drum up business, it is to give companies that have been participating in the JDP(joint development partner) program to run the final version of the code prior to it being released to the majority of the public. Many, many problems are found in the JDP phase of software deployment. I think I have 5 bugs to my credit involving Exchange 2000 running on a clustered windows 2000 machine from participating in the E2K JPD program.

f you include the 64 bit editions. Not only will hardware upgrades be necessary in a lot of cases

Again, most large companies are already running 64 bit capable servers for their large datacenter operations. Most companies are going to love the full 64 bit computing that SQL and Exchange will be able to use in Vista as it gets rid of a lot of virtual memory limitations that currently exist.. If you've ever run a large Exchange farm you will know what I'm talking about.

the results were even worse. Granted this is pre-release garbage ware but Vista seems like its just an excuse to force upgrades on older machines with no real return or value in the process..... it looks pretty on the outside but when you get into its pants it starts to stink in a real hurry.

So better kernel memory utilization and security using kernel memory randomization, better default controls over how users interact with the system, a more secure installation out of the box(I know, doesn't mean squat but you openBSD people love this one), better logging of errors and troubleshooting tools all amount to no value in the upgrade? I would love to know what kind of testing you have done with vista that allows you to come to the conclusions that you have.

I've seen hardware running windows 2003 and exchange 2003 be put to same by identical hardware running Vista and Exchange12. IOPS increases dramatically. Network throughput and client connectivity times are reduced dramatically on Vista and Exchange 12. Not to mention virtual memory problems are virtually non-existant at this time. Not to mention that clustering is also greatly improved through the enhancements in virtual memory. Gone are the limitations of only running 1000 active clients in active-active clusters.

Not to mention that I know some people in our labs and corporate security organizations have been beating on it pretty hard and have yet to find any major flaws, atleast nothing that would not be expected in a beta version. And I'm not talking about having some inexperienced pen tester straight out of college poking around, I'm talking about world renowned security researchers.

So please post some solid data about what you have tested, or keep your usual linux FUD to yourself. Most of us are tired of the linux VS windows argument..

[nihil]

mohaughn,

I agree that it is only sensible to release to enterprises first. They have the professional staff to deal with the final user acceptance testing. I don't think I will have a good night tonight dreaming of having to support a brand new operating system that has suddenly been unleashed on ten million kids for Christmas A commercial/professional environment is certainly the place to do your "field trials".

My concern is about hardware costs though, but from a somewhat different angle. From my experience with the private domestic and small business sectors I would predict that those customers will not replace their equipment or consider upgrading. they will stick with what they have, and are familiar with, until the time comes to replace the hardware anyway?

Like yourself, I don't see much of an issue on the server side either. I am a little uneasy about the desktop angle though. I have not messed with any of the beta releases, but I have run the compatibility tool on a number of machines. My findings were:

1. My modern machines have adequate RAM.
2. They have adequate processors.
3. Only one has an adequate video card
4. Other problems (that matter) were basically to do with drivers. Well, of course I don't have Vista drivers................I haven't got Vista............ I haven't got XP drivers on my Win 95 box either

I can understand the dumbed down version of Vista, as this is just a version to allow OEMs to compete at the budget end of the market. The target customers just do a bit of surfing, e-mail, shopping, word processing and such. They don't need the fancy Aero graphics, multimedia and stuff?

What I am thinking is missing is something similar for the Office version? Obviously at a comparable price. I suggest this because the typical office/business user is very similar to the budget home PC user. This would also reduce the attendant hardware costs.

Of course it is possible that the better versions will still work OK on lesser hardware but without all the features, but who wants to pay for features they don't need and don't work?

[Moira]

nihil, apologies. Perhaps I should point out that I'm just running a perfectly legal RC1 64 bit copy of Ultimate as an official tester. It's no secret that copies are all over the place but AFAIK there are no keys yet, and I wasn't pointing people to anything illegal or talking about using it myself it was more, how incredible that after all the hype about increased security, people are running pirated copies of the final version before it's even been released!

But I'm sorry if I stepped out of line.

[fourdc]

I read an article in a trade publication that said that Microsoft was going to roll out Vista, the new Office and Exchange on the same day.

Should make the call centers busy. I wonder how many "shops" will do more than one rollout on their system.