Have you switched to Vista?

[Moira]

I just read an article which reports Vista being used on just 1% of PCs.

I'm personally using Vista here, as the only operating system on my desktop PC. I upgraded quite happily, installing a clean version of Home Premium purchased from OCUK for a very reasonable price (it's an OEM copy). Touch wood, things are going very smoothly. The laptop is still waiting (along with many others) for the free upgrade from moduslink, and my other desktop is running XP as the main OS, mostly due to the fact that other users feel more comfortable with XP than Vista, though it does dual boot into Vista Ultimate.

[MrLinus]

Home users may be able to use Vista immediately but I suspect corporate environments may be a while before they can use it. I know here, we've run into issues with specific applications not playing nice on it.

[Aardpsymon]

we have no plans to upgrade to vista here. For a start, a lot of the older hardware won't cope. Neither will the older staff for that matter.

We don't have the money, we don't have the time and I'm guessing that a lot of departments will have to upgrade some of the old software which brings us back to money and time again.

[Moira]

Yeah, same old story. At work it's only the MS campaigns that are using Vista. Which is why I can't understand the decision to bring the corporate release out first! As you say, corporate environments are going to be the last places to upgrade.

[HTRegz]

Yeah, same old story. At work it's only the MS campaigns that are using Vista. Which is why I can't understand the decision to bring the corporate release out first! As you say, corporate environments are going to be the last places to upgrade.

The corporate release was brought out first so that enterprises could begin testing...

Let's say you're looking at a 6 month testing cycle... by releasing in Nov. instead of Jan you've cut that down to 4 months of the product actually being live with the public... It gives enterprises the upper hand if they want to roll it out immediately and if nothing else let's them test with their software and ensure that it will work should certain areas need it.. (Such as the MS campaign at your work)..

As for the stats in that article... I'd question where they got them... I know most people use web traffic and browser versions to guestimate but it's never entirely accurate for example:

Vista accounts for 6.96% of the traffic to my website... That puts it second behind Windows XP, with Linux (as a whole) following closely behind in third at 6.36%... Then fourth is Mac at 4.88%...

Peace
HT

[nihil]

I take the point about reliability of the statistics. Similarly, HT~ runs a technical site, that may well attract an atypical hardware distribution?

The point about releasing the business editions first is very true. The actual software was extensively beta tested, but that is normally done on test machines or in a test environment.

Then you release the production version and businesses load this onto reference machines to test performance compatibility and so on. A "reference machine" is a clone of your actual production environment(s). This actually takes some time, particularly if you start to encounter issues.

The general public will normally not bother with a new OS until they buy a new computer, and Vista has only been available for 6 weeks or so.

From a personal viewpoint I know that there are hardware and driver issues with my XP box, and the compatibility tool will not run on my Win2000 boxes, so I don't think I will bother there.

[RoadClosed]

I loaded vista ultimate on an old PC that I used for the ocassional game. They all broke. And vista ultimate on this PC is a joke. Reloaded XP and waiting for a new mobo that can take advantage of Ultimate. Video wallpaper... killer. Loaded Vista Business on a good workstation and I love it. Screw XP I ain't going back. Despite the critism abroad Vista is radical cool. The only thing so far, knowing it is a radical change and many things won't work because they don't play well with the security model... is the lack of support in hardware drivers that MS publishes for OpenGL. My open source games run like **** and require an upgrade from each manufacturer versus the one from microsoft.com because MS hates OpenGL.

[Moira]

I'm certainly not going back on this PC. I'll change to Vista on the laptop just as soon as my upgrade arrives (if it ever does). The other one will probably stay as a dual boot with Ultimate mainly because it takes other users into account. Sure there are things that don't work, mainly a few programs and the odd bit of hardware, but basically I'm happy with it.

One thing I wasn't happy to discover was that the outbound functionality of the firewall in Vista is switched off by default! You can access an administrative tool and write filtering rules, but I want the sort of firewall that pops up when something attempts to access the net and asks me whether I want to give it permission. So far I haven't found anything that works in Vista though - both Sygate and ZA have compatibility issues.

[nihil]

Hi Moira,

Whilst it is quite easy to enable the firewall, it seems to be a real pain to actually allow outgoing stuff selectively, like you need to know the process name access path and so on.

OK it works, I would not deny that.

My complaint is that this OS is supposed to be for home users ................ they don't know how to set up anything that doesn't prompt them......... so it isn't a viable system IMO, given the markets it is supposed to be intended for?

[HTRegz]

Hi Moira,

Whilst it is quite easy to enable the firewall, it seems to be a real pain to actually allow outgoing stuff selectively, like you need to know the process name access path and so on.

OK it works, I would not deny that.

My complaint is that this OS is supposed to be for home users ................ they don't know how to set up anything that doesn't prompt them......... so it isn't a viable system IMO, given the markets it is supposed to be intended for?

I've actually argued the firewall issue a number of times.. It's interesting.

Outbound filtering == off by default is a good thing in my mind... Otherwise you'd have people wondering why their internet doesn't work.. This way you know that the firewall isn't blocking your website requests... it's a troubleshooting thing... Also outbound firewalls aren't necessary (IMO) as they are only really needed if you are concerned about malware... I like to base my activities on the idea that nothing I do is going to lead to malware on my computer (and it's true.... I've yet to have a virus or malware that I haven't purposely installed... I'm sure plenty of others here are the same)..

As for the pop-up notification for the firewall... I give Microsoft Kudos for not including it... Had they included it, it would have become the standard click-through-fest that all other firewalls breed. Let's face it.. your average user clicks through and doesn't pay attention (I've done a number of write-ups on this)... So giving them the pop-ups to allow applications is a bad idea... However if they have to go and specifically allow the application (which is actually quite simple.. you can allow based on application, protocol, port, etc) you aren't going to inadvertently allow anything you don't want....

There are also projects (I'm running one) to provide a default firewall set that can be imported with outbound allow rules....

The last thing I'd like to comment on the implicit deny any any (to use cisco-ese) in the Outbound firewall... if you don't have a rule, you don't get out... I've seen people complain about this.. but really it's the industry standard.. so again kudo's to microsoft for following the standard.

Links:
ComputerDefense Outbound Rule List
Vista Firewall #1
Vista Firewall #2
Users Click-Thru