Up for adoption: Windows Vista

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Up for adoption: Windows Vista

By Robert X. Cringely

July 11, 2007

Well, it's been six months since the second biggest tech debut of the
year, Windows Vista. (OK, five months and 12 days, for those of you who
are counting). How's has it gone?

The good news: Security companies like Zone Alarm have, finally, shipped
Vista compatible versions of their software. Hardware drivers are
gradually rolling out.

Yet Microsoft still felt compelled to issue talking points that OEMs
could use *to convince customers not to wait for SP1*
http://apcmag.com/6458/dont_wait_for_vista_sp1_pleads_microsoft before
taking the Vista plunge. And corporate customers have been clamoring for
easier ways to downgrade from Vista to XP so loudly that Microsoft
actually heard them and simplified the process *(PDF file)*
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf.

Cringester R. M. makes a compelling real-world case about the hassles
small businesses must face before moving to Vista:

1. Software Apps: Start your Y2K search-and-destroy efforts again to
ensure all of your software is 32-bit compliant at minimum, and
Vista compliant on top of it. This means your accounting software,
DTP/editing packages, and all of the other 5-years old+ packages you
are currently running need (at minimum) LICENSE UPGRADES, and more
than likely a good number are too old even for that. For anyone
still using DOS-based packages, well, you better hope a savy tech
can get them to work in a virtual machine, but be prepared to shell
out the bucks either way. I have seen many a small place still using
DOS-based ledgers instead of being held hostage to M$ or Intuit
every year.

2. Hardwa If you are a good corporate customer and turn
over/lease your PCs in 3-year cycles, you will probably have fully
compatible systems in about 18 months, give or take the budget
cycle. Anyone else in the small business realm can stare into the
headlights when they get the quote to replace all those slower, but
fast-enough-for-the-job-they-do-now systems. Many places went
bargain PC when XP came out, or they had to retire Win 98 - the ones
that didn't die after the first year, or get taken out by surges,
are money in the bank now at 4 to 5 years later, and many do the job
they need to do. But most won't make the bar for Vista. Many
two-year-old PCs might not make it.

Take these two main arguments, and you have the conclusion made by
the techs at my workplace, where we run our back-end systems on
Linux and VMWare, the office systems on Windows (and Netware) and
support all of these systems in the field, but primarily
Windows-based desktop environments: Vista is at least 18 months away
for most small to mid-sized businesses to consider upgrading across
the board without breaking the bank, or the business.

I'm convinced. How about you?

/Have you adopted Vista, or are you waiting until SP1 and/or hell
freezes over? Post your answers below *or email me here. *
Top tipsters will receive free Cringely
swag, courtesy of my faithful InfoWorld minions./

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Up for adoption: Windows Vista

Hopefully it will remain a ******* orphan for a long time :-)

Colin Wilson wrote:
Up for adoption: Windows Vista

Hopefully it will remain a ******* orphan for a long time :-)

Why? Wouldn't it better if everything worked with it instead?

Bob

Hopefully it will remain a ******* orphan for a long time :-)
Why? Wouldn't it better if everything worked with it instead?

No, i'd rather be able to use fully paid for commercial products like
DVDs without having the quality degraded because I didn't buy a
trusted path monitor to go with it.

Strip out the DRM, double the speed without buying new hardware, stop
****ing about with all the Vista variants, sort out drivers for _all_
common hardware - then I might consider NOT ditching Microsoft for a
linux distrib if and when my XP setup keels over.

Hell - on the driver front, they'd be better telling people to use
linux in a VM to gain access to it !

Colin Wilson wrote:
Hopefully it will remain a ******* orphan for a long time :-)
Why? Wouldn't it better if everything worked with it instead?

No, i'd rather be able to use fully paid for commercial products like
DVDs without having the quality degraded because I didn't buy a
trusted path monitor to go with it.

Strip out the DRM, double the speed without buying new hardware, stop
****ing about with all the Vista variants, sort out drivers for _all_
common hardware - then I might consider NOT ditching Microsoft for a
linux distrib if and when my XP setup keels over.

Hell - on the driver front, they'd be better telling people to use
linux in a VM to gain access to it !

Sounds good to me!

Colin Wilson wrote:
Hopefully it will remain a ******* orphan for a long time :-)
Why? Wouldn't it better if everything worked with it instead?

No, i'd rather be able to use fully paid for commercial products like
DVDs without having the quality degraded because I didn't buy a
trusted path monitor to go with it.

Strip out the DRM, double the speed without buying new hardware, stop
****ing about with all the Vista variants, sort out drivers for _all_
common hardware - then I might consider NOT ditching Microsoft for a
linux distrib if and when my XP setup keels over.

Hell - on the driver front, they'd be better telling people to use
linux in a VM to gain access to it !

Um yeah, but a lot of that is exactly what I meant about working.

Bob

Um yeah, but a lot of that is exactly what I meant about working.

Fair comment, maybe I just needed to let off steam after a crap day
:-}