Microsoft harries XP-loving biz customers on to Windows 7 Microsoft wants business customers - whose offices are chugging along nicely with the company's eight-year-old workhorse OS, Windows XP - to upgrade to Windows 7 now. The firm pushed out a flurry of case studies and related happy-clappy stuff about Windows 7 yesterday, in a move to convince punters who previously turned their …
MS don't seem to understand the large organisation and its IT needs. I work in a large public sector organisation. We run XP across every desktop - we got IE 7 and SP3 only 2 months ago.
We don't actually care what OS we have, just that every single machine uses it (and the same version) and every single app runs correctly on it, and is supported on it. It makes life reasonably painless.
If MS want W7 in the workplace then they need to spend the pennies on ensuring *all* of the business apps used by large organisations are supported on it. That just ain't the case right now, so IT depts across the world just carry on as usual with XP.
"Indeed, many are likely to wait until the first service pack arrives, rather than rush to install a system that might - as tends to be a characteristic trait of Windows - have a few teething problems once out in the wild."
Anyone with this attitude should be ejected from the profession. SP1 is just as big an upgrade and so shoud be treated and tested in the same way. Any admin worth his salt started testing Windows 7 6 months ago and will therefore be ready to roll out any time now. Other admins waited for RTM, in which case they have a few more months of testing before roll out. Those waiting for SP1 will still have 6 months of testing once SP1 is out, so they will still be running XP 18 months from now. Those same admins will probably then start the long panic of getting off of Server 2000/2003 just like they did with NT4 a couple of years ago when Microsoft "suddenly" and "without warning" stopped supporting the aged OS.
I for one would NOT recommend any of our customers to upgrade to 7, some that went Vista without informing us paid a huge price for their mistake, both in time and money wise.
While Win7 is looking good, what I cant see is why most if not all of our business customers would need to upgrade, they have a tried and tested OS, and all their software and hardware are working fine with it, theres just not reason to do anything else, take Office 2007 (enough said already for Shitsta), fancy icons to look at , but to get to the real functions, you have to spent time looking for the freaking options. trying to sell a new product is one thing, trying to sell a shit product is another matter. I have just installed another 21 copies of Office 2003 after showing the customer Office 2007, on a 2GHz/1GB PC, it ran like a dog, I didnt have to say anymore before they made up their mind.
Imagined Ford's latest car, 6 wheels, chrome plated bodywork, twin gearbox, LCD reflective satnav on the windshield, then you turn on the engine, it coughs a few time, drives off slower than a 1967 mini, not even in a straight line, now tell me you would buy that.
Microsoft need to get their fingers out from that private area and find out what users really want, not what they thing we want.
Another thing, Vista and Win7 now, suppose to be stable, anyone tried to fix a broken Vista ? when it doesnt boot, the way to fix it is to ........ run the DVD from within Vista.. how teh freak do you repair a Vista from within Vista when it doesnt even startup ? and to watch a new Vista installation is funny, after installation, it will do a performance test to see how good your computer is.... without even allowing you a chance to install the normal chipset/video/ACHI drivers.
Having used Win7 on and off for the best part of this year and recently upgrading my main PC from XP to 7, a big part of me wishes I hadn't. I have usability issues with it, things that worked well in XP that are broken or changed in 7.
I hope the corporates I work for don't upgrade to 7. Staff are happy using XP, it does what it needs to do very well, and everyone is very comfortable using it. I can't think of any killer business reasons to spend money on upgrading, staff training, plus endure a period of reduced productivity while staff get to grips with it or find workarounds for usability or even compatability issues (which aren't huge, 7 is fairly good on that front. I'm running a 10 year old version of Photoshop 'cos it does everything I need).
XP was good in its day and since Vista it has been appreciated even more than it was originally. I'm not convinced it will change that much.
If anyone knows how I can feedback bug/usability issues to Microsoft please let me know.
"Any admin worth his salt started testing Windows 7 6 months ago and will therefore be ready to roll out any time now."
Er, you mean "any admin given the time and money by his/her employer" don't you?
Of course, none of those employers give a toss, because li'l old XP is chugging along nicely, running all the apps they want. Why would they waste time and money on an upgrade they simply don't need?
As for what happens when Microsoft withdraw support for XP, most employers have calculated that the cost outweighs the risk, as their current OS is reasonably stable and will be for some time.
... you could actually upgrade from xp to win7 - but you can't unless you go via vista.
Sorry but if it means finding and re-installing all my apps or putting the pile of turds previously known as vista on my machine for even a few seconds then they can sit and spin because I ain't doing it.
How hard can it be for them to design an inplace xp- win7 upgade route?
"Any admin worth his salt started testing Windows 7 6 months ago and will therefore be ready to roll out any time now"
No any admin worth his salt will be working on what THE BUSINESS requires: if they're looking at a new desktop OS then fine, otherwise they should be getting on with their work.
That's not to say they shouldn't be playing with it at home/in their own time of course... ;-)
Also, why is this written in such a sarcastic 'yeah right' tone El Reg? Windows 7 is about to be launched, of course the marketing droids are beginning to fire off their Why-You-All-Need-To-Get-Windows-7-NOW guff right about now. They'd be remiss if they didn't - it's their job!
Of course they all know and we all know that no-one takes all that much notice of it all, it's just what happens when new products are launched.
XP works fine for an office desktop machine and will for many years to come. So the reason for upgrading to a new OS is...er... "because Microsoft want you to", which isn't good enough for most businesses.
Hopefully many businesses will realise that Ubuntu works just as well for desktop machines and use that instead ;)
Have always been rubbish.
The only way to reliably install is a fresh empty partition.
You wait for Win7.. SP1 ... test and wait till replacing all the old PCs.
I don't believe an 6 or 7 year old system with 512M or even less running XP perfectly will run Win7. And if it did what is the advantage? None.
I can see no value to Win7 for existing PCs at all.
"Unsurprisingly, Microsoft disagrees with that notion. It feels super confident that now is the time to move on from XP, forget about the painful upgrade process users were shackled with when Vista rocked up, and get with the Windows 7 install program, people."
Erm, didn't MS say the pretty much the same thing 2 years ago about upgrading from XP to Vista? "Now is the time, People. Don't wait. Vista is so wonderful you will make mayonaise all day long while using it." And now they're trying the same tired mantra with Win7. Truth is, only the hardcore MS fanbois really give a shit about Vista or Win7, the rest of us just want an OS that won't make the helldesk phone ring off the hook. And after 8 years, XP still fits that bill.
The only way MS will get a massive migration to Win7 is if they can convince a large proportion of the apps vendors to drop support for XP and support Vista SP3, um, I mean, Windows 7 only. But the vendors aren't in a hurry to do that because their customers are quite happy with XP.
AC wrote: "Any admin worth his salt started testing Windows 7 6 months ago and will therefore be ready to roll out any time now"
So presumably, you started testing Vista as soon as it was released and somehow managed to get it to work well enough for the end-users BEFORE they released any service packs?
FUD and you know it.
Like most business software it's a means towards an end so Microsoft would have to prove convincingly that there is a excellent business reason for jumping to Windows 7 and the consequences to in-house and specialist software used by the business.
In this recession how many company have the money to spare for such a change?
I've been using Microsoft software since the beginning and every new operating involves some degree of pain (in the case of the Windows Millennium - Agony) and Windows XP was not exempt.
By the way I've tried Windows 7 and hated it - it may be faster but it seems to be dumb
VNC doesn't work from Vista onward ... You have to use "Remote Desktop", but you can't use this to show a user how to do something.
OpenVPN also has real issues if you want to add routes, which is kinda the point of it.
Unfortunately these are apps that we use for remotely controlling PC's, and without them the user has to come to us ...
We're better off in Ubuntu.
Why on earth would a business want to install a phat new OS on old machines?
It's just going to waste time, be slower and annoy the users.
What possible business benefit is there?
Surely you just move to the new OS gradually as and when the machines are replaced.
Or do Microsoft somehow make it difficult/impossible to run a mix of XP and Vista/7 machines?
Just came out of a meeting regarding our upgrade policy. Yes, we are going to phase out XP and no, it's not Windows 7. It's SuSE.
Goodbye Microsoft. Welcome to our new Novell overlords.
Well, it's happened and I must truthfully admit there is a strange sense of anxiety and relief...
Any admin worth his salt will realise that an upgrade to windows 7 is pointless and a disruption to smooth running IT systems. Not to mention increased support costs as users call the helpdesk to ask "why don't my computer work like it did before, how do I do x,y and z in on this new computer?"
Perhaps in several years time when windows 7 is on the home machines of the majority of employees and all the bugs that will be discovered over the next 12 months are fixed it will be worthy of consideration.
The laptop I am typing this on runs Ubuntu and dual boots into Windows 7 RC. I have booted into windows 7 twice. I thought to myself "fuck this" when I realised all the steps I would have to take to secure Win 7 from Microsoft... IMHO Windows 7 is spyware.
My company is using xp with ie6 and notes 6.5. We have 50000+ employees so I can't see it changing anything until a major lock-in kicks in and we have no choice.
Personally I dropped XP for w2000 because of genuine advantage/antivirus bloat/forced upgrades to media player etc... oh and the fact I couldn't re-install it without ringing microsoft to ask if it was ok with them to use my software...
Windows 2000, just for running Money 2004 - all running in VirtualBox on ubuntu of course.
Tux cos there's no freetard icon
I upgraded from vista to XP pro in January, and it was a massive relief. Now I'm planning to stick with XP for a few years while my target OS improves a bit more. And that's Ubuntu, not win7. Frankly, if my favourite games ran on Linux I'd have switched ages ago.
Win7 should be why7? If it's based on vista it will be crappy, slow and a resource hog. Who needs it? Oh, yes. Those people who have vista and are desperate for a way out.
... but it's to a Mac and OS X. As an end user rather than an IT support drone, all I can say is thank fuck for that as it'll be the end of 15 years plus of Windows hell/mediocrity and movement to an OS that will actually help me to do my work rather than hinder me every fricking step of the way.
> WTF?
>> "Indeed, many are likely to wait until the first service pack arrives, rather than rush to install a system that might - as tends to be a characteristic trait of Windows - have a few teething problems once out in the wild."
> Anyone with this attitude should be ejected from the profession ..
by Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 15th September 2009 13:35 GMT
--
What is it your organization does that desperatly required the mass deployment of Windows 7/SP1 I mean a lot of people out there are just drawing breath after the Vista migration ...
>> 'Windows 7 has advanced capabilities such as Remote Desktop'
> Errr excuse me, I've been using VNC since Win 2K days!
But VNC is somewhat different to RDP. RDP allows remote working from another system with a choice of resolution, VNC shadows a machine. (Useful for remote supporet, but poor for remote working.)
It was XP that introduced RDP to workstations, so the point stands.
Wow there's a lot of comments from people who don't have a clue what they are talking about. Win7 is reported to run just as well as XP runs on similar hardware - both 5 year old kit and high-end stuff you can get today. In fact some Netbook users have reported it to run faster than XP.
Anyway....
Businesses will end up migrating to Windows 7 slowly but surely. Your right, there's no amazing new feature, but a stack of management improvements is normally enough to invest compared to employing more IT staff as your business grows.
We deployed Vista in May 2007 (was released November 2006) and have been very happy with it. We did tests and realised it ran slowly on old hardware, but the OS ran fine on new hardware and the management advantages were worthwhile. As such new machines brought ran Vista. This meant we could image machines within 20 minutes and a LOT easier than RIS in Windows XP / 2003.
Being Vista has a stack of new GPO's, we took advantage and implemented various security options that we could only do with 3rd party products. That saved £12k by not having to renew / upgrade that!
The same with apply with Windows 7. Small things like additional GPO's, refinements in UAC and imagining technology, ability to block USB keys and encrypt them across the company, support for a modern OS that will run on our oldest PC's etc.
There's nothing killer in Windows 7. Neither was there in Windows XP or Vista (although I think security has jumped a huge amount in Vista onwards). I won't be recommending spending £30,000 on upgrading our XP and Vista boxes to 7 - but I will be recommending using Windows 7 on all new PC's from Feb 2010 onwards as there's no additional costs but you get better performance, management and administration compared to XP or Vista.
64bit
there, on windows7 it works and it works well, so businesses who would like to do stuff that works better in 64bit (big zip files for a starter), will probably want something their users are more familiar with.
Since a lot of end users migrated to laptops (as did I for 4 years :) ) and as we know a laptop often lasts only 2 years in a normal household, many people will be getting their mitts on win 7 sooner as it will be pre-installed, and of course a lot of people currently stuck with vista , because they dont have the knowledge to reinstall, will be looking for an easy upgrade because they know vista is erm.... not very good.
to retraining users wont be such a massive problem
and there are benefits from moving forward, if we didnt have progression there would still be old men with combovers and clipboards telling us what to do..............hang on , thats the council isnt it? :)
Microsoft is feeling the economic crisis, and want people to throw money their way, ofc they want you to buy their stuff, preferable multiple times.
There is absolutely no reason for buisnesses to upgrade their existing computers to windows 7, tech junkies will say I'm wrong, I'm a techie too, but I'm also a realist.
A company who is not experiencing any problems with their IT infrastructure, everything is working is not likely to rock the boat, just because of the latest and greatest From Microsoft, the most that will come out is some will buy windows 7 for compatibility tests, and not much else.
No admin worth their wages will even push for it, because it is just a huge expense for companies to change, even a service pack can create enormous problems, and therefore takes a lot of resources for testing, which is why it is always adopted long after the initial release.
Sure they will be testing, the system, getting ready for the time when they're forced to buy windows 7, preparing for this, I really do not think they're even vaugely concerned that XP support is going to go away.
The only ones that see a good buisness and point in upgrading to Windows 7 are windows fanbois, and early adapters, for everyone else it's just money out of the windows (pun intended), there is no reason at all to upgrade from XP, until you buy a new machine and have the windows 7 license forced down your throat.
TBH, this is a great argument for switching to open source, linux, freebsd, Netbsd and what not, because the support for these platforms can be regulated by the admins.. There is no pressure to upgrade, if you want to keep a platform at a older stage you can, and you can pick and choose what needs to be patched, and you can build the patches your self - if you so choose, or you can do like the windows system, and accept bundle upgrades - freedom of choice - gotta love it.
Having to upgrade programs again for compatibility, and so forth, is a good time to consider if there should be a jump to the free (as in beer) open source platforms, which would adequately cover about 90% of all IT tasks.
I have finally adopted Vista at work - but not without a fallback to the old XP box on a KVM. I do not plan to immediately convert to W7 until the end users sweat the details (because Microsoft will not have - I actually learn from history). Most 3rd party apps have caught up to Vista now also.
As for the "necessity" to upgrade, the term "Revenue Generation" is weighted toward Redmond at the moment, not to me. Think of all the course/textbook/cert revenues alone! Out of my pocket, into theirs.
As for spending my own time "learning" W7 at present, I put that time to better use with Linux.
As a *nix user and having to put up with 7 of MSDN for testing ,(wish it was 7 of 9), I would say anyone thinking of deploying a new immature OS on a desktop is insane, Its a damn good desktop and i like it, the kid likes it, the wife likes it...... but corporate usage?? gimme some time man....
The concept of 'Early Adopters' spells out their desire to be rim-rolled (c).
Dear Micro$oft,
It seems you did such a good job with XP as is now, there is no compelling reason to move away from it. Congratulations M$, you finally did something right! Hey, it's even better than Win3.11FWG!
What? You don't care for compliments about XP anymore? But... but, I thought you cared!
As for Win7, I appreciate you telling me about it, as you did with Vista, but I'll just hang on to XP a while longer. It works SOo well...
Nice hearing from you. Take care.
Oh, I think Paris is going for it. Bless...
I work for a research center that is part of a medical school. The school banned upgrades to Vista on new machines from Vista's release in 2006 up until now. We are an XP ONLY shop. Every new "Vista Capable" PC was downgraded to XP by IT before they landed on anyone's desk. Our IT department doesn't rush into OS upgrades based on the fact that a vendor is pushing us to do it (obviously so they can make money. There is no other reason for them to push customers to buy a product. ). No one here is using Vista. No one here will be using Windows 7. The help desk has enough trouble supporting a bunch of college graduates who barely have the skills to use XP on the desktop. The interface differences in Windows 7 alone would cause a dramatic increase in support calls across the board. It's just not going to happen here, and is highly unlikely to happen on a large scale anywhere else. Microsoft's only hope is new PC sales because not nearly as many people as they hope for were willing to pay the high "Microsoft Tax" for the upgrade software. Who has that kind of money to waste in this economy? Typing this on a laptop that dual boots Ubuntu and Vista. Only touched Vista twice in two months. They lower the upgrade price to something real people who aren't rich can afford, I'll consider it. Otherwise, I don't think so.
After reading Peter Gutman's "Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" I decided to part company with MS. But apart from running various Buntus I have just bought my first *ever* legal copy of a MS product .( I started with DOS 2.0 IIRC)
Guess what? It's a laptop downgraded to XP!
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
rolling out xp service pack 3, i have been told that we will go straight to 7 at some point, but personally i cant see it.
I have installed 7 (RC)twice on my machine, i like it, but in both cases i have been annoyed enough by serious niggles, to the point where i've wiped it and put xp back. I assume a higher spec machine would be fine, but the netbook i used is higher spec than every single pc we have at work.
I can't see any valid busines reason for switching, especially considering the sheer number of custom apps that would need testing, even if they didn't need changing. I wonder if Microsoft will certify visual studio 2.2 to run on windows 7 without any issue whatsoever? As porting all our code to visual studio 6 would be a massive undertaking, nevermind 2008. It would be better to rewrite from scratch, but no business will approve that without a 'damn good reason'
We don't own Windows 7. We own Vista. Most of our 35,000 desktops/laptops, recently replaced, have Vista stickers. Why would we pay to upgrade to Windows 7 when it is just a prettier version of Vista?? We will move to Vista from XP.. next year maybe. If Microsoft gives us Windows 7 for free.. we might consider that.
Windows 7 should not have been marketed as a full "new" OS. It's not really a Vista SP3 (it's more than that) and it's not really a full new OS (it's less than that).
It should have been sold as an inexpensive *update* for existing Vista users somewhere around $29.95.
On the retail shelves it should be sold as both full (for unlicensed users) and update (for existing Vista licenses) versions.
MS appear to be a victim of their own success. The very reason why XP is blocking the commercial success of other client (not server) operating systems - ie. user intransigence ('it just works', 'I'm familiar with its user interface', etc.) - is now the very reason why business appears to be resisting any 'upgrade' (the jury is still out on the appropriateness of that term) to W7.
That MS droids really think that Vista's problem was a marketing issue and not a technical one. That's why Win7 feels like vista SP3 with a forced new taskbar no one asked for.
They have fixed those issues that had a match with the marketing complaints, the rest remain unresolved as they were in vista, ie:
1) General dumb down of the whole desktop concept
2) Pushing new concepts and metaphors down people's throats just for the sake of change.
3) Too many wizards that only serve to confuse even the most seasoned admin.
4) Uses too much resources (yes even 7 still does)
I think there's a long life for XP ahead, those pesky license servers required for volume licensing won't be welcomed by many I'm afraid.
XP does mostly what I want (with a few annoying random freezes) & seems fairly stable too.
Why would I want to get W7 & have to relearn where M$ has decided to put everything this time...
Hopefully by the time I need to upgrade it will be simple enough to go to Ubuntu or similar.
I don't want to pay M$ any more to have to jump thru their hoops (eg WGA) for DRMd crap (eg fista file copy)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
