Closing the Door to Microsoft Vista

[graigchq]

There is nothing wrong with Vista, it seems GM has a poor IT department if you ask me.

seriously, why SHOULD any IT dept want to upgrade to vista?

if XP does the job, and does it well, is 100% supported by alll software and the software was designed for it, why do we need to migrate?

Now when we went from 98 to 2000, a huge difference was undertaken, and most software was re-written for 2000 (NT) the problem is, Vista is neither an incremental difference or a huge step, so theres fuzzy ground for developers:- do they re-write for vista, or doo they patch the XP code?

or

stick with XP and stay happy until the need arises.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

It has nothing to do with competency. It has to do with GM having a current working configuration and not wanting to spend the money for Vista --AND-- Windows 7, opting to just wait for Windows 7 instead.

"Competency" is not defined as "ability and invariable willingness to purchase and implement every Microsoft product released."

GM almost certainly wouldn't be "purhasing" Vista and then Win7. They would have an enterprise agreement that would likely give them Windows 7 when it comes, depending on which enterprise software assurance thingy they buy.

The main reason for a company to hold back is that they don't want some of their machines running Vista and some running XP, because that can be harder to maintain. Instead, some companies prefer to wait until all of their machines are upgraded (and most companies have cycles where they replace 1/3 of their systems every three years, or 1/5 of them every 5 years, etc). Considering the utterly terrible financial situation that GM is in, it makes sense that they still have a lot of old hardware.

It seems to me what they're saying is that by the time all their machines are refreshed to modern hardware, Windows 7 will be available. There are some companies for whom this is a reasonable stance.

It's not exactly the end of the world for Microsoft. They're still buying computers, and they're still paying for XP - and they're still planning to buy Microsoft OSes and upgrades in the future.

I don't really see what the story is here. If they were dumping Windows for Linux or a bunch of Macs it would be news. But this is an example of something that happens all the time and has for several years.

seriously, why SHOULD any IT dept want to upgrade to vista?

if XP does the job, and does it well, is 100% supported by alll software and the software was designed for it, why do we need to migrate?

More secure. Better search (a big deal for many enterprises). Better deployment options. Those are just a few off the top of my head.

Now when we went from 98 to 2000, a huge difference was undertaken, and most software was re-written for 2000 (NT) the problem is, Vista is neither an incremental difference or a huge step, so theres fuzzy ground for developers:- do they re-write for vista, or doo they patch the XP code?

It's basically just as much of a "rewrite" as Windows 2000 was. From that perpsective (looking at things only skin deep) - exactly how was Windows 2000 different from Windows 98SE other than architectural changes and a shadow under the mouse cursor?

[DreadBoat89]

Considering the utterly terrible financial situation that GM is in, it makes sense that they still have a lot of old hardware.

well... their executive did manage to get pay raises this year.... so... yeah

[alsheron]

Um, BitLocker is NOT an Ultimate extra. It's part of what is included with Ultimate, and companies like GM will have some sort of Enterprise agreement. E.G. they get Vista Enterprise which is volume licence only. That includes BitLocker.

There's a number of things that IT Deparments that fully use the Windows ecosystem realise are big advantages that you only get with Vista. There's this thing called security that coroporate IT takes pretty seriously. The enhancements in Vista give it a much more secure approach throughout the OS. In particular UAC and IE7+ protected mode.

The guy who said that administration is bad in Vista is either a moron, a troll or a liar. Vista uses GPO's. The same GPO's that Windows 2000 and XP use. However MS have ADDED (not removed) a number of extra GPO's to provide additional management.

Aero, DX10, Photo Gallery, MCE are consumer technologies aimed for the consumer. However the new GPO's, UAC, mobility centre, BitLocker, NAP, Integrated search, faster boot ups / sleep are reasons companies like Commerical Airlines, Bank of America, Shell and other huge organisations are taking Vista up and deploying it as I type this up.

I don't blame GM for not jumping onto Vista. Thankfully where I work we have a 3 year hardware lifecycle (then it's auctioned off to staff) and we don't go for the very, very cheapest Dell we can get when we replace them. We also ensure that all applications (from Office through to our multi-million pound ERP Oracle system) are certified to run on the current version of Windows. MS have not changed anything regarding Vista in terms of compatibiltiy compared to XP other than to enforce the standards specified in 2002 regarding development on the Windows platform. (I wouldn't expect many Linux users to expect applications to install into /etc or /lib for example.) If GM are running an application that is not written for the operating system (Windows, not a specific version.) then they'll have the same problems with Windows Seven, Eight and Nine.

Oh and 1Gb of RAM, a P4 2.6+ and a 40Gb HD is more than enough to run Vista for a office clerk. I had my main Media Centre PC running Vista Ultimate on 512Mb, 1.3Ghz Athlon and a couple of knackered IDE disks!

Very well said!

[TC17]

I'm so dang sick of this complete BS being spread about Vista. Then of course there are all the idiots who actually think this is true.

I've run Vista on an old computer even, and it runs fine. My experience, and MANY other people who run Vista just fine and love it, is proof of how stupid this whole thing is.

Its more like GM is suffering from the poor economy and this is their excuse for not upgrading their ATARI 400 computers, instead of telling it like it is.

[Dc'1]

Do they think that all of the incompatibility issues will go away after Windows Vista?

[ZZzzzzzZZZZZ]

Everyone here knocking vista its not all that bad. Eventually when migrating to windows 7 you will still need to upgrade your computer hardware.

Thing I like about vista is its less susceptible to malware, trojans.

Also those fo you who have waited and installed windows xp SP3 you have just opened loppholes.

[midway40]

You have no idea how true that is. I know because I work for a company that provides hardware, software, network solutions to dealerships. I will leave it at that. Don't believe me? Ask any GM dealership.

I do work at a GM dealership. The accounting/inventory software we have to use looks like something from the 80's with a modern frontend on it. In fact I use the "'80's" desktop instead of the new one because it is much faster. This software is not Vista compatible so we have to stick to XP. Because it is web-based, we cannot even update certain things like Java and such because it will break the program. Everybody hates it and we still have 3 years left on our contract.

The SysAdmin would love to go to Vista. He would set up everyone as a standard user which would eliminate a lot of headaches he has to deal with (such as malware).

[hagjohn]

Doesn't surprise me at all. They can talk about something other than their falling sales and profits.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I LOLED

[WigglesTheFish]

I have to admit, I've had issues with Vista but every problem was related to crappy drivers. I run Vista Ultimate x64 and now that I've ironed out all the driver problems I can honestly say its just as stable as XP, it works great for me now.

[jjrambo]

You can't compare Home and Corporate Environment. Vista requires new hardware and GM doesn't want to spend money on it. Also Vista is too expensive. $400 for Retail Copy of Ultimate compared to $120 for Mac OS. It's rip off. When you compare XP and Vista, Vista doesn't offer anything new worth looking at for GM. Btw I would not have Vista machines along with Windows 2003 Servers. I'd rather go with Windows 2008 Servers.

Personally, i don't care about Vista and Windows in general. I don't use Vista for anything but gaming. The real work and other things i do on Mac OS.

But again the only reason why i'm on Vista is DX10.0 otherwise i would still do gaming under Windows XP.

To me Vista has no values and i think its design is totally done wrong. I get tired using it, but then i switch to Mac OS and I actually enjoy computing :)

I have seen that Best Buy started selling Apple Computers. A way to go...

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

Seeing as how GM is failing, I don't see how this is news.

[Rebdomine]

My of my problems with Vista is not releated to Microsoft but more to the program developers and manufactors.

So no.. It's not a failior

[*RedBull*]

WHO SAID WINDOWS 7 WON'T TAKE A HIGHER DEMAND ON HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS?

[EduardValencia]

Microsoft Greedy division :0

Common sense :1

<snipped>

My system has 1 Gb RAM and it's old and windows Vista runs perfectly here with 1Gb ReadyBoost,so perhaps GM here doesen't know how to apply this OS to their business,eventually they'll have newer PC and eventually will embrace Vista,and eventually will see their benefits.

Edited May 15, 2008 by PureLegend

[Axon]

I guess, then, that I'm running Microsoft's "Epic Fail" flawlessly, on x64 no less. Amazing. :rolleyes:

Hold on there, he has a point. It can still be a failure, even if the software works well. Amiga OS worked really, really well, however it too was an epic failure.

Content may be king, but adoption rates pay the king's salary. And in that way, Vista is failing.

-Ax

[Odom Member]

Big corporations and enterprises take years to migrate their systems to new OS's. This is entirely different from home use. Most comments I see here are from people who clearly have no idea how things work in an enterprise. You don't just install a new OS because it is new and it has new security benefits. Yes, this is all a big pro to be considering it in the first place: "Imagine what we could do with those new features" or "imagine what we could control with that", but imagine what else lies behind it.

First, as someone already mentioned it, there is the golden rule: it it's working, don't touch it.

Second, my current company has over a 1.000 different applications. Can you garantee me that they will work with Vista? Do you have any idea how long it takes, to test them all for compatibility issues? It would take at least 2-3 years before we even roll out the 1st PC with Vista. We just rolled out SP2 last year because Microsoft wouldn't support SP1 on our systems.

Third, also already mentioned, the cost. We currently aim to replace 1/3 of our hardware per year. Most of our systems are old and not Vista capable, or at least minimum Vista capable. You do not want to give a user a machine like that. He'll be calling up every day complaining that it's slow and you won't really be able to do anything about it. Which means, hardware needs to be updated. Do you have any idea what the price is, to update thousands of computers, to roll them out and re-install all the software, the user profiles, the work hours that go into this?

The previous company I worked with had over 150.000 PC's worldwide. When I left last year, they still hadn't rolled out Windows XP. They run Windows 2000. They had too many in-house developed software that needed to be rewritten for XP and newer Office versions. You will see this in lots of companies.

There is a lot more to it than most people think. Just because there are Microsoft corporate licence agreements, or that you can get Vista as standard on new PC's from your hardware supplier, doesn't mean that you start replacing everything.

Your PC's at home and small companies are easy to upgrade, but try to think on a bigger global scale. You cannot just roll back to XP if things start to go sour. This will cause a huge loss of time, and as they say in the business world, Time is money.

[Rebdomine]

WHO SAID WINDOWS 7 WON'T TAKE A HIGHER DEMAND ON HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS?

+ ****ing 1

[betasp]

Stupidity (you): 1

Open-mindness & intelligence: 0

My system has 1 Gb RAM and it's old and windows Vista runs perfectly here with 1Gb ReadyBoost,so perhaps GM here doesen't know how to apply this OS to their business,eventually they'll have newer PC and eventually will embrace Vista,and eventually will see their benefits.

Wait, you're right. Because you got Vista to run on your home rig running retail apps with the added cost of readyboost, it surely should work with everyone at a corporation which is running 100's, if not 1000's of custom applications. Heck, I am sure the added cost of putting easily stolen USB keys on every desktop will help somehow drive the ROI of the upgrade even further. On top of that, I am sure that no one at GM knows how to roll out out an OS, considering all they have done is used computers well before anyone had on in their home. I am glad you cleared things up...

//Sarcasm

///Bad day I guess

///Careful when throwing stones...

[kaiwai]

It is better than Windows ME. :x

Thats not setting the bar very high.

[leesmithg]

I have been using vista hp 32bit and only vista past 2 weeks.

I changed the folders to xp folders and got a couple off odd things happen with readyboost and a couple of drivers, apart from that

works fine.

It still needs a lickle touch up here-n-there, then it should be fine.

[lnxpro]

same here. for us at IBM in tech support. a lot of new desktops come with vista. our IT team takes them and first thing they do is formwat and image with XP :)

[kaiwai]

They wont update their software to work with Vista and they think it will work with Windows 7?

Windows 7 and everything after that will be based on Windows Vista. Better change stuff NOW.

XP is dead.

Did you even read the article; it was more than just one issue; when they looked at the requirements of Windows Vista, when their hardware upgrade cycle was going to occur and when the predicted next version of windows was going to be released, coupled that with the need to upgrade their software for compatibility, it was better for them to stay.

I don't know why, therefore, that people milage claiming it proves that either Vista sucks or rules. It was a decision based on a number of factors - the operating system was a very minor point.

[Azusa]

i just got vista a while back and i love it because A it runs command and conquer tiberium dawn and red alert no problem where as when i did it with XP(and yes i did try all those how to guides and non of them worked) they both didn't work at all or very well. so i say **** the haters