What is your IT department doing about

piako said:
planning for Vista adoption? Curious to ask b/c it seems this article and this article both say corporate IT adoption is slow. Do you really think that some shops will skip vista all-together and wait for the next os?
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We are a very large retailer, and our vista adoption is case by case. We are migrating to win2k8 as fast as possible because that is actually a solid product. There are still many issues with Vista, in the workplace, that are show stoppers for some people. We do not have a date in place for a full rollout and I dont think we ever will to be honest.
 
Like most other people here, we are buying XP downgrade licenses for the new computers we get for clients. Too many incompatibilities with software Then there is the whole printer driver thing. We had one medical office go out and buy a bunch of vista tablets without telling us, then they call and say they need them setup on the network. Getting that straightened out was a mess . . . . then the doctors absolutely hated the things and we ended up buying XP Pro licenses for them . . .

I ran Vista on my desktop at work since beta 1. I really wanted to like it, and I DO absolutely love it for home use, but it has no place in a business environment right now. Especially for a consultant like myself. I have to be able to VPN into different places and that crashes all the time. With Vista I got about 1-2 different VPN sessions before the client would crap out and the only way to get it working again was with a reboot. For the last few months I was using Vista I was running XP inside MS Virtual PC so I could do all my remote support crap. I then came to the startling conclusion that the only thing I was using Vista for was Office 2007 and Firefox. I finally got so frustrated with crap crashing and/or locking up that I wiped my desktop and installed XP SP3 and have just been absolutely amazed at how much more I can get done in a day. My computer is fast and just works now.

We have another guy in the office that absolutely refuses to get rid of Vista on his laptop and I hear him swear at it at least four times a day . . .
 
Most if the PC's in our office are still on XP with office 2k7. We have a few vista business machines. Mostly for the tech's to learn vista. We have been talking about a switch, but it wont be anytime soon.
We are also a dell reseller, and all the pc's we have been ordering are coming with the down grade options to XP. No one seems to want vista right now.
I am dual booting at home with vista ultimate and xp pro with pc in sig. I have problems every now and then with some games, but it has not been too bad. You just need a lot of machine to run vista, and people buy cheap 500 dollar pc's then bitch when vista runs slow. This week i saw 4 dell's with vista, and 512mb of ram. I cried then laughed
 
None of our computers can run Vista, being a small company with about 35 end users, something like a complete IT overhaul would have to be budget about a year in advance. Also after my experience with upgrading 5 execs to Office 2007, I would be kind of scared to sit them in front of a Vista machine. I have never had to so many phone calls and pages in one day. (I am the only IT guy here) Most of it just had to do with the ribbon bar and fact that they were too impatient to look for the option they wanted. Also about 50% of the software (custom designed) that we run isn't technically supported on Vista. I am sure it would run but I don't even have a machine with 2 gigs here to run as a test bed. I eventually plan on upgrading but if I can make these crappy, old, dells live for another two years maybe we will bypass Vista all together and jump right into 7.
 
Why would you upgrade them to 2007? People like that are too busy to be learning shitty new UIs left and right. Unless the next Office release either reverts back to the good way of doing things, or lets you pick which way, 2003 will be the last MS Office version I ever use on my home PC.
 
Office 2007 is extremely easy to use, even for people who are not computer savvy. The tab menu bar is easier to navigate rather than click drop-down menu options and going into sub-menus from there.

We don't have plans on upgrading our XP machines to Vista anytime soon.
 
Absolutely nothing. We are still finishing the roll out of XP. Still quite a few laptops and desktops still sporting 2000. We will probably kick Vista to everyone once Windows 7 is available heh.
Same with my last job as well. They are most likely almost done with an XP roll out.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I've only deployed Vista at 1x client of mine...a law firm. Brand new hardware. Even on current hardware, Core 2 Duos, adequate RAM, complaints of slowness.

Other obstacles....

***Vista clients often cannot easily install printer shares from the server (2K3)...as some printers have drivers specifically for Vista, which cannot install on 2K3 server. 2K3/XP drivers that the server uses will error out if you try to install to workstations via the server share. And from I've read, Microsoft does not plan on adding Vista drive support to 2K3 server like they did in the past with older OS's...where on the server you can manually install drivers for other OS's on the servers print share. :rolleyes: Also check any other networked hardware, networked scanners, fax machines, other big MFP units, timeclocks, etc.

***Many applications require the latest program version to be able to be run on Vista. So here is some added "cost" to factor in. Such as this law firm client of mine....they always keep up to date with their primary LOB, "Needles"..so that was fine. But other software, such as their Trial software called "Sanctions"...needed the latest version. Plus their accounting department needed the latest version of Timeslips, as well as the latest version of Sage/Peachtree Accounting...more costs.

A rule of thumb for me....always keep your network running platforms which are supported by your line of business software. Make sure they will support their product on Vista. As time goes on...this won't be such a problem, as they don't have a choice. But last year, not many were as of yet.
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Well, I assume you have a open volume license with XP or your buying to downgrade. That will only last for so long.
 
kent said:
Vista?

We're still on NT 3.51. Sorry guys.
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I still miss the DOS 5 with Novell NetWare 3.1 days. The only apps that mattered were WordPerfect and Lotus 123. Life was simple.
 
My company isn't interested in Vista at all. They plan to stay with XP for at least 3 to 5 more years. The cost and compatibility issues with old mainframe's is the reason for not upgrading right now. Microsoft did try to sell us vista with an Office package but the cost per machine was so much that they priced themselves right out of the building.
 
dandragonrage said:
Use Access 2007 and tell me that again.
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I have used it and don't see any issues with it as far as ease of use.

That's not to say it will take some time "finding" things but I, myself, find Office 2007 easier to use than Office 2003 and prior versions.
 
Nothing apparently. We're sticking with XP for as long as we can then I'd imagine we'll gradually roll out Vista machines. Our IT department is used to supporting multiple versions of Windows anyway and limited testing shows that the vast majority of our software will still work correctly.

I'm more concerned about supporting our users than compatibility. They're all used to 2000/XP.
 
I've seen the workstation guys playing with it and trying it on the standard workstations (IBM T60 laptops) but no word yet on it being used here.

I remember that they didn't move to XP very quickly either...but when you're a mega-corp I guess thousands upon thousands of licenses aren't cheap, plus all the tech support hours from switchovers.
 
We're sticking with XP. Most of our desktop computers just won't be able to handle Vista. Also, there is no point in upgrading. XP does everything that we need without the hefty requirements (not to mention then we'd have to be supporting 2 OS's). However we are in the process of deploying a Server 2008 machine (sitting on the desk across from me).
 
dandragonrage said:
Use Access 2007 and tell me that again.
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I moved my entire office to 2007. We use Access a lot. Access 2007 is very easy to use. In fact the majority of people are happy with the new features that it brings.

Office "power users" aren't affected by the UI change, they use all just use the keyboard commands. The huge improvement in usability for people who aren't experts in office (that included access) is well worth the small number of people who didn't like it.

The whole Office 2007 suite (including Access :p) is a huge improvement.
 
dandragonrage said:
Use Access 2007 and tell me that again.
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I just developed a huge database for my company in Access 2k7, and I found it far easier to use than 2k3, just because of the new menu system alone. The only slight problem I ran into was the PDF plugin support not sizing the PDF page size properly, so I had to force a printer setting in VB coding.
 
Angelus897 said:
We're sticking with XP. Most of our desktop computers just won't be able to handle Vista. Also, there is no point in upgrading. XP does everything that we need without the hefty requirements (not to mention then we'd have to be supporting 2 OS's). However we are in the process of deploying a Server 2008 machine (sitting on the desk across from me).
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Server 08 is real nice. I've deployed a few so far. Have a new one for a client that just got ordered today(poweredge 2900 with 08 std 64)
 
most of our office was running vista the week it was released. But we are a software company that has a bunch of developers that had run it for a couple months at home when it was in the RC state.
 
We are skipping Vista for our computer labs here at the University. Once Windows 7 comes out, then we'll revisit the possibility of migrating.
 
We have 4000 users with about 1000 computers and they are all XP. We bounced the idea around briefly of going to Vista on our new machines, but had problems from the start and shelved it. I reimage all the machines we order back to XP.

We did go to Office 2007 and that has gone fairly smoothly.

I have to assume at some point we will go to Vista, mostly because we have to, but we are in no rush.
 
I work at a small(ish) private college with about 157 PC's, all running XP 64-bit. Saw too many problems while testing Vista with the applications we use (computer animation department), Maya ran fine, but Adobe apps randomly crapped out or didn't want to function, and saw no reason to move up, even tho the other IT thought it was appropriate to go with Vista, but they don't have a degree in animation, so I had to fight a little bit to prove a point.
 
We just bought 3 computers at work, and they came with both vista and xp, xp was loaded out of the box.
 
we have about 2200 systems mostly on XP, a few odd ball 95's because of old manufacturing equipment....

We deploy / refresh about 30 systems a month all with XP. But we are getting our first Vista machines in a few weeks. Lenovo X300's for a select few people ( me being one ).

So we will see how those machines go..

We are in the same boat as some others. We order Vista and re-image using XP incase we ever want to jump them up to Vista..

d.
 
my company is getting a full hardware refresh with pc's rolled back to XP. the general consensus of our whole shop was that Vista is a solid and nice OS for the home user...but it risks being very complicating in our business environment for no real advantage. All in all, its a low demand from the machines. if they boot quick and load apps quick its all we need (barring select CADD machines...)

there simply isnt a direct need for Vista with what we do...its very possible wed stay with it even with the future version of whatever Microsoft offers...barring some absolutely amazing feature.

the bigger concern is ultimately the lack of a REASON to upgrade vs the difficulties in doing so.
 
piako said:
planning for Vista adoption? Curious to ask b/c it seems this article and this article both say corporate IT adoption is slow. Do you really think that some shops will skip vista all-together and wait for the next os?
Click to expand...

It's hard to overcome the perceived negativity about Vista. Just take Windows Mojave as an example. So I think we are probably waiting for Windows 7. At first we were gung ho about Vista. But I think at that time we had too many old Athlon 1600's floating around. It probably deserves another look with SP1 out. But then again we have other projects to tackle right now.

We did end up going to Office 2007, from Office XP. We needed to update as we had missed the boat on Office 2003. Of course it looks like crap on XP but oh well.

We also jumped from NT4 to 2003 on the server side in 2003. So it seems we have a history of skipping versions.

As for me, I'm running Vista Enterprise on my desktop and couldn't be happier.
 
dandragonrage said:
Most of our desktops still have to support an old DOS accounting application called Real World.... No Vista for us 'til my boss convinces the woman in charge of that to switch.
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DOS? I'd like to see an IT auditor rip that business practice to shreds :D
Especially in accounting, no less!!
 
dbwillis said:
At my day job, they are planning Vista/office2007 by the end of the year, they gave us new machines to get used to Vista on (HP DC7800), I promptly used it for all of 2 weeks, then unplugged it and stuck it against my cubicle wall.
Horrible performance for a dual core machine with 3gb mem, my T61 with XP works much faster and only has a 5400rpm drive.
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I have the same machine, DC7800 small form factor, C2D 2.33, 3GB DDR667. Performance was a lot better once I set the power settings to High Performance. Vista was trying to throttle everything back.
 
brons2 said:
It's hard to overcome the perceived negativity about Vista. Just take Windows Mojave as an example.
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Totally unfair evaluation though. Vista works fine in a bubble with nothing more than Office 2007 installed. When it has to interface with other software and hardware, it starts to break down.
 
When do you all think the next OS by Microsoft is even going to roll out? Just curious because I'm going to be building a new pc for myself in about 2 years.
 
I was an intern for our Health System in our town for a long time... and around the time I left.. they had JUST starting to adopt Windows XP in 2006.. a full 5 years after XP came out.


The reason IT Departments are slow to adopt is this...


"If it aint broke.. don't break it"

In other words.. if everything works perfectly like it is.. why upgrade?
 
decided against it. corporate didn't find any real significant reason to switch.
 
dragontales said:
We have about 300 users in 3 offices. We have zero plans for Vista as of now. We will most likely skip it all together.
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I guess it would come down to price. My problem is we do not buy more than 1 machine at a time normally.. I was really stretching the budget when I asked for 2 :p

I was told by my supervisors only 1 at time ... makes things interesting.

Hell the only thing we've sprung out and got the way your mentioning is office 2007 but downgraded to office 2003.. Because the owners curve could not sync w/ outlook 2000.

Think about how many employees I wrote in my above post and think about small/mid size company budgets. Also consider we're a Logistics company and fuel pricing is crazy right now.

Edit:
Also, Vista would need to have a major overhaul for us to ever consider using it.. I don't see this happening so we'll be skipping vista for the next Microsoft release either it being windows or it's new virtual server type stuff. I may have read wrong but it sounded like it would be backwards compatible w/ legacy systems?
 
400 computers, 10 servers. Servers are going to 2008 except for a couple to keep legacy RIS imaging available. Desktops are staying XP and new desktops are getting reimaged with XP. I can't deploy vista until they decide to hire more IT people (I'm flying solo atm) or I find some amazing amount of free time to redo how we do everything.
 
Valnar said:
Totally unfair evaluation though. Vista works fine in a bubble with nothing more than Office 2007 installed. When it has to interface with other software and hardware, it starts to break down.
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QFT. Totally unfair evaluation.

If all you are doing is running standalone to play games or light home usage, Vista can be made to work. If you use it in an Enterprise environment & ask it to interface with a network and multiple business apps, its many flaws become apparent very quick.

None of my clients have a compelling need to upgrade, so I am recommending staying with XP for the forseeable future.
 
Campus has at least 4k or so windows based (non-server) computers, all running XP. Really no reason to put vista on any of the machines so students can type up papers and run MATLAB, Pro-E, Solid Works etc...

Sadly, most computers researchers use are too old to run vista without extreme pain for the end user.
 
I work for a VERY large company and we had Microsoft in her to look at upgrading to vista and the compatibility with older systems and cost shot Microsoft out of the water. VISTA may be a great OS for the home user but it doesn't play well with others so big business just wont adopt it.
 
Personally im looking to move to OSX when the MBP refresh comes out (with bootcamp XP/Vista for games etc).

At work (1400~ pupil secondary/sixth form school) we're staying with Win XP on our main IT suites etc (300~ machines) - we did recently install a Leopard server for our Art and Media departments and im really impressed with the speed of things and Appls implementation of remote desktop is immense - from a management PoV Apple wins hands down.

I doubt we will ever move over to Apple (having bought 120~ PCs in the last year) whilst i'm there but it seems to me like you could easily get everything done on Apple hardware - using bootcamp to cater for your windows needs during the transition.

In short: Vista = failure!
 
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