FAQs of Life

As a IT professional/computer geek, I have to stay current with the latest mainstream (meaning Microsoft) operating systems. While I’ve had access to Vista since November of 2006, I’m still running XP and have absolutely zero motivation for “upgrading.”   And I’m not alone. While XP to Vista upgrades are very rare due to the Vista’s hefty hardware requirements,  business customers continue to order new computers, fully Vista compatible, with Windows XP preinstalled! Just last week, due to high demand Microsoft announced OEMs would be allowed to sell computers preloaded with Windows XP until June 2008. At that time Vista will have been out for over 18 months!

I directly support nearly 200 desktop computers over a variety of industries and provide second-level support to organizations with another 500-600 computers.  Of all these computers, there are about 10 computers (7 are at one client) that have Vista installed on them.  All of these computers were purchased new with Vista preinstalled.  Since Vista was widely released in Febuary 2007, I have personally deployed somewhere in the neighbor 40 computers that were ordered with Windows XP despite the availability of Vista at the same price.

From my experience, here’s what is holding back the adoption of Vista:

1. Despite the marketing campaign touting the WOW! there are no “killer” applications or features. What does Vista do that XP doesn’t do better or faster? There are a few “neat” features, the graphics are prettier but that is no motivation for a business to move to a new OS.
2. Compatibility issues.  Cisco, Intuit (Quickbooks), Palm, and Dell (printers) are just a few of the companies I’ve encountered over the past six months whose products have Vista compatibility issues.  I’ve had problems with Vista integrating with other Microsoft products (specifically Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007).  Due to the drastic changes in the security model employed in Vista, many applications and peripherals that worked in XP have to be modified to work in Vista (if they’ll work at all) since many of the behind the scenes stuff changed to increase “security.”  While Microsoft is to blame for the decades of lax security in previous versions of Windows that allowed developers to ignore security issues to be swept aside, these companies literally had years to prepare their products to work with Vista.
3. Performance.  On hardware that exceeds the recommended specs for running Vista, XP is faster.  I don’t have any fancy graphs or charts to prove this but it isn’t hard to see it.  Simple tasks such as coping files doesn’t work well.

First of all, WAIT! If at all possible wait. The next version of Windows, called “Vista” is just around the corner. It is due to be released for business customers in November and for home users in January. Vista is the replacement for Windows XP. Now, I’m not saying if you have a computer that is a year or two old that you should rush out and upgrade to Vista. But if your PC is four plus years old and you are considering upgrading, my recommendation is to wait until Vista is released so you don’t have a computer that is outdated three months after you buy it. One note to this, historically when there’s a new version of software just around the corner, many PC manufactures will give you a free upgrade to the new version when it is released if you buy a PC in a specific time frame. I would bet that some companys (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) may do this around the holiday shopping season to entice folks to “buy now” rather than waiting for Vista. Basically the machine you buy would come with XP and after it is released, you’d get a DVD (yes Vista comes on DVDs rather than CDs) with Vista that YOU get to install on your computer (which opens a entirely new can of worms).

If you must get a PC now make sure the manufacture certifies it as “Vista Capable” - this will ensure that the new computer meets a baseline set of requirements necessary for Vista to run.

Update: Just stumbled on this Microsoft is offering an “Express Upgrade” option if you buy a “Vista Capable” PC between October 27, 2006 and March 17, 2005 BUT it will not be free!