4 ms·
Never underestimate a company's reluctance to change. Usually, the bigger they are (or the more clueless the decision-makers are), the greater the reluctance.
by umjames 16y ago
Never underestimate a company's reluctance to change. Usually, the bigger they are (or the more clueless the decision-makers are), the greater the reluctance.
- jerf 16y agoI don't do Windows (not necessarily by ideology, I just don't do it anywhere I'd learn about IT issues), so this is an honest question: Assuming a decent IT policy that closes off the worst of the security issues in other ways, and which won't change even if you upgrade, and assuming you're not a Windows development shop, what is the big business advantage of moving your company from XP to Windows 7?
- joe_bleau 16y agoWe've had to wait longer for cheap computers from places like Dell if ordered with XP than with win7. If you're in a hurry and just need a basic desktop for someone, it's something to consider. At least that's how we ended up with a mix of 2k, XP, and win7.
- winthrowe 16y agoIMO, Laptops. Supporting XP on recent laptops is an exercise in frustration due to drivers, and in my situation is compounded by the lack of standardization on a small number of models.
- kenjackson 16y ago1) System stability. If your video driver dies on XP, hello crash. On Win7 you see your screen go blank for about a 1/4 of a second and then redraws itself, back in business. 2) If you work remotely, RDP is way better. I've even streamed video over RDP and forgot that I was streaming it from a remotely located computer. 3) If using SSDs Win7 will have better perf and longer lifetime. 4) Virtual folders. But I would say that if your machines are completely locked down, for example all XP machines are not on the internet, just some closed internal network, then I think XP might be doable. Once you touch the internet though, all bets off.
- arctangent 16y agoAt my day job we're making the move from XP to Windows 7 because the large number of cumulative patches to XP have, over time, caused all of the machines to run really really slow. Our ICT department has a really cute name for this OS upgrade project: "CPR" (for "Client Platform Refresh").
- arethuza 16y agoActually, if you have thousands or tens or thousands of desktops and hundreds of applications something as simple as upgrading Windows (or even Office) becomes quite a serious undertaking - so unless there is a really good reason for doing so it's understandable that organization don't upgrade just for the sake of the latest shiny bit of tech.
- cookiecaper 16y agoThis is largely a symptom of Windows itself, not a symptom of needing to upgrade something. It'd be much simpler to push updates to all users if you use a self-configured apt repository than it is to push updates to Windows clients. Not so nightmarey at all to upgrade systems with good package managers, actually.
- GFischer 16y agoWhen I was a sysadmin, I could push my updates via Group Policy. It's not that bad. (I'm now in development so I don't know the Microsoft current recommended method). The cost of an upgrade is the daunting part IMO. We need to buy a bazillion CALs (licenses) if we want to switch to Windows 2008 server-side, for example.