4 ms·

I've often wondered how much of Vista's adoption problem in corporations came down to the higher system requirements. It was pretty common for companies upgradi

by gamble 18y ago

I've often wondered how much of Vista's adoption problem in corporations came down to the higher system requirements. It was pretty common for companies upgrading from earlier versions of Windows to buy the rock-bottom cheapest systems capable of running XP, much less Vista. Upgrading to Vista would mean replacing every computer in the office, on top Microsoft's bill. Why do that if there's nothing fundamentally unsatisfying with XP?

josefresco 18y ago
"nothing fundamentally unsatisfying with XP" The security was pretty 'unsatisfying' to say the least. Vista came a long way in protecting users .. from themselves.
- gamble 18y ago
  In a corporate environment, XP PCs are often completely locked down. There's not much Vista could do to improve on removing the user's ability to modify anything outside their home directory.
  - greyman 18y ago
    In our company, the rule is that we are not allowed to upgrade core MS software ourselves (XP, Office, IE, service packs etc.) This is done by the security department and rolled out automatically to workstations. Other than that, I can install what I want. We did not experience anything horrible regarding security - it is just we need a few full-time employees to take care of that. Regarding Vista, the reasons mentioned above applied to us as well...we didnt migrate and it seems that everyone is waiting on Win7 already.
gaius 18y ago
I actually watched my work PC booting up the other day and noticed that XP is (c) 2001. No-one seems able to clearly articulate what exactly it is Vista does that XP can't, in a corporate setting at least. That's Microsoft's problem, that XP was "good enough". Whereas if you look at their server products, the reasons to move from NT4 to 2000 to 2003 to 2008 are all, the message is much clearer.
- jwilliams 18y ago
  I agree entirely - they are pushing themselves into a "change for change's sake" scenario. The same applies to their other cash cow - Office. Office 2007 has some improvements I like... Powerpoint and Excel have some usability improvements... but on the whole.. Word for me is still Word as it was in Word 2000. There is nothing in 2007 that is that compelling. For many people it's probably Word 98, or Word 2.0. Apple has avoided this by keeping OS X and the evolving it. This model seems to be working much better for now.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Whereas with Apple, if you ask "why should I upgrade from Tiger to Leopard" the answer is simply, "Time Machine". Or with Sun, why should I upgrade from Sol8 to 10, the answer is "dtrace and zones". MS really needs a snappy comeback like that. The most complex single document I've ever worked on was my MSc dissertation, 30,000 words, lots of cross-references, figures, footnotes, etc etc. I can't remember if I used Word 97 or 2000, but it was more than sufficient for the task. I could have done it in Word 6 or Word 5.1, even. It truly baffles me why people (even within MS itself) want to keep upgrading it.

by gamble 18y ago

josefresco 18y ago

"nothing fundamentally unsatisfying with XP" The security was pretty 'unsatisfying' to say the least. Vista came a long way in protecting users .. from themselves.

gamble 18y ago
In a corporate environment, XP PCs are often completely locked down. There's not much Vista could do to improve on removing the user's ability to modify anything outside their home directory.
- greyman 18y ago
  In our company, the rule is that we are not allowed to upgrade core MS software ourselves (XP, Office, IE, service packs etc.) This is done by the security department and rolled out automatically to workstations. Other than that, I can install what I want. We did not experience anything horrible regarding security - it is just we need a few full-time employees to take care of that. Regarding Vista, the reasons mentioned above applied to us as well...we didnt migrate and it seems that everyone is waiting on Win7 already.

gaius 18y ago

I actually watched my work PC booting up the other day and noticed that XP is (c) 2001. No-one seems able to clearly articulate what exactly it is Vista does that XP can't, in a corporate setting at least. That's Microsoft's problem, that XP was "good enough". Whereas if you look at their server products, the reasons to move from NT4 to 2000 to 2003 to 2008 are all, the message is much clearer.

jwilliams 18y ago
I agree entirely - they are pushing themselves into a "change for change's sake" scenario. The same applies to their other cash cow - Office. Office 2007 has some improvements I like... Powerpoint and Excel have some usability improvements... but on the whole.. Word for me is still Word as it was in Word 2000. There is nothing in 2007 that is that compelling. For many people it's probably Word 98, or Word 2.0. Apple has avoided this by keeping OS X and the evolving it. This model seems to be working much better for now.
- gaius 18y ago
  Whereas with Apple, if you ask "why should I upgrade from Tiger to Leopard" the answer is simply, "Time Machine". Or with Sun, why should I upgrade from Sol8 to 10, the answer is "dtrace and zones". MS really needs a snappy comeback like that. The most complex single document I've ever worked on was my MSc dissertation, 30,000 words, lots of cross-references, figures, footnotes, etc etc. I can't remember if I used Word 97 or 2000, but it was more than sufficient for the task. I could have done it in Word 6 or Word 5.1, even. It truly baffles me why people (even within MS itself) want to keep upgrading it.