Hasta la Vista baby, we're just not interested

Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system is still playing second fiddle to XP with business users, with more enterprises confessing to checking out the unreleased Windows 7 OS than its predecessor.

More than half (58 percent) of businesses using Microsoft technology are "exploiting" Windows XP compared to just 4 percent for Vista, according to the "reality checker" research by the Corporate IT Forum (Tif).

Tif's reality checker surveys help its members quickly compare the progress and position of their companies' IT against the technology choices of other members.

The group also found that 35 percent of organizations describe themselves as "not yet interested" in Vista.

The OS most people appear to be developing or piloting is Windows XP, with 12 percent of businesses saying they were doing so compared to 5 percent for Vista.

Interestingly more businesses said they're currently investigating or analyzing Microsoft's next scheduled OS, Windows 7 (30 percent), than Vista (14 percent).

In contrast, 7 percent of businesses even said they're still exploiting Windows 2000, although 19 percent said they are currently replacing or "sunsetting" it.

In April, research showed that Vista uptake among businesses was slow during 2007, although a quarter of businesses said they planned to upgrade in 2008.

The main reason given by Tif members for not moving to Vista was a lack of business requirement to do so.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's latest browser, Internet Explorer 7, is having a similar battle with its predecessor, IE 6, with a fifth of respondents saying they're not yet interested in the newer version of the application.

Almost two-thirds of businesses surveyed (65 percent) said they are exploiting IE 6 compared to 4 percent for IE 7. However, 14 percent said they are currently piloting IE 7, with the same proportion using it in isolation.

Almost a quarter (23 percent) said they are analyzing and investigating IE 8, which is currently available in beta form.

Click here for the full results of the Tif reality checker survey.

Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.

[rmva]

Did anyone ask how many were still using Win98 and Win95?

[sanenazok]

Businesses can't use Win 9X because of limited security/network interoperability. They should inquire about NT 4 first! Anything before NT 4 looks like Windows 3.1 and so went out the Window 10 years ago.

[jwissick]

Is this a real surprise? Vista is a behemoth. It's slow, has a massive foot print, is annoying to the user (Like I really need to be asked THREE TIMES if I want to delete a program group folder).

MS has a real knack for making unstable crap lately. I moved to Mac and have not looked back.

[Solaris_User]

Did they investigate anything else? Apple? Ubuntu?

[HlLLARY CLITON]

Vista looks pretty but I found it to be a troubleshooting nightmare and over priced

[bfrichey]

Vista is the biggest piece of garbage ever...there are so many things wrong with it that I don't even know where to begin. I tried vista prior and after SP1 release and it was still slow, annoying, buggy, unreliable....so I downgraded to XP again. I can't believe Microsoft even released Vista to market...imagine if Toyota put a car into market that would just break on you every 30 minutes...

[Vegaman_Dan]

I'm investigating this article. 22% indicated it was fluff, while another 18% considered it to be stuffing. 36% reported it to be nonsense and the remainder thought it was just the thing to generate page views for advertising purposes and no real news content.

But beyond the snarky commment I've made above, I don't see this article actually has anything new to say. What was the point of it?

[das7282]

It's a shame because here in my office I've converted most of the workstations to Vista and it's been great! We recently had a virus out break here in the office (some idiot downloaded and ran something he wasn't supposed to) and it seemed to sail right through all the AV / Anti Spyware solutions I had in place and infected every computer in the office... Except the Vista machines. And UAC is a Godsend in an Office environment because it's Windows with permissions (finally) done right! Had the idiot that downloaded the virus been on a Vista machine when he did it, UAC would have stopped him dead in his tracks and no other computer would have been infected. The only drawback to Vista is we still need to keep a few Windows XP machines around because the company is still holding on to a couple old and outdated programs that will only run on Windows XP and not on Vista. In my opinion, the Mojave Experiment nails it right on the head when it comes to identifying Vista's real problem... It's a victim of one of the biggest smear campaigns in cooperate history. I mean think about it, most of Vista's most vocal detractors are people who either have never used it, have very little experience with it or are people who only use Macs. But yet everyone I know who?ve actually ?used? Vista has almost no complaints about it. Am I wrong?

[whogrant]

das7282 you should consider upgrading all those remaining XP machines to Vista and then using VMWare or VirtualBox to put an XP virtual machine on a few systems. Using something like XP Unlimited you can even share just one XP virtual machine instance with multiple users across your network (via remote desktop). VMWare even has a converter that will take an existing XP installation and virtualize it as is - very handy.

[Mark_Anderson]

Aside from the usual idiocy being spouted here - bfrichey's comment is particularly amusing - it misses the point that he adoption rate is the same as XPs.

Carry on.

[ppgreat]

Isn't Windows 7 just going to be built on the Vista foundation?

[badmojo42]

das7282 - you are 100% correct. I have been using Vista now for almost a year. I turned off all the extra BS and have the theme set to Windows Classic. Most people do not know how to turn off all the extras and they tried installing Vista on a machine that did not have enough resources for it. These people are users and have really no idea what they are talking about. almost all Mac users are home users and use it for email, Web, and picture/video editing. Business wise it would make no sence to move to Mac, they are way to expensive and dont work with most business software out there. Mac people, please do not respond with the whole "you can use XP on a Mac" BS, that cost extra licences and makes it even more expensive. Windows 7 is coming out with a lot of the apps uninstalled and will make people use Live to get them. this will help take out all the bloat from Windows and I am looking forward to testing it in the future.

[EricTor1]

There is little business value in upgrading to Vista. Microsoft recently released SP3 for XP which pretty much brings XP up to date with all the latest security patches. If/when Microsoft releases a version of Visual Studio (developer tool) that absolutely will not work on XP, or releases a version of the .NET runtime that absolutely won't run on XP; that's the day the IT group might need to pressure the big boss to cross the river. On the other hand, businesses that still run IE6 really need to move to IE7, or perhaps leapfrog IE7 and immediately move to the more standards-compliant IE8 the minute it comes out (or SP1 for it comes out).

[dhavleak]

@EricTor1

Actually, there's lots of business value in upgrading to Vista.

1. XP SP3 is up to date with security patches, but still lacks important core security enhancements in Vista (UAC, address space layout randomization, IE sand-boxing, only loading signed drivers on x64 Vista).

2. Deployment services and RIS (remote installation services) -- in Vista it's now possible to 'service' an offline image. i.e. you can keep an offline (aka uninstalled) image of vista up to date with apps, patches, etc. and then use it to image machines with. That's a humongous productivity boost for IT.

3. For consultant / remote worker type roles: Bitlocker and EFS (encryption technologies for individual folders or complete volumes). Mobility center (single screen you can use to manage your presentation modes/audio/video sources).

It's true that Vista does require more robust hardware than XP. At the same time, it's not unstable, it's not buggy, and it's simply not the nightmare a lot of posters above are suggesting it is. I've been using Vista since launch (on an old but fast machine -- P4 @ 3.06 GHz w/ 2GB RAM) and it's been outstanding!

[nutso101]

The largest problem with vista is compatibility issues. XP is more backward compatible with older software that is still valuable for some and can't live without.

[murbo]

i swear to god, if vista updates itself and restarts my computer WITHOUT asking me once more while i am running a fullscreen application, i am throwing my whole pc out the window.
whats ironic is, it keeps asking me if i want to open this window open that window... like if i want to harm the computer i can't click one more button... lame lame lame

xp is old, os x keeps getting worse and worse-with every update another 3rd party app crashes, vista is so ridiculous that it can't even be a joke... if anyone asks i'll be in bestbuy trying to convince the manager to sell typewriters.

[blsith]

Have you actually tried looking at the settings for your auto-update at all? No?

XP will auto-restart too, if you tell it to. That's a really simple settings change to make in your system settings (right click "My Computer", go to properties).

On the business side - most companies take 4-5 years (the length of a hardware refresh in the company) to change out the OS. I was still running Windows 2000 in the office as of 2005. If Microsoft starts to lower their OS refresh rate, many businesses will do skip-generation because of costs and time to deploy.

And agreed - if you attempt to run Vista on a machine that's not up to snuff, it's going to be torturous. Every OS update takes more resources, and there's a power curve to get over. Intel did the worst thing by strong arming Microsoft into having vista logo's on their crappy video cards, too. Aero needs a good strong card to run well.. okay, just a card better than anything Intel can put out.

[badmojo42]

Yes murbo, its so hard to go and change the security updates setting in the control panel. what 3rd party apps are you running, bonzo buddy? haha

[srhoda]

"I turned off all the extra BS and have the theme set to Windows Classic. "

ROFL, why not just use XP then instead of a bloated version of the OS?

[Mr. Dee]

The only thing this survey tells me is that the market is mature. Businesses are going through an economic escapade, adoption will most likely be slower than it was in the 90's when investing technology for any Company was considered must. I am not just referring to hardware, but new releases of a software product was always advantageous in the 90's, new features, new capabilities and improved stability. Windows reached this maturity with the release of Windows XP, it has had a long market cycle which has made both consumers and businesses comfortable. But I don't see this trend lasting forever, people will want Vista in the future, businesses will indeed role it out but a slower pace. A company I worked at didn't start deploying Windows 2000 Pro until summer of 2003, thats more than 2 years after the release of the OS. This is just history repeating itself people.

[alt117]

I work for a multibillion corp, and we use Dell P4 2 ghz, 1 meg ram, with no thought of upgrading in the near future. so no, we're not investigating Vista right now. We have almost as many older iMacs we wouldn't think of putting Leopard on for the same reason.

But you can buy a very capable Vista machine for $500, that makes XP or Tiger look old and slow.