Army marching toward Windows Vista
With all the buzz around Windows 7, it may sound strange to be reading about enterprises moving toward Vista. But in some cases, that's where things are at.
The U.S. Army, for example, plans to move by year's end from Windows XP to Windows Vista, as well as from Office 2003 to Office 2007.
The Army has already moved 44,000 of its 744,000 desktops to Vista and is making the move to bolster security, according to an Army News Service article.
Sgt. 1st Class Frank Sanders uses two computers as part of his work as a maintenance manager with the 21st Theater Sustainment Command's support operations division on Panzer Kaserne in Boeblingen, Germany. The Army has already moved 44,000 of its 744,000 Windows PCs to Vista, with plans to move the rest by December 31.
(Credit: U.S. Army)In a recent report, Gartner analyst Michael Silver said that organizations well down the path toward a Vista deployment should continue, but said other businesses may want to wait for Windows 7.
Those in the midst of moving to Vista, he said, should "continue with Vista, but plan to switch to Windows 7 in late 2010 or early 2011, especially if you're switching to Vista through a hardware refresh." Meanwhile, Silver suggested others should consider skipping Vista entirely if they can move to Windows 7 and delay deployment by no more than six months.
Microsoft, for its part, issued advice on the matter back in February.
In a statement, Microsoft senior director Gavriella Schuster said the Army's move represents a significant undertaking.
"First, they see real value in Windows Vista's improved security architecture," Schuster said. "Second, it shows large organizations have unique needs and timetables for deployment."
Schuster noted that moving operating systems represents a big deal for big institutions, such as the military. "These things take time --they have been rigorously testing internally--and it makes sense that they have approached deployment in a measured and well-planned way, especially given the number of seats they are migrating to Windows Vista."
And, because Windows 7 shares the same underlying architecture, Schuster, said the Army is well-positioned to move to that operating system whenever they are ready.
Last week, Microsoft committed to finishing Windows 7 in time for it to start showing up on PCs sold during the holiday buying season.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Sergeant - "Lieutenant we've located the terrorist cell."
Lieutenant - "Fantastic what are the coordinates."
Sergeant - "Just a minute sir."
Lieutenant - "We don't have a minute lives are at stake!"
Sergeant - "The computer is installing updates Lieutenant, oh dammit it just blue screened, I need to reboot sir"
Meanwhile.....BOOOOM!!!!!
Considering a Vista blue screen is a rare site compared to BSOD's in XP.
Since Vista can recover driver failures without taking the whole computer down.
" I'm actually a 2nd generation Microcrap software engineer."
Right there alone you destroyed any credibility you would have by refering to your position as with 'Microcrap.' If you had tried approaching this in a professional manner, you might have had a chance, but....
Also your credibility is shot down by the fact that who the hell is going to do a 2 year degree in something they hate?
Did the "simulated attack" originate in Siberia where plenty of OS/2 Clones (Rebels) may be domiciled for life.
Btw, re: "And, because Windows 7 shares the same underlying architecture, Schuster, said the Army is well-positioned to move to that operating system whenever they are ready..." Code-Base OS/2 (Windows) will always be Code-Base OS/2!
Now that the U. S. Military appears to be relying on Code-Base OS/2 (Windows)... where in the world are those Tuxedo Clad Birds (Linux OSes)!
Cheers.
"Live Long And Prosper".
Commander_Spock!
You'd be surprised what people will do for money. Just look at the Laptop Hunters commercials and you'll see a few very good examples.
A network admins technicians pay is nothing to write home about.
"Go Army"!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9oh3gqOEKU
"You had a good OS and you left your right
Bring on MicroSoft to help us fight
Load the disk with bytes of might
The colors on this monitor are mighty bright
Sound off!
Windows, Ballmer, and Gates are great!
Linux is for wankers who are always late!
OSX could beat us out of the gate
One, two, three...four!"
Is Mac easier right now? Slightly. Vista and Mac are almost on par with features and user friendly capabilies, with Vista being the more secure. (Mac users, just because the virus community has ignored you until this month doesn't make you secure... there was just a massive patch for a load of vunrabilities which Apple found in the MOST CURRENT Mac OS and i'm sure there's more that simply haven't been exploited yet.) - However Windows 7 is going to be much better, it's more intuitive and user friendly, the files are finally orignized right, and the only thing that I'm bugged about is we're still using NTFS... we need a new FS guys... come on! @_@;;
No, do you really think I was serious?
PS: I am retired military
http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/industries/military-computers.mspx
No it was just a line to make it rhyme
Nice try though.
"We at Apple do have our standards"
So is that a confession that Apple pays you?
Dude -- you get your rocks off trolling MS-related articles on Cnet news so you can say something negative at the first chance you get. I doubt anyone who works at Apple has the time to astroturf like you do.
Really? Well since Linux is free why aren't they going with that then?
Linux is certainly not free to support, and also Penguins give bad handjobs.
That's an old cop-out argument. The US Government looks at Windows then looks at Linux. Windows marketers lie through their teeth about lost time while moving information over to Linux, the difficulties in retraining common users, the costs of new software, etc.
Linux ends up looking like it will cost more. All the while, the military has to replace all the hardware because their old systems won't be able to run Vista, users will have to trained in all the new "features", software will have to be remade due to incompatibilities from XP to Vista, etc.
I've been using Linux for over 4 months now, zero down time, close to zero maintenance time (I maintain my system as a preventative measure with Linux, as a necessity with Windows), zero costs beyond electricity and the amount it costs for 1 burnable CD. It's even taken me less time to set up to do all the extras (no google searches needed to find where to download the right programs and codecs).
If the military actually gave a side by side comparison between two systems with the same exact specs, doing the same exact work with all else being even besides the OS, they would go with Linux each and every time.
Unfortunately, the military tends to listen to snake oil sales people when it comes to decisions costing millions.
I'm sure the government does its own research as well. If not then I guess we should be a bit worried about how our government is managed shouldn't we?
And claiming that Linux is cheaper because the OS it's self costs nothing is another cop out argument as well considering the support costs may be more then that of Windows.
We should do modernized version of Gulliver's Travels. Wars about OSs, Chevy or Ford, sports teams and such
John Winger: Training, sir.
Soldiers: Training, sir.
General Barnicke: What kind of training?
John Winger: Vista training, sir.
Soldiers: Vista training, sir.
General Barnicke: Where is your Vista sergeant, men?
John Winger: Blown up, sir!
Soldiers: Blown up, sir!
Windows 7 will be out in 6 months or so, yet the same people that brought us the $600 toilet seat, and $3000 hammer now purchase Vista only to be replaced in six or so months with Windoze 7 anyway.
Yeah, lets spend a ton of money on an o/s that we will replace by spending another ton of money in 6 months.
Someone owe MS a favor or something?
They probably do not have a homogeneous environment -- even once they start adopting Win7, they may not necessarily start by upgrading the Vista machines.
They might not necessarily deploy Win7 in six months from now. They probably have their own evaluations etc. that they need to carry out, come up with a deployment strategy etc. Win7's release date is not the Army's "move to Win7" date.
Though Vista takes up more resources and is slower than 7, at least it has SP2 coming out now.
Tough choice.
http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/industries/military-computers.mspx"
That article is about ruggedized laptops. It says nothing about mission-critical systems like... say, the ones that control the missiles.
http://www.osnews.com/story/20513/Microsoft_Reveals_Vista_SP1_Driver_Installation_Failure_Rates
http://4sysops.com/archives/vista-burns-laptop-hard-disks-failure-eight-times-higher-than-under-xp/
Second, these numbers were from September of 2008. I would be interested in seeing more recent figures as I am sure much has improved with updates from Microsoft and many vendors perfecting (or at least improving) Vista drivers.
Third, this particular statistic is useless in this case as I am sure the Army fully tested the tools and peripherals they will need before deciding to move forward with deployment. I'd be willing to wager most of the failures were from incompatible products.
Unlike Windows XP, Vista device drivers are designed to malfunction.
Vista's kernel is a DRM engine that can (more or less) function as a general-purpose OS. To serve DRM, device drivers are designed to malfunction on command, so that Microsoft can police your PC. Windows 7 inherits Vista's kernel and drivers.
DRM is at the very core of Vista and Windows 7, which isn't limited to sniffing for software piracy. Microsoft can remotely program (via the Web) their OS to monitor your PC for virtually any type of content or activity -- and then selectively and incrementally degrade the function of your system (e.g. video, audio) if there's anything about your PC that's seen as unauthorized by Microsoft, their partners, or a Big Brother agency.
Microsoft DRM can surreptitiously lock, delete, copy, log, and transmit info about your PC.
For what really matter they do not use Microsoft... Maybe Unix, Linux, OSX or other we do not even know... ;-)
So this is a commercial help to Microsoft and a way to create decoys to hackers. Is just strategy, deception and a way to invest on a private company.
Its people like him and Dick Cheney that can destroy a company/country.
"Mission (Almost) Accomplished!
Long Lives Code-Base OS/2 (Windows)!
- by telic May 22, 2009 1:03 AM PDT
- The National Security Agency -- NSA, the US super-spy organization -- conducted a cyberspace war against the computer networks of several military academies, including West Point. The army cadets were free to choose any PC operating system to defend their honor. They chose a community-developed version of Linux: Fedora...
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by DrtyDogg May 23, 2009 2:45 AM PDT
- How is this for fun?
- Like this
-
- by telic May 23, 2009 9:05 AM PDT
- @DrtyDogg:
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (102 Comments)http://tinyurl.com/4k3tb5
"The cadets settled on a fairly standard Linux and FreeBSD-based network with advanced routing techniques for steering incoming traffic in directions of the IT team's choosing."
Did cadets with free Linux beat the NSA's sophisticated assault? "They terminated it. With extreme prejudice."
:-)
"When they detected the rootkit's "calls home" the cadets launched Sysinternal's security software to find the hijacker, then they manually scoured the workstation to find the unwelcome executable file."
Sysinternal runs on . . . Windows and is made by . . . Microsoft.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
Do your homework.
Established in 1996, Sysinternals was independent software developers who created PC system utilities for both Linux and Windows. Sysinternals was acquired by Microsoft in 2006, though earlier Linux compilations are still in use afield.