Comments on: Survey: Many businesses plan to skip Windows 7

In a new poll, 60 percent of IT administrators said they have no plans to move to Redmond's new operating system.

[FF2009]

Good for them. Why should they have to pay for Microsoft's mistakes? W7 is what Vista should have been in the first place, but NO, M$ ****** Vista behind repair and now they want you to buy the same OS over and over again.

It's a rip-off. That's one thing M$ does better than any one else.

[thelemurking]

What exactly is WRONG with Vista? Other than some older applications not working, or lazy ass manufacturers not updating drivers... what is so ****** about Vista? I've had not one problem with it? I've only had Vista blue screen one time in the last 2 or 3 years.

Win7 is absolutely fantastic! Vista is nice, but Win7 is definitely more optimized. Same hardware, same PC, I get a 5.9 on Win7 but a 5.4 on Vista.

I will definitely be upgrading all of my Vista machines to Win7 while still dualbooting some of them with Ubuntu.

[Inconnux]

Whats wrong with vista????

- software compatibility. Many older apps that worked just fine under XP don't work under Vista. everything from gaming software to major applications. I have problems with Encyclopedia of Opening Blunders (Chess training software) to Autocad lite 2006.
- hardware compatibility - Many hardware manufacturers didn't release Vista drivers... their solution was to buy the newest version. I had problems with an HP plot printer (used for autocad over sized drawings) that was only 2 yrs old.
- new interface - there was no reason to move applications and rename them. Retraining because Microsoft changed it on a whim is expensive.
- Performance. I have clocked a 2yr old machine running XP at twice the speed as a new Vista machine. Vista is a DOG when it comes to performance sensitive applications (benchmark was Fritz 10 benchmark).

Yes Vista is stable, but a large percentage of users have had problems with it... just because your email and web browsing works fine doesn't mean that vista is problem free.

[vamman]

The provincial government here is locked down on a Windows 2000 and IE5 in most offices. Windows 7 is going to require such a learning curve for people that have never seen Windows XP or Windows Vista that its almost better to think about moving away from Windows entirely - and that was one suggestion I recently heard from an official party looking at this. The Pentium 1 233Mhz systems running win2k could run a basic Linux interface for instance and not require upgrading.

[thelemurking]

WOW! IE5? you guys are just asking for it.

How much of a learning curve do you really think there will be? You still click on the Start button, mouse up to select your programs, or double click on the icons on the desktop. QuickLaunch has been overhauled, and it shouldn't take more than 2 minutes to figure out how that works, especially with multiple items or tabs in an application. If I mouse over Firefox and it has multiple tabs, I can mouse up and select any of the pages that is opened. If I have multiple Word docs opened, same thing, mouse over the Word icon, then up in the popup and select which ever doc I want. OOOOH! Better take a class for that one!

Everything is the same concept, just an updated look and feel. Do you really feel that your users are that retarded and incapable of figuring out minor and trivial changes? If they are, then they probably shouldn't be using a computer in the first place.

How long should Microsoft support you and Windows 2000? Buy a new computer already... my phone is faster than your P1 233 ;)

[inachu1]

Once we landed into the Windows 2000 world we knew that all you really need is good stable solid security.

Third party software along with hardware soloutions really mean you do not have to keep upgrading for the rest of eternity. In house IT support staff can keep fixing known Win2k problems whereas they used to call MS support for and they use their call tracking database for historical data on how they fixed issues before so then no need to call costly MS support hotlines.

The above fails only when hardware is no longer made to support older operating systems.

Pretty soon MS will pressue OEM resellers/software developers to stop making drivers for older operating systems. For now cost is the reason we stay behind as we have the soloution for our known problems. Venturing into a new OS will greatly expand these costs.

[thelemurking]

Hope you are not using IE6 on those Win2K machines ;)

[thelemurking]

Skip it for what? Didn't they already skip Vista? Are they really going to wait till 2012 before deciding to either stick with XP or skip Windows 8.

Windows 7 latest beta is pure joy! Silly cheapskate businesses... you can't use XP forever and you definitely should be moving past Windows 2000.

[tonymkirk]

"Plan to skip" and "have no plan" are not exactly equal. I don't yet have a plan to eat tomorrow, but something tells me starving is not in my future.

[jerrymacGP]

Many large organizations (my own employer among them) have "mission-critical" applications that are not compatible with Vista, and are also not in a position to spend truckloads of money to upgrade to newer versions in this economy. We have thousands of PC workstations in our network, virtually all of them fully functional PCs (as opposed to "thin clients") that would need hardware upgrades or even replacement to be able to run these newer OSs, and this just isn't going to happen. I expect that to be the case in many other corporations and institutions.

[jessiethe3rd]

Companies like this will take the application, virtualize it, put it on a server, and serve it up via something like Softgrid. The inherent abilities of the OS from a security perspective and the ability to get away from an unsupported OS is going to move them.

[Fire Balls]

There have been a lot of improvements dealing with Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 combinations. Applocker and Direct connect to name two. I see most businesses moving to this OS at some point in time. Also it runs much faster on less hardware then vista. And the interface improves productivity a lot. As for compatibility Microsoft is offering free virtual xp for businesses users and ultimate users. (given you will need hardware that supports virtual computing) I have been running Windows 7 since the beta and have been very impressed with it. I can?t really stand any previous Microsoft OS after using it.

[xgabeadx]

Personally, I am excited about Windows 7. To be quite frank, I have never experienced many problems with these OS. I haven't seen the blue screen of death since W98. These companies that do not plan to upgrade is only temporary. We will see good reviews for Windows 7 and the companies will feel comfortable in upgrading. Don't get me wrong I have used and like Linux OS, but they will never be popular or widely used if they do not make it more customer oriented. I can move around in Linux well, but many average everyday people do not. They just want it to work. Microsoft is a good company regardless what many say. Bill Gates is a very good person and donates huge amount of money to charities. For this I am willing to pay. Windows 7 is very secure, very nice GUI, fast, and less of a memory hog. Windows will always be in an attack mode by viruses, adware, and spyware because it has 90% percent of the market so why attack Apple or other Linux distros. Trust me, if Linux ever took 90% of the market they will be accesible to these attacks as well. Until then, breaking in these Linux OS is a waste of time.

[XiroMisho]

Windows 7 so far has run very very smooth thought my outrageously rigorous testing and beating on this thing, I have yet to actually run into more than 2 issues, and it's nit-picking at that.

first off the HDMI support... what can I say, is utterly flawless... I have taken an HDMI input to my PC - While running and graphically intense video game, and plugged it in... as per the settings I had placed on the machine before, it swapped the video from the laptop screen, to the HD-TV without more than a 5 second hesitation and the USB plug-up noise. Unplugging yields the perfect result of switching back - flawlessly.

I'm sorry, but attempting the same thing on Vista causes a freeze at the least and graphical errors the other half the time and Windows XP doesn't even accept the HDMI monitor till I exit said high performance game and then swap displays via the properties on the desktop - Again this isn't a bad thing, I wouldn't normally expect an HDMI or any external monitor to be hot swappable, so I'm a bit surprised at the HDMI support in Windows 7... how's this handy for business? Easy - Plug that HDMI into the projector and go - done, nothing more to do other than plug and present.

My only bad experience is with start-up... Windows 7 takes it's start-up time very seriously... don't interrupt it - it will suggest a "Start-up Repair" which even on the fastest PC seems to take hours and usually it doesn't find much... (because I turned it off during boot-up to see if it affected anything...)

Remember that I'm TRYING to make Windows 7 go defunk though - I'm throwing it on every piece of hardware than can support it (and some that can't) in order to drive this OS mad - and even on old hardware (fun graphics powered down of course) it's done a fine fine job I must say so myself...

However: Remember - compatibility mode is nice but not perfect... I've used it a few times but unfortunately he compatibility mode I've only tested with programs that worked in Windows 7 when used without it - I don't have a lot of programs to check with this but to be honest I can only assume it isn't going to be working oh-too-well. Your best bet as a business are the following:
1) Upgrade PC's and Software that is incompatible...
2) Upgrade PC's and have IT test compatibility for Windows XP and hope ti's good...
3) Upgrade PC's and grab virtualization software (Ironically probably the same cost as option 1...)

none of the above are cost effective, and in an age where the bottom line is king and costs cannot god up... that's not likly to happen at release.

[ItsonlyITgetoverit]

Not sure what planet you are on Kwasiowusu, maybe a better analogy is that an OS is like the power cables to your home. Every one wants to be able to plug their appliances in but no one cares about the underlying infrastructure. It is applications that are important, not the OS, even Microsoft know that. Almost all business applications now are web based. What do most home users want from a PC, Word processor, Web access , storage of photos, music and films. What do businesses want - at the highest level, it is the ability to run and deploy applications at the lowest cost per seat. An OS, any OS is the price that traditionally we had to pay to achieve this. 40% sounds like it has come from the MS marketing department as Vista hasn't reached anything like that level yet. What market share vista does have, has been through the creep of new purchases. OS Upgrades are simply too expensive for most businesses to even contemplate now they will simply get their old 2000, and XP applications and run them on a virtual machine. For home use why pay an extra $150 for a MS machine when Linux really is an alternative even for the non IT savvy.

[biffhenerson]

Existing systems do the job they need to do. Why upgrade? Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to deploy it? Who's going to test the vendors software running on this new version? The bottom line is that it can be very expensive to deploy a new version of anything. Budgets are a little tight right now and the existing software seems to be working okay and meeting the requirement. Oh yeah the new software might be more secure, but that is obviously a risk that businesses are willing to take. My guess would be that more than expected make the move in 2010 after things turn around a bit in the marketplace.

[gjleger]

The biggest news in the survey is 19 000 of 20 000 IT administrators don't do surveys... and probably won't be doing much changes either.

[Magicland]

This is simply a stupid article. Of course, more and more, that seems to be the trend at Macnet. Businesses are NOTORIOUSLY slow to adopt new technology. There are occasionally good reasons for that, from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" viewpoint, to not wanting to re-train everyone on new software and OS, to the company that needs to see a positive ROI before rolling out a new OS (it's a lot easier to show a ROI on a software purchase rather than an OS purchase). However, usually the main culprit is inertia. People like to stick with what they know, and are afraid of change. The fact that 40% of businesses are planning to move to 7 by 2010 is pretty huge, and completely overlooked by the article.

We're a small business, currently running a mix of XP and Vista machines. Our plan is to immediately upgrade our remaining XP boxes to 7 as soon as it comes out (we've already purchased the upgrades during the "discount" period). The Vista machines, we're in no real hurry to upgrade. Vista works just fine, and always has with the exception of slow driver support when it was released, despite companies having had years to make vista drivers available. We simply won't be buying anything from those companies in the future.

[RighteousSoutherner]

Who'd they survey? Businesses located near San Francisco or Berkeley, lol.

[ItsonlyITgetoverit]

Erm, more likely Redmond.

[Voice_Of_Logic]

As long as we keep getting the crapware with the pathetic already-installed-os with new PCs, nothing will make a difference. When I buy a RETAIL computer at a RETAIL store, I want a RETAIL copy of Windows with an install disc that I can use to wipe the **** off that PC they just sold me and start clean. Not that OEM ********. I paid for that operating system, give me the CD or else there is no reason to ever move on from my Windows XP install disc.

[rakker91]

Statistically speaking, these numbers are useless because they cannot be considered a random sample. Its entirely possible that the only people who responded are the ones that are anti-windows people to begin with.

Again, nothing to see here.

[rp69]

With this economy there is no reason to quickly move. I suspect that organizations in need of a refresh next year will be placing Windows 7 on the radar for migration by which time there will be a service pack most likely by mid year which will take most of the jitters out of the equation. This is not a question of if its a matter of when. Vista was a lemon and XP is out of capacity and despite all the capabilities of the other OS's out there there isn't enough cost justification to retrain and face lift an infrastructure to take an entirely different path. The economic climate to conserve and the economy of scales for new hardware, software and retraining just won't allow for it. Windows 7 will be a quick grab for the home consumer in '09 and a slow adoption for businesses in 2010. No big surprise.

[Allen750]

It's a shame but reasonable. I really like Windows 7 but having hundreds of computers updated sounds risky for a company.

[schwim]

Title: Survey: Many businesses plan to skip Windows 7

Found in first sentence: .......a significant number of corporations have no plans to quickly move to Windows 7, according to a new survey.

So, for clarification Move slowly == skip?

That's some rock solid reporting there, chief.

[jessiethe3rd]

Yeah - nice CNET misleading article. Doesn't suprise me - CNET seems to be slightly jaded.