Jon,
That's what I said. I just was more winded about it. ;^P I rant at times. I know what you mean about the cost of end of life replacements. As far as I know, an old employer is still using an application written for DOS 6.22/Win 3.11 on 15 year old hardware because to replace it was going to cost $56K (and that was in 1999). I have a customer now running a process through an 11 year old PC with a dot matrix printer attached via LPT, because changing that process would require hiring a programmer to rewrite a custom process in their database application. (Of course we're currently looking at ways to change this process using other tools available to us.) From: Jon Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:26 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Going back to XP? Jim, I am sorry to say this but he is using what sounds like what was said when XP came out with pretty much the same reasons given then as now. Simple fact is most will change at some point. They will grumble about it at the time and when the next version comes out they will use the same reasoning to justify dragging their feet then as well. Software issues are a matter of life for us as administrators. I have 3 machines in an analytical laboratory STILL running Windows 98. Will they ever get upgraded maybe but most likely not as the upgraded software is somewhere near $50k and I don't see anyone wanting to spend that kind of money when a new instrument would cost maybe $70k. We did manage to shoehorn one machine up to XP SP 1 but that machine was $100k to replace and the Tech that did the work only cost us $2k to come in and modify the system. We are now trying to get the money to have him come back in and re-create the machine on an XP SP 3 machine of the same vintage as the original one. Jon On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Jim Majorowicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Michael, You are well in the *MINORITY* with these reasons. Microsoft implemented these features specifically at the request of feedback from their partners and customers. In fact pretty much everything Microsoft has released since and including XP was a direct result of the direct feedback. I seem to recall a bunch of people around here 5 years ago complaining about XP for one reason or another. Hell, at the time, most of my customers were either on NT4 SP4 or Windows 98se. There were very few implementations of Windows 2000 at all anywhere in my (then new) customer base when I started working for Whitsell. My management at that time had no interest in XP in part because of the additional memory requirements, but mostly because their exposure at that time was strictly with XP Home. How many people here remember the complaints about the fact there were two versions of XP in 2002/2003 around here? At the time, my management was looking for ways to move their customer base away from Microsoft products entirely, and when you consider what Linux desktop OSes were like at that time, that was going to be a very, very hard sell to the general user. I talked my manager into purchasing the ActionPack. I knew XP PRO was a reasonable replacement for Windows 2000. XP SP1 changed all of that for a lot of people. Did that mean we upgraded everyone at once? Of course not, but including XP PRO SP1 with new hardware designed for it was very cost effective. We only upgraded about 10% of the systems at the time, and only because they had been purchased within the last year if there was a reason for the upgrade. The only thing that can really be said about Vista BUISNESS that is really any different, is that there *might* be a driver problem if you tried to upgrade less than 1 year old hardware. But that doesn't mean we just DO it. There has to be a good business reason, just like when XP was new. I could go on for hours, but it boils down to this: There is absolutely no *HARDWARE* reason not to deploy Vista with new hardware. Software compatibilities are a different issue, but how is that Microsoft's problem? Software developers were and continue to be very slow to adopt to the standards required by Vista. But that isn't new either. From: Michael Ross [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 8:26 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Going back to XP? My reasons for wanting to go back to XP are these: 1) Bloated installations. Even though "disks are cheap", and that's a relative statement. I do not want every single file on the Vista DVDs copied to my system by default and then loaded into the OS when I tell Vista "install this feature". I know it sounds Linux minded, but why have those 'dead' files just sitting there doing nothing? Its just as easy to pull the DVD out , plop it and load what YOU want, when YOU want. 2) I HATE the imaged install process MS pushes on everyone with Vista. I, for one, NEVER install my clients to the default systemroot. I stopped doing this years ago because I got tired of keeping up with c:\windows, c:\winnt35, c:\winn351, c:\winn351, c:\winnt, and then back to c:\windows again. Whats the next step, and why do I have to be FORCED to use c:\windows AGAIN? I know 'real' virus writers and 'real' hackers if you will, know the right variables to use, but if you look at my own security logs on my servers and clients, the little script kiddies are still going after c:\windows, and when that's not there, they hit d:\windows , e:\windows c:\root, d:\root, etc. Allowing a system admin to alter the system root upon installation , in my opinion, is a small, but critical success in keeping small, and sometimes horrible attacks off your systems and out of your enterprise. 3) WHY is it I could run XP on a machine that ran Windows 2000 pro without issue, but a machine I purchased NEW for XP cannot run Vista? They made it so difficult to upgrade that companies like mine would HAVE to purchase a whole new hardware base for just this OS, when in the past, you would just buy the OS because your hardware was still good. I could make my hardware last longer, and that's a GOOD investment in the hardware, while bringing in new SOFTWARE that should still run perfectly on it. Its my same complaint with Exchange 2007 ONLY coming in 64 bit. I know why, I get it, but again, you're FORCING companies to invest in more hardware when they really did not NEED to do so. I am hoping that at least points 1 and 2 are overcome by Windows 7 because I am skipping over Windows ME, I mean errr Windows Vista and hoping for the beast , I mean Best in Windows 7. Cheers! ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
