Microsoft: Not enough XPerienced PCs

From CNET, Microsoft: Not enough XPerienced PCs.

What do you guys have to say about that ? No updates or upgrades, when they buy a new pc, they use the installed OS, nothing more...nothing less...
And what about the patches ?

Cheers

Christian

In the corporate world, most PCs have five year depreciation on them; I've seen PCs running around for longer than that. Patches are going to be applied though, this basically depends on the agressiveness of the IT staffs, especially with the worms around, and you need to patch systems in order to prevent these types of nuisances.
Another thing that comes into play is the justification for purchasing a new OS or even buying systems with XP or in the server world for Windows 2003 Server. I know from experience many shops did not see a need to upgrade from Windows 2000 to 2003 as the additional features were not needed. Granted there are some nice things included in the 2003 OS, but where someone could justify an upgrade than the upgrade was applied for that particular project and not corporate wide.
The one time I did not see this happen and a large deployment occured was with NT, and Windows 2000 due to the massive changes with domain management (Active Directory). And for desktops was migrating 3.1 to 95 (16bit to 32bit).

With new hardware, the ability to update OS's is incredible. In a fully managed environment (using ZEN or SMS) you can create scripts that will automatically backup a user's settings, take a backup image of the PC, install a new OS and then put all the user's settings back on.

Boom, done.

The only thing holding people back now is cost, and ensuring that all apps run.

The only reason we haven't gone to XP with all our PXE-boot enabled boxes is because we run a plethora of apps that simply don't like XP. If we wanted to we could literally upgrade 2000 boxes 'overnight' (ie: as there's bandwidth).

Christian(MVP) wrote:

Found here: http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5189481.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

What do you guys have to say about that ? No updates or upgrades, when they buy a new pc, they use the installed OS, nothing more...nothing less...
And what about the patches ?

Cheers

Christian

Well, if a business decides to forego an upgrade that's fairly trivial like 2000 to XP is, that's fine. 2000 to XP SP2 isn't a trivial upgrade, though. Office, IMHO, its too frequently released as a new version. I'd really like to have the option of skipping every other version (of Office) yet maintaining a smooth upgrade path. That's not an option, of course... Eventually companies that fail to upgrade in a timely manner find themselves having to upgrade in "crash mode" which could have been avoided by measured, tested and planned upgrades. Then the bean counters complain about the cost of doing that. Its not until they understand that its like the upkeep on your car -- pay me now or pay me way more latter -- that they "get" the need to do it.

I love WindowsXP, ever since that first day when I loaded the Whistler beta.

I'm a System Bulider, and I encounter many Doctors and Hotels still running DOS (it works)!

Many business men believe Windows 2000 Professional (they always say "Professional")is THE Responsible Business OS, so WindowsXP must be for young dudes with skateboards.

I can tell you, I have seen the future and it's NOT Linux, it's 2020 with  Windows 2000 (it works) running third party apps!

eagle wrote:

WindowsXP must be for young dudes with skateboards.

Well that is probably because one of the default avatars for the user on the welcome screen is a skateboard person.
I have one I found that is of a grey messenger person I found is the one I use at work. You can make Xp use the classic desktop and menu's so you have the best of both worlds. The more proffessional look of Windows 2000 while still having all the features of XP.

The forum double posted comment

double posted comment

Well can you blame thier thoughts because one of the default people on the welcome screen is that of a Skateboarder.

At work I have it set to the Classic look with Classic menus- also the Windows 2000 style login.
So by changing XP to resemble that I get the best of 2 worlds. The "Proffessional" look of Windows 2000 and the functions of Windows XP.

Though Most recent to give you an idea.
We recently did a major upgrade to the Windows 2003 Server and WIndows Xp workstations

Our network had been mostly comprised of this.
Windows 2000 Server. Windows NT4 workstations.
Also A few Win98 workstations depending on what tasks the people were doing.

Patches- we test all the patches on a few machines before patching all of them. (normally if it is a very bad threat) we can limit which machines actually see the outside world.

I'm afraid i agree, whenever the company i work for buys in new PC's we generally take the OS that it comes with.  We'll then patch it and set it up for the user.

Thankfully we are now using SUS for patching so it makes things a lot easier.

As for upgrading existing PC's to XP it doesn't happen unless a fault requires it.  Even then it can sometimes be more cost effective to buy in a new PC with Win XP, than buy the license, a new hard disk and a memory upgrade for a system that will need replaced in 1 or 2 yrs time.

If we had the time and money to upgrade all the OS's and PC's i'd be for it.

As for backend server systems they are very rarely upgraded.  Chances are if the system is stable and provides the functionality we require we see no reason to upgrade, even if a newer OS will provide additional features.

I hate the term "patches" when it is used to convay a software upgrade. It has too many other connotations:

1. A small piece of material affixed to another, larger piece to conceal, reinforce, or repair a worn area, hole, or tear.
2. A small piece of cloth used for patchwork.
3. A small cloth badge affixed to a garment as a decoration or an insignia, as of a military unit.