History and Where are we Now?

[BobS]

snipe........... Enter Windows Vista

Aero interface and that's about it. In it's current form I do not
perceive UAC as a benefit. Initially I thought Vista would secure my
system and negate the need for 3rd party AV/AS products which would be a
great step forward, that promise was conveniently dropped by release
time. Much of what's good in XP has gone or is broken so can somebody
(preferably a power user or admin)who thinks Vista is a good upgrade
please list out it's benefits which I could use to convince my clients
to move from XP?

I'm not familiar with Win 1.0 and Win 2.0 but have worked the rest plus a
few competitors products - so I've been around a little bit too.

I really don't think anyone can convince you except someone that is well
versed in the code and the features, such as security, that you would be
recommending to your clients. If Vista is truly a more secure system than
that is a -big- plus for the client but I can't prove that it is - I have to
take Microsoft's word or wait for some independent lab to test and prove it
is. There are independent labs testing those claims.

UAC does get in the way but in a business environment, once the systems are
setup, I doubt it will really be a hassle for the end-user. For
maintainers - yes it's a bit of a headache for now but I think MS will get
enough complaints about it that SP-1 will address it.

As for is Vista a good upgrade? Depends on where you stand. If you sell
hardware to your clients - hell yes, it's an excellent upgrade. Would I
recommend it right now to some clients - no. I want proof that the security
claims are valid - then I can sit down with my clients and explain why they
should upgrade (security issues) and I can justify the hardware upgrades
(speed) that Vista needs.

My testing has shown Vista to be stable on "my hardware". Driver issues -
well we've always had those and the equipment manufacturers make money
selling new hardware - not updated drivers. Software houses will also be
making new releases to take advantage of upgrade fever and getting their
slice of the pie. Life goes on and Vista will do it's part to help drive a
big segment of the economy.

My approach for now is to run Vista in a test environment and learn from it
so when the time comes to tell clients - its time to upgrade, I can do it
for them without any major hassles and be confident I won't kill their
work-flow for a week. Granted, I have a small client base and the impact on
me would be far less than someone trying to upgrade a hundred or more
systems.

But as always, your client's expect -you- to be the expert and provide the
best advice you can. You need to do whatever it takes to educate yourself on
the benefits of any product upgrade (hardware/software) that you're
recommending to your clients. Love it or hate it, Vista is here to stay and
if you make your living providing computer services, then you have a few
challenges ahead - again......

Bob S.

 

[SysAdminTH]

I'm not familiar with Win 1.0 and Win 2.0 but have worked the rest plus a
few competitors products - so I've been around a little bit too.

I really don't think anyone can convince you except someone that is well
versed in the code and the features, such as security, that you would be
recommending to your clients. If Vista is truly a more secure system than
that is a -big- plus for the client but I can't prove that it is - I have to
take Microsoft's word or wait for some independent lab to test and prove it
is. There are independent labs testing those claims.

UAC does get in the way but in a business environment, once the systems are
setup, I doubt it will really be a hassle for the end-user. For
maintainers - yes it's a bit of a headache for now but I think MS will get
enough complaints about it that SP-1 will address it.

As for is Vista a good upgrade? Depends on where you stand. If you sell
hardware to your clients - hell yes, it's an excellent upgrade. Would I
recommend it right now to some clients - no. I want proof that the security
claims are valid - then I can sit down with my clients and explain why they
should upgrade (security issues) and I can justify the hardware upgrades
(speed) that Vista needs.

My testing has shown Vista to be stable on "my hardware". Driver issues -
well we've always had those and the equipment manufacturers make money
selling new hardware - not updated drivers. Software houses will also be
making new releases to take advantage of upgrade fever and getting their
slice of the pie. Life goes on and Vista will do it's part to help drive a
big segment of the economy.

My approach for now is to run Vista in a test environment and learn from it
so when the time comes to tell clients - its time to upgrade, I can do it
for them without any major hassles and be confident I won't kill their
work-flow for a week. Granted, I have a small client base and the impact on
me would be far less than someone trying to upgrade a hundred or more
systems.

But as always, your client's expect -you- to be the expert and provide the
best advice you can. You need to do whatever it takes to educate yourself on
the benefits of any product upgrade (hardware/software) that you're
recommending to your clients. Love it or hate it, Vista is here to stay and
if you make your living providing computer services, then you have a few
challenges ahead - again......

Bob S.

Bob,

Thanks for the useful well considered reply and I couldn't agree more
with your approach to this release. I too am using this pre Service
Pack stage as an opportunity to learn admin and support of Vista as
inevitably Vista will become the defacto PC OS.

 

[SysAdminTH]

Hello,

There are many features that Vista exposes at a technical level that
make a compelling case for upgrade, depending on the person's needs.

Just a few technical examples:

Updated networking: Much more efficient network stack, especially when
coupled with other Vista (and eventually Longhorn Server) machines.
Compared to XP, uses your available bandwith much better (maintains
throughput), especially in high latency scenarios (i.e. satellite linkage).

New way of putting pixels on the screen: It may seem like just eyecandy,
but this will enhance the performance of current multimedia apps and
feed the next generation of multimedia applications, both games and more
traditional apps. Features that are unavailable in XP, such as the
desktop composition engine, and specifically allowing video memory to be
virtualized/swapped and forcing the video driver to properly implement
scheduling, really unleash the power (and ability to multitask) these apps.

Advanced printing and display: Vista supports high-DPI and high-contrast
monitors and printers. This may not be a "big deal" YET for most
consumers who don't have access to this technology now, but this is a
big deal in the medical/government field.

Tons of new management/administration features: a new event log (which
supports XML and forwarding events to a specific server) that is much
easier to use and search through; much more powerful and performant
performance logging (tracing, counters, wmi, etc), enhanced task
scheduler (example: you can have a task run whenever a certain event is
logged via the event log), enahnced offline files (syncing to a server
only sends the CHANGES MADE to the files over the wire - roaming
profiles just got a whole lot quicker).

Of course, these are only some examples that show specific cases for
upgrade. There are many other enahncements in Vista.

Reliability and performance are greatly improved (for example, many
drivers can now run in user mode, including the display driver, meaning
if they crash, the system doesn't go down - it just restarts the driver
and the user has no idea there is a problem; also, the file system and
registry support transactions now [applications have to be programming
to use this feature], meaning if the power goes out your applications
can recover their files/registry settings to a usable state).

If you think that the new start orb is the only thing new in Vista, you
are sorely mistaken.

Here's a good website that glazes over some of the most significant
technical changes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista

And the most prominent end-user visible features that most people are
aware of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

So ... does this mean you should upgrade? I don't presume to speak for
anyone but myself. I think one should look at the benefits vs. the cost
and decide for themselves.

Bob thanks for those useful links a few items in there that I was
unaware of, it is good that some forethought has been used it supporting
future technologies and applications however looking at Vista as a
whole there are really no must haves or quick wins that I think would
justify the pain of moving from a stable XP environment to Vista (which
is a little too buggy for serious use) for the next 18 months. I will
continue to use it as my clients will expect me to to be proficient in
it's support when they do eventually make the move.

 

[SysAdminTH]

Sorry meant Jimmy not Bob.

Bob thanks for those useful links a few items in there that I was
unaware of, it is good that some forethought has been used it supporting
future technologies and applications however looking at Vista as a
whole there are really no must haves or quick wins that I think would
justify the pain of moving from a stable XP environment to Vista (which
is a little too buggy for serious use) for the next 18 months. I will
continue to use it as my clients will expect me to to be proficient in
it's support when they do eventually make the move.