WindowsXP and FAT32 convincing the boss

[Travlnbard]

My company is about to rollout all new computers with WindowsXP (we
are still using Windows 2000 right now). I have been trying to
convince my supervisor that we should be using NTFS but he is not
convinced. I explain it is more secure, he says that our environment
is secure enough without it. I say that it uses the hard drive more
efficiently, he says our hard drives are huge and our users should not
be saving anything to the hard drive anyway so disk space is not an
issue. The biggest reason that I get for not using NTFS is that it is
going to create rights issues, which I would have to resolve.

My problem is that when creating a new workstation, I have to install
the OS then PartitionMagic to roll it back to FAT32. Now I find out
when creating the first of our WindowsXP drives that the version of
PartitionMagic that we have has known issues with WindowsXP. We do not
use Windows9x for anything.

Please help me get my office out of the dark ages.

Thanks,
Cate

 

[Tim]

Wow...your boss isn't very brite. You've done a fine job explaining the
reasons to use NTFS. You could add the fact that NTFS is more stable than
FAT32...less down time and loss of data. It is also the industry standard
among MS shops. If the biggest reason for not converting is that it will
create "rights issues" then your environment is not as safe as the boss
thinks it is.

If you work for a publicly owned company and have to be concerned with
SOX-issues, you could use document security and SOX compliance as a
justification. If you do work for a publicly owned company and your boss
doesn't know what SOX is, you have much bigger problems than NTFS.

But if these days you have to argue the virtues of NTFS versus FAT32, I
would suspect there are other IT-related practices there that are
questionable, I would start looking for another place of employment. Good
luck...you'll need it.

Tim

 

[Guest]

I remember 4 yrs ago or so microsoft would like to see all oems useing NTFS
file system instead of FAT32.For NTFS vs FAT32,read kb310525 or kb314878