[RebelTex]

"we have a huge amount of money invested in Microsoft workstations, servers and software, not to mention the absolute dependence our radiologic viewing (PACS) software has on Internet Explorer."

That could be big-time trouble.  Assuming that none of those workstations or servers currently have 'Premium' content on them now, I can think of several ways that it might accidentally get introduced to the network.

1. An employee brings in a music CD so he can listen while he works.
2. A new software program is installed that has some sample 'Premium' content which gets played during the intro 'tour' of the product - maybe MS Office (which has tons of multimedia files) or even Vista itself.
3. An employee's or other user's typo in an url might result in visiting a website that automatically plays 'Premium' content when the page loads.
4. A new piece of hardware is installed that has some sample 'Premium' content which gets played during the intro 'tour' of the product - a new medical imaging device, video card, sound card, monitor, connecting to external HDTV, etc.
5. A hacker breaks into the network and uses a server or workstation to store 'Premium' content so he can have access whenever he wants but not have it traced back to him.

And those are just some of the possiblilties.

I wish you luck if your employer upgrades to Vista.

 

[rlmorel]

"I wish you luck if your employer upgrades to Vista."

Exactly. How can we avoid not doing it? The majority of them are currently Windows 2000, which is more reliable than XP, but we are starting the shift to XP.

I have heard that Microsoft only supports two OSes at the same time with patches, currently XP and 2000, but with Vista will drop XP. Can anyone verify this?