Posted on 04/13/2009 7:00:03 PM PDT by dayglored
New data shows that the vast majority of corporate IT departments won't touch Microsoft's next OS until at least 2011.
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) may need to keep its Windows XP operating system around a little longer -- at least for its deep-pocketed corporate customers....
The survey, of more than 1,100 IT professionals, is one of the first extensive looks at Windows 7's early sales prospects. It found that a whopping 83% of enterprises plan to skip the OS in its first year.
While the business market typically tends toward caution when it comes to new products, the figure is nonetheless surprising given that almost no large companies migrated to Vista and as a result most have been using XP much longer than planned.
"The majority of participants do not plan to upgrade to Windows 7 in the next year. Economic factors are contributing to the delay in Windows 7 adoption for almost half of all participants. Software compatibility is the most frequently cited concern with Windows 7," notes the study,...
The news for Microsoft doesn't get much better in Windows 7's sophomore season. Fewer than half of the IT pros surveyed, 42%, said their organizations planned to deploy Windows 7 within 12 to 24 months of release, 24% said they would wait 24 to 36 months, and 17% said they would wait more than 36 months to migrate to Windows 7.
Widespread failure by corporations to embrace Windows 7 could cause problems on a number of fronts....
(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
The server versions can run on systems four physical processors rather than just two.
Nevermind #57. I guess, years and years ago, there was Win 2000 client and Win 2000 server. It’s been so long since I’ve seen either one of them anywhere, I forgot there was a desktop version. If I recall, W2K server was a marginally improved NT server, and W2K was the same thing with limited server connectivity. Far more stable than win 95/98, but seriously lacking in the plug and play department, and sporting clunky things like terminal services rather than remote desktop. It also didn’t support dynamic IPs very well. Are you really sure you see this on corporate desktops today?
It depends on who you ask, if the team leader works on Vista, so will his cohorts. However, most team leaders where I work prefer XP.
However, the switchover IS going to happen, for one very simple reason: Vista-64 (and hence Windows 7-64) are by far the best-supported and user-friendly 64-bit OSes out there (better, by far, than XP x64). When people want to use more memory than 4 GBs, they’ll eventually switchover.
You tell me.
I need information off the web.
The ability to run/create sites locally.
The ability to read and write text/spreadsheets/slide shows.
I could care less about the rest of the crap.
Why do I need to upgrade to Adobe Acrobat Reader 10 when it doesn’t do anything that it didn’t do before?
Yeah, that's an interesting thought.
There may be a dictat that they do so.... Microsoft does try, most of the time, to "Eat their own dog food".
That's one hell of a story... wow...
I've heard that as well.
Do you know if the Vista->Win7 path will allow for in-place upgrade, and whether the result is stable? I've heard conflicting reports....
HAH! LMAO over here as well... ;-)
If you search the vendor's website for XP-compatible drivers, and find what you need, then it is probably worth finding an old copy of XP and a key you used years ago, and seeing if it'll work. Microsoft's EULA will generally allow you two installs (on different hardware) before it bitches at you. And even if it does, you can call the phone number and negotiate with the helpdesk person for a fresh key.
As long as you're not using the old XP license on old hardware, there's no reason you can't install it on your laptop, other than drivers.
But beware -- a lot of laptops were built, by agreement between Microsoft and h/w vendors, to ONLY run Vista drivers.
Usually, yes.
When I switched from MS Windows XP running MSOffice to PCLinux with Open Office recently, I only had one file out of tens of dozens that had any issue at all. It had lots of columns, so perhaps that was the issue.
Back everything up before trying in the original format and have at it.
Yep, that seems to be the consensus -- and I feel the same FWIW. It won't be a production OS for at least a year.
I didn’t ask about office documents. I asked about microsoft works. Totally different...at least I think they are. I can open microsoft word documents in word perfect. I can’t open works documents in word perfect.
Does this help?
How can I open Microsoft Works wordprocessor files (.wps)? (^)
Cool! That’s exactly what I needed!
I’ve got an entire procedural manual at work saved on that good for nothing WORKS! it’s the only thing I have as a works document and I hate it. It’s only used once every three years and the three year thing is coming up next month. As soon as I get a minute, I’m going to convert it over and be done with that worthless WORKS once and for all.
See, most people don't consider the "big picture" of what they are doing, whether it is a C++/C# application, a webpage, or something else. I come from the days when the home computer was a simple creature, only capable of running a single program at a time. Programmers had to be frugal with resources and sharp with their algorithms. On top of that, it was usually one programmer with full control - he didn't need to worry too much about shared interfaces, etc. Code could get pretty sloppy compared to today, but the execution was far more efficient.
This is no longer the case, and I've long believed that the "sloppiness" (in execution terms) of the big picture, with DLLs, COM, etc. each allocating more resources than they need, and doing it on-the-fly, has netted poor performance faster than Moore's law can keep up!
With 30,000x the CPU power of 30 years ago, computers today should boot and start programs in the blink of eye - even if OSes and programs are 1000X more complex. Trouble is, they are 100,000X as complex yet don't need to be.
Thanks. I’m guessing that I’d have some real problems with the wireless on the laptop. It’s the only thing I’ve not been able to get to run under Linux, which I’m using most of the time on that machine.
Yes. Yet I do see a lot of client machines out there running Win2k and Win2k3.
Win2k8? I have but a small idea what it requires since I haven’t had overmuch exposure to it and I doubt that I have anything close to it at this time. But I have my eye on it for future use.
By "client" do you mean "desktop"? Why would anyone run W2K3 server as a desktop OS?
Well, the situation w.r.t. XP support is better now than it was, say, a year ago, when Microsoft still had hope of strong-arming users into eating Vista. They gave up, and have quietly allowed vendors to post XP drivers for some previously-Vista-only machines. Keyword: "quietly" meaning you may have to snoop around and use google, rather than expect the vendor to announce availability.
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