What is it about XP that people just can’t live without

Tews said:

That application that you spent thousands of dollars to develop for in house use all of the sudden doesnt work anymore. The way they see it, if its not absolutely, positively necessary to the operation of their business, LEAVE IT ALONE!

but you see if these in house devs had good programing practices (such as not use undocumented api's and such) there would not be a problem, and if there was then there is the compatibility mode that should solve it...:)

but of course when you are in charge of 1000's of computers, "most" (thats why they have IT for...) have to work (and at the cheapest possible price (of course balancing out quality too)...)

mats said:

Can't agree more.

For a CIO it's a simple question: What does it cost and can I save that money somehow?

With Vista MS mad a huge error in marketing by focusing on Aero, Aero and Aero. The CIO saw a new Gui wich means huge costs for education and no return of investment.

they were catering to the masses with shiny things...:)

IF MS instead had focused on Bitlocker (no need for expensive third party cryptos), The enhanced powersaving (reduced electricity bill), The capability to run all machines on a single image (reduced costs for IS staff) and so on alot more companies would have used vista.

powersaving is one of the most important things (especially now)
the single image idea would mean pretty much automated restores/reinstalls in case of hardware failure which greatly streamlines the process of IT...

Even today i meet customers and other IT-pros that doesn't know about Vistas capabilities in theese areas since all they heard was aero......

im actually surprised that my college has vista enterprise computers and they are pretty much locked down
they are pretty much able to control everything with this enhanced security and when it happens that a computer breaks down well...
well it does take time for a new computer to get to the college but once it does its operational in less than 2 hours (including all updates, with all the necessary software )

I hope thar MS learns this leasson for Seven but so far it has been Aero,Aero and Aero again and a little about faster boot times but almost nothing about direct access. Even better powersave. The delta repliction for offline files ans so on. All of theese are prodction improvements for the users and if you can show that your users can save 1 hour a week using Vista/Seven instead of XP, any reasonable CIO will launch a case studie to see that his benefits will be and most likley issue an uppgrade.

im begining to think that the only time they talk about enterprise features (in win7) is when they are talking about server 2008 r2...

rattelmike said:

I left XP years ago when Vista was in beta. Sure it had snags but I never experienced the horror stories that others have told. I honestly believe that the worst OS MS ever made was ME. That was a total mistake.

its funny since i have never experienced these horror stories on ME that people talk about...
(maybe because i wasnt tinkering around...)
i have personally installed on 6 Machines ME which originally had Windows 98 because USB support was a must and they have and still are working with no hiccups (that was about 5 years ago)
i think only me and joan (one of our members here) are the only ones with good experiences with ME...

Lee said:

I remember in 1995 the same thing happening. Now the internet wasn’t the thing it is today so word about 95 didn’t get out like Vista and Win 7, but still it became a smash hit with the home computer geeks of the time. But, in the corporate world this didn’t happen. The company I worked for at the time as Director of Information Systems (IF) decided that to go to Windows 95 was not productive (and I agreed with them). At the time Win NT was going 3.5 and because it had the Win 3.xx interface there was very little training required to upgrade in that direction, hence, that was the route we took. It gave us the 32 bit OS we thought was the way of the future. Today businesses have to look hard at cost of new equipment, along with training/retraining their people. This is one reason Vista didn’t a get leg up; it just didn’t make sense to go with a new and unknown OS. By the time Vista hit the street it was already getting a bad name because of bad drivers, BSOD during installation, etc.

Window 7 is an excellent operating system, having said that as a beta tester since October I have seen a great deal of people on sites like SF finding all kinds of things they don’t like about the 7 OS. The inability to go to classic menus, the dislike of the Superbar; this list can go on and on, albeit you get the picture. If IT techs and home computer geeks are complaining about the fore mention problems then think what it is like for the secretary, clerk, sales rep, and others that use computers on a daily basis they can cause major headaches to IT Techs, and company educators. Try telling someone who is not acquainted with Win 7 Superbar how to use it, then you will be able to understand what it is like to be an IT Tech.

Win7 will replace XP, just not right away, and if Microsoft is smart they will work hard over the next year to ensure Win 7 will meets the standards that the Corporate World is looking for and wants in an OS and Server Applications.

i cant just can say anything else by agree with you...
8 years was too long for OS to be available, people got used to XP and now some wont go ( and its fine, i personally know one of my professors that will stay with XP because it just works for him) to any of the OS'es in the future (including Win 8 and so on...

No one denies XP was a decent system AT THE TIME, that time is past, but there will always be those that hang on to it, although they know in their own mind that its becoming obsolete.

I believe that come October 22cnd XP support will start to dwindle,

I started with 98 crash-o-matic, graduated to XP, despite all the predictions of doom and disaster, but it gradually worked itself out, then when Vista arrived, again straight in at launch, compared to XP launch, Vista launch was much better, all the negativity was so much hot air it was laughable,
I found Vista much better XP, speed wise not much difference but stability and reliability much better.

Likewise Vista to 7, speed similar, again the system is much smoother,
I always self build to suit the system requirements, any other way is self-defeating, old obsolete applications that struggle are consigned to the trash, those that still work soldier on, like Windows office 2000,
I may be 81 but I still look to the future not backwards.

Lee said:

I remember in 1995 the same thing happening. Now the internet wasn’t the thing it is today so word about 95 didn’t get out like Vista and Win 7, but still it became a smash hit with the home computer geeks of the time. But, in the corporate world this didn’t happen. The company I worked for at the time as Director of Information Systems (IF) decided that to go to Windows 95 was not productive (and I agreed with them). At the time Win NT was going 3.5 and because it had the Win 3.xx interface there was very little training required to upgrade in that direction, hence, that was the route we took. It gave us the 32 bit OS we thought was the way of the future. Today businesses have to look hard at cost of new equipment, along with training/retraining their people. This is one reason Vista didn’t a get leg up; it just didn’t make sense to go with a new and unknown OS. By the time Vista hit the street it was already getting a bad name because of bad drivers, BSOD during installation, etc.

Window 7 is an excellent operating system, having said that as a beta tester since October I have seen a great deal of people on sites like SF finding all kinds of things they don’t like about the 7 OS. The inability to go to classic menus, the dislike of the Superbar; this list can go on and on, albeit you get the picture. If IT techs and home computer geeks are complaining about the fore mention problems then think what it is like for the secretary, clerk, sales rep, and others that use computers on a daily basis they can cause major headaches to IT Techs, and company educators. Try telling someone who is not acquainted with Win 7 Superbar how to use it, then you will be able to understand what it is like to be an IT Tech.

Win7 will replace XP, just not right away, and if Microsoft is smart they will work hard over the next year to ensure Win 7 will meets the standards that the Corporate World is looking for and wants in an OS and Server Applications.

In the business world, speed and reliability are paramount; not cartoon like interfaces. At the end of the day, it matters how productive you are, not how happy you are with your expensive cartooney GUI.
SPEED, STABILITY, and SECURITY are the most important features businesses are worried about -- period!
They had no plans to downgrade to Vista. They are, and will remain, an XP Pro shop until something truly better comes along. Windows 7 in my view is a strong step in that direction.