Are you forced to use XP at work?

[smarteyeball]

Sadly, yes I am. It's an old pile of crap with 512 MB RAM and my boss in her infinite wisdom decided to put Norton 2009 on there. Not that it's as big a resource hog as its predecessors, but with only 512 MB RAM? Ouch.

Ouch indeed

Can you talk her into removing it?

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

Sadly, yes I am. It's an old pile of crap with 512 MB RAM and my boss in her infinite wisdom decided to put Norton 2009 on there. Not that it's as big a resource hog as its predecessors, but with only 512 MB RAM? Ouch.

Ouch indeed

Can you talk her into removing it?

I tried, but her answer was "I paid for it so it's staying on here". God forbid I try to speed up that clunker.

 

[jimbo45]

Sadly, yes I am. It's an old pile of crap with 512 MB RAM and my boss in her infinite wisdom decided to put Norton 2009 on there. Not that it's as big a resource hog as its predecessors, but with only 512 MB RAM? Ouch.

Ouch indeed

Can you talk her into removing it?

I tried, but her answer was "I paid for it so it's staying on here". God forbid I try to speed up that clunker.

How about an "Unofficial Engineering change" -- or "Gremlins in the night".

That should ensure a one way journey to the tip for the hardware -- backup her stuff first however,

Cheers
jimbo

 

[smarteyeball]

Sadly, yes I am. It's an old pile of crap with 512 MB RAM and my boss in her infinite wisdom decided to put Norton 2009 on there. Not that it's as big a resource hog as its predecessors, but with only 512 MB RAM? Ouch.

Ouch indeed

Can you talk her into removing it?

I tried, but her answer was "I paid for it so it's staying on here". God forbid I try to speed up that clunker.

Ask her if she wants to waste money, why not add a little more Ram?

I assume she doesn't have to use that PC?

 

[pparks1]

Playing Devils Advocate for a moment. For those who feel they need "Windows 7" at work to be productive....what are the features or functionality that it provides over Windows XP to make it a no-brainer in a corporate environment?

 

[nate42nd]

The "search" in the start menu would be #1 over XP. I wish I had that every day.

It would make me more productive for sure

 

[DarkXeno]

Playing Devils Advocate for a moment. For those who feel they need "Windows 7" at work to be productive....what are the features or functionality that it provides over Windows XP to make it a no-brainer in a corporate environment?

For me the big difference is "Security" with the new UAC and with the XP mode to keep older apps in working order plus with being able to create a virutal XP space I can make one with all the apps and then copy it to the server then just copy it to the machines that need it. when I need to change the app just modify the one on the server and have it push to the other machines.
Also with what I have said before to REMOVE IE6!!!! IE6 needs to die even Microsoft has been pushing IE8 to older machines as a crital update so what does that tell the corparte world.

 

[Win7User512]

The revamped search/indexing, and the new Virtual PC help with productivity.

But you know what would really do it for me? If MS officially brought back Dreamscene!

 

[wallyinnc]

XP here too. Although I can't complain much. I have a Dell D620 with 2G RAM and it runs pretty decently. Just startup time is aggravating. If somebody has any hints about that, I appreciate. Can it be McAfee AV? I think they use a 1996 version or something like that (j/k, but it is not the latest). Then I am SOL, can't change that

 

[Jimfof1913]

Most large companies have standardize their PC configurations. They pay Microsoft a volume lincense for particular version of Windows. If they want to use another Windows version they would have to pay a second volume license. For most company this is an expense they will not make until they are going to convert a large number of their systems to the newer OS. Also if they get a lot of their computers from a company like Dell they can configure a OS system, take an image copy of it, sent it to Dell, and Dell will install the OS on the PCs the company orders from them.

 

[pparks1]

Most large companies have standardize their PC configurations. They pay Microsoft a volume lincense for particular version of Windows. If they want to use another Windows version they would have to pay a second volume license. For most company this is an expense they will not make until they are going to convert a large number of their systems to the newer OS. Also if they get a lot of their computers from a company like Dell they can configure a OS system, take an image copy of it, sent it to Dell, and Dell will install the OS on the PCs the company orders from them.

Actually, the volume licensing option is usually for X number of desktops...the actual version of Windows installed really doesn't make much of a difference. Then at the end of the year, there is a "true-up" period where you reconcile how many you are actually using versus how much you said you would use and they handle billing the difference. Now, depending upon when you purchased the volume license, you may only be entitled to software for a certain time period if you let the volume license expire.

Many businesses that decide to stick with XP...either
1). Don't have machine resources to upgrade
2). Don't see benefit in having to test apps and policies against OS if XP still works
3). Don't want to have to retrain employees on using the new system
4). Have pre-built images and an environment that is working, tested and functional. Sometimes it's just easier to stick with what you know.

 

[nate42nd]

Most large companies have standardize their PC configurations. They pay Microsoft a volume lincense for particular version of Windows. If they want to use another Windows version they would have to pay a second volume license. For most company this is an expense they will not make until they are going to convert a large number of their systems to the newer OS. Also if they get a lot of their computers from a company like Dell they can configure a OS system, take an image copy of it, sent it to Dell, and Dell will install the OS on the PCs the company orders from them.

Actually, the volume licensing option is usually for X number of desktops...the actual version of Windows installed really doesn't make much of a difference. Then at the end of the year, there is a "true-up" period where you reconcile how many you are actually using versus how much you said you would use and they handle billing the difference. Now, depending upon when you purchased the volume license, you may only be entitled to software for a certain time period if you let the volume license expire.

Many businesses that decide to stick with XP...either
1). Don't have machine resources to upgrade
2). Don't see benefit in having to test apps and policies against OS if XP still works
3). Don't want to have to retrain employees on using the new system
4). Have pre-built images and an environment that is working, tested and functional. Sometimes it's just easier to stick with what you know.

True, the licensing must be for a certain number of machines. I spoke with our IT (they call themselves something else) dept. They told me they will start to upgrade slowly...machine by machine to Windows 7 and skip Vista. That would seem to be quite a task since we have a worldwide network and standardized software that tracks all company vehicles.....I don't see how it can be done, but I hope all the old hardware dies soon. It's amazing how long hardware can last. It will probably outlast XP.

 

[Brenz]

XP is still on almost all the machines at college. Most are the old RM computers that have been rebuilt and beaten for years and years with a whopping great CRT placed on the top.

What is worse is that we dont have the software we need either. Part of the IT Course I am doing is Graphics, the computers are terrible and dont have more than 512mb of RAM, we only have FREE Graphics software in most rooms like Paint.NET which is horrible and then to top it off a teacher who doesnt know what she is doing so we end up watching some dull video on doing something using Photoshop and then have to do it on Paint.NET which doesnt have all the features

Then they got some new computers to run 7 in our graphics room which they have gone over the top with. They have Quad-Core Processors, 8GB RAM and Windows 7 64-bit on them which took about 1 month for them to setup and we got to use them once to install Virtual XP

 

[tw33k]

When I started this new job about 3 months ago, my PC ran XPSP3. It was also riddled with viruses. I wiped the drive and now dual boot 7 and XP but haven't touched XP since

 

[Irunongames]

I know a guy who works for the TSA. They use Windows 98 for their scanners. Windows 98 protects america so get used to XP

 

[nate42nd]

We're running 2000 on out servers. I am forced to work on them (and I'm not even qualified) and working with 2000 is.....not as bad as 98 I guess.

 

[awenthol]

At school (Iowa State University) we are still (technically) running XP. Some of the Aero E computers have Vista and remote desktop is Windows 7, for some reason. They just recently did some surveys trying to figure out what students want for an OS...stick with XP, go to Vista or go to 7. Needless to say I recommended 7

 

[jay817]

our college uses XP but does have IE8 some of the lower machies have 1GB of ram in so that it does not take 5 mins to login the newer pcs are intel D with 2GB ram this is the computer science department and i think the rest have older setups. the retired machies get reused for taking apart and networking and installs but now we use virtualbox. the server software we learn to use is 2000 advance server. Do not know what the college servers run

 

[Zen00]

I really wish they'd upgrade the lab computers at my college. The spectroscopy software that they run on it is so demanding that at higher resolutions it can take upwards of a minute for each scan to load right now, and considering we're time crunched in all our lab experiments it'd be nice to be able to finish them quickly.

 

[ZeshanA]

Guess since this is a "Work" Thread, I'm not allowed to post in it. Don't care, I'm posting anyway

At school we have some pretty decent computers. 2GB RAM, Intel Dual-Core CPU's, pretty alright graphics cards. Yet all of that doesn't matter as XP it is. Mind, it does have Opera, IE7 and Safari 4 installed. But it's still XP. With the CLASSIC THEME. Running with so many restrictions, in so many sandboxes that if click and hold on the desktop then move the mouse we get the no entry sign (the circle with a line through it). Just the other day, I saw a bar above the desktop (surprisingly it looked a lot like a vista taskbar but fatter) that had my user name and three icons on it: Keyboard Monitoring Status, IM Status and Network status.

I hate this!

ZeshanA